De-Commemoration: Removing Statues and Renaming Places 9781805391081

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De-Commemoration

Worlds of Memory Editors: Jeffrey Olick, University of Virginia Aline Sierp, Maastricht University Jenny Wüstenberg, Nottingham Trent University Published in collaboration with the Memory Studies Association This book series publishes innovative and rigorous scholarship in the interdisciplinary and global field of memory studies. Memory studies includes all inquiries into the ways we— both individually and collectively—are shaped by the past. How do we represent the past to ourselves and to others? How do those representations shape our actions and understandings, whether explicitly or unconsciously? The “memory” we study encompasses the near-infinitude of practices and processes humans use to engage with the past, the incredible variety of representations they produce, and the range of individuals and institutions involved in doing so. Guided by the mandate of the Memory Studies Association to provide a forum for conversations among subfields, regions, and research traditions, Worlds of Memory focuses on cutting-edge research that pushes the boundaries of the field and can provide insights for memory scholars outside of a particular specialization. In the process, it seeks to make memory studies more accessible, diverse, and open to novel approaches. Volume 12

Volume 6

De-Commemoration: Removing Statues and Renaming Places Edited by Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg

The Struggle for the Past: How We Construct Social Memories Elizabeth Jelin

Volume 11

The Mobility of Memory: Migrations and Diasporas in Europe and Beyond Edited by Luisa Passerini, Gabriele Proglio, and Milica Trakilović

Weaponizing the Past: Collective Memory and Jews, Poles, and Communists in Twenty-First-Century Poland Kate Korycki Volume 10

The Right to Memory: History, Media, Law, and Ethics Edited by Noam Tirosh and Anna Reading Volume 9

Towards a Collaborative Memory: German Memory Work in Transnational Context Sara Jones Volume 8

Carnivalizing Reconciliation: Contemporary Australian and Canadian Literature and Film beyond the Victim Paradigm Hanna Teichler Volume 7

Nordic War Stories: World War II as History, Fiction, Media, and Memory Edited by Marianne Stecher

Volume 5

Volume 4

Agency in Transnational Memory Politics Edited by Jenny Wüstenberg and Aline Sierp Volume 3

Resettlers and Survivors: Bukovina and the Politics of Belonging in West Germany and Israel, 1945–89 Gaëlle Fisher Volume 2

Velvet Retro: Postsocialist Nostalgia and the Politics of Heroism in Czech Popular Culture Veronika Pehe Volume 1

When Will We Talk about Hitler? German Students and the Nazi Past Alexandra Oeser

DE-COMMEMORATION Removing Statues and Renaming Places

Edited by Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

Published in 2024 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2024 Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gensburger, Sarah, editor. | Wüstenberg, Jenny, editor. Title: De-commemoration : removing statues and renaming places / edited by Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg. Description: New York : Berghahn, 2024. | Series: Worlds of memory ; volume 12 | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2023017839 (print) | LCCN 2023017840 (ebook) | ISBN 9781805391074 (hardback) | ISBN 9781805391081 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Public history—Case studies. | Memorialization—Social aspects—Case studies. | Monuments—Social aspects—Case studies. | Historic sites—Social aspects—Case studies. | Collective memory—Case studies. Classification: LCC D16.163 .D38 2024 (print) | LCC D16.163 (ebook) | DDC 363.6/9—dc23/eng/20230624 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023017839 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023017840

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-80539-107-4 hardback ISBN 978-1-80539-380-1 epub ISBN 978-1-80539-108-1 web pdf https://doi.org/10.3167/9781805391074

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

ix

Acknowledgments

xiii

Introduction. Making Sense of De-Commemoration

1

Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg

Part I. De-Commemoration after Regime Change Chapter 1. Baptizing and Unbaptizing in Algeria: From French Colonization to National Independence

19

Amar Mohand-Amer

Chapter 2. Street Renaming in Postsocialist Romania: A Quantitative Analysis of Toponymic Change

27

Mihai Stelian Rusu

Chapter 3. “The First Bolshevik Leaves Riga”: The De-Commemoration of Vladimir I. Lenin in Riga, Latvia (1987–1991)

37

Dmitrijs Andrejevs

Chapter 4. “In Memory of the Fallen . . .” But for How Long? The De-Commemoration of German War Memorials in Poland after 1945

45

Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska

Chapter 5. Naming to Erase, Renaming to Restore: (Re)Indigenizing the Landscape

56

Kerri J. Malloy

Chapter 6. Removing Rhodes from His Pedestal: De-Commemoration in Postcolonial South Africa Gary Baines

65

vi • Contents

Chapter 7. Contrasting Fates of Lenin Statues in Ukraine and Russia

73

Dominique Colas

Chapter 8. Beyond the Monument: Unmaking the Valley of the Fallen in Contemporary Spain

83

Francisco Ferrándiz

Part II. De-Commemoration and Societal Transformation Chapter 9. Renaming and the Relationship between Colonized and Colonizer: The Role of Commemoration within Dual Place Names in New Zealand

95

Taylor Annabell

Chapter 10. De-Canonization of the Soviet Past: Abject, Kitsch, and Memory

106

Yuliya Yurchuk

Chapter 11. Diversifying Public Commemorations in Cape Town and Copenhagen

114

Vibe Nielsen

Chapter 12. De-Commemoration as Healing and Conflict: Canada and Its Colonial Past and Present

124

Kate Korycki

Chapter 13. Killing Pedro de Valdivia Again: De-Commemoration of the Past and De-Neoliberalization of the Present during the 2019–2020 Chilean Revolt

134

Manuela Badilla and Carolina Aguilera

Chapter 14. De-Commemorating Sound: Controversies about the Reestablishment of the National Anthem in South Korea and Beyond

143

Bae Myo-Jung

Chapter 15. Do Commemorations Have an “Expiration Date”? A Case Study from Belgium

150

Nicolas Moll

Part III. De-Commemoration to Propel Change Chapter 16. De-Commemorating Australian Settler Colonialism Sarah Maddison

161

Contents • vii

Chapter 17. The Present Is All That Matters: De-Commemoration Practices in Israel

170

Tracy Adams and Yinon Guttel-Klein

Chapter 18. De-Commemorations and the Unsettled Past in Contemporary Brazil

181

Ricardo Santhiago

Chapter 19. Decolonizing Colonial Monuments: Counter-Memory Activism in Madrid and Barcelona

190

Fabiola Arellano Cruz

Chapter 20. Transnational Memory Struggles: Guerrilla Remembrances in Colombia and Venezuela in the 2000s

201

Jimena Perry

Chapter 21. “Next Stop Anton-Wilhelm-Amo Strasse”: Place Names, De-Commemoration, and Memory Activism in Berlin

210

Duane Jethro and Samuel Merrill

Chapter 22. From Decapitation to Destruction: Making Sense of Toppling Statues in Contemporary Martinique

221

Audrey Célestine, Valérie-Ann Edmond-Mariette, and Zaka Toto

Chapter 23. De-Commemoration in Great Britain

230

Stephen Small

Chapter 24. The Role of Nonprofits in De-Commemoration: The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Whose Heritage? Report

238

Seth Levi and Kimberly Probulus

Part IV. De-Commemoration as Smoke Screen Chapter 25. De-Commemoration without Decolonization? The Peculiar Case of the Philippines

251

Lila Ramos Shahani

Chapter 26. Twice Removed: The Mystery of Manila’s Missing Comfort Woman Monument

261

Catherine Lianza Aquino and Jocelyn S. Martin

Chapter 27. Counter-Memory and State De-Commemoration: The Khavaran Mass Grave in Iran

270

Chowra Makaremi

Chapter 28. The Toppling of the Equestrian Statue and the Future of Colonial-Era Memorials in Namibia Vilho Amukwaya Shigwedha

280

viii • Contents

Chapter 29. An Unmarked Rebellion: The Politics of Forgetting Denmark Vesey

287

Vanessa Lynn Lovelace and Jamie Huff

Chapter 30. Exploring the Scope of De-Commemoration: Touring Trafalgar Square in London and Beyond

297

Stuart Burch

Part V. De-Commemoration to Challenge Memory Chapter 31. From De-Commemoration of Names to Reparative Namescapes: Geographical Case Studies in the United States

309

Jordan P. Brasher and Derek Alderman

Chapter 32. De-Commemoration under the Law: The Removal of Statues in France and the United States

319

Thomas Hochmann

Chapter 33. Human Rights and Toppled Statues: Can the European Convention on Human Rights Provide Solutions to De-Commemoration Disputes?

327

Tom Lewis

Chapter 34. Re-Commemoration: What Other Stories Can We Tell? Observing Ordinary People Engaging with Monuments in Public Space

336

Alison Atkinson-Phillips

Chapter 35. Who Cares about Old Statues and Street Names? Resisting Change and the Protracted Decommunization of Public Space in Poland

344

Ewa Ochman

Chapter 36. Keeping the Past from Freezing: Augmented Reality and Memories in the Public Space

355

Mykola Makhortykh and Anna Menyhért

Chapter 37. De-Commemorating White Supremacy through the Act of Voting

367

Lorena Chambers

Index

377

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures Figure 0.1. The statue of Saddam Hussein topples in Baghdad’s Firdos Square, 9 April 2003. Source: Unknown US military or Department of Defense employee. Public domain. Wikimedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SaddamStatue.jpg.

5

Figure 0.2a, b. Street renaming by feminist groups in Geneva (left: Germaine Duparc was an anthropologist) and Paris (right: Marielle Franco was a human rights activist), fall 2021. Source: Sarah Gensburger.

7

Figure 2.1. The national topography of postsocialist toponymic change with cities marked, 2022. Source: Mihai S. Rusu.

32

Figure 3.1. “The First Bolshevik Leaves Riga,” Latvia, 25 August 1991. Photo by Aivars Liepiņš. Courtesy of Aivars Liepiņš.

38

Figure 4.1. Partially destroyed names of the fallen in Konotop, 23 August 2019. Photo by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska.

50

Figure 4.2. The metal fastenings used to fix the statue of an eagle in Żydowo, 27 July 2019. Photo by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska.

51

Figure 4.3. Detail showing the use of the plinth of the former German war memorial, with the Iron Cross in an oak wreath still visible, as a base for the Virgin Mary figure, painted in a traditional blue color in Siemczyno, 15 July 2019. Photo by Karolina ĆwiekRogalska.

53

Figure 5.1. Tuluwat Island in Humboldt Bay. Illustrated by Joshua Overington. Used with permission.

61

x • Illustrations

Figure 6.1. “Goodbye Cecil John Rhodes”. Rhodes’s statue removed from plinth at the University of Cape Town, 9 April 2015. Tony Carr, Wikimedia Commons.

70

Figure 7.1. Lenin in front of Smolny Institute, erected 1927, Saint Petersburg. Kora27/CC BY.

75

Figure 7.2. Lenin in front of Finland Station, erected 1926, Saint Petersburg. Photo Source: Amy Jacobs-Colas.

76

Figure 7.3. “Leninfall,” Kharkiv, Ukraine, September 2014. Igor Chekachkov/AP/SIPA. Used with permission.

80

Figure 8.1. View of the Valley of the Fallen from the Benedictine Monastery, 27 June 2011. Source: Francisco Ferrándiz.

84

Figure 8.2. Visit to the monument by the Commission of Experts for the Future of the Valley, 27 June 2011. Source: Francisco Ferrándiz.

87

Figure 8.3. Detail of the mosaic in the Basilica’s dome, portraying a battleground. The scene includes a tank as well as flags from some of the main parties supporting the military coup against the Republic in 1936. Source: Francisco Ferrándiz.

90

Figure 9.1. Official adoption of dual names in New Zealand. Source: Taylor Annabell, contains data sourced from the LINZ Data Service licensed for reuse under CC BY 4.0.

98

Figure 9.2. A view of Tūranganui-a-Kiwa/Poverty Bay, 2016. Photo by Kaye Annabell.

99

Figure 11.1. The I am Queen Mary statue by La Vaughn Belle and Jeannette Ehlers, as seen from Vestindisk Pakhus in the harbor of Copenhagen, 2020. Photo by Vibe Nielsen.

118

Figure 13.1. Valdivia’s statue falling, 2019. Source: Alejandro Zoñez / Agencia Gradual. Used with permission.

139

Figure 15.1a, b. The entrance to the village of Spontin with the monument to the victims erected in 1922 and the church in the background. To the left of the old monument (and on the second photo) lies the new commemorative stone added in 2014. Source: Nicolas Moll.

155

Figure 16.1. James Cook statue vandalized in protest of Australia Day, 2018. Source: Darrian Traynor, Getty Images. Used with permission.

165

Illustrations • xi

Figure 17.1. “If Hitler hadn’t existed, the Zionists would have invented him.” Hate Graffiti in Yad Vashem. Courtesy of Yad Vashem. 173 Figure 17.2. “Rape Culture.” Peeping Toms street mural, Tel Aviv. Courtesy of “LOTEM – counter gender-based terrorism unit.”

175

Figure 19.1. Image of the performance in the Plaza de Colón in Madrid, 17.07.2020. Source: Jakeline Sosa. Used with permission.

195

Figure 21.1. Screenshot of BVG’s Twitter announcement to rename M_Straße U-Bahn Station, Berlin, 30 March 2021. The Glinkastraßename has since been discarded. © Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVH). Used with permission.

212

Figure 21.2. Counts of Tweets featuring “Mohrenstraße,” 1 June through 31 August 2020. Source: Samuel Merrill.

213

Figure 22.1. The statue of Josephine before the head was removed, 1899. Source: Andre Salle, gallica.bnf.fr / BnF. Public domain.

223

Figure 22.2. The beheaded statue of Josephine, 2018. Photo © Audrey Célestine.

224

Figure 25.1. LordDigs, by Mideo M. Cruz, 2017. Source: Mideo M. Cruz. Used with permission.

257

Figure 26.1. The missing comfort woman statue where it once stood across from the Japanese embassy on Roxas Boulevard. Photo by Angie de Silva for Rappler, 26 December 2017. Used with permission. 263 Figure 26.2. The comfort woman memorial’s unveiling in Baclaran Redemptorist Church. Lola Estelita and Lola Narcisa, two former comfort women, stand on either side of it, 25 August 2019. Photo taken by Atty Dennis Gorecho (flowers4lolas campaign) and published in Tulay: Fortnightly Filipino-Chinese Digest. Used with permission.

265

Figure 29.1. Purported Vesey hanging site, Ashley Avenue, May 11, 2011. © Vanessa Lovelace.

288

Figure 29.2. The misidentified Vesey House, May 12, 2011. © Vanessa Lovelace.

290

Figure 29.3. Historical marker from 56 Bull Street, May 12, 2011. © Vanessa Lovelace.

291

Figure 29.4. Tourists pass by the Old City Jail and the public housing near it, May 11, 2011. © Vanessa Lovelace.

292

xii • Illustrations

Figure 30.1. William Hamo Thornycroft, Memorial to General Gordon, 1888. Embankment Gardens, London. © Stuart Burch.

299

Figure 30.2. Site of Thornycroft’s Memorial to General Gordon (1888– 1943). The Fourth Plinth can be seen to the rear, then occupied by Michael Rakowitz’s The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist, 2018. Trafalgar Square, London. © Stuart Burch. 301 Figure 31.1. Image of Reconciliation Way in Tulsa, Oklahoma, March 21, 2021. Photo by Rebecca Sheehan. Used with permission.

314

Figure 34.1. ‘Der Rufer’ by Gerhard Marcks in Perth Western Australia. The sculpture was dedicated to Victims and Survivors of Torture at the request of ASeTTS (The Association for Services to Torture and Trauma Survivors) in recognition of the emotional connections many of their clients felt to the statue. Image by Alison Atkinson-Phillips.

339

Figure 35.1. The monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky, Warsaw, 1977. Photographed by Grażyna Rutkowska. Courtesy of the National Digital Archive, Poland. Used with permission.

346

Figure 35.2. Demolition of the Monument of Gratitude to the Soviet Army, Szczecin, 20 November 2017. Photographed by Kapitel. Wikipedia Commons. Public domain.

351

Figure 36.1a, b. The Monument to the Victims of the German Occupation, no. 1532, October 2014. Photo by Anna Menyhért.

359

Figure 36.2a, b. The Living Memorial, no. 1494, October 2014. Photo by Anna Menyhért.

360

Tables Table 2.1. Street renaming in terms of name type, 2022. Source: Mihai S. Rusu.

30

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is very much a pandemic baby. It was first conceived of in conversation with Chris Chappell, then at Berghahn, and we would like to thank him for this impulse. Thanks also to Berghahn senior editor Amanda Horn, who has done an amazing job shepherding not only this book, but also the Worlds of Memory series as a whole! Jeffrey Olick and Aline Sierp (who co-edit the series with Jenny) were very supportive throughout. We would like to specifically acknowledge Ann Rigney, whose work and support has done much to inspire not only this book, but our work much more broadly, in ways she probably does not fully realize. From the start, this book has been conceived as a global project. It was meant to speak to different parts of the world and to enable all voices to be heard. While we were finishing the English manuscript, we have been lucky enough to be trusted by Fayard, one of the main publishers in France, to publish an expanded version of this book in French and to promote its translation into other languages. While COVID made it impossible to develop the main themes of De-Commemoration through a stimulating workshop, as we no doubt would have otherwise done, we are very grateful that the volume gave the two of us a way to collaborate and stay in touch. When we issued the call for contributions, we received an overwhelming response from all corners of the world, and this was a bright light in an otherwise very bleak time. We thank all the authors, not only for their brilliant chapters, but for helping us collectively think through the phenomenon of de-commemoration as it was unfolding and surging between 2020 and 2023. We also very much appreciate their flexibility and patience when we asked them to shorten texts, provide images, and work through proofs. A particular thank you goes to Manuela Badilla who helped us secure permission from Alejandro Zoñez Venegas to use his evocative photograph as a cover image. Thank you, of course, to Alejandro as well! Though the two of us come from different places and backgrounds, we have often talked about that we have something crucial in common: families

xiv • Acknowledgments

who put up with our travels and schedules and so make it possible for us to do research. Not only does our everyday life with them come first but they enable us to find the right amount of space for this work, which could otherwise easily become an obsession. Sarah therefore thanks Renaud, Norah and Jacob and Jenny thanks Ben, Maya, June, Nellie, and Wiebke. And finally, a special thank you to Jacob, Nellie and Norah who helped put together the index.

Introduction

MAKING SENSE OF DE-COMMEMORATION Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg

8 If you just picked up this book and cracked it open, you likely already have some striking images emerging in your mind: Maybe you are seeing protesters hauling a statue of the slave trader and philanthropist Edward Colston into the Bristol harbor in the wake of protests surrounding the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Perhaps you imagine the crane hoisting Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his horse from their pedestal in Richmond, Virginia. Or you think of your social media feed, scrolling through the many posts that referenced #rhodesmustfall to call for the dismantling of monuments of the imperialist and namesake of important academic institutions in South Africa and elsewhere, Cecil Rhodes. The extraordinary amount of public and media attention directed toward such cases of “de-commemoration”—processes in which material and public representations of the past are taken away, destroyed, or fundamentally altered—suggests we are witnessing a pivotal moment in the global politics of memory. Could we be on the verge of the creation of a landscape of memorials that, instead of glorifying exclusivist and violent pasts, celebrate anti-racism, inclusivity, and democracy? It certainly seems that the audience interested in de-commemoration has become much larger. Where this was previously the relatively obscure domain of a few specialized scholars,1 government officials, and civic campaigners, a broad section of society across many different countries now displays not merely awareness of this issue but an unprecedented level of emotional engagement. In other words, debates surrounding whether to take down or leave up or reinvent a particular statue or street name seems to capture con-

2 • Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg

cerns that strike at the heart of how we conceive of ourselves and our communities in the twenty-first century. They include critiques of structural racism, the identification of continuing legacies of coloniality, and questions surrounding the possibility of genuine inclusiveness, but also a renewed yearning for belonging and tradition, as well as a desire for clear-cut values in times that appear to be in constant flux. Thus, while the ways in which individuals and groups think about their history has always helped us understand their present and aspirations for the future, today’s wave of de-commemorations puts these concerns squarely on the front pages of our newspapers and at the center of our social media algorithms. However, though de-commemoration certainly harnesses our attention, whether it has the potential to transform how we live together remains up for debate. This book brings together experts on memory dynamics in different disciplines—including anthropology, cultural studies, geography, history, law, media studies, sociology, and political science—and from around the world to help us make sense of the current calls to dismantle statues and change place names. As editors, we decided early on not to focus primarily on the most well-known cases of de-commemoration (such as those driven by the #Blacklivesmatter or #BLM campaigns or on famous statues like Colston, “Silent Sam,” or Robert E. Lee). As you will see, these inevitably make up the scaffolding for many of our chapters because they were often a crucial mobilizing context for recent de-commemoration all over the world. However, we explicitly sought cases that provide significant insights and help us understand de-commemoration beyond the anglophone and Western (or what academics tend to call “Global Northern”) societies that dominate the newspaper headlines on this issue. By selecting a diverse set of historical and comparative perspectives, we can look beyond the current “hype” and systematically examine the motivations, actors, tools, places, time frames, effects, and importance of de-commemoration. What becomes clear is that de-commemoration is by no means a new phenomenon. For example, as Audrey Célestine and her colleagues argue, the process of toppling statues that glorify enslavers in the French Caribbean has been multidimensional and continuous, beginning as early as 1991. Here, a historical perspective enables us to identify the transformation of meaning that can be inherent even within a single case. Thus, the dismantling of a single statue can signify different political and cultural claims at different moments in time. Moreover, the de-commemorations we analyze in this book in many ways echo patterns we have seen since such iconic events in modern history as the French Revolution, and even further back to antiquity. The purpose of this book is not to add yet another editorial on a currently controversial and en-vogue topic. Indeed, while almost all writings on recent statue and place-name removals have sought to take a particular stance in the

Making Sense of De-Commemoration • 3

accompanying political debates surrounding them, we instead seek to offer an understanding based on empirical research to a larger readership. By gathering short pieces written in a clear and accessible style, we hope to give food for thought to interested observers and to allow them to build their own views of the world they live in—and of the presence of the past in that world. This book is implicitly a manifesto for the value of the social sciences and humanities to help people make sense of the world and its on-going transformations. Strangely enough, the peak of interest in de-commemoration has come at a time of government and public attacks on academia for allegedly being driven by ideological motivations or “wokeness” at its core. The thirty-seven chapters that follow prove the opposite. Each of our colleagues uses the methodological tools of their discipline to take stock of de-commemoration in its different contexts as a routine social practice without assigning to it an extraordinary or “sensational” status or predefined political meaning. In so doing, several of the case studies highlight that motivations and factors explaining decommemoration are not always concerned either with memory or with politics. Urban planning considerations, foreign policy demands, or free speech legislation turn out to be instrumental to these processes. Researching de-commemoration not only in a historical and comparative way but also from the perspective of the social sciences and humanities enables us to move beyond viewing it as driven by a unique logic that is solely informed by how a society wants to remember (or forget) its past. Our book thus pays attention to de-commemoration as a continuous social phenomenon and not only, or mainly, as a symbolic breaking point. This is also why we decided to use this term, which was first coined by one of us in 2020 and has since been used by other authors to make sense of national dynamics, as Tracy Adams and Yinon Guttel-Klein do to examine the Israeli case.2 The term “de-commemoration” refers empirically to practices in which material and public representations of the past are taken away, destroyed, or fundamentally altered and transformed. From a conceptual perspective, the choice of using the prefix “de” and the hyphen signifies that decommemoration is in fact a form of commemoration. And reciprocally, any commemoration is always in itself a form of de-commemoration. The use of the hyphen aims at embodying the importance of continuity and transformation to understand a social practice that is often seen only as a radical change and revolution. In the following chapters, several of our contributors additionally suggest related concepts such as “ab-commemoration” (when commemoration is displaced and made absent from its original location, as Stuart Burch explains) or “re-commemoration” (when new meaning is given to a preexisting monument, as Alison Atkinson-Phillips shows). These vocabulary variations all place words at the core of our understanding of this phenomenon: when a historical figure is celebrated in public space, it always

4 • Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg

implies that other actors are excluded from the narrative and thereby a particular political interpretation is privileged. Commemorating and erasing the past are two sides of the same coin; the term “de-commemoration” encapsulates this. This historical and comparative perspective teaches us that de-commemoration is not necessarily carried out only by grassroots activists working against racist and colonial legacies: the impulse to remove public symbols is the result of very different kinds of political ideologies and interests. We provide here a typology of at least five types of motivations for de-commemorative policies, and these provide structure to this book. Our contributors thus consider de-commemoration after regime change, de-commemoration and societal transformation, de-commemoration to propel change, de-commemoration as a smoke screen, and de-commemoration as a challenge to memory frameworks as such. First, and perhaps most classically, de-commemoration is carried out to adjust the symbolic landscape after a regime change. Thus, when American forces removed Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, one of the first reactions was to take down his likenesses in stone and steel (figure 0.1). Similarly, when the Cold War ended and (mostly peaceful) revolutions overturned communist rule, statues of Lenin were widely carted off. Berlin and Moscow have entire museums and parks that give these statues a new home.3 These kinds of cases demonstrate de-commemoration as essentially an adjustment to a power shift that has already occurred. New government authorities (and often allied civil society) use de-commemoration to align symbols of the past in public space to the political realities—and it is not a new phenomenon. Sometimes this happens very rapidly, in a frenzy of activity. As Amar Mohand-Amer argues, both the French colonial authorities in 1830 and the new national government in 1962 immediately set about changing the toponymy of Algeria. When the Ceausescu regime was violently overthrown in 1989, monuments, place names, and symbols such as the hammer and sickle were quickly de-commemorated, as demonstrated in Mihai Stelian Rusu’s systematic survey of Romanian nomenclature. Similarly, the independence of Latvia in 1991 was symbolically cemented by the instant removal of the Lenin monument in Riga. However, as Dmitrijs Andrejevs points out in his chapter, a narrow focus on this dramatic de-commemoration masks the much more complex processes of contestation preceding the event. In other cases, the mnemonic landscape is adjusted gradually, over a long period of time. Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, in her survey of German memorials to World War I, shows that these—though they did not cause much concern before— came to be seen as symbols of the German occupation and so local monuments were de-commemorated in various ways. Kerri J. Malloy’s chapter traces the process of erasing Indigenous place names throughout the United

Making Sense of De-Commemoration • 5

Figure 0.1. The statue of Saddam Hussein topples in Baghdad’s Firdos Square, 9 April 2003. Source: Unknown US military or Department of Defense employee. Public domain. Wikimedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SaddamStatue.jpg.

States as a direct mechanism to consolidate settler colonial power. He also indicates how this erasure has been gradually undone through recent re-commemoration efforts. Gary Baines discusses the case of the de-commemoration of Cecil Rhodes: unlike in Zimbabwe where it came abruptly with independence in 1980, the post-apartheid government in South Africa was more circumspect. Baines explains how, twenty years later, a statue of Rhodes on the campus of the University of Cape Town became the focus on a belatedly implemented regime-change in the #RhodesMustFall campaign. Thus, even when a regime has clearly been defeated, the de-commemoration process is not always straightforward. As Dominique Colas shows in his contribution, the fact that Soviet monuments were much more comprehensively removed in Ukraine than in the Russian Federation tells us quite a bit about how deep the cultural transformation has been in both countries since 1991. The lack of a fundamental overhaul of belief systems in Russia has become devastatingly clear given the high levels of popular support for Putin’s war of 2022. Francisco Ferrándiz discusses the case of the Francoist regime in Spain and its “Valley of the Fallen,” demonstrating the de-commemoration after regime change must sometimes wait until the new democracy has been sufficiently consolidated to challenge entrenched elites. Ferrándiz also stresses the importance of going beyond de-commemoration to achieve resignification of pivotal memorial sites in the service of democratization.

6 • Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg

Second, de-commemoration can be implemented after a community has already changed its beliefs about the meaning of the past—be it due to a gradual process or a sudden formative event. In this case, many monuments and place names are no longer in sync with public attitudes or even official policy: they are anachronistic remnants, no longer representative of the society and its values—or at least no longer in line with official policy or norms. Thus, even though the expansion of women’s rights since the early twentieth century has been represented through a whole series of statues honoring important leaders in the women’s suffrage movement, most of our statues, streets, squares, and institutions continue to be dominated by male namesakes. Activists and some municipalities have sought to address this through official and guerilla-style renaming activities, adding women to existing male location names (figure 0.2). Given the recent attention to de-commemoration it may seem curious that remnants of previous societal norms are allowed to linger for decades, as is the case with the struggle for women’s equality. One explanation for such a situation may lie in a phenomenon identified by Sarah Gensburger: a majority in any given society do not care about or may not even notice statues in their surroundings.4 Here we may recall the adage that “the best way to forget the past is to build a monument to it.”5 In other words, although de-commemoration events can result in media spectacles, sometimes they actually do not matter much to people compared to their everyday worries. Nevertheless, de-commemoration processes are often a powerful reflection of how society is changing. Taylor Annabell discusses how, alongside a shift in power in New Zealand between indigenous Māori and European settlers, the New Zealand Geographic Board undertook to reinscribe Māori place names next to colonial ones. Yuliya Yurchuk examines how the de-commemoration of Soviet symbols (including Lenin) in Ukraine after the Euromaidan protests in 2013–14 essentially completed the rejection of the Soviet regime. Vibe Nielsen offers a comparative analysis of the de-commemoration of colonialism in Copenhagen and Cape Town. She argues that the symbolic landscape of colonialism is present in both colonized and colonizer societies and that both dismantling and adding monuments can be part of this process. Kate Korycki contends that Canada is witnessing a “heating up” of memory politics surrounding the “moral valuation” of the colonial past and present. The ongoing process of de-commemoration can be regarded as a response to the important political events of the official apology to Indigenous peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, albeit one that is highly contested within mainstream Canadian society. Manuela Badilla and Carolina Aguilera, in their chapter “Killing Pedro de Valdivia Again,” investigate a mass movement against historical injustice and neo-liberalism in Chile in 2019. Though it took the form of grassroots protest, the extraordinary level of societal mobilization indicates that de-commemoration was an expression

Making Sense of De-Commemoration • 7

Figure 0.2. Street renaming by feminist groups in Geneva (left: Germaine Duparc was an anthropologist) and Paris (right: Marielle Franco was a human rights activist), fall 2021. Source: Sarah Gensburger.

of broadly felt societal discontent that had been festering for years. In a contribution focused on audible national memory, Bae Myo-Jung examines the de-commemoration of the Korean national anthem (and the statue of its composer) as an example of the delegitimization of national narratives. And, as a final contribution to this section, Nicolas Moll presents the unusual case of a village in Belgium, which, after over one hundred years of commemorating a massacre that took place during World War I, decided to stop having annual remembrance ceremonies. In other words, the inhabitants’ decision to de-commemorate was a way of adjusting to the decreasing importance of this event in the public life of the community. The third type of de-commemoration happens when a specific group of actors pursues it to propel broad symbolic change and to thus shift the opinions of the majority. In these situations, the struggle over de-commemoration is reflective of a larger power struggle, as is the case in many states in the US South, where some local officials have advocated monument removal in alliance with civil society and #Blacklivesmatter or #BLM, while others in government continue to adamantly oppose it. In fact, de-commemoration often takes place in times of more general instability, and this may explain why the very act of taking down a statue appears to be radical and sudden—even

8 • Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg

when activists have been working “behind the scenes” for a long time. Sarah Maddison brings us a closely related case: the effort to de-commemorate colonial statues, particularly those of James Cook and Lachlan Macquarie in Sydney, Australia, which activists demanded be removed in the wake of the #BLM wave in 2020. So far, these demands have been unsuccessful because the government in power has resisted the call for change. Tracy Adams and Yinon Guttel-Klein discuss the case of Israel, where commemoration plays a pivotal role, but we have so far not seen prominent efforts for decommemoration. Nevertheless, the authors identify nascent forms of the practice in the shape of graffiti on burial, military, and Holocaust sites—a marginalized way of challenging dominant historical narratives. Ricardo Santhiago explores the contemporary reluctance of the Brazilian state and local governments to engage with the heritage of colonialism, slavery, and violence against Indigenous people through the study of the de-commemoration claims against the statue of Borba Gato in Sao Paulo. Fabiola Arellano Cruz raises similar issues through her study of efforts to de-commemorate statues of Columbus in Madrid and Barcelona as a way to propel the decolonization of Spanish society. By studying the differential origin stories of two statues of the Colombian guerrilla leader Manuel Marulanda Vélez (a.k.a. Tirofijo) in Venezuela and Colombia, Jimena Perry highlights the variety of outcomes and changing efficiency of de-commemoration. Duane Jethro and Samuel Merrill investigate the Afro-German mobilization for the renaming of an underground station in Berlin, which was named in a racially offensive manner. In doing so, they raise the question of when a de-commemoration claim can be considered successful. In this case, the station name was changed; but while the name of a Black German personality suggested by the activists was ignored, the new name, based on a street nearby, raised new concerns regarding the antisemitic past of that namesake. Audrey Célestine, Valérie-Ann Edmond-Mariette, and Zaka Toto provide a history of de-commemoration in Fort-de-France, the capital city of Martinique in the French Caribbean. In doing so, they highlight the fact that while de-commemoration has long been seen by Martinique activists as a way to trigger social change, the nature of this change has evolved over time. Another contribution in this section reviews the de-commemoration of monuments in Great Britain as framed by the protests around #BLM. Stephen Small argues that we must pay attention to the entanglements of slavery and imperialism (and their memorialization), rather than focusing on only one or the other, in order to fully address their legacies in the present. Often, scholarly work such as that carried out in the volume is one of the currencies used by civic organizations to accomplish de-commemoration, as Seth Levi and Kimberly Probulus describe in their chapter on the work of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is one of the most important

Making Sense of De-Commemoration • 9

organizations in this space in the United States. In sum, the book’s section on de-commemoration to propel change offers a wide variety of cases of and approaches to bottom-up iconoclasm. While the kinds of de-commemorations we have described so far all genuinely aim to transform a society’s approach to remembering the past, in the fourth iteration, de-commemoration actually functions as a smoke screen to prevent policy or value change or to underpin a dominant memory narrative. For instance, we have seen cases where government officials, perhaps aware of global de-commemorative trends, dismantle monuments, sometimes literally under cover of darkness. This may be done to prevent a fundamental debate about the legacies of the past from emerging and to take the wind out of the sails of activists who might utilize the existence of monuments to prove that society continues to hold on to the values symbolized by them. You might say this was the case in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where officials rapidly took down the statue of songwriter Stephen Foster (who is famous for “Oh Susannah”). Though this had been demanded by some for years, it was not accompanied by in-depth debate or much activist mobilization.6 We contend that when de-commemoration events happen primarily for the sake of performance—rather than with a genuine desire to change the way a community understands its history—they may in fact have a detrimental effect. This type of de-commemoration is operative in the case of the Philippines. Lila Ramos Shahani argues that in the Philippines, iconoclasm happens mostly in a top-down fashion, such as occurred in the aftermath of the Marcos dictatorship. In her analysis, there is very little genuinely transformative decommemoration that would change the way Filipinos regard their varied and complex histories and truly challenge the legacies of colonialism. Echoing this overview, Catherine Lianza Aquino and Jocelyn S. Martin spotlight activism to have “comfort women”—victims of sexual slavery under Japanese occupation in the Philippines—commemorated. They discuss in particular one monument that honors comfort women’s struggles that has been removed twice under the government of Duterte and pressure from the Japanese government. Here de-commemoration remains a tool of social control by those in power. In a similar way, Chowra Makaremi examines the complex case of Iran, where the government has strategically de-commemorated “martyred” opponents of the Shah regime in order to suppress the counter-memorial efforts of families mourning the loss of political prisoners in the Islamic Republic. Vilho Amukwaya Shigwedha, in his account of the erection of and challenge to German colonial monuments in Namibia, argues that the call to de-commemorate masks the more difficult task of decolonizing society and that memorials could more productively be transformed into “inspirational tools for redressing past injustices and crimes.” Vanessa Lynn Lovelace and Jamie Huff argue that de-commemoration of symbols of racism can obscure

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the lack of or false commemoration of histories of Black rebellion and sites of violence that have underpinned white supremacy in the United States. To make this point, they trace how Denmark Vesey, the leader of an antislavery rebellion, has been misremembered. In the final contribution to this section, Stuart Burch examines Trafalgar Square in London as a complex memoryscape and suggests several additional prefixes to “commemoration” (such as ab-, epi-, re-) to argue that contests over statues—even in a nationally and globally symbolic space—are never enough and must be accompanied by systemic political change. In doing so he suggests that, while often important and meaningful, de-commemoration can also serve as an illusion and a way to prevent more structural transformations. The final section presents cases where efforts to de-commemorate not only challenge the fact that particular individuals or events are celebrated in public space but more fundamentally question the ways in which we engage with the past through physical memory. This is based on our observation that conventionally, almost all processes of dismantling one kind of monument seek to replace it with a similar kind of commemoration. For example, the commission tasked with figuring out what to do with the statue of the brutal Belgian King Leopold the Second recommended that it be melted down and turned into a memorial to victims of colonial violence.7 Much less common is when activists or governments aim to truly rethink what it means to commemorate in public space and whether they can find new ways to engage with the past that may allow for changing attitudes over time or can engage new audiences. The “We Are Bristol” History Commission recommended the statue of Colston be housed in a museum and its plinth be used to display temporary artwork, with “periods of intentional emptiness.”8 Such an approach may facilitate a more critical interrogation of the functions of built memorials beyond particular exemplars. Along these lines, the geographers Jordan P. Brasher and Derek Alderman call on us to look beyond singular monuments and consider the reparative power of physical landscapes: “It is important,” they write, “to consider the place name not just in a vacuum, or simply which surrogate name to choose. Instead, it is helpful to consider place names as part of complex namescapes through which compounded networks of belonging are negotiated and come to matter and make sense to harmed communities.”9 Looking at de-commemoration from the perspective of the law also offers a new approach to the question of memory as a whole. While studies of de-commemoration have so far focused on controversies and iconoclashes,10 paying attention to the legal frameworks within which they take place enables us to see the organizational side of memory process. On this matter, Thomas Hochmann’s study of the legal status of decommemoration in both French and US law and Tom Lewis’ reflections on the relation between international human rights law and de-commemoration

Making Sense of De-Commemoration • 11

are valuable contributions to this book. Moreover, recent academic as well as media coverage of the toppling down of statues and changing of street names has largely ignored the question of the reception and the actual uses of these memory artefacts. The issue of what people “do” with memorials was one of the core reasons memory studies emerged as a field of research. The topic of de-commemoration offers an excellent occasion to ask: What and for whom is memory made? Three texts tackle this issue in different ways. Alison Atkinson Phillips draws on a diverse set of cases to illustrate her argument that we need to think beyond de-commemoration to consider whether new memorials can help transform public spaces. This also enables a rethinking of why and how “ordinary” people come to care about commemoration. Ewa Ochman’s chapter also centers on how ordinary people have engaged with processes of decommunization in post-1989 Poland by resisting dominant de-commemoration policies. She encourages us to complicate our analysis by paying attention to the complex interactions between different actors. Mykola Makhortykh and Anna Menyhért offer a practical approach to the de-commemoration dilemma, introducing us to the tool of augmented reality (AR). Using the Living Memorial in Budapest as an exemplar, they argue that AR monuments are a highly flexible way of reimagining public space, as they can be adapted to changing debates and evolving meanings. Finally, with her contribution on “De-Commemorating White Supremacy through the Act of Voting,” Lorena Chambers offers an outside-the-box reading of electoral power as acts of remembrance and thereby calls into question the tools that memory studies commonly employs. In sum, these final chapters are concerned with legal, political, and technical frameworks, and so they allow a rethinking of the meanings and new potentials that are inherent in de-commemoration processes. As all our authors show, de-commemoration is often the culmination of complex processes of agitation and negotiation, as well as the starting point for further debate. The in-depth analyses presented in this book allow us to see beyond the spectacle journalistic coverage tends to gravitate toward. The point of this typology of de-commemoration is to begin a more systematic examination of these processes and to suggest that even when we perceive an unprecedented “wave” of de-commemoration, it does not necessarily signal a progressive norm shift—in fact something much more complicated is happening. Our authors use a variety of methodological approaches to analyze both discourses and practices: from Chile, the Philippines, and Iran to Latvia, Spain, and the United States, our colleagues carefully trace which actors drive de-commemoration and how. Their contributions show that mobilization of memory activists or memory entrepreneurs does not always fully explain why a monument is dismantled. The state and governmental institutions can

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also be crucial proponents of de-commemoration. The variety of our contributions also illustrates that the tools of de-commemoration themselves are diverse. Examining different devices, including law, virtual reality, renaming, or displacement, these chapters study in depth and in highly original ways how de-commemoration is implemented or prevented. Our attention to the instruments of de-commemoration enables us to link it to other sectors of public action or activism. In doing so, we meet the challenge of considering de-commemoration as something that is not only about memory or politics. Moreover, understanding the toppling of statues and the changing of street names must also include an account of the timeframes of de-commemoration. The literature on this topic has long juxtaposed history and memory. The notion of de-commemoration suggests we must move beyond this distinction by studying various layers of temporality and the continuity between them: the periods of the event being commemorated, of the implementation of the initial commemoration, and of the transformation of its meaning up until its dismantlement and/or transformation. This point is crucial because most of the public debate that has taken place since 2020 has confronted the original “historical event” and the contemporary conflictual public interpretation of it, often ignoring the “in between.” Most of the chapters in this book highlight the necessity of adding the timeframes of commemoration to our analytical approach. The multiple layers of the temporality of de-commemoration contrast with the uniqueness of place. The transformations in which we are interested happen in a particular and unique location, although there are also some tendencies toward convergence and uniformity in remembrance styles.11 Several chapters of the book examine the link between the debate over monuments and the contemporary concern for the redefinition of the role of public space in an era of digitalization. While social interactions are fragmented by the expansion of social networks, place-making seems to have remained crucial for the definition of collective identity. Here, paying attention to the places of de-commemoration enables us to question the symbolic redefinition of public place but also the more mundane issues at stake—such as urban planning and commercial usage. With all this attention paid to varieties of de-commemoration, it is important to note there are of course many places around the world where there is not even a pretense of moving in the direction of anti-racism and inclusive democracy. Indeed, some governments are using the global trend of decommemoration as a “boogey-man” that helps support nationalist and exclusivist memory politics and even novel laws. This has happened in Poland, Hungary, Texas, and elsewhere. And although there are a minority of memory activists in these places who are tirelessly working against white supremacy and racism and for women’s, refugee, and LGBTQ+ rights, the part of civil society that supports the government line is often stronger or more vocal.

Making Sense of De-Commemoration • 13

Thus, it is important to be clear that grassroots activists are not always progressive and that de-commemoration can both support and undermine efforts to democratize and liberalize societies. For example, the United Daughters of the Confederacy is a long-established civic organization that has worked both to build statues honoring Confederate soldiers and to oppose their dismantling. Again, this is where a comparative and historical analytical perspective is preferable to a short-sighted journalistic one. Public space is best seen as a site of an open-ended struggle of different forces over how the past is made meaningful in the present. In sum, despite the many important recent instances of de-commemoration, the chapters we gathered in this book invite us to be skeptical of the assumption that we are on the precipice of a new global approach to the past. However, the flip side is not true: de-commemorations and their upsurge in frequency do matter. This point is underscored by an exercise in counterfactuality: What would it mean for our societies if statues of colonialists and white supremacists and dictators were not being challenged? It would suggest that any shifts in political, social, or economic power are not penetrating the cultural and symbolic frameworks through which we make sense of them. And this would surely indicate a merely superficial transformation. As Lorena Chambers shows, when African Americans were finally allowed to vote, in many places they continued to have to grapple with white supremacist memoryscapes when exercising their voting rights (they had to pass by statues that glorified slave holders on their way to cast ballots). Thus, even though formal disenfranchisement had ended in superficial terms, the symbolic violence that underpinned continued discrimination and prejudice continued. It is important that these symbols, which have structural effects, are removed, even when they do not by themselves herald the end to racism and violence. In the final analysis, the authors and editors of this volume agree that de-commemoration matters. Sarah Gensburger is Professor of sociology and political science at the French National Centre for Scientific Research and Sciences Po-Paris and President of the international Memory Studies Association since 2021. She is the author of Beyond Memory: Can We Really Learn from the Past? (with Sandrine Lefranc, Palgrave, 2020), and Memory on My Doorstep: Chronicles of the Bataclan Neighborhood, Paris, 2015–2016 (Leuven University Press, 2019) as well as co-editor of Administrations of Memory (with Sara Dybris McQuaid (Springer, 2022). Jenny Wüstenberg is Professor of History & Memory Studies at Nottingham Trent University. She is the founder and past Co-President of the Mem-

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ory Studies Association (2016-2023), as well as Chair of the COST Action on “Slow Memory: Transformative Practices in Times of Uneven and Accelerating Change” (2021–2025). She is the author of Civil Society and Memory in Postwar Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and the co-editor, most recently, of Agency in Transnational Memory Politics (with Aline Sierp, Berghahn 2020) and the Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism (with Yifat Gutman, 2023).

Notes 1. Kirk Savage, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in NineteenthCentury America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). 2. Sarah Gensburger, “The Paradox of (De)Commemoration,” The Conversation, 7 July 2020. Tracy Adams and Yinon Guttel-Klein, “Make It Till You Break It: Toward a Typology of De-Commemoration,” Sociological Forum 37, no. 2 (29 Mar. 2022): 603–25. 3. Daniela Blei, “The Museum Where Racist and Oppressive Statues Go to Die,” Atlas Obscura, 14 August 2020, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/museum-of-tox ic-statues-berlin; Lucian Kim, “What to Do with Toppled Statues? Russia Has a Fallen Monument Park,” NPR, 21 July 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/07/21/892914684/ what-to-do-with-toppled-statues-russia-has-a-fallen-monument-park. 4. Gensburger, “Paradox of (De)Commemoration.” 5. Justin Davidson, “Our Memorials Teach Us to Forget,” New York Magazine, 11 March 2019, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/our-memorials-teach-us-to-forget.html. 6. Bill O’Driscoll, “Controversial Stephen Foster Statues Removed from Schenley Plaza,” 90.5 WESA: Pittsburgh’s NPR News Station, 26 April 2018, https:// www.wesa.fm/arts-sports-culture/2018-04-26/controversial-stephen-foster-statueremoved-from-schenley-plaza. 7. Jennifer Rankin, “Call for Brussels Statue to Be Melted and Made into Memorial for Congo Victims,” The Guardian, 21 February 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/ 2022/feb/21/call-for-brussels-statue-to-be-melted-and-made-into-memorial-for-congovictims. 8. “Colston Statue Should Be Displayed in Museum, Public Says,” BBC News, 3 February 2022, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-60247092. 9. See page 313 in this volume. 10. Bruno Latour, “What Is Iconoclash? Or Is There a World beyond Images Wars?,” in Iconoclash: Beyond the Image-Wars in Science, ed. Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, 14–37 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002). 11. Jenny Wüstenberg, “Locating Transnational Memory,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 32 (2019): 371–82.

Making Sense of De-Commemoration • 15

Bibliography Adams, Tracy, and Yinon Guttel-Klein. “Make It Till You Break It: Toward a Typology of De-Commemoration.” Sociological Forum 37, no. 2 (29 Mar. 2022): 603–25. https://doi .org/10.1111/socf.12809. Gensburger, Sarah. “The Paradox of (De)Commemoration: Do People Really Care about Statues.” The Conversation, 7 July 2020. https://theconversation.com/the-paradox-ofde-commemoration-do-people-really-care-about-statues-141807. Latour, Bruno. “What Is Iconoclash? or Is There a World beyond Images Wars?” In Iconoclash: Beyond the Image-Wars in Science, edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, 14–37. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. Rigney, Ann. “Toxic Monuments and Mnemonic Regime Change”, Studies on National Movements 9 (2022): 8–41. Savage, Kirk. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth Century America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Wüstenberg, Jenny. “Locating Transnational Memory.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 32 (2019): 371–82.

Part I

DE-COMMEMORATION AFTER REGIME CHANGE

Chapter 1

BAPTIZING AND UNBAPTIZING IN ALGERIA From French Colonization to National Independence Amar Mohand-Amer

8 The question of de-commemoration in contemporary Algerian history is closely associated with the long colonization of the country by France. This colonization lasted 132 years, from 1830 to 1962. This chapter aims to show that the problem of naming and de-naming the public space in Algeria is still a historical, political, and societal issue today, sixty years after the country’s independence.

De-Commemorating the Symbolic Space and Conquering the Physical Territory As soon as Algiers was taken (5 July 1830), the French military authorities implemented a strategy that was both deliberate and meticulously thought out. This strategy can be summarized, in the Algerian context, by what Ouerdia Sadat-Yermèche defines as a real “enterprise of redefinition and reconstruction of the local toponymic reality.”1 Thus, the eagerness to name places and spaces is part of a philosophy and a vision that determines and anticipates what will be the essence and nature of the French colonial system in Algeria. First, there is a practical and technical reason for this rush to name and rename places. It is a question of facilitating the mobility and the orientation of the French expeditionary corps in a city with an atypical and hypercomplex

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topography, in this case Algiers and its kasbah where narrow streets, alleys, staircases, and so on are intermingled and intertwined. The second reason, on the other hand, refers to fundamentally political and anthropological considerations. It is the beginning of practices articulated around symbolic and psychological violence against the Indigenous population, the purpose of which is to consecrate a new (colonial) situation in which public space will play a determining role. As Paul Silbot has shown, “the apparatus of street names in old Algiers . . . appears as the first manifestation of a process of alienation and symbolic dispossession that the colonial enterprise will expand and systematize thereafter.”2 In fact, this political and military operation (naming of places and spaces) was to be divided into three main axes. First, the French wanted to give the places created by the colonial system (under construction) an exclusively French imprint. Second, they renamed already existing places loaded with their own history and myths. Third, the adopted and applied a policy of Latinization (francization) of toponyms and anthroponyms of the onomastic system throughout the country.3 This process became more widespread as the French army occupied new territories during this period. This de-commemoration of space is initially restricted to the city, but it later extends to the countryside and the Sahara. The old original and local names were strongly modified and replaced by “generic French nomenclature”4 such as “dam,” “basin,” “road,” “path,” “suburb,” “farm,” “forest,” “ravine,” “road,” and “spring.” These changes also affected the names of towns and villages, obscuring the ethnic ties these places had to the history of the region. The local references to physical characteristics such as douars, Djebel (mountain), oued (river), aïn (spring), and so on were gradually erased. The challenge for the colonizer was not to “remind the inhabitants of any military or religious memory, which could be used for the purpose of revolt.”5 These toponymic transformations are in fact the symbolic and linguistic manifestation of the considerable mutations Algerian society has undergone since July 1830. First came the brutal and violent confiscation of land following military campaigns, then fundamentally unequal land laws were promulgated mainly for the benefit of European arrivals, to the detriment of Algerians. Algerian national unconsciousness has been marked by the disintegration of the local tribal structures—the confiscation and the sequestration of lands during the colonial era. Considered as a part of the depersonalization of Algerian society, the colonial toponymy generally celebrates French public figures instead of local ones. The colonial place names regularly paid homage to military leaders who distinguished themselves by acts of great barbarity against civilians and Algerian tribes during the colonial era. The colonial strategy of erasure and concealment has been generalized. Villages or localities simply changed their names. For example, Ain El Hammam in Kabylia, East

Baptizing and Unbaptizing in Algeria • 21

of Algiers, adopted the name of the French historian Jules Michelet, historian of the French national narrative. El Bayadh, in the South of Oran, was named after Colonel Géryville, who led an expedition in the region in 1843. Sometimes, the initial names were only modified. For example, Sidi Fredj became Sidi Ferruch, while Stah el Ouali was transformed into Staouali.6 Occassionally, the colonial administrators “innovated” names by adding a French tone to the ancient one, such as Colomb in Béchar (Colomb-Béchar) or Condé in Smendou (Condé-Smendou). The objective of this strategy is fundamentally political, with the goal of weakening and dismembering society. Defending the idea that the “Arabs” or “Ottomans” were colonizers and the “Berbers” (native inhabitants of the region) were the victims of this “Arab-Muslim colonization” did not have the success the French colonial order expected, which counted on the division of Algerian society and its fragmentation. The political parties created by Algerians in the twentieth century (1919–54) were all built around the vision of an Algerian nation and not on an ethnic conception. Finally, the deep and ancient history of the country was erased even though its expressions remained inscribed in valleys, mountains, oueds, and rivers, whose names functioned as reminders of the old confederations and tribes. The affiliation to ancient local history was no longer apparent; it became a subcategory in the new toponymy. In 1947, Emile Janier published a testimony on the Bettawa of Saint-Leu, a colonial village founded in Oranie (Western Algeria) in 1846. It showed the importance of designation and renaming for the new French immigrants and the societal issues of this era: [T]he administrative custom in use at that time for the naming of new villages was as follows: for the duration of a month, names were taken from among the saints of the calendar; thus we find in this northern part of Oranie, St Adélaïde, St Aimé, St André, Ste Barbe, Ste Clothilde, St Cloud, St Cyprien, St Denis, St Georges, St Hyppolyte, Ste Isabelle, Ste Léonie, St Louis, St Lucien, ST Maure, Ste Monique, St Rémy; the following month, the names were taken among those of the great men of the history of France or those of the famous victories; thus we find in the same region: Berthelot, Bossuet, Bourbaki, Carnot, Cassaigne, Chanzy, Charrier, Descartes, Diderot, Duperré, Dupleix, Faidherbe, Francis Garnier, Victor Hugo, Kléber, Lamartine, Masséna, Montgolfier, Palissy, Parmentier, Prévost-Paradol, Rabelais, Renan, Sully, Turenne, Turgot, Vauban, Vialar, Waldeck-Rousseau; Aboukir, Arcole, Fleurus, Inkermann, Magenta, Malakof, Montenotte, Palikao, Wattignies.7

The plethora of names and places (as is the case in this example) and their symbolism means that many of these names continue, almost two centuries later, to be used in Algeria.

22 • Amar Mohand-Amer

National Independence, De-Commemoration, and Re-Commemoration At independence in July 1962, the un-naming and re-naming operation was set in motion very quickly throughout the national territory. This was one of the obsessions of the Algerian authorities: to return to the origins and anthropological reality preceding colonization. It is a process that resembles in form (and not in substance) what was undertaken from 1830 onward by the colonial authorities. The symbolic and the political take precedence over a scientific and thoughtful construction over the long term. However, it is easy to understand this (second) eagerness to reappropriate the public space. It is above all a question of marking in the marble of memory the reversal of history. This political act is defended and legitimized as being a cathartic obligation, a salutary reappropriation, and finally the expression of a liberation of spaces and the total recovery of the national sovereignty. It is the state controlled, both by the party-FLN (National Liberation Front) and the army, crowned by the victory over colonialism, that is at the forefront of this reconstruction. A single party where the army was both the support and the control tower. This complex partnership lasted until 19 June 1965 when the regime became militarized. In this national program, the names (tributes) decided by the town halls (APC) were subject to authorization by the official authorities (prefecture [wilaya] and/or Ministry of the Interior). Specific conditions organized this “revolution” in the public landscape. Public recognition was necessary, whether for Algerian or foreign personalities. In the latter case, the opinion of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was necessary. It was also important in this program to take into consideration local traditions and specificities for the new names. It is important to emphasize that in this field of un-naming and re-naming, priority was given to everything related to “the popular resistance and the national movement, its symbols and events, including the Shuhada “martyrs” of national liberation,” in other words, the heroes of the war of independence. This hierarchization in the process of naming public spaces and roads, especially for the benefit of recent history (National Liberation War, 1954– 62) has not always been judicious. The names lack imagination, as Brahim Atoui points out in his study.8 Historical depth is almost absent, as is serious and rigorous research on which naming changes might be based. Attempts to construct a relevant system of place names that would be the result of academic work or research have always failed because of the active interference and the real political power of the bearers of memory, whether official or from the civil society. It is a process that continues and is considered. History, particularly that of Algeria under colonial rule, constitutes a major political and societal issue today, serving as a tool for legitimizing power.

Baptizing and Unbaptizing in Algeria • 23

So it is not surprising that after 1962, once again, buildings, streets, spaces, and places are the subject of political contention. Names are thus decided based on regional or regionalist considerations. A historical personality can be honored in one city and be rejected in other regions. This is the case, for example, of Messali Hadj, one of the most important and prestigious Algerian nationalist leaders. Due to his opposition of the FLN during the War of National Liberation (1954–62), he was ostracized after independence. He was “rehabilitated” in 2011 by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who named the airport of Tlemcen (far west of Algeria) after him. This act reveals the contradictions and difficulties of the policy or reality of the naming process of public spaces in Algeria after independence. A few years earlier, a symposium dedicated to him was banned in Batna, in the east of the country, by the local organization of former moudjahidin (national liberation war fighters). This event is not insignificant nor rare. When he became head of state in January 1992, Mohamed Boudiaf, one of the nine founders of the FLN, ordered the de-naming of an important and prestigious avenue in the Telemly. After independence, this avenue was named “Salah Bouakouir,” a former senior official in the French administration during the war who was assassinated in September 1961 presumably by the OAS (Organization of the Secret Army). President Boudiaf had publicly accused Bouakouir of being a “traitor to the Algerian Revolution” and renamed the same avenue “Krim Belkacem,” one of the founders of the FLN. Boudiaf was assassinated in July 1992. However, his death did not put an end to the “Telemly affair.” The naming and un-naming of the avenue will continue to cause controversy in Algeria. In this regard, important leaders of the FLN testified to the integrity of Salah Bouakouir and his support for the national cause by publicly affirming that he was a “martyr” of the war of liberation. On the other hand, the family of former President Boudiaf continues to accuse Bouakouir of treason. However, the controversy has not helped to reestablish historical reality. The avenue still bears the name of Krim Belkacem, and the debate continues. This case study shows the influence of the liberation war’s past on the present. Today, almost all new names refer to the martyrs (chahids) of the 1954–62 period. It is important to note that plaques commemorating these name changes, which have blue backgrounds and white writing, have become widespread in Algeria over the last ten years. What is striking about these plaques is the systematic use of the terminology chahid and the use of the blue background. This seems to be a random color choice in the sense that the official discourse and literature refer to the colors of the national flag: green, red, and white. In this case, the link with the Parisian plates, which are blue, does not seem relevant to me, unless it is a question of ease or mimicry. These formats do not seem to have a direct relationship with colonial history. However, one thing remains certain: we did not look for other models or

24 • Amar Mohand-Amer

formats. Another element that attracts attention is the association of chahid or chahida with all those who died during the war of liberation. It should be remembered here that martyrology during the war is substantially linked, in the official and memorial doxa, to God and religion: morts fi sabil Allah (“dead for Allah”). In other, more secular readings of this period, the sacrifice (death) was for the country (el watan) and the national political cause. In this logic, the plaque paying homage to Fernand Iveton, communist activist and nationalist guillotined on 11 February 1957, is interesting to analyze. The content of the plaque refers to martyrology. While it is true that in Algeria Fernand Iveton is officially elevated to the rank of “martyr of the war of liberation,” in reality the situation is more confused. The quality of “martyr” is recognized by political and ideological currents only to Muslims. This debate is still relevant today. Also, it is important to ask whether this denomination would be synonymous with the will of the official authorities to secularize the act of baptizing public places. This seems unlikely because in September 2016, Fernand Iveton Street in Oran (in the popular Derb district) was “de-commemorated”. It will only be renamed under pressure from civil society: “They want to guillotine the memory of our people.”9 The complexity and ambiguity of this field (naming the public spaces) are real: political oppositions, ideological confrontations, recurrent attempts to “Islamize” history, revisionism, and so on. All these factors contribute to transforming public spaces into politically mined and ideologically charged land. It is important to take stock of these voluntary policies, which, it seems, have not ultimately led to convincing results. Thus, almost sixty years after independence, neighborhoods, avenues, streets, spaces, and buildings are named by the citizens themselves. It is a phenomenon that has accompanied the massive urbanization of recent decades. This is confirmed by the specialist Brahim Atoui, who makes an alarming assessment of the situation, and for whom the “normalization” of the toponymic field in Algeria cannot be achieved by naming operations alone. This simplistic approach to such a complex field has led to aberrations. For example, according to figures from the Ministry of Housing, in 2014 in Algiers only 2,800 place names were recorded and 40,0000 streets had no names. In Oran, two-thirds of the streets are unnamed.10 This reality is linked to another, more worrying social, cultural, and anthropological reality, namely that many Algerians still use street or neighborhood names inherited from the colonial era. For Fadila Kettaf, this is explained by the strong persistence of colonial French toponyms despite the official attribution of new names to places.11 In everyday life, often the old names continue to be used. In Oran, for example, studies show that the inhabitants are not familiar with the new names of streets and squares. The central square of

Baptizing and Unbaptizing in Algeria • 25

“1st November 1954” is still called “Place d’Armes”; other well-known places in the city are also still referred to by their old names, such as “Place des Victoires” or “Place Hoche.” These different examples show that the question of the naming of public spaces and places in Algeria is closely linked to historical political, cultural, and ideological issues. This is a situation that is made more complex by the absence of a serious, reliable, and long-term public policy. These failings and inadequacies are repeatedly pointed out and denounced by specialists and researchers. In the end, the country is faced with a sort of “toponymic schizophrenia.”12 Amar Mohand-Amer, PhD in history (Paris 7), is a researcher at CRASC in Oran. He is also Deputy Director of Insaniyat, the revue of CRASC. He works on transition processes (independence), individual and collective trajectories, violence in wartime (colonization), and memory issues, particularly in relation to alternative historical narratives. His latest publications are “Deux éclairages sur le moment présent: élections et protestations; état civil vs état militaire,” in Cheminements révolutionnaires. Un an de mobilisations en Algérie (2019–2020), ed. A. Allal, L. Baamara, L. Dekhli, and G. Fabbiano (CNRS, 2021), and “La question des disparus du fait des forces de l’ordre françaises durant la guerre vue d’Algérie,” in Les disparus de la Guerre d’Algérie / La bataille des archives, ed. C. Teitgen-Colly, G. Manceron, and P. Mansat (l’Harmattan, 2021).

Notes 1. Ouerdia Sadate-Yermèche, « Dénomination des langues », 27–44. 2. Paul Siblot, “La bataille des noms de rues d’Alger. Discours et idéologie d’une toponymie coloniale,” Cahiers de sociolinguistique 11, no. 1 (2006): 155. 3. Ouerdia Sadat-Yermèche, “La dénomination des langues, des territoires, et des personnes en Algérie ou l’itinéraire conjoncturel des noms,” Études et Documents Berbères 33, no. 1 (2014): 27–44. 4. Brahim Atoui, “L’odonymie d’Alger: passé et présent. Quels enseignements?,” PNR/ CRASC (2005): 23–51. 5. “Report of 1867 of the Senatus Consulate on the Hannancha,” cited in Atoui, “L’odonymie d’Alger.” 6. Atoui, “L’odonymie d’Alger.” 7. Emile Janier, “Bettawa de Saint Leu,” Revue Africaine-Alger (1945): 236–237. 8. Atoui, “L’odonymie d’Alger.” 9. Mohamed Berkani, “Algérie: Fernand Iveton retrouve sa rue après une grande mobilisation,” France Télévisions Rédaction Afrique, 15 September 2016. 10. Brahim Atoui, “ALGÉRIE. Au pays des rues sans nom,” El Watan, 31 December 2014.

26 • Amar Mohand-Amer 11. Fadila Kettaf, “Pour une ‘aventure’ des noms des places d’Oran (Algérie),” Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography (2017): (online), http://journals.openedition.org/ cybergeo/28835. 12. Noureddine Khelassi, “En Algérie, on ne sait pas nommer un chat un chat!,” Le Soir d’Algérie, 18 August 2020.

Bibliography Atoui, Brahim. “L’odonymie d’Alger: passé et présent. Quels enseignements?” PNR/CRASC (2005): 23–51. ———. “Toponymie et espace en Algérie.” PhD thesis, Université de Provence-Aix-Marseille 1, 1996. Janier, Emile. “Bettawa de Saint Leu.” Revue Africaine-Alger (1945): 236–77. Kettaf, Fadila. “Pour une ‘aventure’ des noms des places d’Oran (Algérie).” Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography (2017): online. http://journals.openedition.org/cybergeo/28835. Sadat-Yermèche, Ouerdia. “La dénomination des langues, des territoires, et des personnes en Algérie ou l’itinéraire conjoncturel des noms.” Études et Documents Berbères 33, no. 1 (2014): 27–44. Siblot, Paul. “La bataille des noms de rues d’Alger. Discours et idéologie d’une toponymie coloniale.” Cahiers de sociolinguistique 11, no. 1 (2006): 145–74.

Chapter 2

STREET RENAMING IN POSTSOCIALIST ROMANIA A Quantitative Analysis of Toponymic Change Mihai Stelian Rusu

8 In what scholars have labeled as a “ritual of revolution,” renaming the landscape was ingrained in the process of postsocialist transformation experienced by Romanian society in the wake of the violent overthrow of the socialist regime in December 1989.1 Following the demise of state-socialism, the transition from political dictatorship and centrally planned economy to market capitalism and liberal democracy suffered from political setbacks and encountered popular reluctances. The dialectics between anticommunist enthusiasm and postcommunist nostalgia were also present within the transitional politics of memory that was marked by ideological divisiveness and social conflict over how to handle the process of coming to terms with the socialist past.2 Place-names were among the first to fall victim to the political regime change. Besides this reconfiguration of urban toponymy, other forms of de-commemoration included the removal of the iconic symbols of the former regime—the hammer and the sickle—together with the statues of communist leaders. After its establishment in the aftermath of World War II, the socialist regime in Romania immediately proceeded to politicize space through removing the place-names associated with the abolished monarchical order and installing its own ideological ethos in their place. The socialist politicization of space included renaming the country itself (which became the People’s Popular Republic), cities and towns (e.g., Brașov became Stalin City), and

28 • Mihai Stelian Rusu

also streets, stadiums, and factories, including trivial places such as bakeries and grocery markets.3 Postsocialist transformations implied, inter alia, the undoing of this process by renaming the toponymic legacy inherited from the former regime, in some cases by back-naming them to what they were named during the presocialist period. Street names and their renaming are important because they reveal how a political regime seizes symbolic control over space and, through inscribing its values, symbols, and memories onto the landscape, it constructs a self-legitimizing political geography of public memory.4 Drawing on the theoretical tenets that have emerged in the interdisciplinary field of critical toponymies, which conceives of street names as powerful nominal devices of inscribing space with politically meaningful symbols and legitimizing historical narratives,5 this chapter pursues a three-fold objective: (1) to determine the scope of toponymic change in postsocialist Romania by quantifying the percentage of renamed streets; (2) to identify the patterns of street name changes in terms of the type of names that underwent renaming; and (3) to map the political geography of this toponymic decommunization by identifying the regional patterns of renaming the urban namescape.

Methods and Data The empirical data used in this chapter comes from three sources. First, the complete street nomenclature existing in Romanian cities was compiled based on the toponymic data retrieved from the Romanian Permanent Electoral Authority (Autoritatea Electorală Permanentă, AEP). All the street names in Romanian cities were extracted from the AEP’s Registry of Voting Stations (Registrul Secţiilor de Votare). In 2020, there were a total of 46,442 street names in Romania’s 319 cities. Second, the complete list of street name changes made after the regime change of December 1989 was compiled based on toponymic data obtained from the public authorities that held jurisdiction over renaming the public landscape (the Prefectures between 1990–92, the County Councils between 1992–2002, and the Local Councils after 2002). Third, to calculate the percentage of street renaming done during Romania’s postsocialist period, all the new streets—created following urban planning operations and named after 1989—were identified based on official data provided by local authorities and consequently removed from analysis (9,362 street names). The remaining dataset upon which this chapter is based comprised a total number of 37,080 street names, which represents the complete national street nomenclature existing in socialist urban Romania before the democratic regime change of 1989.

Street Renaming in Postsocialist Romania • 29

After constructing this integrated dataset, each street name was coded as (1) eponymous (if named after people), (2) historical dates, (3) historical events, (4) historical places, (5) political values, and (5) geographical landmarks. The streets named after people (eponymous) together with those referring to historical dates, events, and places comprise the broader category of “commemorative street names.”6 With those celebrating political values and indicating geographical landmarks, they could be considered as “politicized street names.” The remaining streets that fell outside these categories and bore politically neutral and descriptive names were coded as “other.”

Mapping the Street Name Changes During Romania’s period of postsocialist transformation, 4,578 streets were renamed. This means the scope of postsocialist toponymic change in the street nomenclatures of Romanian cities can be established at 12.35 percent. Roughly one in ten streets was renamed after the overthrow of state socialism in Romania. The share of toponymic change expressed by this percentage may seem unimpressive from a quantitative point of view. However, in assessing the magnitude of change, the toponymic geography of the cityscape should also be taken into consideration. The most explicitly ideological street names celebrating the former socialist regime were assigned to public squares and large boulevards located in the central areas of the cities. As studies have shown, topographic centrality was a structuring principle that underpinned the process of postsocialist street renaming.7 With this in mind, it becomes evident that the street namescape of much of the city centers underwent massive change. The percentage of renamed streets in postsocialist Romania is the result of a cumulative process of successive waves of renaming the urban landscape. Most changes, as expected, were recorded immediately after the regime change, while the process was coordinated from the central government (1990–92). In Bucharest, Romania’s capital city, after 1993 “the process tailed off and by 1997 the ideologically motivated renaming of streets was complete.”8 A second, milder wave of renaming occurred after 1996, when an anticommunist coalition formed the government and consequently resumed the renaming campaign; while a third one followed after the local authorities were empowered with the attributes to manage the street nomenclature in 2000. During the three decades of postsocialist transformation, these successive waves of street renaming intertwined with the local particularities characterizing each municipality to produce an asynchronous geography of toponymic change. The process of renaming was desynchronized in the territory, with

30 • Mihai Stelian Rusu

some cities enacting changes in the urban namescape with a great sense of urgency. This was the case in Timișoara, the cradle of the Romanian Revolution,9 where 91 percent of street name changes were made between 1990 and 1994. In other cities, where the local political milieu was dominated by the ex-communist party members, the process of toponymic change was protracted and followed a rather convoluted temporal dynamic. In ClujNapoca, for example, a city that became notorious for its ethno-nationalistic ex-communist mayor,10 only 36 percent of street name changes were made by 1994. Most changes were done between 1995 and 1999 (40 percent), while the latest wave of renaming started as recent as 2015 (13 percent).

Patterns of Street Renaming The data presented in the previous section provide a quantitative indicator of postsocialist toponymic change in urban Romania. This section deepens the analysis by examining the scope of street renaming in terms of the street name category. Such an analysis offers additional insights into the renaming process by indicating the types of street names that underwent revision (see table 2.1). Table 2.1. Street renaming in terms of name type, 2022. Source: Mihai S. Rusu. Renamed

Unchanged

Street name category

N

%

N

%

Example

Eponymous (people)

1,105

11.49

8,510

88.51

Piața V. I. Lenin / V. I. Lenin Square

Historical dates

801

63.12

468

36.88

Str. 7 Noiembrie / November 7th Street

Historical events

38

11.48

293

88.52

Str. Revoluției / Revolution Street

Historical places

63

6.97

841

93.03

B-dul. Stalingrad / Stalingrad Boulevards

Political values

590

24.62

1,806

75.38

Piața Republicii / Republic Square

Geographical landmarks

132

30.77

297

69.23

B-dul Moscova / Moscow Boulevard

Other names (neutral, descriptive)

1,849

8.35

20,283

91.65

Piața Mare / Large Square

Total

4,578

12.35

32,498

87.65

Street Renaming in Postsocialist Romania • 31

The data presented in Table 2.1 show that the scope of renaming varies considerably among the categories of street names. Most targeted for renaming were the streets bearing historical dates, such as November 7, which commemorated the day of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 (63.12 percent). This type of street name was the most explicitly ideological since it celebrated the political calendar of the Soviet Union and the socialist regime in Romania. Other commemorative street names that referred to historical events and places were largely spared from renaming (11.48 percent and 6.97 percent respectively). The difference can be explained by the fact that many of these street names that were not changed referred to historical places and events that took place before the establishment of the socialist regime, such as battlefields from the medieval period to World War I, as well as political events associated with the nation-making and state-building processes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Similarly, eponymous names that inscribed into the urban landscape the memory of cultural, political, and military personalities have not been renamed extensively. The percentage of toponymic change characterizing these public personalities (11.49 percent) does not differ dramatically from the scope of revision in the category of descriptive, politically neutral street names (8.35 percent). Larger extents of renaming occurred to streets named after political values (24.62 percent) and to those that referred to politically laden geographical landmarks (30.77 percent), due to their connection to the Soviet Union and the socialist regime in Romania. As researchers have observed for other postsocialist places, the principle underpinning these toponymic revisions of urban street nomenclature was the direct association with socialism.11 While those street names that bore an explicit tie with the former regime in Romania, the Soviet Union, and the socialist ideology writ large were thoroughly cleansed from the landscape, the names associated with the broader, presocialist history of Romania were generally kept in place.

The Political Geography of Street Name Changes The final aspect I will explore in this brief analysis is the geographical patterning of postsocialist toponymic change. It was already mentioned that the process of street renaming in postsocialist Romania came in several waves and occurred at various tempos across the territory. The overall, cumulative scope of street name changes also varies considerably in terms of municipality and historical region (see figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1. The national topography of postsocialist toponymic change with cities marked, 2022. Source: Mihai S. Rusu.

32 • Mihai Stelian Rusu

Street Renaming in Postsocialist Romania • 33

Figure 2.1 provides a visual for the geographical heterogeneity of postsocialist toponymic change in urban Romania. It shows that larger percentages of street renaming are concentrated in several regions, such as Banat and Bihor in Western Romania, the Szeklerland inhabited by ethnic Hungarians in the central part of the country, and several areas from Wallachia in the Southern part of the country. Surprisingly, Bucharest—together with other areas such as Southern Dobrogea and the Bărăgan Plain—represents a white spot on this map of street name changes. In the capital city, the extent of renaming was relatively modest (6.36 percent), significantly less than in other major urban centers such as Cluj-Napoca (11.86 percent), Craiova (16.51 percent), and Iași (11.01 percent), not to mention Timișoara, the cradle of the Romanian Revolution of 1989, with its record 26.37 percent. These regional variations suggest the geographical intricacies characterizing postsocialist toponymic change. The political geography of the anticommunist revolution shaped this topography of street name changes, with higher percentages recorded in the so-called “martyr-cities” such as Timișoara.12 Ethnic diversity and especially the ethnopolitics played out at the level of local administrations constituted another factor, as cities with large proportions of Hungarians are characterized by larger scopes of toponymic change. The regional variations observed across Romania’s territory also prompt a reconsideration of the taken-for-granted thesis that capital cities are “special places” within the country’s symbolic geography where political action should be concentrated.13 What this research has shown is that greater emphasis should be placed on the “periphery,” which often presents a different toponymic picture that cannot be subsumed with what has happened in the capital city. Besides determining the specific factors that shape these regional differences through statistical analyses, further qualitative studies focused on unravelling the process of how these changes were made and chosen are still to be done.

Conclusions Street names and their renaming were part and parcel of the reconfiguration of the temporospatial order of Romanian cities during the tumultuous period of postsocialist transformations. The democratic regime change of 1989 brought about the remaking of the street namescapes throughout the country, in which roughly one in ten streets was renamed. Targeted for renaming were the streets named after iconic symbols of the socialist regime, most of which were attributed to squares, boulevards, avenues, and other major thoroughfares located in the central areas of the cities.

34 • Mihai Stelian Rusu

The relatively modest scope of toponymic change (12.35 percent) suggests that, at the national level, the rewriting of the cities’ street nomenclatures was more an unmaking of the communist legacy rather than a genuine toponymic revolution. Some cities have gone beyond purging the landscape by removing the explicitly ideological remnants inscribed through street names (e.g., Timișoara, where the memory of the Revolution was institutionalized in the streetscape and the names of the victims who died during the revolutionary events were conferred to 47 streets). Elsewhere, including the capital city Bucharest, the local authorities limited their efforts at clearing the ideological residua of the former regime. The modest scope of toponymic change indicates that the new democratic, postdictatorial regime aimed predominantly at de-commemorating the former socialist order. Despite the several thoroughfares rebaptized in commemoration of the Revolution (e.g., The Revolution Square, 21 December 1989 Square, etc.), this also means the postsocialist regime largely failed to fashion its own, politically meaningful space. As the Romanian case documented in this chapter indicates, toponymic change enacted through renaming the urban namescapes constitutes a powerful means of de-commemoration. It clears the ground from the nominal vestiges of the former regime and makes room in the symbolic landscape for inscribing the currently prevailing ideological ethos and its regime of memory. What this study has shown is that toponymic de-commemoration is not necessarily followed by an equally intense process of commemoration. Mihai S. Rusu is a sociologist working at Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania. He researches the politics of memory in postsocialist Romania, with a particular focus on the toponymic transformation of the urban namescape following the 1989 regime change. His papers have been published in Political Geography, Cities, Journal of Historical Geography, PLOS One, Death Studies, Omega—Journal of Death and Dying, Europe-Asia Studies, and Nationalities Papers, among others.

Notes This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS–UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2019-0238, within PNCDI III. 1. Maoz Azaryahu, “German Reunification and the Politics of Street Names: The Case of East Berlin,” Political Geography 16, no. 6 (1997): 479–93.

Street Renaming in Postsocialist Romania • 35 2. Mihai Stelian Rusu, “Transitional Politics of Memory: Political Strategies of Managing the Past in Post-communist Romania,” Europe-Asia Studies 69, no. 8 (2017): 1257– 79. 3. Duncan Light, Ion Nicolae, and Bogdan Suditu, “Toponymy and the Communist City: Street Names in Bucharest, 1948–1965,” GeoJournal 56, no. 2 (2002): 135–44. 4. Ken E. Foote and Maoz Azaryahu, “Toward a Geography of Memory: Geographical Dimensions of Public Memory and Commemoration,” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 35, no. 1 (2007): 125–44. 5. Reuben Rose-Redwood, Derek Alderman, and Maoz Azaryahu, “Geographies of Toponymic Inscription: New Directions in Critical Place-name Studies,” Progress in Human Geography 34, no. 4 (2010): 453–70. 6. Rose-Redwood, Alderman, and Azaryahu, “Geographies of Toponymic Inscription.” 7. Mihai Stelian Rusu, “Political Patterning of Urban Namescapes and Post-socialist Toponymic Change: A Quantitative Analysis of Three Romanian Cities,” Cities 103 (2020): 1–13. 8. Light, Nicolae, and Suditu, “Toponymy and the Communist City,” 160. 9. Peter Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of December 1989 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005). 10. Rogers Brubaker, Margit Feischmidt, Jon Fox, and Liana Grancea, Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). 11. Graeme Gill, “Changing Symbols: The Renovation of Moscow Place Names,” Russian Review 64, no. 3 (2005): 480–503. 12. Mihai Stelian Rusu, “Shifting Urban Namescapes: Street Name Politics and Toponymic Change in a Romanian(ised) City,” Journal of Historical Geography 65 (2019): 48–58. 13. Herman van der Wusten, “Dictators and Their Capital Cities: Moscow and Berlin in the 1930s,” Iconographies 52, no. 4 (2000): 339–44.

Bibliography Azaryahu, Maoz. “German Reunification and the Politics of Street Names: The Case of East Berlin.” Political Geography 16, no. 6 (1997): 479–93. Brubaker, Rogers, Margit Feischmidt, Jon Fox, and Liana Grancea. Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. Foote, Ken E., and Maoz Azaryahu. “Toward a Geography of Memory: Geographical Dimensions of Public Memory and Commemoration.” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 35, no. 1 (2007): 125–44. Gill, Graeme. “Changing Symbols: The Renovation of Moscow Place Names.” Russian Review 64, no. 3 (2005): 480–503. Light, Duncan. “Street Names in Bucharest, 1990–1997: Exploring the Modern Historical Geographies of Post-socialist Change.” Journal of Historical Geography 30, no. 1 (2004): 154–72. Light, Duncan, Ion Nicolae, and Bogdan Suditu. “Toponymy and the Communist City: Street Names in Bucharest, 1948–1965.” GeoJournal 56, no. 2 (2002): 135–44.

36 • Mihai Stelian Rusu Rose-Redwood, Reuben, Derek Alderman, and Maoz Azaryahu. “Geographies of Toponymic Inscription: New Directions in Critical Place-Name Studies.” Progress in Human Geography 34, no. 4 (2010): 453–70. Rusu, Mihai Stelian. “Political Patterning of Urban Namescapes and Post-socialist Toponymic Change: A Quantitative Analysis of Three Romanian Cities.” Cities 103 (2020): 1–13. ———. “Shifting Urban Namescapes: Street Name Politics and Toponymic Change in a Romanian(ised) City.” Journal of Historical Geography 65 (2019): 48–58. ———. “Transitional Politics of Memory: Political Strategies of Managing the Past in Post-communist Romania.” Europe-Asia Studies 69, no. 8 (2017): 1257–79. Siani-Davies, Peter. The Romanian Revolution of December 1989. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. van der Wusten, Herman. “Dictators and Their Capital Cities: Moscow and Berlin in the 1930s.” Iconographies 52, no. 4 (2000): 339–44.

Chapter 3

“THE FIRST BOLSHEVIK LEAVES RIGA” The De-Commemoration of Vladimir I. Lenin in Riga, Latvia (1987–1991) Dmitrijs Andrejevs

8 “The first Bolshevik leaves Riga”—so read a newspaper headline on the removal of the monument dedicated to Vladimir I. Lenin (hereafter, the Lenin monument) on 24–25 August 1991.1 The removal of the Lenin monument, as well as the removal of other socialist-era monuments in eastern Europe, “proved the most dramatic and efficient visualization of the political transformations of which they were part.”2 Yet, the wider story of historical revision or de-commemoration that took place in the final years of the Soviet Union is easily forgotten. Akin to the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol in 2020—a product of a larger transnational debate that was renewed in 2017—the story of the late twentieth-century removal of Lenin monuments and statues across the Soviet Union was a product of its wider context. This chapter looks beyond the moment of the removal of the Lenin monument in Riga and reconsiders it in the context of the lateSoviet memory work or the “processes of activating, eliciting, reflecting, framing, articulating, maintaining, inventing, communicating and ‘performing’ memory.”3 Furthermore, it sketches the engagement of new actors with two monuments in the center of Riga as a trajectory of de-commemoration that unfolded in Latvia in the late Soviet Union (1987–91).

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Figure 3.1. “The First Bolshevik Leaves Riga,” Latvia, 25 August 1991. Photo by Aivars Liepiņš. Courtesy of Aivars Liepiņš.

De-Commemoration between Perestroika and National Awakening With the ascent of Mikhail Gorbachev to the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1985, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) gradually embarked on a course of structural reforms, largely known under the umbrella of perestroika, or “restructuring.” In Latvia, which at the time was formally called the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, this period is more commonly referred to as the (Third) “Awakening,” or a “mass rebirth of national consciousness, accompanied by sustained political activity.”4 These two parallel mnemonic perspectives can be encompassed by the two monuments in the center of Riga, namely, the Freedom Monument, which was unveiled to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the Latvian War of Independence (1918–20), and the Lenin monument, which was inaugurated on the tenth anniversary of the establishment of Soviet authority (1940) or “the violent occupation of Latvia,” to use the phrase first publicly voiced in 1988.5 The two monuments offer a prism through which to shed light on the late-Soviet intertwinement of political and mnemonic transformations.

“The First Bolshevik Leaves Riga” • 39

In February 1987, to foster the expansion of perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev arrived in Riga on an official visit. His first stop was the Lenin monument. This deliberate sequence of events underlined the importance of the legacy of Vladimir Lenin or the Lenin cult, which was professed to be “an ideological source of perestroika” during the initial years of Gorbachev’s general secretaryship.6 The return to the untarnished legacy of Lenin in the mid1980s, however, required a revision of history and a peeling back of seeming layers of distortions that began under Joseph Stalin and, to a lesser extent, continued under the successive general secretaries. This sanctioned revision of history opened previously shut doors for “the iteration of alternative narratives of history and the politicization of the quiescent masses.”7 A nationalist group formally known as the Human Rights Defense Group, Helsinki-86 was the first to take this opportunity. Founded by three workers at the onset of perestroika in 1986, the group was named after the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and its emphasis on the human rights in Europe. In the summer of 1987, their call, which was disseminated via “Western” radio stations, “to honour the victims of sovietization — genocide in Latvia by laying flowers at the Monument of Freedom in Riga” inspired thousands to gather on the anniversary of the Soviet deportations of 1941, an event that was absent from the official Soviet memory.8 It became the first public act of remembrance in the chain of events that became known as “calendar unrests” or officially absent anniversaries at the Freedom Monument. Moreover, it marked the beginning of the articulation of de-Stalinization and the alternative narrative of (Soviet) Latvian history.

Mnemonic Instrumentalization This memory activism was soon intertwined with political activism at the forefront of which were newly formed groups such as the Latvian National Independence Movement (LNNK). The central political aim of the Movement, adopted at the general meeting in July 1988, was “to restore Latvia as a sovereign republic.”9 Yet, the demands for sovereignty were still intertwined with the perestroika narratives of the revival of Lenin’s legacy, as illustrated by the commemoration organized by the LNNK on 11 August 1988, the sixty-eighth anniversary of the peace treaty signed between the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Republic of Latvia. The commemoration had two parts: one at the Lenin monument to highlight the de jure recognition of the Republic of Latvia by the Soviet government under the principles of self-determination professed by Vladimir I. Lenin, and a second at the Freedom Monument as a rejuvenated symbol of that interwar republic.

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While the Communist Party mobilized Lenin’s legacy to legitimize perestroika within existent power structures, the emerging opposition similarly and selectively used it to legitimize their demands. One of the leaders of the LNNK, Eduards Berklavs, later somewhat apologetically addressed two aspects of the Movement’s references to Lenin. Berklavs argued that by employing Lenin’s cult, the Movement hoped to ensure that the Soviet authorities in Moscow took its demands and grievances seriously. Furthermore, Berklavs insisted “that in 1988, [we] did not yet know that the camps for political opponents had already at that time been set up and operated with Lenin’s knowledge”10—a blank spot of Soviet history that came under the spotlight in the late 1980s.

Mnemonic Coexistence The acceleration of de-Stalinization under the auspices of perestroika soon “revealed a side of Lenin that few Soviets had seen before: cruelty.”11 This did not go unnoticed. The memoir of Dainis Īvāns, the first chairman of the Popular Front of Latvia—an organization that brought members of various groups such as Helsinki-86, LNNK, and the reformists from within the Communist Party of Latvia together under the same roof in October 1988—is one case in point. Reflecting on the late 1980s, Īvāns highlighted: “Solzhenitsyn’s critical essays on Lenin became more accessible,” and “Vladimir Soloukhin’s unveiling description Reading Lenin on the manic-like tendency of the Soviet founder to enslave both his people and the world” was published.12 The search for Stalin’s distortions of Lenin increasingly led to the conclusion that the cruelty of Stalinism was a logical successor of Leninism. With these revelations and the advancement of the independence movement, of which the Popular Front of Latvia (PFL) became the lead force in 1989, the groups that comprised the movement steadily ceased making references to Lenin and the Lenin monument. The interwar republic and independence became the core mnemonic anchors, and in February 1989 a European Parliament delegation became “the first representatives of Western countries to start their visit, according to the programme devised by us [PFL], by laying flowers at the Freedom, rather than the Lenin Monument, as all the friends of Soviet Latvia had done so far.”13 By 1989 a dual memory regime (Latvian and Soviet) had taken shape in Riga. A compromise reached in the autumn of 1989, in what was referred to as “street battles” or the process of street name restoration that began in 1987,14 led to the restoration of the interwar name to a section of Lenin Street (that is, Freedom Boulevard) between the two monuments. This decision only further reinforced the symbolic distance between the two memory regimes epitomized by the monuments.

“The First Bolshevik Leaves Riga” • 41

Mnemonic Contestation With the advent of a new decade Soviet monuments began to be “de-fenced” and, albeit still small in numbers, Helsinki-86 was at the forefront of “removing fences, taking away boundaries, and opening up monuments (and history) to multiple interpretations.”15 On 21 January 1990, the anniversary of Lenin’s death, Helsinki-86 placed a pressed cardboard coffin at the Lenin monument. It contained several inscriptions on its sideboards, including a red star, a hammer and sickle, a bloody hand, and the words “communist” and “Not much time is left old chap, get ready! / Helsinki-86.” As the annotation of the coffin photographs in the collection of the Popular Front Museum suggests, it presented a picture of “a symbolic funeral of communism.”16 Or, as members of the group later wrote in protest of vandalism charges brought against one of the members, the coffin was “a protest against the agent of nightmarish infectious ideas.”17 With the increasing number of revelations about the nature of the Bolshevik crimes, the coffin became a tool of temporary antithetical accretion— “antagonistic and insurgent, rubbing against the grain of the common or dominant interpretation of the memorial.”18 The coffin became a symbolic statement powered by countermemories. The reappropriation of the anniversary of Lenin’s death within the Soviet commemorative calendar itself became an attempt to negate the message of, as one of the members of Helsinki-86 wrote in their memoir, “the old Leninists [who] as always will go to the Volodia monument, trying to tell themselves and others that Lenin has given us the greatest happiness.”19 The monument became the proxy through which to engage not only with the legacy of Lenin but in equal parts with the contemporary foundations of the Soviet regime. Owen J. Dwyer observed that “commonly, antithetical accretion is used either in conjunction with or as an alternative to the outright removal of the memorial.”20 Riga was no exception. On 22 April 1990, the anniversary of Lenin’s birth or, as the appeal stressed, International Earth Day, Helsinki-86 and the Latvian Women’s National League (LWNL) urged readers “to cleanse Latvia from Soviet idol V. Lenin monuments, busts, commemorative plaques.”21 They impelled readers to dispose of anything Soviet, from the collected works of Lenin to the party membership cards, at “the V. Lenin monument in Riga and elsewhere, wherever they are not yet dismantled.”22 While the archival documents at my disposal prevent me from drawing conclusions on the success of their appeal, the protests and appeals by Helsinki-86 and LWNL represent a point of no return in the memory transformations that evolved over the course of the late 1980s. They came at the time of a political watershed, characterized by the politically motivated removal of the first Lenin monument in the northern town of Smiltene on

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11 April 1990 and the acceleration of this process after the PFL’s electoral victory in the Supreme Soviet (that is, parliament) elections and the declaration of 4 May 1990, which initiated Latvia’s transition toward independence from the Soviet Union. The 4 May declaration was celebrated at the foot of the Freedom Monument.

Concluding Remarks After the PFL’s electoral victory in March 1990, as Daina Stukuls Eglitis observantly albeit with a retrospective idealism argued, “what remained of Soviet power in Latvia in spring 1990, then, was military force, which there was limited will to use, and the last powerful Soviet symbols in Riga—the statue of Lenin, extending his arm toward the street that still bore his name.”23 It would take another year of political tensions and the failed August Putsch by the hardline members of the CPSU in 1991, which fall outside the remit of this chapter, for “the first Bolshevik to leave Riga.” However, as I outlined in this chapter, the removal of the Lenin monument, which served as a symbol of the Soviet regime and occupation, in the wake of the proclamation of independence on 21 August 1991 was not merely a response to the August Putsch but an outcome and a by-product of the preceding memory and political activism that set the foundations for a monumental shift in the capital.

Dmitrijs Andrejevs holds a PhD from the University of Manchester. His dissertation looked at the production of memory in the context of the removal of the Lenin monument in Riga, Latvia, subsequent afterlives of the monument, and the continued symbolic meaning of the monument’s site. This research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/P000665/1) and the University of Manchester (President’s Doctoral Scholar Award).

Notes 1. Uldis Nagobads, “Pirmais boļševiks atstāj Rīgu.” Diena, 27 August 1991, 1. 2. Dario Gamboni, “Image to Destroy, Indestructible Image,” in Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion, and Art, ed. Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (Karlsruhe: ZKM, 2002), 98. 3. Sabine Marschall, “Memory Work versus Memory-Work and Its Utility in Heritage Tourism,” Current Issues in Tourism 22, no. 14 (2019): 1661.

“The First Bolshevik Leaves Riga” • 43 4. Eduards Bruno Deksnis and Tālavs Jundzis, Restoration of Sovereignty and Independence of the Republic of Latvia 1986–1994 (Riga: Latvian Academy of Sciences/Baltic Centre for Strategic Studies, 2015), 28. 5. Mavriks Vulfsons, “Honesty about History: A Speech at the Plenary Session of Latvian Creative Organizations on June 2, 1988,” in Nationality Latvian? No, Jewish: Cards on the Table (Riga: Jumava, 1998), 181. 6. Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (London: Collins, 1988), 25. 7. Daina Stukuls Eglitis, Imagining the Nation: History, Modernity, and Revolution in Latvia (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002), 26. 8. “Appeal of the Latvian Human Rights Defence Group ‘Helsinki-86’ of May, 1987 concerning the Commemoration Day of the Deportation of 14 June 1941,” in Policy of Occupation Powers in Latvia, 1939–1991: A Collection of Documents, ed. Andrejs Veisbergs (Riga: Nordik/State Archives of Latvia, 1999), 528. 9. “The Announcement of the Board of the Movement for National Independence of Latvia (LNNK) of 10 July 1988 about the Targets of the Organisation,” in Policy of Occupation Powers, ed. Veisbergs, 529—emphasis mine. 10. Eduards Berklavs, Zināt un neaizmirst [To know and not forget] (Riga: Preses Nams, 1998), 42. 11. Trevor J. Smith, “The Collapse of the Lenin Personality Cult in Soviet Russia, 1985– 1995,” The Historian 60, no. 2 (1997): 330. 12. Dainis Īvāns, Gadījuma karakalps [An incidental warrior] (Riga: Vieda, 1995), 155. 13. Dainis Īvāns, “Politiķis pret paša gribu” [A politician against own will], Literatūra un Māksla, 22 July 1994, 8. 14. Eglitis, Imagining the Nation, 129–44. 15. Melanie L. Buffington and Erin E. Waldner, “Defending and De-fencing: Approaches for Understanding the Social Functions of Public Monuments and Memorials,” The Journal of Social Theory in Art Education 32, no.1 (2012): 8. 16. Two black-and-white photographs of the coffin at the Lenin monument, 21 January 1990, Popular Front Museum (TFM 4607–4608). 17. A letter by Helsinki-86, part of acquitting court case file of Ziedonis Krauja, State Archives of Latvia (LVA, 2178.f., 1.apr., 4262.l., 184.lp.). 18. Owen J. Dwyer, “Symbolic Accretion and Commemoration,” Social & Cultural Geography 5, no. 3 (2004): 421. 19. Vladis Ričiks, Helsinkiešu ierindā [In the ranks of Helsinki-86] (n.p.: self-pub., 1997), 131. 20. Dwyer, “Symbolic Accretion and Commemoration,” 421. 21. An appeal by Helsinki-86 and Latvian Women’s National League, 22 April 1990, National History Museum of Latvia (PD 2211)—emphasis mine. 22. An appeal by Helsinki-86 and Latvian Women’s National League. 23. Eglitis, Imagining the Nation, 140.

Bibliography Berklavs, Eduards. Zināt un neaizmirst [To know and not forget]. Riga: Preses Nams, 1998. Buffington, Melanie L., and Erin E. Waldner. “Defending and De-fencing: Approaches for Understanding the Social Functions of Public Monuments and Memorials.” The Journal

44 • Dmitrijs Andrejevs of Social Theory in Art Education 32, no.1 (2012): 1–13, https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/ jstae/vol32/iss1/3/. Deksnis, Eduards B., and Tālavs Jundzis. Restoration of Sovereignty and Independence of the Republic of Latvia 1986–1994. Riga: Latvian Academy of Sciences/Baltic Centre for Strategic Studies, 2015. Dwyer, Owen J. “Symbolic Accretion and Commemoration.” Social & Cultural Geography 5, no. 3 (2004): 419–35. Eglitis, Daina S. Imagining the Nation: History, Modernity, and Revolution in Latvia. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. Gamboni, Dario. “Image to Destroy, Indestructible Image.” In Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion, and Art, edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, 88–135. Karlsruhe: ZKM, 2002. Gorbachev, Mikhail. Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World. London: Collins, 1988. Īvāns, Dainis. Gadījuma karakalps [An incidental warrior]. Riga: Vieda, 1995. ———. “Politiķis pret paša gribu” [A politician against own will]. Literatūra un Māksla, 22 July 1994. Marschall, Sabine. “Memory Work versus Memory-Work and Its Utility in Heritage Tourism.” Current Issues in Tourism 22, no. 14 (2019): 1659–69. Nagobads, Uldis. “Pirmais boļševiks atstāj Rīgu” [The first Bolshevik leaves Riga]. Diena, 27 August 1991. Ričiks, Vladis. Helsinkiešu ierindā [In the ranks of Helsinki-86]. N.p.: self-pub., 1997. Smith, Trevor J. “The Collapse of the Lenin Personality Cult in Soviet Russia, 1985–1995.” The Historian 60, no. 2 (1997): 325–43. Veisbergs, Andrejs, ed. Policy of Occupation Powers in Latvia, 1939–1991: A Collection of Documents. Riga: Nordik/State Archives of Latvia, 1999. Vulfsons, Mavriks. Nationality Latvian? No, Jewish: Cards on the Table. Riga: Jumava, 1998.

Chapter 4

“IN MEMORY OF THE FALLEN . . .” BUT FOR HOW LONG? The De-Commemoration of German War Memorials in Poland after 1945 Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska

8 War memorials are made to be durable symbols. Yet, in this chapter I present how German World War I memorials were de-commemorated in Poland after 1945. Just like other countries of the region, Poland regained independence only in 1918. Thus, Polish memory of World War I varied from the way it was perceived in the West. The war was presented not as a historical calamity but as the war that finally gave Poland the independence for which it was striving. Here, the symbolic emphasis was on the rebirth of the state, not on the death of soldiers who sacrificed their lives for it. While in Western Europe the function of war memorials was to focus attention on the commemoration of the dead,1 in Poland all the memory was centered on the anonymous Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, erected in the capital city of Warsaw, where the official state ceremonies commemorating the war took place. Despite the similarity, since the idea of the Unknown Soldier came from the West, Polish commemorative practices were distinct from the other Western initiatives of erecting war memorials devoted to groups of soldiers in the localities from which they came, with individual names listed on the memorial plaques. By contrast, World War II was much more severe in Central Europe than in the West: in many ways the long shadow of World War II conditions Polish culture, politics, and society until this day. Crucially, the end of World

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War II resulted in a radical shift of Polish borders. In 1945, the state was literally moved westward. As an indirect compensation for the loss of Eastern territories, now to be a part of the Soviet Union, thousands of square kilometers of German provinces were incorporated into Poland and called the Recovered Territories. The expulsion of German inhabitants and the process of resettlement of the land with new, mostly Polish, settlers was integrally connected with the Communist takeover of power. The Communist authorities presented themselves, along with the Soviet Union, as the only guarantors of the new Polish borders. Thus, the Recovered Territories became one of the main pillars of Communist propaganda, focused on proving that they had indeed been Slavic since the Middle Ages, and only by the injustices of history belonged to Germany. This kind of historical myth-making resulted in the so-called de-Germanization and consequently lead to the destruction of everything that was identified as German. The new inhabitants, with roots in Polish culture, where the collective memory of World War I was a marginal phenomenon, and with the recent tragic experiences of World War II, encountered the German World War I memorials, coded in symbols comprehensible for Germans, and decoded them differently. In this chapter, I show how German World War I memorials were addressed, showing three basic ways of dealing with these memorials as different forms of de-commemoration post-1945: preserving them, though not completely; destroying them; and transforming them into something else. In the last case, I further distinguish four subcategories. The war memorials give us “insights into the narratives of social, economic, and political life embodied in . . . [them].”2 Therefore, it is useful to look not only at their primary form but also at what happens with them after 1945. Both in their original and altered form, the memorials are cultural objects, demonstrating different perceptions of space.

The Case and Methodology My study is based on a sample of 211 German war memorials, an outcome of the team project “Catalogue of Great War Memorials in Central Pomerania,”3 established during fieldwork. The project entailed visiting every locality to prove or disprove the existence of each memorial. In cases where the outcomes were not clear, the findings were compared to preserved archival and visual sources (i.e., German pre-1945 maps, prewar postcards, archival accounts of the local German communities for establishing a memorial). To ascertain some of the findings, interviews with local inhabitants were conducted. Frequently, they pointed us to the places where memorials stood or where their remains were buried. Among the memorials initially built in the interwar period, we found only thirty that had been preserved fully and were still there at the time of the

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survey, in 2020. The other seventy-six were destroyed in the period between 1945 and 1989. From the presented sample, eighty-eight memorials were transformed into something else, while thirteen memorials, initially partially destroyed, were renewed in the period after 1989.

The Spatiality of the Memorials The memorials in question were erected not only by the inhabitants of a given locality who wanted to commemorate their fallen but also by the other communities, such as parishes, sports clubs, or military regiments. Thus, in some towns there was more than one memorial. For example, in Koszalin (former German Köslin), we see two memorials devoted to particular military regiments and one erected on the tenth anniversary of the end of the war for all the fallen from the region. Moreover, particular town districts erected their own, separate monuments to their fallen: in Koszalin, such a memorial was established in Rokosowo. The memorials were built both in centrally located places, well-accessible for anyone interested in paying their respects (like a town’s park or in front of an important office), but also in more secluded spaces, which were considered better for the reflection on the passing of life and sudden mass death. Initially, just after the war, only some memorials were destroyed: among the memorials we have found, those located in the especially visible sites were destroyed first, while the ones erected in more remote spaces were either left to deteriorate on their own or were preserved. Let’s examine the small commune of Wierzchowo (Virchow) in Drawsko county: out of twelve villages and six hamlets, in seven of them the memorials at least partially survived. One was changed into a pedestal for a monument of Jesus Christ and one into a commemoration of the Polish Army.

The Temporality of the Memorials The memorials were either built just after the war or, as in the case of one of the Koszalin memorials, on an anniversary of the war. A lot depended on the funds the local community was able to collect. However, when it comes to the de-commemoration of these memorials, the issue of temporality is more complex. Why were changes to the memorials implemented relatively late? Why were most of the new settlers not interested in their destruction or other forms of de-commemoration right after the war? To answer these questions, one needs to delve into the nature of Polish-German relations after 1945, since the chronology of de-commemoration is tightly connected with the political turning points of this relationship. In the post-1945 period, we can

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distinguish three phases of this relationship: the phase of integration until 1949, the phase of legitimization until 1970, and the phase of relaxation thereafter.4 At first, the new settlers’ concerns were focused simply on survival. The uncertainty of the political situation during the transition to the new state and political system was felt widely. The remains of German culture in their vicinity were not, thus, the most important problems of that time. The treaty of Zgorzelec in 1950 between People’s Poland and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which recognized the Western border of Poland, meant the beginning of a new state policy toward the Recovered Territories. But public interest in German heritage peaked relatively late: only in the 1960s did the process of introducing symbolic changes to the landscape of Central Pomerania begin. There are two ways to explain this. From a grassroots perspective, the 1960s were a period of economic and political stability. From a top-down perspective, the year 1966 marked the climax of six-yearlong celebrations of the Millennium of the Polish state with an emphasis on its “historical borders” (i.e., as they were sketched post-1945). The settlers, among them also people already born in these regions, felt the need to make sense of their presence and confirm their faith in the Polishness of these lands. This was achieved by two modes of de-commemoration: the destruction of German war memorials enacted as part of the de-Germanization process, and by planned forms of commemoration, involving the transformation of the existing German war memorials into something else. When the Federal Republic of Germany also recognized Poland’s postwar western border in 1970, a phase of relaxation followed. As a result, de-commemoration ceased for the next twenty years—the demolition of memorials was interrupted, their transformation into new monuments stopped. The next watershed moment in Polish history came in 1989 with the first partially free elections since 1947. The end of socialism and the fading away of the previously established meanings on the Recovered Territories reintroduced the public to the discussion about the legacy of these regions, especially the remaining German heritage. The intensification of the process of recovering this legacy, together with the growing interest in cooperation between local Polish authorities with their counterparts in Germany, where most of the expellees from the given locality were resettled, often resulted in rebuilding destroyed objects. Thus, some of the post-1989 renewals were funded by expelled inhabitants of the region, like in Karlino (Körlin), where in 2011 the memorial was renovated and unveiled in the presence of the local authorities, as well as guests from Germany (including former inhabitants of the locality). This second unveiling took place on the ninetieth anniversary of the first one—so even if de-commemoration took place, the attempts at restoring the heritage took the pattern of earlier commemoration, established not randomly but with connection to the anniversary.

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The Materiality of the Memorials The typical German war memorial was composed of the plinth, carrying the inscriptions and plaques with the names of the fallen, and the top, which sometimes was a statue. The postwar fate of the memorials depended on the decoding of these elements by the new inhabitants. Thus, it is a convenient base for building a typology of de-commemoration in the case of the post1945 transformation of German war memorials. Anonymization The easiest way to erase cumbersome meanings was to strip a memorial of the most obvious parts carrying it, that is, the plaques with the names of the fallen (damaged in twenty-one cases). A good example of such a de-commemoration is a war memorial in Konotop (Köntopf ): although it was recently refurbished by the local community, the damage previously done to the plaques with the names is clearly visible. Whoever damaged them got tired halfway and only destroyed some names of the fallen in 1914 (figure 4.1). In other cases, however, the perpetrators were much more precise, and thus five memorials were stripped not only of plaques but basically of everything, and they remain in place as anonymous stones, carrying no meaning at all. We identified them as memorials by comparing their appearance and location to the preserved visual sources. Decapitation Another way of changing or hiding the primary meaning of a monument was to shatter the top of the memorial. Often, it was an Iron Cross or an eagle, decoded by the settlers as a hostile symbol because the Nazi version of the coat of arms of Germany was the most common association. In the postwar period, it was called “gapa,” literally meaning “crow,” but also a contemptuous term for someone who is clumsy. It was a result of the ambiguous image of a Nazi in post-war Polish culture, where the Nazis were not always portrayed as dangerous but instead as clumsy and easily outsmarted: this contempt for the enemy was also to emphasize the advantages of the Poles who fought them, presented as having the opposite character traits. The top was destroyed in as many as eleven cases without being replaced by anything else. A fine example is found in Żydowo (Sydow), where the German inscription and the Iron Cross, sculpted in the glacial erratic, which served as a base for the memorial, were intact, but the statue of an eagle was removed. However, the metal fastenings that once fixed it in place are still visible (figure 4.2).

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Figure 4.1. Partially destroyed names of the fallen in Konotop, 23 August 2019. Photo by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska.

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Figure 4.2. The metal fastenings used to fix the statue of an eagle in Żydowo, 27 July 2019. Photo by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska.

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Proselytization Another form of de-commemoration was meant not only to destroy the previous meanings but also to firmly reestablish the monuments within a new order. In the cases analyzed, we saw alterations used to create religious monuments connected with Roman Catholicism, the most popular religion among the new settlers. As many as forty-five war memorials served as bases for Virgin Mary figures (thirty-two), for Jesus Christ (eight), or for a cross (five). As the example of Siemczyno (Heinrichsdorf ) shows, such a transformation did not necessarily lead to a total erasure of other meanings: the German war memorial was simply used as a base for the Virgin Mary figure (figure 4.3). Yet, proselytization of war memorials also holds further meanings: in the context of the resettlement of the Recovered Territories it functioned to stress the faith of the new settlers (in majority Roman Catholics) as opposed to the beliefs of their previous German inhabitants (mostly Protestants). The Polish Roman Catholic Church took an active role in the “re-Polonization” of these lands. Nationalization Although the proselytization described above gave the war memorials new meanings linked to Polishness, we can distinguish a set of separate attempts at changing them into commemorations associated with Polishness in the period of 1945–89. Here we can see a competition between the Church and the Communist Party in establishing what “Polishness” should mean: whether it is inseparable from religion, or if there are secular associations. Thus, in eight cases, various attempts at adding layers of Polishness of the secular kind were undertaken. For example, in Tychowo (Groß Tychow), elements of the German memorial were used for the monument to the thousandth anniversary of the Polish state in the 1960s: the initial glacial erratic commemorating the German fallen in World War I served as a base for the new plaque with the inscription carrying a double message. It says, “on the 1000th anniversary of the Polish State, [funded] on the 16th anniversary of the liberation of Tychowo.” Here, not only is the millennium of the civil state emphasized, but it is also linked with the “liberation” by Soviet and Polish troops in 1945.

Conclusion Every commemoration comes about through a confluence of various needs. Individuals, local communities, various groups of interest, and the state have different aims.5 When it comes to private grief, building war memorials

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Figure 4.3. Detail showing the use of the plinth of the former German war memorial, with the Iron Cross in an oak wreath still visible, as a base for the Virgin Mary figure, painted in a traditional blue color in Siemczyno, 15 July 2019. Photo by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska.

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allowed families to find focus for their mourning. Yet the same families were expelled from these regions and replaced with others who mourned something entirely different. Also, the Polish state, newly founded in these territories, required something else than the German state in the wake of World War I. Even if they both needed means to control the feelings of the citizens and to channel their problems, they went about this task differently. As these examples demonstrate, the top-down efforts of the Communist state were further complicated by the activities and needs of local communities. As seen in the processes that occurred in the case of German World War I memorials that were changed, destroyed, or preserved by Poles after 1945, the changes made during the transformations of the memorials introduced two interrelated actions into the process of de-commemoration: forgetting and remembering, showing the processes of selection performed on the memory of a place. The commemorative, as well as de-commemorative, functions of the war memorials allow us to understand who at any given time owns the historical memory and gets to create public spaces. Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska is a culturologist and ethnologist and is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw. She was visiting scholar at University of Cambridge, Charles University in Prague, Imre Kertesz Kolleg in Jena, and Fulbright Senior Award grantee at UCLA. She holds a PhD from the University of Warsaw (2017) and is the author of one book (Zapamiętane w krajobrazie [Remembered in landscape]) and a coeditor of two volumes; she also authored over twenty scholarly articles, reviews, and book chapters. She conducts fieldwork research in Czech-German Borderlands and Polish Pomerania. Her scholarly interests include anthropology of landscape; memory issues in Czechia, Germany, and Poland; and studies of material culture. Her recent publications tackle the question of resettlement strategies after 1945 in Central Europe and the approach of new inhabitants toward the German heritage left there.

Notes 1. Reinhart Koselleck, The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 291. 2. Lily Kong, “Cemetaries and Columbaria, Memorials and Mausoleums: Narrative and Interpretation in the Study of Deathscapes in Geography,” Australian Geographical Studies 37, no. 1 (1999): 10.

“In Memory of the Fallen . . .” But for How Long? • 55 3. The project, available online at pomniki-poleglych.ispan.edu.pl, was cofinanced by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education within the program of disseminating science, no. 570/PDUN/2019. All members of the team, engaged in the work during the project, are enlisted in the “Authors” tab on the website. 4. Robert Traba and Rafał Żytyniec, “Ziemie Odzyskane / utracony Heimat,” in Wyobrażenia przeszłości. Polsko-niemieckie miejsca pamięci,” ed. Robert Traba and Hans Henning Hahn, 237–59 (Warszawa: Scholar, 2017). 5. Jay Winter, “Forms of Kinship and Remembrance in the Aftermath of the Great War,” Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare 5 (1999): 40–60.

Bibliography Kong, Lily. “Cemeteries and Columbaria, Memorials and Mausoleums: Narrative and Interpretation in the Study of Deathscapes in Geography.” Australian Geographical Studies 37, no. 1 (1999): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8470.00061. Koselleck, Reinhart. The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. Traba, Robert, and Rafał Żytyniec. “Ziemie Odzyskane / utracony Heimat,” in Wyobrażenia przeszłości. Polsko-niemieckie miejsca pamięci,” edited by Robert Traba and Hans Henning Hahn, 237–59. Warszawa: Scholar, 2017. Winter, Jay. “Forms of Kinship and Remembrance in the Aftermath of the Great War.” Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare 5 (1999): 40–60.

Chapter 5

NAMING TO ERASE, RENAMING TO RESTORE (Re)Indigenizing the Landscape Kerri J. Malloy

8 The national landscape is a curated exhibition of place names intended to provide “a clear, exciting profile of the United States.” Among the names that have found their way onto maps, road signs, and mnemonics of family vacations are a sprinkling of Indigenous names that can be found alongside the “Strong traces of national languages spoken by the early explorers and settlers” throughout the American landscape.1 The nation’s geographic designations are intended to reveal the rough and brawling nature of the environment that greeted westward expansion. Affixing new identities to a wholly Indigenous landscape, settler-colonists worked to erase Indigenous peoples’ presence and strip away the inherent character of the natural world. The suppression of the landscape’s indigeneity initiated a cycle of de-commemoration (to cement the new settler-colonial regime) and re-commemoration at play throughout the country. The cyclical nature of these efforts is examined in three case studies that exemplify the labors to restore the Indigenous identity of the national landscape. Throughout the United States, two different language systems have been used to identify features of the landscape. First are the languages that give life to the oral tradition of the continent’s Indigenous peoples, connecting the “cultural spaces and perceptions of place” with the environment.2 The landscapes’ Indigenous identity is a genealogy of the people, animals, birds, plant life, cosmology, and Earth. Second is the language of “discovery, integration,

Naming to Erase, Renaming to Restore • 57

appropriation, and expansion” used by settler-colonists. Originating from Spain, France, and England’s national languages, this system casts Indigenous management and relationship with the land as something of the past, securing the settler-colonial narrative of having tamed the wilderness, making settlement violence irrelevant through the erasure and replacement of the landscape’s indigeneity. Names imposed by settler-colonists were part of taking possession of the land physically and metaphorically to secure an uncontested genealogy. In renaming the landscape, settler-colonists claimed “ownership” that would transform how it was managed by eliminating “the unique perspectives and relationships” that bound the land toIndigenous peoples.3 The relationship with the land changed from one of mutual benefit and nurturing to property and ownership. Recasting land as property, the places of historical and spiritual significance, became a commodity to be owned, sold, and subject to theft. The myth of terra nullius—“nobody’s land”—is reaffirmed through commodification, indignities, and erasure to lay claim to the landscape and provide an alternative history to replace what has existed since time immemorial.

US Board on Geographic Names There was a need to create a standardized system of names and spellings for geographic features that mapmakers and surveyors could use.4 Maintaining uniform geographic naming became the responsibility of the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN). Using localized information and statutory principles, policies, and procedures, the BGN has been responsible for assigning names to the landscape since 1890. Within a catalog of over two million names recorded by the BGN, few are the geography’s Indigenous identities. The inclusion of alternative Indigenous identities, or “counter cartography,” alongside settler-colonial designation is prohibited by federal regulation, which provides that “a cartographic feature can have only one official name.”5 Federally recognized tribes may submit names to the BGN for geographic features located on lands under the tribe’s jurisdiction. However, in the case of geographic features that are not located on their lands, the tribe’s comments are considered along with those “from Federal departments and agencies, State and local governments, and other interested parties” in the naming process. When the BGN considers the naming of a geographic feature, it is supposed to “Be cognizant and respectful of the historical, cultural, and spiritual relationships the Tribes have with the American landscape.”6 While the sentiment implies the appropriateness of using the landscape’s indigeneity, the

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practice has fallen far short of the mark. Those advocating for the re-indigenizing of the landscape have achieved their goals through alternative methods.

Denali’s Erasure and Restoration The name of the tallest mountain in the United States has been contested since the arrival of settler-colonists. Known by the Taniana as Denali, “the great one,” the mountain’s identity was subject to immediate renaming.7 In 1867, American gold prospector Frank Densmore effused about the mountain so much that other prospectors along the Yukon River started to refer to it as “Densmore Mountain” or “Densmore Peak.”8 When William Dickey, another gold prospector, named it Mount McKinley in an 1879 article in the New York Sun, the name took its place in the nation’s lexicon, though locally the mountain was known and referred to as Denali.9 In 1916, as legislation was drawn up to establish a national park around the mountain, Charles Sheldon, a hunter and naturalist, wrote to the Alaska Engineering Commission, which helped draft the legislation proposing the name be “Mt Denali National Park.”10 Sheldon was joined in his call by mountaineer Belmore Brown, who similarly proposed that the park’s name be “Denali National Park.” However, Thomas Riggs, who worked on the bill’s language for the Alaska Engineering Commission, dismissed their proposals claiming that Denali was not descriptive enough, reasoning that everyone in the United States knew Mt. McKinley from the publicity around the attempts to climb it. Sheldon and Brown dropped their proposals as the objective of establishing a national park outweighed the proper name’s inclusion, leaving the misnomer intact. In 1975, the State of Alaska petitioned the US Board on Geographic Names to change Mount McKinley’s name to its Indigenous designation Denali. Knowing that the policies of the BNG prohibit it from considering or rendering a decision while a matter is before Congress, the congressional delegation of Ohio, President William McKinley’s home state, introduced legislation to preserve the name, halting those efforts for over forty years.11 With the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980, the park name was changed to Denali National Park and Preserve. However, the mountain’s name remained unchanged.12 In 2015, President Barrack Obama used Title 43 of the United States Code of Federal Regulations to restore the name Denali to the mountain. Under §364b, the code permits the Secretary of the Interior to act “in any matter wherein the Board does not act within a reasonable time.”13 After a century of bearing a false moniker, the Indigenous identity of the mount was restored.

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Bears Lodge to Devil’s Tower an Error in Translation The 1,300 feet monolith that rises from the Belle Fourche River valley floor in Wyoming is “a place to fast, pray, and seek spiritual guidance” for the tribes of the region.14 The Lakota name for the feature is Mato Tipila, Bears Lodge, and most maps made between 1857 and 1901 showed the English translation as its designation.15 The name changed after an expedition of the Black Hills and a bad translation. During the expedition, members of the party recorded that the Lakota words translated to “bad god’s tower” rather than “bears home or lodge,” which subsequently led to the misnaming of the monolith Devils Tower. The interpreter errored in translating the Lakota word mato, which means bear, to “bad god.” Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, the expedition leader, published a popular volume with the new name “Devil’s Tower,” embedding the name in the national psyche. In 1906, the site became the nation’s first national monument by presidential proclamation, enshrining the false name in its cartography. For the Indigenous people, the megalith is a sacred site that has been assigned a moniker that “equates cultural and faith traditions practiced” there to “devil worship,” a glaring contrast to its real spiritual importance.16 The place the site holds in the religious beliefs of Indigenous peoples of the region is akin to the sacredness of the world’s religious worship houses. The monolith is a place of reverence, not a tourist attraction, as portrayed in movies and recreational magazines. In the eyes of settler-colonists, the geologic feature is something to be managed as a recreational resource.17 As a premier climbing site, the monolith attracts free and sports climbers worldwide who do not view their recreational activities as harming Indigenous religious beliefs or practices. Even though most climbers know Indigenous people hold the site sacred, their perception is that Devils Tower is “public property and a shared resource,” which they have the right to climb. Though the National Park Service manages the site, it lacks the authority to change the name. Proponents of a name change submitted petitions to restore the name of Bears’ Lodge to the BGN in 2014.18 Responding to the name change proposal, Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi introduced Senate Bill 144 to preserve the name.19 In tandem, Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney introduced HR 546 in the House of Representatives to further the legislative effort to halt the BNG from considering the petitions.20 The name will be retained until the political maneuvering to retain the mistranslation ends, or executive action is taken. Efforts to restore the monolith’s indigeneity continue to move forward, hoping that they will be successful.

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Re-Indigenization of the Humboldt Bay Region On the north coast of California, the restitution of indigeneity is taking place absent the petitioning the BGN. The Wiyot Tribe educates their citizenry and the settler-colonial communities on the Wiyot names for places in Humboldt County. Wiyot place names are highly descriptive, recounting the natural features or uses of a place to contextualize it within the Wiyot worldview.21 As settler populations and anti-Indigenous violence increased, resulting in the decline in Wiyot language use due to population loss, the place names ceased to be used, becoming notations in “obscure linguistic and archaeological texts.”22 Wiyot place names were replaced by those of settlers and European language words, erasing the connection with Wiyot oral history and tradition. The Wiyot Place Names Project was initiated in 2011 to teach tribal citizens the Wiyot names for prominent natural features in Wiyot territory.23 The project uses archival maps, photographs, and audio clips of Wiyot speakers to teach the Wiyot place names alongside the settler-colonists’ designations for those places. Going beyond mere memorization, it includes the relationship of the site with Wiyot history and culture. The project contextualizes the Wiyot relationship with the land by drawing on Wiyot oral tradition to teach the history of the place names. The story of Wigi, currently called Humboldt Bay, tells how the bay became a saltwater inlet after a young woman, Butterball, rebuffed Southwest Young Man’s affections. Butterball caught the attention of Southwest Young Man, who became enamored with her. He professed his feelings for her and was spurned. Seeking revenge for his rejection, Southwest Young Man urinated in the bay, turning it salty and ruining Butterball’s fresh drinking water source.24 The names given to places also reflect the horrors of interactions with settler-colonial societies, which shaped Wiyot history. Jouwichguri’, Fort Humboldt, “lying down with one’s knees drawn up,” refers to the experience of the Wiyot who were taken to the fort after the massacres of 1860 for their protection and held in a crowded mud pit, called the “corral,” where many died from exposure.25 As Wiyot place names are being recovered from the archives, they are increasingly being used in the broader community.26 United Indian Health Services’ Potawot Health Village, located at the northern end of Goudi’ni’, the City of Arcata, is named after Batawat, the nearby Mad River.27 Organizations like the Fort Humboldt State Historic Park and the McKinleyville Land Trust have started incorporating Wiyot place names in their interpretive signage.28 The re-indigenizing of the landscape is a community effort that is part of a series of actions spurred by the City of Eureka’s transfer of land holdings on Tuluwat, Indian Island, back to the Wiyot tribe in recognition and reparation for the massacre that occurred in 1860 (see figure 5.1). These

Naming to Erase, Renaming to Restore • 61

Figure 5.1. Tuluwat Island in Humboldt Bay. Illustrated by Joshua Overington. Used with permission.

efforts have not sought sanction or action on the part of the BGN and have therefore been free of legislative impediment.

Conclusion Imposing settler-colonial names on the landscape demonstrates that the lands’ new owners can ignore the location’s Indigenous history. The erasure of the landscape’s indigeneity is a form of “cultural imperialism,” undermining the meaning and connotations of the Indigenous names in favor of a label that is not connected to the geographic feature or its place.29 The debate around the re-indigenization of geographic features’ names is the result of the divergent worldviews of Indigenous peoples and settler-colonists around their relationship with the land. There are not strictly segregated sides in the dispute. Many settler-colonists have joined Indigenous peoples in their campaigns to restore

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indigeneity to the landscape. Both sides use the claim of tradition to advance their position—one a tradition of interdependence and reliance on the land; the other a tradition of ownership, exploitation, and extraction of the land’s resources.30 There is a cycle of de-commemoration. Settler-colonists’ naming de-commemorated the Indigenous identities of the land. The latter has provoked the de-commemorating of those settler-colonial designations and the re-commemorating of the land’s indigeneity. Though the BGN’s policies, procedures, and practices appear to provide an avenue to restore the landscape’s Indigenous identity, the reality is that legislative maneuvering is used to impede the process. Proponents of removing settler-colonial designations have tired of waiting and availed themselves of alternative solutions. In going around the obstacles that have been placed in front of them, Indigenous peoples have undermined the concept of ownership through naming by demonstrating that the landscape’s original identity cannot be erased or hidden in bureaucratic processes. Through educating the settler-colonialists on the history and cultural connections of place names, Indigenous peoples are methodically recruiting new supporters to their ranks. Not only in knowing and using the landscape’s Indigenous identities but also as allies in the future efforts to change what appears on official maps. The importance of official or community de-commemoration of settler names to restoring indigeneity goes beyond mere name changes. Restoration of landscapes’ Indigenous identity undermines the erasure of Indigenous people that occurred through initial de-commemoration and recognizes the inherent indigenous character of the natural world. Kerri J. Malloy (Yurok/Karuk) is Assistant Professor of Global Humanities in the Department of Humanities at San José State University. His research focuses on Indigenous genocide, healing, and reconciliation and the necessity of systemic change within social structures to advance transitional justice. He received his doctorate in Holocaust and Genocide from Gratz College. He is a Public Fellow in Religion and the American West at the New-York Historical Society, researching the significance and development of the Indian Shaker Church in the Pacific Northwest. He also serves as the Community Outreach Director for the Center for Genocide Research and Education. He is the author of “Remembrance and Renewal at Tuluwat: Returning to the Center of the World,” in Remembrance and Forgiveness, ed. Ajlina KaramehićMuratović and Laura Kromaják (Routledge, 2022). He also published “Renewing the World: Disrupting Settler-Colonial Disruption,” in The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Mass Atrocity, and Genocide, ed. Sara E. Brown and Stephen D. Smith (Routledge, 2021).

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Notes 1. U.S. Board on Geographic Names, “Principles, Policies, and Procedures: Domestic Geographic Names,” 2021, i. 2. Lyn Carter, “Naming to Own Place Names as Indicators of Human Interaction with the Environment,” AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 1, no. 1 (Dec. 1, 2005): 8–9. 3. Eve Tuck and Marcia McKenzie, Place in Research: Theory, Methodology, and Methods (New York: Routledge, 2015), 64. The following ideas developed in this paragraph were inspired by Tuck and McKenzie. 4. “U.S. Board on Geographic Names,” US Geological Survey, accessed 5 April 2023. 5. Jared Farmer, “Renaming the Land,” in On Zion’s Mount (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 244. 6. U.S. Board on Geographic Names, “Principles, Policies, and Procedures,” 19. 7. James W. Loewen, “Denali (Mt. McKinley): The Tallest Mountain—The Silliest Name,” in Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (New York: Touchstone, 1999), 52. 8. National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, “Denali or Mount McKinley?,” Denali National Park & Preserve, accessed 1 March 2021. 9. Loewen, “Denali (Mt. McKinley),” 52. 10. National Park Service, “Denali or Mount McKinley?” 11. National Park Service, “Denali or Mount McKinley?” 12. “House Report 39: Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act,” Congress.gov, 96th Congress (1979–80), 15 January 1979. 13. “Title 43—Public Lands,” United States Code, 2010 edition, accessed 1 March 2021. 14. Jeffery R. Hanson and David Moore, “Applied Anthropology at Devils Tower National Monument,” Plains Anthropologist 44, no. 170 (1999): 53. 15. “House Report 115–630: To Designate the Mountain at Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming, as Devils Tower, and for the Other Purposes,” Congress.gov, 115th Congress (2017–18), accessed 27 February 2021. 16. Laura Hancock, “Sioux Chief Explains Why Tribes Want Devils Tower Name Change,” Billings Gazette, 12 July 2015. 17. Hanson and Moore, “Applied Anthropology at Devils Tower National Monument,” 53–59. 18. National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, “About the Name—Devils Tower National Monument (US National Park Service),” accessed 21 February 2021. 19. “Senate 144: A Bill to Designate the Mountain at the Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming, as Devils Tower, and for Other Purposes,” Congress.gov, 116th Congress (2019–20), 16 January 2019. 20. Wyoming News Exchange, “Cheney Moves Again to Protect Devils Tower Name,” Gillette News Record, 29 January 2019. 21. Lynnika Butler, “The Wiyot Place Names Project,” YouTube, The Wiyot Tribe, 14 March 2012, 2:23. 22. Butler, “The Wiyot Place Names Project,” 1:32. 23. Wiyot Tribe, “Wiyot Placename Video,” accessed 22 February 2021. 24. Butler, “The Wiyot Place Names Project,” 3:50–4:07. 25. Butler, “The Wiyot Place Names Project,” 4:53–5:11. 26. Butler, “The Wiyot Place Names Project,” 6:39–6:45. 27. Butler, “The Wiyot Place Names Project,” 6:46–6:52. 28. Butler, “The Wiyot Place Names Project,” 6:51–7:02. 29. Loewen, “Denali (Mt. McKinley),” 51. 30. Loewen, “Denali (Mt. McKinley),” 51.

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Bibliography Butler, Lynnika. “The Wiyot Place Names Project.” YouTube. The Wiyot Tribe. 14 March 2012. https://youtu.be/gJPfPHIiHHQ. Carter, Lyn. “Naming to Own Place Names as Indicators of Human Interaction with the Environment.” AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 1, no. 1 (Dec. 1, 2005): 6–24. Farmer, Jared. On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. Hancock, Laura. “Sioux Chief Explains Why Tribes Want Devils Tower Name Change.” Billings Gazette, 12 July 2015. https://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/ sioux-chief-explains-why-tribes-want-devils-tower-name-change/article_0b3374bd-97b85c28-9bb1-e75e44701976.html. Hanson, Jeffery R., and David Moore. “Applied Anthropology at Devils Tower National Monument.” Plains Anthropologist 44, no. 170 (1999): 53–60. “House Report 115–630: To Designate the Mountain at Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming, as Devils Tower, and for the Other Purposes.” Congress.gov, 115th Congress (2017–18). Accessed 27 February 2021. https://www.congress.gov/ congressional-report/115th-congress/house-report/630/1. “House Report 39: Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.” Congress.gov, 96th Congress (1979–80). 15 January 1979. https://www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/ house-bill/39. Loewen, James W. Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. New York: Touchstone, 1999. National Park Service, US Department of the Interior. “About the Name—Devils Tower National Monument (US National Park Service).” Accessed 21 February 2021. https:// www.nps.gov/deto/learn/historyculture/aboutthename.htm. ———. “Denali or Mount McKinley?” Denali National Park & Preserve. Accessed 1 March 2021. https://www.nps.gov/dena/learn/historyculture/denali-origins.htm. “Senate 144: A Bill to Designate the Mountain at the Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming, as Devils Tower, and for Other Purposes.” Congress.gov, 116th Congress (2019–20). 16 January 2019. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/144. “Title 43—Public Lands.” United States Code, 2010 edition. Accessed 1 March 2021. https:// www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2010-title43/html/USCODE-2010-title43 .htm. Tuck, Eve, and Marcia McKenzie. Place in Research: Theory, Methodology, and Methods. New York: Routledge, 2015. US Board on Geographic Names. “Principles, Policies, and Procedures: Domestic Geographic Names.” 2021. https://geonames.usgs.gov/docs/pubs/DNC_PPP_DEC_2016_V.2.2.pdf. “U.S. Board on Geographic Names.” US Geological Survey. Accessed 5 April 2023. https:// www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/ngp/board-on-geographic-names. Wiyot Tribe. “Wiyot Placename Video.” Accessed 2 February 2021. https://www.wiyot. us/162/Wiyot-Placename-Video. Wyoming News Exchange. “Cheney Moves Again to Protect Devils Tower Name.” Gillette News Record, 29 January 2019. https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/wyoming/arti cle_e43587e1-8146-521d-b5b1-280d40da9b3a.html.

Chapter 6

REMOVING RHODES FROM HIS PEDESTAL De-Commemoration in Postcolonial South Africa Gary Baines

8 In March 2015, a student by the name of Chumani Maxwele threw a bucket of excrement over a statue of Cecil John Rhodes on the University of Cape Town (UCT) campus. This was a staged rather than a spontaneous act. Indeed, it was a publicity stunt designed to draw attention to disaffection among university students at a perceived lack of transformation in higher education and society at large since the advent of democracy. The event was recorded by mobile phones and then uploaded to and disseminated via social media. The spectacle transfixed the statue and hence Rhodes into an abject figure of disgust.1 It ignited the simmering discontent of students who launched the #RhodesMustFall campaign that spread across university campuses throughout the country—and abroad. UCT acted promptly in the face of public pressure. The statue was removed a month after Maxwele’s performance following deliberations by the Senate and Council. This chapter’s point of departure is that de-commemoration in postcolonial South Africa should be considered in conjunction with processes of remembrance. Thus, it asks how Rhodes was remembered by those who commissioned the statue in the first place and how he has come to be regarded by those who wanted it removed from the campus. The chapter shows that the meaning of the Rhodes statue is neither definitive nor fixed.2 It also explains why UCT’s statue became a lightning rod for student grievances and galvanized the #RhodesMustFall campaign. It concludes that the removal of the

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Rhodes statue has resulted in an engagement with the colonial legacy of many countries.

Rhodes in History and Memory Cecil Rhodes was a controversial historical figure and remains so. The English-born son of a cleric of relatively humble origins became a self-made man who struggled with poor health all his life. He accumulated wealth through exploitation of cheap Black labor on the Kimberley diamond fields and employed his entrepreneurial skills to become a mining magnate on the Witwatersrand. As the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony (1890–96), he used his position for the purpose of self-aggrandizement and disguised his land grabbing colonial ventures as a “civilizing mission.” His detractors label him a racist and an Anglo-Saxon chauvinist. To them he was an unprincipled schemer and manipulator. His admirers, though, insist that he was a visionary who left his fortune for the public good. They point to the fact that the Rhodes Trust established generous scholarships to enable promising students to attend his alma mater, Oxford University. A standard defense of Rhodes is that he was a “a man of his time”; while he might have been flawed, he should be judged by the values of his contemporaries and not by current standards of morality. Rhodes was obsessed with his own immortality, with the way posterity would view him.3 He made lavish preparations to be buried on his estate in the Matopo Hills, a sacred Ndebele burial ground in the country that came to be named after him. Rhodes’s grave became a place of pilgrimage and a tourist attraction. The state of (Southern) Rhodesia also erected memorials; named schools, streets, and colleges after him; issued stamps in his honor; and the settlers celebrated Rhodes as the founder of the nation. Likewise, Rhodes came to be widely commemorated in his adopted country. Within a decade of his death in 1902, a statue was erected in the Cape Town gardens and the grandiose Rhodes memorial was constructed on the slopes of Devil’s Peak. As Afrikaner nationalism became a nascent political force in South Africa in the 1920s and 1930s, many English-speakers saw Rhodes as representative of a pragmatic, Anglophone progressivism.4 The publication of a string of hagiographies appeared to confirm that Rhodes had achieved the standing of an icon in the pantheon of white English-speaking South African heroes. UCT commissioned a statue of Rhodes in recognition of his munificence as the benefactor who had donated the land on which the campus had been erected. It was designed by the sculptor Marion Walgate and unveiled on the

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steps below Jameson Hall on the UCT campus in 1934. It depicted Rhodes in the repose of Rodin’s Thinker with his chin resting on a fist and a scroll in his left hand. The imposing one-and-a-half-times-larger-than-life sculpture cast in bronze was situated so that Rhodes might look out over Cape Town’s suburbs with an imperial gaze.5 Rhodes’s prominent position on the UCT campus could not guarantee the longevity of his cult. With the passage of time, the statue became part of the backdrop of everyday life for UCT students. For the most part, the statue was ignored or regarded with indifference although it sufficiently riled some Afrikaner students in the 1950s who resented the homage paid to a figure who they regarded as an arch-imperialist who robbed their forefathers of their independence. Subsequently, the statue became a signifier for some students who sought to express their opposition to the apartheid state’s policies. Thus in 1979 the statue was daubed with pink paint to serve as a reminder that the rapacious capitalism and white supremacy Rhodes represented condemned Africans to perpetual servitude and made him a progenitor of the segregationist practices that culminated in the apartheid system. The students distanced themselves from those who invoked the catchphrase “equal rights for all civilized men,” which was strongly associated with Rhodes by some white liberals who advocated a qualified franchise. Since independence in 1980, Zimbabwe has thoroughly purged Rhodes from its memorial landscape. Not only was the name of the country changed from (Southern) Rhodesia to Zimbabwe but virtually all memorials and statues were dismantled or relocated. Writing in 2005, the historian Paul Maylam observed that statues of Rhodes had aroused much stronger antipathies in Zimbabwe than in post-apartheid South Africa.6 He noted that Rhodes had become an almost forgotten figure; that the statues of Rhodes in Cape Town had been neglected or defaced. This was the lot of many monuments dating to the colonial and apartheid past that still occupied public spaces throughout the country. Under the African National Congress (ANC) government, the narrative of freedom struggle has become the dominant theme in a plethora of heritage projects and museums it has sponsored. Yet, the ruling party has been circumspect in its approach to the country’s colonial and apartheid heritage.7 It has steered clear of wholesale iconoclasm for fear of alienating the white constituency. Instead, it has approved the construction of a number of new memorial sites in juxtaposition to existing ones thereby “twinning” them. The ANC’s commemorative practices have largely avoided controversy and the public has shown little interest in them. So why, then, did the desecration of the UCT statue provoke an unprecedented furor more than twenty years into the new political dispensation?

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The #RhodesMustFall Campaign Maxwele was one of the “born frees” who came of age after the demise of apartheid. Still, he held that his act had been an expression of Black pain, an exercise to solicit empathy that might prompt viewers to identify with the suffering caused by institutional racism and white supremacy. For him, the cultural arrogance of the Rhodes statue symbolized the residual white power and privilege of UCT.8 He lamented the lack of recognition accorded to his own African ancestors in a place of learning. Maxwele’s statement suggests that his thinking was informed by disparate discourses, including that of Black Lives Matter (BLM), postcolonialism, and whiteness studies gleaned from media coverage of events in the United States, as well as his own political studies coursework. Subsequently, a diverse group of student activists coalesced around the #RMF campaign. It did not espouse a coherent ideology nor did the campaign morph into a social movement. But Jacob Boersema reckons that student activists invented an anti-racist discourse that borrowed from a range of influences and intellectual traditions (including Black consciousness).9 Race was placed squarely in this discourse, which challenged the hegemonic ideology of non-racialism in post-apartheid South Africa. The #RMF campaign for the decolonization of universities was not confined to the question of a statue in public space. It demanded, inter alia, that management (1) change or remove colonial iconography; (2) improve Black representation within academic staff; (3) expand epistemologies of knowledge by including non-Western and female authors in the curricula; and (4) eliminate institutionalized racism and discrimination against Black students. These demands were premised on the view that neither colonialism of the mind nor white privilege had been abolished in post-apartheid South Africa. But #RMF spokespersons failed to articulate concrete proposals for changing curricula to incorporate African knowledge systems. The #RMF campaign further lost its way when divisions arose around gender issues. Feminists and LGBTQ activists accused the male leadership of bigotry and patriarchy and of not practicing what they preached as proponents of a decolonial mindset.10 Such divisions did nothing to diminish the commonplace perception among students (and some staff members) that the legacy of colonialism and apartheid was resilient, and that the transformation of higher education was “unfinished business.”11 The #RMF campaign was given extensive media coverage and its spokespersons gained access to platforms that provided considerable exposure to the issues on the agenda. But public support and sympathy was soon squandered. The #RMF campaign provoked heated public debates about questions related to history, race, identity, citizenship, entitlement, and so on. Some of these debates generated more heat than light. Student activists were criticized

Removing Rhodes from His Pedestal • 69

for their political correctness and for ignoring or obscuring facts that did not fit with their version of history. A backlash followed in response to student vandalism that resulted in the wanton destruction of university property. It was reckoned that they showed scant respect for the “hallowed halls of learning” to which they had been fortunate enough to gain access. But the fall out was also because the #RMF campaign took place in a political climate in which reconciliation seems to have run its course. Efforts to construct a shared identity and social cohesion by way of the rhetoric of the “rainbow nation” have floundered. Contestation rather than consensus has become the order of the day. This is not to imply that de-commemoration should necessarily be a zero-sum game or that there is no room for accommodation between stakeholders of interested parties in memory wars. A robust democracy must make allowances for political and other differences, and universities should enshrine values such as freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest. Neither the discursive strategies nor the conduct of the students won them unqualified support from the authorities. The ANC government was hamstrung by problems of its own making, as well as the legacies of colonialism and apartheid. These have included low levels of economic growth, high rates of unemployment (especially among the youth), systemic corruption, rampant crime, and endemic gender-based violence. In fact, the ruling party has achieved little for the Black majority since 1994. Nearly thirty years after the demise of white minority rule, South Africa is believed to be the most unequal society on earth as the gap between rich and poor has widened. It might be argued that the ANC has not managed to mitigate the effects of inequality or white privilege because it has been constrained by the workings of the global economy in which neoliberalism is hegemonic. And there can be no gainsaying the fact that this global order determines the functioning of universities, impinges on their autonomy, and fashions the academic project. In a competitive, globalized academic environment, universities cannot afford to abandon Western epistemologies without first constructing something in their place.12 The structure has taken centuries to construct and, unlike statues, cannot be dismantled overnight. The removal of Rhodes from his pedestal did amount to a public retraction of a symbol of institutionalized racism and a first step in the transformation of the UCT campus. But it did little to further decolonization in the tertiary education sector. If the #RhodesMust Fall campaign had such an objective in mind, it could hardly have anticipated its long-term ramifications. The #RMF’s utilization of social media platforms such as Facebook created a network that grappled with South Africa’s colonial heritage, as well as sociopolitical issues such as structural racism and other forms of marginalization. It gained further momentum from its alignment with the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States and other social movements, primarily in the Anglophone

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world. But Britt Timm Knudsen and Casper Andersen argue that the strength of #RMF’s mobilization stemmed from its use of direct action and affective politics.13 This involved the staging of spectacular events captured in a repertoire of striking visual images that could be readily circulated via the ether. This activism sparked a similar campaign to remove the Rhodes statue from Oriel College, Oxford University, as well as protests at Harvard and Yale Universities in the United States. And it stimulated a wave of global iconoclasm as is evident from other chapters in this volume. It is suggested by some commentators that memorials can perform a pedagogical function and educate the public about the past. Rather than destroy them, memorials should be retained in loco. Preservationists believe we can learn from humanity’s record of heroic deeds as well as from the unsavory actions of imperialists, slave traders, and even tyrants—although most would draw a line with a figure such as Hitler, who is said to epitomize evil. It is suggested that these memorials should be contextualized by adding explanatory notes or new plaques to them. Alternatively, it is suggested that monuments should be relocated to museums or displayed in theme parks where they assume altogether different meanings. Otherwise, new memorials should be erected so that they might coexist with extant ones to provide a counternarrative to versions of history propagated by former regimes. All these options are predicated on the assumption that destroying memorials amounts to an act of amnesia, to deliberately forgetting rather than illuminating the past.

Figure 6.1. “Goodbye Cecil John Rhodes”. Rhodes’s statue removed from plinth at the University of Cape Town, 9 April 2015. Tony Carr, Wikimedia Commons.

Removing Rhodes from His Pedestal • 71

The argument that de-commemoration is synonymous with the erasure of history is flawed. Statues are not history; they are symbols of the past—the product of a political struggle in a specific historical period. The statue of Rhodes on the UCT campus was erected during the height of his cult. But the view of Rhodes held by his supporters in the 1930s is vastly different to that of the “born free” generation of the 2010s. Times change, as do the meanings attached to political symbols. No vision of the past can be permanently set in stone.14 There is no statute of limitations on statues. Gary Baines is Professor Emeritus in the History Department at Rhodes University. He has published widely in the fields of South African history and culture with a particular focus on public art, music, and literature. Books include South Africa’s “Border War”: Contested Narratives and Conflicting Memories (Bloomsbury, 2014), and a volume of essays coedited (with Peter Vale) called Beyond the Border War: New Perspectives on Southern Africa’s Late-Cold War Conflicts (Unisa Press, 2008). More recent publications include “Visual Narratives of the Border War in 1980s South African Print Culture,” in Troubling Images, ed. Federico Freshi, Brenda Schmahmann, and Lize van Robbroeck (Wits University Press, 2020) and “From Reconciliation to Contested Co-existence: Memory Work and Wars in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” in The Legacy of a Troubled Past, ed. Bernard Cros, Mathilde Rogez, and Gilles Teulié (Liverpool University Press, 2022).

Notes 1. Britt Timm Knudsen and Casper Anderson, “Affective Politics and Colonial Heritage: Rhodes Must Fall at UCT and Oxford,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 29, no. 3 (2019): 249. 2. Brenda Schmahmann, “The Fall of Rhodes: The Removal of a Sculpture from the University of Cape Town,” Public Art Dialogue 6, no. 1 (2016): 100. 3. Paul Maylam, The Cult of Rhodes: Remembering an Imperialist in Africa (Claremont: David Philip, 2005), 138. 4. William Beinart, “Rhodes Must Fall: The Uses of Historical Evidence in the Statue Debate at Oxford 2015–16,” paper presented at the Conference on Racialisation and Publicness in Africa and the African Diaspora, African Studies Centre, Oxford University, 2019. 5. Maylam, Cult of Rhodes, 57. 6. Maylam, Cult of Rhodes, 47. 7. Schmahmann, “Fall of Rhodes,” 93. 8. Jacob Boersema, “Re-racing South Africa: Rhodes Must Fall as Antiracist Movement,” 30 September 2017, 5.

72 • Gary Baines 9. Boersema, “Re-racing South Africa,” 23. 10. Knudsen and Andersen, “Affective Politics and Colonial Heritage,” 244. 11. Francis B. Nyamnjoh, #RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa (Bamenda, Cameroon: Langaa RPCIG, 2016), 128. 12. Hana Horáková, “[Review of ] Francis B. Nyamnjoh, #RhodesMustFall,” Modern Africa: History and Politics 5, no. 1 (2017). 13. Knudsen and Andersen, “Affective Politics,” 248–49. 14. Alex Von Tunzelmann, “Rhodes Must Fall? A Question of When Not If,” History Today 66, no. 2 (2 Feb. 2016).

Bibliography Beinart, William. “Rhodes Must Fall: The Uses of Historical Evidence in the Statue Debate at Oxford 2015–16.” Paper presented at the Conference on Racialisation and Publicness in Africa and the African Diaspora, African Studies Centre, Oxford University, 2019. Accessed 19 June 2020. https://oxfordandempire.web.ox.ac.uk/article/ rhodes-must-fall-uses-historical-evidence-statue-debate-oxford-2015-6. Boersema, Jacob R. “Re-racing South Africa: Rhodes Must Fall as Antiracist Movement.” 30 September 2017. https://www.academia.edu/35139163/Re_racing_South_ Africa_Rhodes_Must_Fall_as_Antiracism_Movement_Boersema_pdf. Cohen, Robin. “Falling Statues and Morality: Rhodes Can’t Be Rescued by History.” Review of African Political Economy (blog). 16 June 2020. https://roape.net/2020/06/16/ falling-statues-and-morality-cecil-rhodes-cant-be-rescued-by-history/. Fitzsimmons, Rupert. “Rhodes Must Not Fall.” History Today. 22 December 2015. https:// www.historytoday.com/rhodes-must-not-fall. Horáková, Hana. “[Review of ] Francis B. Nyamnjoh, #RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa.” Modern Africa: History and Politics 5, no. 1 (2017): 131–39. Knudsen, Britta Timm, and Casper Andersen. “Affective Politics and Colonial Heritage: Rhodes Must Fall at UCT and Oxford.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 29, no. 3 (2019): 239–58. Kros, Cynthia. “Rhodes Must Fall: Archives and Counter-Archives.” Critical Arts 29 (2015): 150–65. Maylam, Paul. The Cult of Rhodes: Remembering an Imperialist in Africa. Claremont: David Philip, 2005. Nyamnjoh, Francis B. #RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa. Bamenda, Cameroon: Langaa RPCIG, 2016. Schmahmann, Brenda. “The Fall of Rhodes: The Removal of a Sculpture from the University of Cape Town.” Public Art Dialogue 6, no. 1 (2016): 90–115. von Tunzelmann, Alex. Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History. London: Headline Publishing Group, 2021. ———. “Rhodes Must Fall? A Question of When Not If.” History Today 66, no. 2 (2 Feb. 2016). https://www.historytoday.com/history-matters/rhodes-must-fall-question-whennot-if?utm_source=Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ac60c2073c-EMAIL_CAM PAIGN_2017_09_20_COPY_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fceec0de95-ac 60c2073c-113465&mc_cid=ac60c2073c&mc_eid=327177f8da.

Chapter 7

CONTRASTING FATES OF LENIN STATUES IN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA Dominique Colas

8 On 24 February 2022—a month before this chapter was finalized—Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. His act was preceded and underpinned by a long ideological and propagandistic argument that included some unexpectedly harsh words for Lenin. As early as 2005, Putin declared that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,”1 and in 2021 he specified that Ukrainians and Belarusians together with Russians constituted one and the same “people” (narod).2 When launching the invasion, he declared the reason Ukraine had been able break free from Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union was that Lenin, in founding the USSR in the early 1920s, had artificially created Ukraine. Ukrainians, said Putin just before ordering the Russian army to attack Ukraine, should honor the leader of the Soviet Union for creating their state instead of toppling statues of him during their “decommunization” process. Indeed, Ukrainians and Russians have dealt very differently with the remnants of Soviet memorial culture, particularly with statues of Lenin. Today, pedestrians and drivers on Moscow’s Prospekt Lenin near the “October” metro station still move along in the shadow of a monumental statue of Lenin that dominates the large square there.3 In Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, on the other hand, there are no such statues to be found. The difference is due to political history, to the two countries’ distinct attitudes toward the Soviet past, and, consequently, to two opposed visions of Lenin. It is this set of oppositions that drives the armed conflict between the two countries that

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began in 2014, when Ukrainian secessionists took control, with Russian military support, of the easternmost part of Ukraine. There is, therefore, no simple reverse symmetry between the two countries: whereas in western and central Ukraine all public, symbolic traces of communism have been eradicated, in eastern Ukraine—Crimea and Donbass—as in Russia, statues of Lenin are still standing. When the two republics belonged to the Soviet Union, representations of Lenin proliferated across that vast country: in schools, factories, open squares; in films, where he was played by look-alikes; Lenin’s profile on coins, Lenin’s face on stamps, gigantic full-body Lenin monuments. My focus here is on open-air statues, which help us understand a few key communist and postcommunist realities. Although statues of Lenin are no longer commemorated in today’s Russia with the same widespread fervor, none have been pulled down since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. In Ukraine, by contrast, Lenin statues were toppled en masse—de-commemorated—in conjunction with systematic decommunization after the new authorities took over in 2014.

The October 1917 Revolution and the Transformation of Statues in Public Space Shortly after October 1917, images of Lenin—among them statues—began to multiply, an effect of a political system wherein the state had an absolute monopoly over legitimate representations. Lenin statues and their locations were determined by the Communist Party apparatus, which of course tightly controlled all cultural products. Sculptors (like writers, filmmakers, and musicians) had to belong to state-approved professional organizations if they wanted to practice. Thousands of statues of Lenin were erected,4 and the communist power soon organized regular, ritualized celebrations around them: Lenin’s birthday, the anniversary of the October Revolution, May Day. Lenin first posed for photographs in January 1918; a few months later he had himself filmed for the first time. Statues of him hewed close to the photographs: artists were supposed to imitate real life. A standard Lenin statue portrays him in forward movement, his right arm extended horizontally with his hand open or his finger pointing as if he were designating a visible objective. Under an open coat he wears a three-piece suit and tie. And despite this urban bourgeois dress (in direct contrast to the peasant smock) he also references Russian workers because he has a cap like theirs, often in his left hand (see figure 7.1.). Statue sizes varied and could reach several meters. They were made of bronze, stone, cement; some out of plaster. They were always set on high pedestals so they could be seen from afar. And they were erected in Lenin Squares along Lenin Avenues, often the most majestic thoroughfares in the given city or town, some of them near Karl Marx Avenues.

Contrasting Fates of Lenin Statues in Ukraine and Russia • 75

Figure 7.1. Lenin in front of Smolny Institute, erected 1927, Saint Petersburg. Kora27/ CC BY.

Otherwise, they hardly varied and seldom had any connection to their immediate context. In Saint Petersburg, former capital of the Russian Empire, an immense statue of Lenin stands in front of Finland Station, where he arrived by train from exile in Zurich on 3 April 1917. No sooner off the train, he delivered a speech that surprised his listeners: it was not enough to have overturned the tsar; the ultimate goal was socialism. He then climbed into an armored car that drove him to Bolshevik Party headquarters. The statue (see figure 7.2), erected in 1926 and later used as figuring on various objects including stamps, shows him standing on just such an armored car,

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Figure 7.2. Lenin in front of Finland Station, erected 1926, Saint Petersburg. Photo Source: Amy Jacobs-Colas.

Contrasting Fates of Lenin Statues in Ukraine and Russia • 77

positioned so that his right arm points in the direction of the Winter Palace, headquarters of the provisional government of the time. The Winter Palace was seized by the communists on 25 October 1917—the event that marked the birth of the new, Bolshevik regime. Statue viewers were thus induced to interpret Lenin’s gesture as premonitory. Lenin was called “Leader”; his slogans and watchwords were to be followed by all, and many were taken as prophetic. That supremacy meant he could only be sculpted in solitude. There were a few temporary exceptions: statues of him sitting on a bench alongside Stalin that were derived from a photo taken in 1922, when the “Leader,” resting in the countryside and with only two more years to live, was no longer acting as leader. These few statues of the two together were destroyed in the early 1960s, along with all statues of Stalin. In the immediate aftermath of the 1917 coup d’état, the images to be de-commemorated were those of the old regime. A huge statue of Tsar Alexander III (father of Nicholas II) was pulled down in Saint Petersburg—a scene reconstructed by Sergei Eisenstein in his 1928 film October. And in Moscow, Lenin himself pulled the rope that toppled a sculpture of an important dignitary of Tsar Nicholas II. Such statues had to be knocked down so that new, edifying representations could be imposed. Lenin’s iconoclasm was in the service of new icons, including himself. In April 1918, his government published the “monument propaganda” decree: all monuments from the time of the tsars were to disappear, except those of particular artistic or historical interest; street names were to be changed. This had to happen so that “the ideas and feelings of the revolutionary workers of Russia” could be expressed. Revolutionary slogans were to be inscribed on official building walls. Lenin wanted new statues erected by May Day 1918 (less than a month after the decree), but nothing was working properly and it was only in August that a list of seventy figures to be honored with statues was published: Marx, Engels, Robespierre, but also Alexander Herzen and Chopin. Lenin was displeased with the situation: raw material for sculptures was lacking and some artists were reluctant to follow an ideological or esthetic program. He was able to inaugurate a huge statue of Marx and Engels for the first anniversary of the October Revolution, a ceremony he had photographed and filmed.5 The next day’s Pravda newspaper published a sketch of the scene and the text of Lenin’s speech. Still, the monumental propaganda program did not immediately produce many works, and sculptures in plaster could not withstand the harsh Russian climate. Lenin’s propaganda plan included statues and figurations of himself. He wanted his image diffused; he wanted it to replace the country’s religious images, its icons. Busts of him were installed in official buildings, along with full statues—one erected in 1922 in a square in Minsk, the Belarusian capital. And we have at least one image of him posing before his own image: a photo

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of him on May Day 1919, standing near a Kremlin wall in a three-piece suit, tie, and cap in front of a huge, enlarged photo of himself next to one of Marx. By the time Lenin died in 1924, a cult had developed around his image.6 The Party helped keep that cult alive with its famous decision to have the Leader’s body embalmed and laid in state in a marble mausoleum running along an entire Kremlin wall, a site that became a de rigueur visit for groups of Soviet workers and schoolchildren as well as heads of foreign states, who paid homage with flowers. After Lenin’s death, sculptures of him continued to be erected throughout the Soviet Union. The many statues destroyed during the 1941 German invasion were later replaced. And many others were restored for the centenary of his birth in 1970, a moment of extraordinary effervescence. In the 1970s a huge stone Lenin head was set in front of the entrance to the “Vladimir Lenin” nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine. And the statue near the “October” metro station was inaugurated by Gorbachev in 1985 around the same time he initiated Glasnost and perestroika.

Statues in Putin’s Post-Soviet Russia: From Political Value to Religious Symbol The 17 August 1991, coup d’état against Gorbachev ultimately broke the USSR up into fifteen states. The new watchword was “decommunization”; the Communist Party was even banned for a time in Russia. But contrary to what occurred in the Baltic States and Armenia, for example, Lenin statues in Russia and Ukraine were not attacked or pulled down, and the Lenin mausoleum was not dismantled. What happened in Russia was that Lenin statues came to compete with others. In 1991, as Leningrad was being renamed Saint Petersburg, two statues of the namesake tsar known as Peter the Great went up in the city. And in 1997 in Moscow, a one-hundred-meter-high contemporary-style statue of the same Peter was erected not far from the Kremlin. The Russian Orthodox Church was central to the transformation of the post-Soviet Russian symbolic landscape. Nicholas II was canonized. The nineteenth-century Cathedral of Christ the Savior (near Red Square) was rebuilt. It had been razed by Stalin to erect a government building on the site that was to be crowned with a hundred-meter statue of Lenin. World War II brought that plan to naught, and in the late 1950s the site received an immense swimming pool. But in postcommunist Russia, in response to a request from the Orthodox patriarchate, the cathedral was rebuilt exactly as before. It was inaugurated in 2000. President Putin later took part in cathedral ceremonies. Vladimir Putin has moved strategically to assert that religion has primacy over politics. In 2016, accompanied by the Orthodox patriarch, he inaugu-

Contrasting Fates of Lenin Statues in Ukraine and Russia • 79

rated a gigantic statue of the monarch who converted the Russians to Christianity, Vladimir I, in the immediate vicinity of the mausoleum built for Vladimir Illytch (Lenin). Shortly thereafter, Putin participated in a majestic ceremony at the foot of the statue, later declaring that while “militant atheism” had led to a ruthless combat against the Church, “a new religion was being created [at that same time].” Communist ideology, he explained, was similar to Christian ideology: both valued freedom, equality, brotherhood, justice. Christian relics were similar to those in the Lenin mausoleum. Putin’s meaning was clear: just as it was forbidden to attack or desecrate holy relics, so it was forbidden to attack or desecrate traces of the communist past. Putin thus moved in two ways to encompass Lenin in Christianity: by presenting communism as a variant of the dominant religion in Russia, and by presenting Lenin’s mummified body as a sacred object and statues of him as representations of a saint. In sum, Putin Christianized communism and made Lenin sacred. It therefore came as no surprise when a banner laid at the foot of a Lenin statue on Prospekt Lenin on Lenin’s birthday in 2019—a banner reading “Subject to dismantlement as part of Decommunization”—was quickly whisked away. The perpetrator(s) acted in secret, of course, given how risky any open act of “Lenin decommemoration” has become in Putin’s authoritarian Russia.

In Most of Ukraine, Lenin Statues Have Been Destroyed For some residents of the USSR, the independence that followed the events of 1991 meant liberation from Russia and communism. In western Ukraine— some provinces of which had only been attached to the Soviet Union after World War II—statues of Lenin soon began to come down, through acts known as leninopad (“Leninfall”). In late 2013 those attitudes were radicalized when the country’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, unexpectedly refused to sign the European Union Association Agreement, thereby effectively aligning his country with Russia, a move that triggered massive protests, particularly in the capital, Kyiv. The protesters gathered on Independence Square, and the events came to be known as the Maidan protest and revolution. The crowds included citizens without political affiliation together with organized groups of far-right nationalist militants. On 8 December 2013, one such group, Svoboda (“Liberty”), led the crowd that knocked down the Lenin statue in the city center. A mallet-wielding protestor then shattered it and handed out fragments to the icon smashers—the iconoclasts.7 The battle between the protestors and the forces of repression raged around the Maidan for several weeks; from 18 to 21 February 2014, at least 115 people were killed, included 20 police officers. After Yanukovych was deposed by the parliament and fled to Russia, “Leninfall” moved into high gear; protestors brandishing Ukrainian flags felled and smashed statues. In some cities, notably

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Kharkiv, groups formed circles around statues to prevent their destruction, but their efforts failed (see figure 7.3, and video in The Guardian8). Russian-speaking, pro-Russia groups (concentrated in eastern Ukraine) moved on Crimea and took over the Donbass in an armed attempt at secession that received Russian military support. In mid-March 2014, Crimea decided by referendum to become part of Russia. But in Donbass the conflict became a war that, as of the beginning of 2022, resulted in over fourteen thousand deaths and shows no sign of ending.9 According to the ceasefire line running across eastern Ukraine, the Donbass region is part of Russia. And the war and de facto partition have gone together with two radically different interpretations of the communist past: while Russian propaganda accuses Ukrainian nationalists of being fascists, to Ukrainian nationalists the Russians were and are an implacable oppressor. On 15 May 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed four laws marking a radical break with communism. One of them is entitled, “On the condemnation of the Communist and National-Socialist (Nazi) totalitarian regimes and prohibition of propaganda that uses their symbols.”10 It reflects how Ukrainian nationalists see the devastating famine of 1932–33 known as Holodomor (“to kill by starvation”) that left millions in the country dead. Ukrainians consider the famine a genocide instigated and implemented by the communists. In applying the new laws, the Ukrainian government organized the systematic destruction of Communist symbols: Lenin statues, of course, but also street names;11 holiday names, too, have been changed. The pedestals of toppled Lenin statues have been transformed into shrines to the fatherland or the Maidan protest dead. And though a few statues have been erected in

Figure 7.3. “Leninfall,” Kharkiv, Ukraine, September 2014. Igor Chekachkov/AP/ SIPA. Used with permission.

Contrasting Fates of Lenin Statues in Ukraine and Russia • 81

honor of Stefan Bandera, head of an armed nationalist organization that was temporarily allied with the Germans, there has been little enthusiasm for such moves. “Leninfall” ceased in March 2016; approximately 4,500 statues of Lenin had been pulled down.12 But in the secessionist east, assimilated to Russia, symbols of communism are still in place, including statues of Lenin— in Donetsk, for example, and Sebastopol. This story reflects the deep rift between the narrative of Russia’s current political elite and the narrative put forward by Ukrainian nationalist movement leaders. For the former, Lenin is a figure worth preserving, whereas the latter will not tolerate his effigy. Russian political rulers—first and foremost Putin—seek to construct a narrative wherein communism and Lenin are valued components of Russian history, whereas in Ukraine, nationalists view communism and its Russian representatives as a negative force that must be destroyed if Ukraine is to be restored as a nation. Clearly, the different treatments of Lenin statues in Russia and Ukraine correspond to the two countries’ sharply different trajectories since the fall of the Soviet Union, when fifteen newborn states initiated specific nation-building processes. In Russia, Putin is at the center of an authoritarian, top-down process that emphasizes the continuity of his nation since the rise of Christianity in the Middle Ages while making commemoration of the Soviet Union’s victory in 1945 the key moment of official Russian memory. One effect of this is that Lenin is now only one of many elements of Russian history to be commemorated. In Ukraine, the bloody break of 2014, driven by an aspiration for democracy, has led to massive decommunization and systematic de-commemoration of Lenin. But those processes have not brought to the fore an event or figure capable of unifying all the citizens of a country now officially waging a hybrid war with Russia. Commemoration of Lenin continues in Russia but is no longer such a central event, as Putin aims to construct a new national narrative that nonetheless does not break with the past. In Ukraine, the de-commemoration of Lenin statues that began after the Maidan insurrection became general policy because of a vote by an elected parliament intent on building a new national narrative that breaks with the communist and Russia-dominated past. Dominique Colas is Professor Emeritus of political science at Sciences Po Paris, where he headed the master’s and PhD programs on postcommunist Europe from 1996 to 2008. He is a researcher at the CERI (Center for International Studies of France’s Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques and the CNRS). He supervised numerous PhD theses and regularly taught and lectured at several universities outside France, including the MGIMO in Moscow, the European University in Minsk, Waseda University in Tokyo, and the LUISS in Rome. His books include Civil Society and Fanaticism: Con-

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joined Histories (English translation, Stanford University Press, 1997); Dictionnaire de la Pensée Politique (Larousse, 1997); Sociologie Politique (Presses Universitaires de France, 2002), translated into Russian, Georgian, Romanian, and Portuguese; and Nationalité et Citoyenneté (Gallimard, 2004). In 2002 he edited L’Europe Post-Communiste (Presses Universitaires de France). Colas’ many published articles include several on statues in public space, and he is the author of four books on Lenin, the most recent one a biography (Fayard, 2017).

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10 11. 12.

Video in Russian: https://yandex.ru/video/preview/4536529066789727613. In Russian: http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181. My thanks to Amy Jacobs for assisting with this English version. See iconography at http://leninstatues.ru/. Dominique Colas, Lénine (Paris: Fayard, 2017). Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). See images from this BBC News video: “Ukraine: Why Was Lenin’s Statue Pulled Down?,” YouTube, 9 December 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd1s0pMbyJk. Reuters, “Goodbye Lenin: Ukrainian Nationalists Topple Statue in Kharkiv,” The Guardian, 29 September 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/sep/29/ lenin-ukrainian-nationalists-statue-kharkiv-video. Anastasiya Oprishchenko, “How Russia Manipulates Data on Those Killed in the Armed Conflict in Eastern Ukraine,” Zaborona, accessed 6 April 2023, https://zaborona.com/ en/how-russia-manipulates-data-on-those-killed-in-the-armed-conflict-in-easternukraine/#:~:text=Russian%20propaganda%20mostly%20works%20for,than%2014%20 thousand%20people%20died. https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/317-19#Text Niels Ackermann and Sebastien Gobert, Looking for Lenin (Paris: Noir sur Blanc, 2017). When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, there were 5,500 statues of Lenin in Ukraine (https://www.husj.harvard.edu/articles/leninfall-in-ukraine). Those located in the Donbas, the region invaded by Russia in 2014, were not taken down later. I estimate that approximately 4,500 of the Lenin statues in Ukraine did undergo “Leninfall.”

Bibliography Ackermann, Niels, and Sebastien Gobert. Looking for Lenin. Paris: Noir sur Blanc, 2017. Colas, Dominique. Lénine. Paris: Fayard, 2017. Colas, Dominique, Poutine, l’Ukraine et les statues de Lénine. SciencesPo, Les Presses, 2023. Tumarkin, Nina. Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Chapter 8

BEYOND THE MONUMENT Unmaking the Valley of the Fallen in Contemporary Spain Francisco Ferrándiz

8 The Valley of the Fallen is the most controversial monument in contemporary Spain. It was first imagined by dictator Francisco Franco during the Civil War (1936–39) to host the dead bodies of the winners in the conflict and establish a permanent religious cult to commemorate their martyrdom and sacrifice (figure 8.1). This aim was clearly suggested in the foundational decree signed by Franco on 1 April 1940: The magnitude of our Crusade, the heroic sacrifices that victory entails, and the transcendence of this epic history for the future of Spain, cannot be perpetuated by the unassuming memorials commonly used in towns and villages to commemorate the outstanding deeds of our History and the glorious episodes of its sons. The stones erected must be endowed with the splendor of ancient monuments, defying time and oblivion, and must constitute a place of meditation and rest where future generations can pay a tribute of admiration to those who left them a better Spain.1

Work on the monument started in 1940 and, after almost twenty years, was inaugurated by Franco on 1 April 1959, on the twentieth anniversary of the military “victory.” It is a massive and most impressive compound whose basilica, carved in a granite hill, is topped by a 150-meter-high cross. Conceived of as a pantheon, it has received Civil War bodies from all over the country since 1959, totaling an estimated 33,800 people buried in its subterranean crypts.

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Figure 8.1. View of the Valley of the Fallen from the Benedictine Monastery, 27 June 2011. Source: Francisco Ferrándiz.

As a crucial part of this process, the body of the leader of Spain’s fascist party (Falange), José Antonio Primo de Rivera, who was executed on 20 November 1936 by the Republican authorities, was moved there to a priority location in front of the main altar just before the inauguration of the monument. When Franco died on 20 November 1975, top officials in his government decided to also move his body to the Valley. He was placed on the far side of the main altar, opposing Primo de Rivera. The coincidence of the date of their deaths made 20 November the most emblematic memorial landmark for Franco nostalgics. In subsequent decades, well into the country’s post–dictatorial democracy, groups of Francoist supporters and Falange members continued to stage celebratory rituals in the Valley, including military parades from Madrid to the monument, Roman salutes, and the singing of fascist and Francoist anthems by the tombstones of Franco and José Antonio. Although the political cult to the two leaders slowly faded away, the 2007 Memory Law pushed by socialist president Rodríguez Zapatero made it illegal to stage any political display at the monument, preventing further pro-Franco and pro-José Antonio political rituals. In its additional provisions, the law also recommended that the Valley should honor the memory of all those who died in the war and the subsequent political repression, whatever political side they came from, and represent “constitutional [post-Franco] values.” Yet in their out-

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dated and nostalgic daily masses, the Benedictine monks in charge of the religious cult in the Basilica continue to this day to pray daily for the “unity of Spain” and the blood shed by the martyrs in the Civil War. While Jose Antonio’s tomb lost prominence with time, Franco’s grave—more specifically his bodily remains—increasingly became the ultimate bastion of his regime’s outstretched and decaying sovereignty. Although years and decades passed by without any radical transformation of the monument, it was just a matter of time before the Valley came under harsh public scrutiny.

From Commemoration to Re-Signification Contemporary memory struggles in Spain, propelled by the exhumation of Civil War mass graves containing tens of thousands of bodies of Republican civilians executed by Franco’s supporters, started in 2000 with the exhumation of a mass grave containing thirteen bodies in the municipality of Priaranza del Bierzo (León). The new memorial culture associated with these unburials became increasingly connected with transnational human rights discourses and practices, absorbing new rights and demands that were not previously on the agenda.2 What started as a civil initiative to bring the executed bodies back to their relatives for dignified reburials eventually turned into a high-profile political movement denouncing the impunity of Francoist crimes.3 In this context, the Valley of the Fallen progressively came into focus in public debates. A 2003 exhumation of a mass grave in the province of Ávila turned the Valley into a very uncomfortable hotspot, directly connected to the emerging unburial process. When technicians attempted to exhume the grave, they were unable to find more than a few broken, scattered bones, suggesting that a previous, and rather careless, excavation had already taken place. Fausto Canales was the driving force behind this 2003 exhumation when searching for his father and six fellow residents from the village of Pajares de Adaja, all members of the local Socialist party, killed in 1936 by Falange paramilitaries. A retired engineer, Canales undertook private investigations after the exhumation fiasco, following evidence that the bodies had been moved to the Valley in 1959.4 The case was particularly striking because it was the first documented example that a Republican mass grave had been raided without the relatives’ knowledge or permission during Francoism to help fill up the Valley’s crypts. Many local officers had been under pressure to contribute bodies to the Francoist monument and saw this as an opportunity to erase awkward evidence pointing to the embarrassing killing of neighbors during the war.5 The discovery was a bombshell, bringing Fausto Canales media attention both at home

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and abroad, and transforming him into a symbol of courage and resilience for historical memory recovery associations, ranging from ephemeral local clusters of relatives of victims to full-fledged legally constituted organizations with national implantation. Yet this was only part of a broader and equally striking public revelation: that the Valley’s crypts actually hosted more than thirty-three thousand Civil War bodies, around twelve thousand of them unknowns, an indeterminate number of which could be executed Republican civilians.6 As research provided more information on the genealogy and magnitude of the crypts, memorial activists started filing legal injunctions for their relatives’ immediate exhumation from the Valley and return to their families. Over the years, these lawsuits languished in religious, bureaucratic, political, and legal labyrinths and were threatened by counter litigation for funerary profanation by the main association defending the Francoist essence of the Valley. After these events, it became clear to the political left that the Valley of the Fallen’s status quo had to be somehow deactivated, de-commemorated, or, as the most widespread denomination in recent years in the local memory debates would have it, re-signified.7 In 2011, under pressure by the memory associations and relevant sectors in civil society, the Spanish socialist Government appointed a Commission of Experts to provide recommendation for the transformation and democratization of the monument, whose current meaning and narrative continues to be Francoist, a commission in which I participated (figure 8.2). The most controversial proposal involved the necessary exhumation of Franco’s body before any major global re-signification could take place. The very existence of this commission, as well as the unprecedented recommendations it issued, constituted a major step in the (surely too slow) institutional de-commemoration of the site. The proposal to exhume Franco—and implicitly, to degrade his burial location—created major controversy in Spain. It was the first time an official document had so bluntly intervened in what was already a public debate on the fate of the monument and its principal funerary arrangement.8 It implied, on the one hand, that the moral universe the presence of Franco’s body contributed to petrifying in the Valley was a falsification and did not pass the trial of history and, on the other, that he was not worthy of such an honorable burial and needed to be relocated to a lesser (and private) location. Although the exhumation of Primo de Rivera was also suggested, it did not create a similar scandal at the time. Another recommendation was to, despite the technical difficulties, attend the claims of relatives of Republican executed civilians that were exhumed from abandoned mass graves and brought to the building without their permission or even knowledge, who demanded that these bodies be returned to

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Figure 8.2. Visit to the monument by the Commission of Experts for the Future of the Valley, 27 June 2011. Source: Francisco Ferrándiz.

them. In the period of 2011–18, Rajoy’s right-wing government drastically stopped all funding for memory activities in the country and ignored the recommendations regarding the Valley of the Fallen—presented by the political right as a place of reconciliation between the “two Spains”—and the placement of Franco’s body.

Exhumation as De-Commemoration In June 2018, just two weeks after taking office, socialist president Pedro Sánchez announced as one of his star political commitments his pledge to exhume Franco from the Valley, following the 2011 Commission’s main recommendation and as an attempt to highlight his allegiance to the victims of Francoism and the historical memory social movement. In February 2019, he had to call for new elections without being able to keep his promise. After this direct threat to Franco’s privileged burial place, visits to the Valley by Francoist nostalgics, mostly extreme right-wing sympathizers, skyrocketed. Resistance to Franco’s removal from the monument came from many fronts. Most prominently, his family, the Francisco Franco Foundation, the Association for the Defense of the Valley, and the very Benedictine monks who run

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the religious cult in the monument. The fact that Franco was buried in sacred land in the Basilica, and his family’s intention to bring the body to Madrid’s Cathedral if he were exhumed from the Valley, a measure the Government bluntly opposed, prompted the authorities to search unsuccessfully for support from the Vatican, scaling up the controversy to a diplomatic realm. The fate of Franco’s body transformed into a formidable political and memorial arena questioning the ability of Spain’s democracy to defeat once and for all the resilient ghost of its last dictator. Finally, in the midst of rising tension and confusion, the Supreme Court ruled in the government’s favor on 24 September 2019 with reference both to the unburial and the final destination of the body, a crypt in the Mingorrubio cemetery where Franco’s wife, Carmen Polo, as well as other top Francoist leaders and even Dominican dictator Trujillo are also buried. The process of exhuming and transferring the body was set in motion, and it finally took place on 24 October 2019, sixteen months after Sánchez’s announcement and after an emotional, political, and judicial rollercoaster ride. The exhumation conveyed a strong political statement: Spain was no longer a comfort zone for dictators, even in the form of their mortal remains. The highly choreographed exhumation, a true political thriller designed by top officials down to the last detail, was imposed on the family by the government. The government thus retained full control over both the protocol and the information flow. As a sign of the times and the bulimic nature of contemporary media coverage, on the very afternoon of the exhumation, what had been a political scandal for endless months suddenly faded away in the news as other events took central stage. The TV spectacle left in the Spanish public conflicting senses of relief, indifference, or outrage, depending on political leanings and whether Franco was considered a villain, a relic from the past, or a moral hero whose tomb had been shamefully desecrated. The de-commemorative impact of this high-stakes state unburial in the Valley, deactivating its major political symbol, is easy to grasp. Still, Franco’s exit from the monument is a crucial yet insufficient element in what needs to be a much broader resignifying process covering other relevant aspects of the monument. At the time of writing this chapter, April 2023, there is an ambitious project including a battery of measures at different levels, aiming at transforming the monument from a place to commemorate Francoist nostalgia into a place to promote democratic memory. This double movement involves the de-commemoration of the Francoist narrative and rituals operating in the monument though a process of memorial disinvestment, as well as its parallel and subsequent critical re-commemoration in a radically different memorial framework. How can this reversal be achieved? Is it even feasible?

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Further Steps to Unmake the Valley In the 2019 government presided over by Pedro Sánchez, the advancement of democratic memory—meaning framing and commemorating crucial milestones in the building of a democratic regime in Spain since at least the nineteenth century, both at the institutional and civil society levels— became a major political objective, to the point that the Democratic Memory Department (Secretaría de Estado de Memoria Democrática) was upgraded in the organization chart of the new government from a secondary role in the Ministry of Justice to the second tier in the main vice-presidency. In this context, I was appointed senior advisor to the Secretary of State in charge of the Democratic Memory Department. As I was already acquainted with the Valley due to my former work on mass grave exhumations and my participation in the 2011 Commission, one of the main tasks with which I was commissioned was to draft a general plan to resignify the monument. In a nutshell, the main transformations in the Valley involve diffusing its commemorative aspects—including the military victory by the coup perpetrators in the Civil War and the celebration of a rather problematic national reconciliation under the auspices of a Francoist monumental narrative—and creating a pedagogically oriented Interpretation Centre using top-of-the-line technologies, with the potential to unmake Franco’s memorial propaganda by deconstructing its flagship architectonic marker. In what follows I will briefly spell out some of the projects that are being set in motion and the feasibility and degree of success of each, which will depend on the political vicissitudes in the country in the next few years. Although many actors in civil society have been quite active in questioning the monument and exposing its toxic memorial hidden agenda, struggles around the Valley—as exemplified by Franco´s exhumation—clearly show that ambitious de-commemoration/re-commemoration processes need the backing of solid institutional and legal frameworks in order to have possibilities of success. Let us review the situation in the Valley in early 2023. First, in legal terms, the new law of democratic memory—passed in October 2022—includes a number of important specific provisions regarding the Valley. Most importantly, it abolishes the Valley’s current legal and patrimonial status, dating back to 1957, creating a new legal and memorial ecosystem in the site. This may imply discontinuing the presence of the Benedictine order in the Valley. Second, in terms of better spelling out the political, symbolic, funerary, and religious project behind its existence and building a democratic pedagogy of the place to understand its complexities and contradictions, a series of research projects are being promoted to shed light on some of the monument’s less researched (and oftentimes controversial) aspects—namely,

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the use of political prisoners in its construction, the transfer of more the thirty thousand bodies from all over the country twenty years after the war in the country’s major necropolitical operation, the constructive features of the place in the context of mid-twentieth-century European fascist architectures, or the iconographic program that the monument contains (figure 8.3). All this research should provide the raw material for the new Interpretation Center. This shows that solid academic research is crucial to any feasible de-commemoration/re-commemoration of the monument. The Valley’s global “resignification” provides an instance where public scholarship becomes an integral part of memory processes.9 Finally, in funerary terms, two main courses of action are needed. On the one hand, the Francoist funerary hierarchy must be dismantled in full. After Franco’s exit from the monument, it was the turn to remove the body of the founder of Spain’s fascist party from his honorable place in front of the main altar. Primo de Rivera’s exhumation took place on April 24 2023 without the public impact of Franco´s removal. This circumstance was mandated in the new Memory Law, which prohibits the presence of any honorable burial in the monument. On the other hand, in 2023 the complex forensic operation to retrieve the bodies of the Republicans kidnapped from mass graves and reclaimed by their relatives will start its first phase.

Figure 8.3. Detail of the mosaic in the Basilica’s dome, portraying a battleground. The scene includes a tank as well as flags from some of the main parties supporting the military coup against the Republic in 1936. Source: Francisco Ferrándiz.

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Only in the future will we be able to assess whether Spain—more than eighty years after the 1936–39 Civil War, more than sixty since the inauguration of the monument, and more that forty-five since Franco’s death—is finally able to cast off some lingering ghosts dating back to its most uncomfortable past. Francisco Ferrándiz is Tenured Researcher at CSIC, Spain. He has a PhD in social and cultural anthropology from UC Berkeley (1996). Since 2002, he has conducted research on the politics of memory in contemporary Spain, analyzing the exhumations of mass graves from the Civil War (1936‒39). He is presently Principal Investigator of the research project The Politics of Memory Exhumations in Contemporary Spain, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. His main books on this topic are El pasado bajo tierra: Exhumaciones contemporáneas de la Guerra Civil (Anthropos, 2014) and, as edited volumes, Necropolitics: Mass Graves and Exhumations in the Age of Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015, with A. C. G. M Robben) and Memory Worlds: Reframing Time and the Past (special issue Memory Studies, 2020, with M. Hristova and J. Vollmeyer). He also has published numerous articles in scholarly journals. He is currently a Senior Advisor in the State Secretariat for Democratic Memory, integrated in the Ministry of the Presidency in Spain’s central government. In this context, one of his main tasks is the de-commemoration and resignification of Francoist monuments such as the Valley of the Fallen.

Notes 1. Published in BOE 2 April 1940; translated by the author. 2. Alejandro Baer and Natan Sznaider, “Ghosts of the Holocaust in Franco’s Mass Graves: Cosmopolitan Memories and the Politics of ‘Never Again,’” Memory Studies 8, no. 3 (2015): 328–44. 3. Francisco Ferrándiz, “Exhuming the Defeated: Civil War Mass Graves in Twenty-First-Century Spain,” American Ethnologist 40, no. 1 (2013): 38–54; Francisco Ferrándiz, El pasado bajo tierra: exhumaciones contemporáneas de la Guerra Civil (Barcelona: Anthropos, 2014); Francisco Ferrándiz, “Unburials, Generals and Phantom Militarism: Engaging with the Spanish Civil War Legacy,” Current Anthropology 60, no. S19 (2019): S62–S76. 4. Francisco Ferrándiz, “Guerras sin fin: Guía para descifrar el Valle de los Caídos en la España contemporánea,” Política y Sociedad 48, no. 3 (2011): 481–500. 5. Fernando Olmeda, El Valle de los Caídos: una memoria de España (Barcelona: Península, 2019).

92 • Francisco Ferrándiz 6. Queralt Solé and Silvia Marimon, La dictadura de pedra. El Valle de los Caídos, entre un passat negre i un futur incert (Barcelona: Ara, 2019); Ferrándiz, “Guerras sin fin,” 481–500. 7. Alfredo González-Ruibal, “Topography of Terror or Cultural Heritage? The Monuments of Franco’s Spain,” in Europe’s Deadly Century: Perspectives on 20th Century Conflict Heritage, ed. Robin Page, Neil Forbes, and Guillermo Pérez, 65–72 (London: English Heritage, 2009). 8. Francisco Ferrándiz, “Francisco Franco Is Back: The Contested Reemergence of a Fascist Moral Exemplar,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 64, no.1 (2022): 1–30. 9. Francisco Ferrándiz, “Rapid Response Ethnographies in Turbulent Times: Researching Mass Grave Exhumations in Contemporary Spain,” Anthropology Today 29, no. 6 (2013): 18–22.

Bibliography Baer, Alejandro, and Natan Sznaider. “Ghosts of the Holocaust in Franco’s Mass Graves: Cosmopolitan Memories and the Politics of ‘Never Again.’” Memory Studies 8, no. 3 (2015): 328–44. Ferrándiz, Francisco. “Exhuming the Defeated: Civil War Mass Graves in Twenty-FirstCentury Spain.” American Ethnologist 40, no. 1 (2013): 38–54. ———. “Francisco Franco Is Back: The Contested Reemergence of a Fascist Moral Exemplar.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 64, no. 1 (2022): 1–30. ———. “Guerras sin fin: Guía para descifrar el Valle de los Caídos en la España contemporánea.” Política y Sociedad 48, no. 3 (2011): 481–500. ———. El pasado bajo tierra: exhumaciones contemporáneas de la Guerra Civil. Barcelona: Anthropos, 2014. ———. “Rapid Response Ethnographies in Turbulent Times: Researching Mass Grave Exhumations in Contemporary Spain.” Anthropology Today 29, no. 6 (2013): 18–22. ———. “Unburials, Generals and Phantom Militarism: Engaging with the Spanish Civil War Legacy.” Current Anthropology 60, no. S19 (2019): S62–S76. González-Ruibal, Alfredo. “Topography of Terror or Cultural Heritage? The Monuments of Franco’s Spain.” In Europe’s Deadly Century: Perspectives on 20th Century Conflict Heritage, edited by Robin Page, Neil Forbes, and Guillermo Pérez, 65–72. London: English Heritage, 2009. Olmeda, Fernando. El Valle de los Caídos: una memoria de España. Barcelona: Península, 2009. Solé, Queralt, and Silvia Marimon. La dictadura de pedra. El Valle de los Caídos, entre un passat negre i un futur incert. Barcelona: Ara, 2019.

Part II

DE-COMMEMORATION AND SOCIETAL TRANSFORMATION

Chapter 9

RENAMING AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COLONIZED AND COLONIZER The Role of Commemoration within Dual Place Names in New Zealand Taylor Annabell

8 Of the 7,262 official place names in New Zealand, 403 are “dual names”: a Māori name with a non-Māori one. Each name functions as a mnemonic marker of the landscape, originating from a different historical period, connected and separated by a forward slash within the dual name. The New Zealand Geographic Board (NZGB), responsible for place names, assert this naming convention “equally represents both histories and cultures within New Zealand.”1 The recognition of both names as the official name becomes a way to represent Māori and Pākehā heritage in New Zealand, although the equal linguistic treatment may obscure the relationship between the colonized and colonizer.2 In this chapter, I situate dual names in the colonial context of the (re) naming of the geographic landscape and the ongoing project of constructing New Zealand as a bicultural nation. Using two case studies, I analyze how the NZGB, in their contribution to the national commemorative program, Tuia 250, present narratives about the past, attributing memories and meanings to dual names.3

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Place Naming as Commemorative Practice The relationship between place names, feelings of belonging, and selective narration of the past is well established.4 Following Schwartz and RoseRedwood, I conceptualize place naming as a commemorative practice.5 Commemoration refers to the mobilization of symbols to foster and maintain beliefs and feelings about the past.6 Place names exemplify the way curated representations of the past signal belonging to those within and outside of the social group in public spaces. This goes beyond understanding a place name as commemorative because it honors the specific memory of a person, group, or event. Instead, naming practices discursively construct space as a place that should be remembered. Place names publicly suggest what memories should be associated with a specific place;7 they signpost what is considered historically important. Giraut and Houssay-Holzschuch outline four objectives that motivate renaming: to signal legitimacy of new political or cultural order, to cleanse inherited toponyms, to redress historical injustices through restoring previous names, or to promote the place for economic purposes.8 Except for the latter, this aligns with Alderman’s assessment of renaming as a symbolic and material representation of a change in identity.9 As suggested by Giraut and HoussayHolzschuch’s typology, this is intertwined with changing power dynamics between groups inside and outside of the nation. Not only do dominant groups name and “claim” the landscape, but as Alderman demonstrates, marginalized groups use place naming to challenge hegemonic ideas about the past by communicating alternative narratives of heritage and identity. Given that naming is an act of norming10 and claiming,11 place names are sites in which the struggle over who has the power to assert belonging of geographical space and heritage becomes visible, particularly during renaming.

Naming and Renaming of the New Zealand Landscape The New Zealand landscape was named by Māori between AD 500 and 900.12 The commemorative practice of naming was connected to their spiritual connection with land and a communal land-ownership model. Events were recalled through the name of a geographical feature, and these recollections through the network of names enabled whakapapa (genealogy) to be remembered.13 Reciting these names was part of knowing what land “belonged to” different tribal groups. The daily use of names allowed history to be continually made present, further cemented by the way names were often understood through their connection to others. Through these net-

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works, stories of Māori mythology, tribal histories, traditions, and events were passed down through generations. Exemplifying how renaming is part of colonial conquest by imposing names onto the indigenous landscape,14 the New Zealand landscape was de-scripted by European “explorers” and colonial settlers.15 Traveling around New Zealand in the 1770s, James Cook (whose voyages paved the way for colonialism) assigned names, which ranged from an arbitrary response to his impression of the land as viewed from HMS Endeavour to an experience by those on the ship or even a reference to British geography or people.16 Such renaming intensified following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, in which New Zealand became an official British colony, with names commemorating the British Empire and their heroes.17 Māori names along with specific stories associated with sites were pushed aside as new names in the English language marked the “discovery” of New Zealand. Furthermore, these names altered commemorative practices of naming with the marking of individuals and isolated memories compared to a network of Māori names. Smith argues that the renaming was “probably as powerful ideologically as changing the land” because it caused disconnections with histories coupled with the dispossession of land.18 Colonial histories, beliefs, and ideas about rights to land are embedded within these names. Consequently, the presence of Pākehā names is both a legacy of colonization and a reminder of the colonizer.19 A challenge to the colonial toponymic landscape is partially evident through the bilingual focus in New Zealand’s current place naming policy. Albury and Carter situate this within the agenda to promote Māori language and NZGB’s assumption that New Zealanders wish to see their history reflected in place names.20 Through the NZGB Act of 2008, any person can submit a proposal to the NZGB, which is reviewed and subject to consultation with Māori and the public. There is a preference to adopt an original Māori name when assigning, altering, or discontinuing names. Names are also created and changed as part of cultural redress in Treaty of Waitangi settlement claims, which seek to acknowledge and compensate for injustices arising from breaches of the 1840 treaty by the Crown. Based on data available from the NZGB, 168 of the 499 place names connected to Treaty legislation are dual names. As demonstrated in Figure 9.1, the increase in dual names was driven by settlement claims beginning with the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998; subsequently, this type of name has increased in NZGB’s naming process. A dual name restores a Māori name in contemporary society—aligning with renaming as a reparation of historical injustice— but it does so by bringing it alongside the existing toponym, which emerged from colonial patterns of naming. As such, the non-Māori name continues to hold a commemorative function.

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Figure 9.1. Official adoption of dual names in New Zealand. Source: Taylor Annabell, contains data sourced from the LINZ Data Service licensed for reuse under CC BY 4.0.

Dual Names as “Restoring” Bicultural Heritage I will now examine how NZGB approaches place names as a commemorative practice and negotiates the multiple memories and histories attached to two dual names: Tūranganui-a-Kiwa / Poverty Bay and Cape Kidnappers / Te Kauwae-a-Māui. Both histories are presented by NZGB on their website as part of the national commemorative program, Tuia 250. To commemorate 250 years since the first Māori and Pākehā encounters onshore in 1769, NZGB identified, researched, and published stories of two hundred place names given by Cook, emphasizing how the original Māori names of some of these places were restored through “dual heritage place names.”21 Outside of the Gazetteer, which provides brief details about each place name, New Zealand place-name stories are restricted to their contribution for Tuia 250. In their Tuia 250 stories, NZGB presents the stories of the dual names, adopting a Māori perspective in some parts of the narrative. NZGB describes how Tūranganui-a-Kiwa is the name given by Kiwa, an important “tupuna” and “early ancestor,” who arrived in the area on the Horouta waka (“canoe”). By listing the range of stories told about what and why Kiwa was waiting, NZGB alludes to the oral tribal history of waka migration. The name Te Kauwae-a-Māui commemorates the story of Maui fishing up the North Island using a hook made from the jawbone of his grandmother.22 This presents history outside of the dominant colonial lens by recognizing and revitalizing

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a national narrative previously silenced. The English name, North Island, is placed in brackets after Te Ika-a-Māui (Māori name for North Island), reinforcing a precolonial point of view of the named landscape. These Māori place names are used within the subsequent descriptions of Cook’s arrival, thus conferring the Māori names with original status. As such, Cook arrives onto a Māori named and claimed landscape. In the case of Te Kauwae-a-Māui, the perception of HMS Endeavour as a “strange vessel” from the perspective of local Māori opens the story, asserting Māori as founders and the Māori name as the original. The texts exemplify how multiple discourses about the past are part of systems of knowledge within indigenous communities.23 Yet, in listing these as “versions” and offering multiple ways in which the name Te Kauwaea-Māui recalls the Māui “story,” it may also continue the reclassification of such history as oral traditions, considered primitive within colonial ideology.24 By presenting the stories of the Māori then non-Māori name within the texts, NZGB demonstrates how a single place has a dual heritage. It is striking that Kiwa and Māui are ancestors and demigods respectively with deep cultural significance while the non-Māori names are attributed by Cook, a single European explorer, privileging his experiences and feelings. Poverty Bay was named for the lack of resources the area provided while Cape Kidnappers refers to Cook’s interpretation of local Māori attempting to rescue a Tahitian on board as a kidnapping attempt. The descriptions coexist in the

Figure 9.2. A view of Tūranganui-a-Kiwa/Poverty Bay, 2016. Photo by Kaye Annabell.

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texts as equal stories contributing to the identity of the place name through different modes of commemoration. Thus, they engage with the bicultural discourse that recognizes Māori and Pākehā as founding people—distinct but equal partners who contribute to New Zealand identity and culture, sharing guardianship of resources.25 The naming stories hint at how the non-Māori names given by Cook are founded from violent, unequal encounters, framed by a colonial perspective. The stories told about the dual names of both places assert interactions involved “cultural misunderstandings” despite the violent consequences and outcomes for Māori rather than Pākehā. For example, “a series of cultural misunderstandings followed, resulting in the deaths of about nine local Māori.” The arrival of “explorers” onto the already named and claimed landscape conforms to a colonial settler narrative in which misunderstandings are constructed as shared, while any violence arising from these cultural differences is downplayed. It preempts the period of colonization that followed Cook’s exploration in terms of the violence experienced by Māori during the New Zealand Land Wars and policies of assimilation and integration, as well as how this was narrativized through the ideology of racial harmony.26 Although the texts remember the “deaths” and “misunderstandings” from which Cook named both places, the neutral framing lends a degree of legitimacy to Cook’s naming and by extension his actions and perceptions. The absence of critique is heightened in the texts about both places by the shift away from viewing Māori as the sole “founding people.” A Pākehā gaze is implied through verb choices. Tūranganui-a-Kiwa was “named” Poverty Bay and Te Kauwae-a-Māui was “labeled” Cape Kidnappers, rather than renamed. This is acknowledged later in the text of one dual name through the perspective of students who learned “Cook had renamed something that already had a name” and so sought to “restore” the original name. Interestingly, this becomes downgraded within the Gisborne District Council’s proposal to “alter the name” to a dual name. Te Kauwae-a-Māui is “restored as part of the dual name with Cook’s name” within the Treaty settlement. The use of language here is revealing, indicative of a hesitation to explicitly acknowledge the linguistic colonization of the nation. Coupled with an emphasis on dual names enabling “restoration” of the Māori name within the framework of biculturalism, a power dynamic in which a level of Pākehā domination is maintained. The structure of the texts presents the histories of renaming through a coherent, chronological narrative. The tension between the descriptions of the Māori and non-Māori names is unacknowledged. The names and stories are not conceived as offering competing versions of the past, despite the way Cook’s names override already named places. Instead, the issue of renaming is “resolved” in the presented stories through the process by which the dual

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name was adopted. In 2015 the hapu (“clan”) of Heretaunga Tamatea “settled their historic Treaty of Waitangi grievances,” which involved Crown acknowledgment of the value of the area of Cape Kidnappers / Te Kauwae-a-Māui, a commitment to share management of the reserves, and “restoration” of the name Te Kauwae-a-Māui by an Act of Parliament in 2018.27 As an outcome of a Treaty of Waitangi settlements, it exemplifies the official recognition of Māori culture and heritage to New Zealand, both through resources and symbolism. The dual naming of Tūranganui-a-Kiwa / Poverty Bay became official following a petition by local school children in 2013, which led the local council to propose a dual name to NZGB in 2018. Presenting dual names as the successful and natural outcome of two democratic processes offers a sense of resolution to any “misunderstandings” and demonstrates how the past can be used to embody contemporary ideals. New Zealand is presented as bicultural through showcasing how places have dual heritage, with the naming policy responding to the injustice of the past, involving, at times, the input of citizens.

Dual Names as Commemorative Networks Schwartz describes how the interpretation of historical figures changes based on their implication within commemorative networks.28 It is not only that actors are paired together but how the qualities of other actors in the same network of memory become attributed to one another. Coupling Tūranganui-a-Kiwa and Te Kauwae-a-Māui with Poverty Bay and Cape Kidnappers confers on the non-Māori names a legitimacy that Cook could name and claim the landscape, commemorating his worldview. The dual name supposedly overcomes a selective narration of the past when only the nonMāori name was officially recognized. Yet, dual names flatten asymmetric power relationships in the ongoing struggle over land and national identity by affirming a place should have a single name with two parts, although one name colonized the other. Thus, the restoration of Māori names does not require de-commemoration of Pākehā names. The slash, then, becomes an important signifier, holding together the multiple strands of remembering. Palumbo-Liu uses a slash in Asian/American to represent “a choice between two terms, their simultaneous and equal status, and an element of indecidability.”29 Viewing punctuation as performative,30 the slash between the Māori and non-Māori names also divides as it connects, reminding the nation of its divided past and the relationship between colonized and colonizer. In the case studies discussed, the slash distinctly marks two different stories of arrival as separate while also attempting to communicate that they can and should be understood together within a single name,

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telling a coherent story about the history of the place. Thus, dual names function as symbolic expressions of biculturalism, offering a vision of place as unified through a dual heritage. Taylor Annabell is a PhD candidate in the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London. Her research addresses contemporary articulations of national identity in New Zealand with a focus on the role of discourse. She also explores disruptions in digital memory work performed by young women on social media platforms. Her research has published in Memory Studies, Narrative Inquiry, Critical Discourse Studies and Discourse, Context & Media.

Notes 1. New Zealand Geographic Board, “Frameworks of the New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa,” (2018), 4. 2. Pākehā is a contested term, which is widespread and commonly refers to people with European heritage. See Paul Spoonley, “New Diversity, Old Anxieties in New Zealand: The Complex Identity Politics and Engagement of a Settler Society,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 38, no. 4 (16 Mar. 2015): 650–61. 3. Held in 2019, Tuia 250 commemorates 250 years since the first onshore meeting between Māori and Pākehā in 1769. See “Tuia Encounters 250.” 4. Derek H. Alderman, “Place, Naming and the Interpretation of Cultural Landscapes.” In The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity, ed. B. J. Graham and Peter Howard, 195–213 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008); Lawrence D. Berg and Robin A. Kearns, “Naming as Norming: ‘Race,’ Gender, and the Identity Politics of Naming Places in Aotearoa/New Zealand,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 14 (1996): 99–122; Jordan P. Brasher, Derek H. Alderman, and Joshua F. J. Inwood, “Applying Critical Race and Memory Studies to University Place Naming. Controversies: Toward a Responsible Landscape Policy,” Papers in Applied Geography 3, no. 3–4 (2 Oct. 2017): 292–307; Lyn Carter, “The Big ‘H’: Naming and Claiming Landscapes,” in Making Our Place: Exploring Land-Use Tensions in Aotearoa New Zealand, ed. Jacinta Ruru, Janet Stephenson, and Mick Abbott, 57–69 (Dunedin, NZ: Otago University Press, 2011); Reuben Rose-Redwood, “From Number to Name: Symbolic Capital, Places of Memory and the Politics of Street Renaming in New York City,” Social & Cultural Geography 9, no. 4 (June 2008): 431–52. 5. Barry Schwartz, “Rethinking the Concept of Collective Memory,” in Routledge International Handbook of Memory Studies, ed. Anna Lisa Tota and Trever Hagen, 9–21 (London: Routledge, 2016); Rose-Redwood, “From Number to Name.” 6. Schwartz, “Rethinking the Concept of Collective Memory.” 7. Rose-Redwood, “From Number to Name.” 8. Frédéric Giraut and Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch, “Place Naming as Dispositif: Toward a Theoretical Framework,” Geopolitics 21, no. 1 (2 Jan. 2016): 1–21.

Renaming and the Relationship between Colonized and Colonizer • 103 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

Alderman, “Place, Naming and the Interpretation.” Berg and Kearns, “Naming as Norming.” Carter, “The Big ‘H.’” Tanira Kingi, “Maori Landownership and Land Management in New Zealand,” in Making Land Work, 129–52 (Canberra, Australia: Australian Agency for International Development, 2008). New Zealand Waitangi Tribunal, The Te Roroa report, 1992, Waitangi Tribunal report, 5 WTR (Wellington, NZ: Brooker & Friend, 1992). Giraut and Houssay-Holzschuch, “Place Naming as Dispositif.” Giselle Byrnes, “Affixing Names to Places: Colonial Surveying & the Construction of Cultural Space,” New Zealand Studies 8, no. 1 (1998): 22–28. Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (Dunedin, Z: University of Otago Press, 1999). Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies. Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, 63. Byrnes, “Affixing Names to Places.” Nathan John Albury and Lyn Carter, “A Typology of Arguments for and against Bilingual Place-Naming in Aotearoa New Zealand,” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 38, no. 9 (21 Oct. 2017): 831–42. Ministry for Culture and Heritage, “Legacy – Tuia Encounters 250.” This history of Maui fishing up the North Island from the sea is told in different variations across the Māori world and other parts of Polynesia. It has also been scrutinised by Pākehā writers, including in “pre-history” of New Zealand rather than as part of its origins. See Nepia Mahuika, “Revitalizing Te Ika-a-Maui: Māori Migration and the Nation,” New Zealand Journal of History 43, no. 2 (2009): 133–49. Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies. Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies. Avril Bell, “Dilemmas of Settler Belonging: Roots, Routes and Redemption in New Zealand National Identity Claims,” The Sociological Review 57, no. 1 (Feb. 2009): 145–62; Chris G. Sibley and James H. Liu, “New Zealand = Bicultural? Implicit and Explicit Associations between Ethnicity and Nationhood in the New Zealand Context,” European Journal of Social Psychology 37, no. 6 (Nov. 2007): 1222–43. Ranginui Walker, Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle without End (Auckland, NZ: Penguin, 2004). Heretaunga Tamatea Claims Settlement Act, New Zealand, 2018. Schwartz, “Rethinking the Concept of Collective Memory.” David Palumbo-Liu, Asian/American: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 1. Jennifer DeVere Brody, Punctuation: Art, Politics, and Play (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008).

Bibliography Albury, Nathan John, and Lyn Carter. “A Typology of Arguments for and against Bilingual Place-Naming in Aotearoa New Zealand.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 38, no. 9 (21 Oct. 2017): 831–42.

104 • Taylor Annabell Alderman, Derek H. “Place, Naming and the Interpretation of Cultural Landscapes.” In The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity, edited by B. J. Graham and Peter Howard, 195–213. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008. Bell, Avril. “Dilemmas of Settler Belonging: Roots, Routes and Redemption in New Zealand National Identity Claims.” The Sociological Review 57, no. 1 (Feb. 2009): 145–62. Berg, Lawrence D., and Robin A. Kearns. “Naming as Norming: ‘Race,’ Gender, and the Identity Politics of Naming Places in Aotearoa/New Zealand.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 14 (1996): 99–122. Brasher, Jordan P., Derek H. Alderman, and Joshua F. J. Inwood. “Applying Critical Race and Memory Studies to University Place Naming Controversies: Toward a Responsible Landscape Policy.” Papers in Applied Geography 3, no. 3–4 (2 Oct. 2017): 292–307. Brody, Jennifer DeVere. Punctuation: Art, Politics, and Play. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. Byrnes, Giselle. “‘A Dead Sheet Covered with Meaningless Words?’: Place Names and the Cultural Colonization of Tauranga.” New Zealand Journal of History 36, no. 1 (2002): 18–35. ———. “Affixing Names to Places: Colonial Surveying & the Construction of Cultural Space.” New Zealand Studies 8, no. 1 (1998): 22–28. Carter, Lyn. “The Big ‘H’: Naming and Claiming Landscapes.” In Making Our Place: Exploring Land-Use Tensions in Aotearoa New Zealand, edited by Jacinta Ruru, Janet Stephenson, and Mick Abbott, 57–69. Dunedin, NZ: Otago University Press, 2011. Giraut, Frédéric, and Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch. “Place Naming as Dispositif: Toward a Theoretical Framework.” Geopolitics 21, no. 1 (2 Jan. 2016): 1–21. Heretaunga Tamatea Claims Settlement Act, New Zealand, 2018. Kingi, Tanira. “Maori Landownership and Land Management in New Zealand.” In Making Land Work, 129–52. Canberra, Australia: Australian Agency for International Development, 2008. Mahuika, Nepia. “Revitalizing Te Ika-a-Maui: Māori Migration and the Nation.” New Zealand Journal of History 43, no. 2 (2009): 133–49. Mikaere, Ani. Colonising Myths - Maori Realities: He Rukuruku Whakaaro. Wellington, NZ: Huia Publishers, 2011. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. “Legacy – Tuia Encounters 250.” Accessed 25 February 2021. https://mch.govt.nz/tuia250/legacy. New Zealand Geographic Board. “Frameworks of the New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa.” 10, April 2018. https://www.linz.govt.nz/sites/default/files/ nzgb_frameworks-v10_20180615.pdf. New Zealand Waitangi Tribunal. The Te Roroa report, 1992. Waitangi Tribunal report, 5 WTR. Wellington, NZ: Brooker & Friend, 1992. Palumbo-Liu, David. Asian/American: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Rose-Redwood, Reuben. “From Number to Name: Symbolic Capital, Places of Memory and the Politics of Street Renaming in New York City.” Social & Cultural Geography 9, no. 4 (June 2008): 431–52. Schwartz, Barry. “Rethinking the Concept of Collective Memory.” In Routledge International Handbook of Memory Studies, edited by Anna Lisa Tota and Trever Hagen, 9–21. London: Routledge, 2016. Sibley, Chris G., and James H. Liu. “New Zealand = Bicultural? Implicit and Explicit Associations between Ethnicity and Nationhood in the New Zealand Context.” European Journal of Social Psychology 37, no. 6 (Nov. 2007): 1222–43. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Dunedin, NZ: University of Otago Press, 1999.

Renaming and the Relationship between Colonized and Colonizer • 105 Spoonley, Paul. “New Diversity, Old Anxieties in New Zealand: The Complex Identity Politics and Engagement of a Settler Society.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 38, no. 4 (16 Mar. 2015): 650–61. Till, Karen E. “Wounded Cities: Memory-Work and a Place-Based Ethics of Care.” Political Geography 31, no. 1 (Jan. 2012): 3–14. “Tuia Encounters 250.” Accessed 3 March 2021. https://mch.govt.nz/tuia250. Walker, Ranginui. Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle without End. Auckland, NZ: Penguin, 2004.

Chapter 10

DE-CANONIZATION OF THE SOVIET PAST Abject, Kitsch, and Memory Yuliya Yurchuk

8 This chapter tackles the de-commemoration practices in Ukraine that were directed at the Soviet past after the mass anti-government protests of 2013–14 (known as Euromaidan Revolution or Revolution of Dignity) and before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The protests took place parallel to the toppling of Lenin statues throughout the country.1 In 2015, a package of new “memory laws” dedicated to the Soviet past was adopted by the new post-revolutionary government. These laws and the toppling of Lenin statues in many respects reflect main tendencies in memory practices, which had developed in western regions of the country starting in the 1990s where by the 2000s almost no monument to Lenin remained.2 These practices were governed by the logic of reordering of historical narratives, wherein the Soviet master narrative was substituted by the national one.3 I see the trend of de-commemoration in Ukraine as de-canonization because through this process, the Soviet historical narrative loses its canonical status in society. De-commemoration leads us to the place where remembering and forgetting meet and where the spaces in-between can be seen. I approach these spaces through the concepts of the abject and kitsch. The chapter begins with a short presentation of the post-Soviet context in Ukraine where the attempts to change the historical master narratives are discussed through the concept of de-canonization. Then, I introduce the concept of the abject in relation to the Soviet past and the concept of kitsch as one of the

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strategies of accommodation of the abject into the space of new identification. The chapter ends with some summarizing reflections on de-commemoration.

De-Canonization of the Soviet Historical Narrative The triumphal narrative of the war functioned as a foundational myth in the Soviet Union as the war was the biggest historical experience shared by people in all the republics. As a foundational myth, this narrative prepared the ground for a historical canon that was not negotiated or questioned. In this glorifying narrative of war, though, many histories were silenced or repressed. For instance, the anti-Soviet movements in the Baltic states or in western Ukraine during the war were mentioned only as marginalized forces that collaborated with Nazis and betrayed the Soviet ideals. The situation radically changed with the fall of the Soviet Union. In postSoviet Ukraine (as well as in the Baltic states), World War II history became a target of the most intensive de-canonization—a process that was aimed at stripping off the canonical status of Soviet historical narrative and creating a new historical and mnemonic canon. Most of the works on de-canonization belong to religious or literary studies. The concept of de-canonization in religious studies means the change of the canonical status of texts or saints/ martyrs.4 In literary studies, de-canonization is used for depicting a process through which certain texts or authors lose their place in the canon.5 The canon in this respect is an institutionalized corpus of texts (and authors). In memory studies, Aleida Assmann refers to “the actively circulated memory that keeps the past present” as the canon, in contrast to “the passively stored memory,” which she referred to as the archive.6 Similar to the scholars above, I underline the institutional role in establishing a certain narrative as canonical. I argue that historical narratives can also have a canonical status if supported by institutions (schools, Institutes of Memory, laws, etc.) that actively work on keeping a particular narrative of the past present, to paraphrase Assmann. In the new post-Soviet configuration, the Soviet master narrative is regarded as a problem one needs to solve or as a reminder from the past that one needs to confront or challenge, which I interpret as an abject. Julia Kristeva defines abject as the “disturbing” object one wants to forget or ignore because one cannot assimilate this part of oneself or one’s past into the structure of one’s own identity.7 In Ukraine, society has a difficulty with accommodating the Soviet past into the post-Soviet present. Consequently, it is hard to find a place for the “Soviet story” in the new national narrative being created. The new national narrative is mainly concentrated on the wartime nationalist movement (personified by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists [OUN] and its military arm, Ukrainian Insurgent Army [UPA])—the his-

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tories and the experiences that were excluded from the Soviet canon. The OUN and UPA are glorified as “freedom fighters” because of their anti-Soviet struggle.8 In such a way, the state deals with the abject of the Soviet memory by choosing the strategy of prescribed forgetting, whereby the Soviet is shifted outside of the public space and instead new heroes are propagated by memory politics. Many historians stress the problematic character of the glorification of the nationalist movement, drawing attention to the fact that the OUN’s ideology had many traces of fascism, that the nationalists participated in the mass killings of Poles in 1943 in Volhynia, and that they collaborated with the Nazi regime and participated in the Holocaust.9

Securitization of the Past Memory politics in Ukraine since 2014 should be considered in the context of military conflict in the east of the country and in the shadow of Russian annexation of Crimea. The Soviet narrative of World War II is propagated by the Russian state today,10 which mobilizes even stronger anti-Soviet resentments, reinforcing the abject status of the Soviet past in contemporary Ukraine and turning it into a question of national security. As was mentioned above, slow distancing from the Soviet past started in 1991 when the country became independent. National history curricula gradually became de-Sovietized.11 In the cityscapes, de-commemoration in the form of de-Sovietization had a pronounced regional character. The western regions of the country that experienced a shorter period of Soviet rule got rid of many Soviet monuments and symbols during the 1990s. In the eastern parts of the country and in the Crimea, many Soviet monuments remained untouched.12 In 2015, however, de-Sovietization was prescribed by law, when the Ukrainian Parliament adopted the package of laws known as the “Laws on Decommunization.”13 In these laws, which were propelled by Russian military aggression against Ukraine, the Soviet past was rhetorically equalized with contemporary Russia and, even more, associated with the abject—something that evokes horror because it can threaten one’s existence. By these laws, the state chose prescribed forgetting as a strategy for dealing with this past. At the grassroots level, though, the strategy was not so much about forgetting but rather about hyperinflated remembering, realized by kitsch.

Kitsch as a Playful Engagement with the Past One of the approaches in dealing with Soviet era monuments and symbols in urban space after 2014 at the local grassroots level employed a playful

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reinterpretation. Activists who do not agree with the state-sanctioned politics of prescribed forgetting used old Soviet monuments and imbued them with new meanings. I explain this memory work through the category of kitsch. Baudrillard defines kitsch as an aesthetic form that opposes the aesthetics of beauty and originality with its aesthetics of simulation: kitsch “imitates materials . . . ; it apes forms or combines them discordantly; it repeats fashion without having been part of the experience of fashion.”14 Kitsch is based on unlimited multiplication; it is never innovative. A telling example of kitsch in working with the Soviet symbols is the monument of Lenin in Odesa, the city in the south of Ukraine. In 2015 in Odesa, the monument to Lenin (originally built in the 1960s) was transformed by local activists into a monument to Darth Vader, from George Lucas’ Star Wars. In the films, Darth Vader is a former Jedi who joined the “dark side of the force.” The inscription on the pedestal reads, “For the father of the nation from the grateful children and adopted children.” The parallels between Lenin and the pronounced father figure are not accidental. Based on the logics of kitsch, such transformation from Lenin to the “father of the nation” reveals the whole gamut of emotions and reactions to the abject that needs to be represented but which resists such representation. In contrast to the official politics that prescribes forgetting, kitsch does not repress this past but rather reformulates it and playfully engages with its content. It is difficult to imagine any other more iconic figure associated with the Soviet past than that of Lenin.15 Yurchak argues that as a political sacred figure, Lenin functioned as a “canonized Lenin”: “the sovereign, who was above Soviet language and law, could not be questioned by them, and whose voice articulated the foundational Truth of that polity.”16 In the discussed case, we see that kitsch plays with both the canonical Soviet status of Lenin and the prescribed forgetting in the independent Ukraine at the same time. Such an approach has vivid characteristics of the specific Soviet kind of kitsch called stiob: a ridiculing of Soviet power originating in subcultural groups.17 Stiob is based on irony as a trope.18 It is intended as a critique of politics.19 What is ridiculed by stiob is the way the state deals with the past through prescribing forgetting. As the sculptor of the Darth Vader monument Alexander Milov said, he did not want to take part in the demolition of Lenin’s statue; he wanted to preserve it, albeit with the head of a fantasy hero.20 Kitsch works in Odesa also in the repurposing of traditional Soviet city space objects in the city center. In one of the parks, the traditional Soviet “wall of glory” was transformed into the wall of the “Grand Empire Business Park.” In the past, such walls were used to show off local workers or sportsmen. Stiob transforms this tradition and perpetuates it to the extreme. The wall is now occupied by Hollywood mass culture heroes (Davy Jones and

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Darth Vader), the founder of Apple Corporation Steve Jobs, and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Such a pastiche of symbols is made possible thanks to the mechanism of kitsch (and stiob), which allows a combination of seemingly irreconcilable imaginaries (drawing on capitalism, totalitarianism, and mass popular culture). Kitsch drives this symbolism to the extremes in which the abject—the Soviet past—is no longer visible. The only thing the viewer can decipher is the “wall” or a pedestal with a figure. But to be able to decipher playful elements in the wall and the monument the viewer needs to have knowledge about the tradition of the walls of glory and the Lenin statues in monumental Soviet art. Otherwise the playfulness remains indecipherable. De-canonization works in both cases, either through prescribed forgetting or through kitsch. The examples from Odesa show that kitsch becomes a strategy that works with the abject and the anxieties of losing the past in the process of prescribed forgetting. Lyotard writes that kitsch brings satisfaction “when the fear and anxiety gets smaller or diminishes.”21 In the memory work driven by kitsch, the fear and anxiety get smaller. But it is questionable whether these strategies bring satisfaction as, according to Adorno, kitsch invents feelings that do not exist and neutralizes these feelings at the same time; kitsch apes satisfaction.22 Darth Vader in place of Lenin may be funny to see; but underneath this ridiculed surface, there still sits an abject that can be neither ignored nor shown in full light. If we draw parallels to de-commemoration in general, underneath its surface there are uncanny traces of the abject past that can be neither forgotten nor remembered. Yuliya Yurchuk is a historian at Södertörn University, Sweden. She holds a PhD from Stockholm University. Her research focuses on memory politics, religion, nationalism, history of World War II, and history of Eastern Europe. Her latest publications include Memory and Religion from a Postsecular Perspective (Routledge, 2022), edited with Zuzanna Bogumił, and “Historians as Activists: History-Writing in Times of War. The Case of Ukraine in 2014– 2018,” Nationalities Papers 49, no. 4 (2021): 691–709.

Notes 1. Oleksandra Gaidai, Kamianyi hist’. Lenin u Tsentralnii Ukraiini (Kyiv: KIS, 2018). 2. Viktoria Sereda, “Regional Historical Identities and Memory,” Україна Модерна 13 (2007): 160–209.

De-Canonization of the Soviet Past • 111 3. Yuliya Yurchuk, Reordering of Meaningful Worlds: Memory of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Post-Soviet Ukraine (Stockholm: Acta, 2014). 4. Karel van der Toorn and A. van der Kooij, eds., Canonization and Decanonization (Leiden: Brill, 2018). 5. Jo-Ann Wallace, “Laura Riding and the Politics of Decanonization,” American Literature 64, no. 1 (1992): 111–26. 6. Aleida Assmann, “Canon and Archive,” in Cultural Memory Studies, ed. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning, 97–108 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 98–99. 7. Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982); see also discussion on the abject and memory in the East European context in Maria Mälksoo, The Politics of Becoming European: A Study of Polish and Baltic PostCold War Security Imaginaries (London: Routledge, 2010); Yuliya Yurchuk, “Monuments as Reminders and Triggers: A Contemporary Comparison between Memory Work in Ukraine and the US,” Baltic Worlds 3 (2017): 12–17. 8. Yurchuk, Reordering of Meaningful Worlds. 9. See four special volumes on the memory and history of the OUN and UPA in Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, ed. Andreas Umland and Yuliya Yurchuk: vol. 3, no. 2 (2017); vol. 4, no. 2 (2018); vol. 6, no. 1 (2020); vol. 7, no. 1 (2021). 10. Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya, “Combating the Russian State Propaganda Machine: Strategies of Information Resistance,” Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 1, no. 1 (2015): 175–217; Elizaveta Gaufman, Security, Threats and Public Perception: Digital Russia and the Ukraine Crisis (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Jade McGlynn, “Historical Framing of the Ukraine Crisis through the Great Patriotic War: Performativity, Cultural Consciousness and Shared Remembering,” Memory Studies 13, no. 6 (2018): 1–23. 11. Oksana Myshlovska, “History Education and Reconciliation: The Ukrainian National Underground Movement in Secondary School History Curricula, Textbooks, and Classroom Practices in Ukraine (1991–2012),” in Issues in the history and memory of the OUN, part IV, ed. Yuliya Yurchuk and Andreas Umland, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 7, no. 1 (2021); Alla Marchenko, Andriy Kashyn, and Yuliya Yurchuk, “Rethinking Perestroika in Ukraine: Waking up a Sleeping Beauty,” in When the Future Came: The Collapse of the USSR and the Emergence of National Memory in Post-Soviet History Textbooks, ed. Li Bennich-Björkman and Sergiy Kurbatov (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2019). 12. Yurchuk, Reordering of Meaningful Worlds. 13. The laws include “The Law on the Commemoration of the Victory over Nazism in the Second World War 1939–1945,” http://zakon4.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/315-19?test=4/ UMfPEGznhhPq0.ZisHkbU7HI4o.s80msh8Ie6; “The Law on the Condemnation of the Communist and National-Socialist (Nazi) Totalitarian Regimes in Ukraine and a Ban on the Propaganda of Their Symbols,” http:// zakon4.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/317-viii; “The Law on Granting Access to the Archives of the Repressive Institutions of the Communist Totalitarian Regime 1918–1991,” http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/316-19?test=4/ UMfPEGznhhPq0.ZisHkbU7HI4o.s80msh8Ie6; “The Law on the Status and Commemoration of the Fighters for the Independence of Ukraine in the 20th Century,” http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/314-viii (accessed 1 June 2021). 14. Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures (London: Sage, 1998), 111. 15. Maria Brock, “Lenin as Cultural Icon,” in The Construction and Dynamics of Cultural Icons, ed. Erica Boven and Marieke Winkler, 45–62 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021).

112 • Yuliya Yurchuk 16. Alexei Yurchak, “The canon and the mushroom: Lenin, sacredness, and Soviet collapse,” in: Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, no. 2 (2017): 2017 7:2, 165–98, 189. 17. Ekaterina Kalinina, “Fashionable Irony and Stiob: The Use of Soviet Heritage in Russian Fashion Design and Soviet Subcultures,” in Cultural and Political Imaginaries in Putin’s Russia, ed. Niklas Bernsand and Barbara Törnquist-Plewa, 192–210 (London: Brill, 2019). 18. Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). 19. Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books 2001), 154. 20. Cited in BBC Russia, “V Odesse iz pamatnika Leninu sdelali Darta Vaidera,” BBC Russia, 23 October 2015. 21. Jean-François Lyotard, “The Sublime and the Avant-Garde,” Artforum 22, no. 8 (1984): 37. 22. Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory (London: Continuum, 1997), 349–50; see also Tamara Hundorova, Kitsch i Literatura. Travestii (Kyiv: Fakt, 2008).

Bibliography Adorno, Theodor. Aesthetic Theory. London: Continuum, 1997. Assmann, Aleida. “Canon and Archive.” In Cultural Memory Studies, edited by Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning, 97–108. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008. Baudrillard, Jean. The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. London: Sage, 1998. BBC Russia. “V Odesse iz pamatnika Leninu sdelali Darta Vaidera sdelali.” BBC Russia, 23 October 2015, https://www.bbc.com/russian/multimedia/2015/10/151023_darth_vader_odessa. Bernstein, Anya, and Alexei Yurchak. “Sacred Necropolitics: A Dialogue on Alexei Yurchak’s Essay, ‘The Canon and the Mushroom: Lenin, Sacredness, and Soviet Collapse,’” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7, no. 2 (2017): 199–216. Bonch-Osmolovskaya, Tatiana. “Combating the Russian State Propaganda Machine: Strategies of Information Resistance.” Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 1, no. 1 (2015): 175–217. Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books, 2001. Brock, Maria. “Lenin as Cultural Icon.” In The Construction and Dynamics of Cultural Icons, edited by Erica Boven and Marieke Winkler, 45–62. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. Gaidai, Oleksandra. Kamianyi hist’. Lenin u Tsentralnii Ukraiini. Kyiv: KIS, 2018. Gaufman, Elizaveta. Security, Threats and Public Perception: Digital Russia and the Ukraine Crisis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Hundorova, Tamara. Kitsch i Literatura. Travestii. Kyiv: Fakt, 2008. Kalinina, Ekaterina. “Fashionable Irony and Stiob: The Use of Soviet Heritage in Russian Fashion Design and Soviet Subcultures.” In Cultural and Political Imaginaries in Putin’s Russia, edited by Niklas Bernsand and Barbara Törnquist-Plewa, 192–210. London: Brill, 2019. Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. Lyotard, Jean-François. “The Sublime and the Avant-Garde.” Artforum 22, no. 8 (1984): 36–43.

De-Canonization of the Soviet Past • 113 Mälksoo, Maria. The Politics of Becoming European: A Study of Polish and Baltic Post-Cold War Security Imaginaries. London: Routledge, 2010. Marchenko, Alla, Andriy Kashyn, and Yuliya Yurchuk. “Rethinking Perestroika in Ukraine: Waking up a Sleeping Beauty.” In When the Future Came: The Collapse of the USSR and the Emergence of National Memory in Post-Soviet History Textbooks, edited by Li Bennich-Björkman and Sergiy Kurbatov. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2019. McGlynn, Jade. “Historical Framing of the Ukraine Crisis through the Great Patriotic War: Performativity, Cultural Consciousness and Shared Remembering.” Memory Studies 13, no. 6 (2018): 1–23. Myshlovska, Oksana. “History Education and Reconciliation: The Ukrainian National Underground Movement in Secondary School History Curricula, Textbooks, and Classroom Practices in Ukraine (1991–2012).” In Issues in the History and Memory of the OUN. Part IV, edited by Yuliya Yurchuk and Andreas Umland, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 7, no. 1 (2021). Sereda, Viktoria. “Regional Historical Identities and Memory.” Україна Модерна 13 (2007): 160–209. van der Toorn, Karel, and A. van der Kooij, eds. Canonization and Decanonization. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Wallace, Jo-Ann. “Laura Riding and the Politics of Decanonization.” American Literature 64, no. 1 (1992): 111–26. Yurchak, Alexei. Everything Was Forever until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. Yurchuk, Yuliya. “Monuments as Reminders and Triggers: A Contemporary Comparison between Memory Work in Ukraine and the US.” Baltic Worlds 3 (2017): 12–17, available http://balticworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Baltic-Worlds-3-2017-uppslag.pdf. ———. Reordering of Meaningful Worlds: Memory of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Post-Soviet Ukraine. Stockholm: Acta, 2014. Yurchuk, Yuliya, and Andreas Umland. “Introduction: Studies in the Course and Commemoration of the OUN’s Anti-Soviet Resistance.” Issues in the History and Memory of the OUN. Part IV, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 7, no. 1 (2021): 3–16.

Chapter 11

DIVERSIFYING PUBLIC COMMEMORATIONS IN CAPE TOWN AND COPENHAGEN Vibe Nielsen

8 How are existing commemorations in urban spaces challenged and transformed? In this chapter, I examine two cases, one in Cape Town and one in Copenhagen, where statues, one ephemeral, the other more permanent, have been added to public spaces in the process of decolonization and decommemoration.1 The two cases, one in the former Dutch and British colony of South Africa and one in the (former) colonial power of Denmark,2 are two of many examples where statues related to colonialism have been either removed, replaced, or accompanied by new statues in recent years to commemorate stories often left out in narratives of the colonial era. In Cape Town, where material reminders of colonialism are visible throughout the city, the removal of the statue of the British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes (1853–1902) at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 2015 made way for a significant replacement, when the South African visual artist Sethembile Msezane presented an alternative to the material celebrations of colonialism. Dressed up as the bird-like figure of Chapungu, Msezane rose like a phoenix from the ashes of Rhodes, in a celebration emphasizing that the history of South Africa is far more diverse than the parts of it usually celebrated. In Copenhagen, the material reminders of the colonial past of Denmark are less obvious. Consequently, the Virgin Island artist La Vaughn Belle and the Danish artist Jeannette Ehlers produced a statue of the anti-colonialist Mary Thomas (also known as Queen Mary) that was added to the harbor front in 2018 as the first collaborative sculpture to memorialize Denmark’s colonial

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impact in the Caribbean. Both Msezane’s embodiment of Chapungu and the statue of Queen Mary in Copenhagen are examples of protests against colonial oppression that simultaneously to some extent reproduce the material language of statues. When Msezane through her performance turned her body into what might be perceived as a living statue, or when a nineteenth-century Caribbean revolt leader is sculpted in bronze-looking Styrofoam (which is now in the process of being replaced with a bronze cast version), a crucial dilemma of decolonization is highlighted: How does one protest against the system one lives and breathes in without using the symbols and language of that system? The reproduction of a similar material language, as the one used by the system the two artworks seek to challenge, emphasizes one of many challenges involved in the process of decolonization but also confirms the universalization of Euro-American values and artistic means of expression: since the age of Enlightenment, notions of freedom, welfare, sovereignty, representation, and democracy have become universal.3 An “increasingly homogenous language of culture and ethics [has been] promulgated worldwide by the erstwhile colonial powers of Europe” and has since spread across the globe.4 Consequently, artistic protests against existing colonial celebrations are often accompanied or replaced by alternatives expressed or shaped in similar forms. But the process of diversifying public commemoration by adding new statues (permanent or ephemeral) nevertheless shows that the material celebrations of colonial heroes are being challenged through productions of alternative public narratives that provide more diverse celebrations in urban spaces.

Replacing Rhodes By the time of its removal in 2015, the statue of Rhodes at UCT had been placed prominently at the center of the University’s upper campus for more than fifty years.5 The statue had previously attracted controversy due to Rhodes’ deep involvement on the British side of the second Boer War (1899– 1902)6 but also (more recently) due to his firm belief that only “one race . . . approached God’s ideal type, his own Anglo-Saxon race.”7 Despite his racist ideals, and dreams of an expansion of the British Empire from Cape to Cairo, the statue of Rhodes was left standing on the UCT campus for more than two decades after the ending of apartheid. This was not an unusual fate for a statue depicting a colonial figure in South Africa: in the post-apartheid era of reconciliation, statues and other material reminders of years of oppression and colonialism were in many cases kept on public display. In President Nelson Mandela’s (1918–2013) vision of “a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world,”8 forgiveness and reconciliation were key concepts,9 and all

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kinds of different values, even when divisive as those expressed in a figure like Rhodes, were welcome. For many years, the statue of Rhodes belonged to a species of what the French historian Paul Veyne dubbed Works of Art without Viewers10—a monument left untouched due to its impregnation against attention.11 Virtually “invisible for decades,” statues like the one of Rhodes at UCT “lost their power to inspire and incite long ago”;12 but silently, and for almost a century, the statue of Rhodes nevertheless contributed to the institutional geography of a university that the protesting students argued for many years had been organized to maintain status and prestige based on a Euro-American model.13 As such, the very form of the statue highlighted UCT’s links to Europe and the Global North as a symbol of the mimicry performed not only within the institution but also on its external premises.14 As I have explored in more detail elsewhere,15 the statue of Rhodes, the former Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, was removed following weeks of protests led by students referring to themselves under hashtags ranging from #RhodesMustFall to #FeesMustFall and even #EverythingMustFall. The student-led protests became significant expressions of the conflicting debates over the future of academic and public representation and decolonization in South Africa. The statue is as such an example of a public commemoration of a colonial figure that is now being challenged. In the case of Rhodes, the statue was temporarily replaced with the living, statuesque depiction of the Zimbabwean totemic bird Chapungu, embodied by Sethembile Msezane, who on the day the statue of Rhodes fell climbed up on to her own plinth on the staircase leading to the then Jameson Hall (now Sarah Baartman Hall).16 Spreading her wings made of hair-extensions and golden attachments, she challenged the statue of the old imperialist by placing herself instead. Continuously raising and lowering her arms, as if the bird she depicted was stretching its wings, Msezane hid her own self behind her veil, just as Xhosa diviners induce a trance in themselves from the swaying beads that make up their amageza veil,17 and became Chapungu. In this way, she explained to me when I met her in her Cape Town-based studio three years later, she used her body as a medium for Chapungu to speak through her movements. In the reflections of the sunglasses and phones of the onlookers around her, Msezane could see when the statue behind her was being lifted and lowered with the arm of a crane, and as Rhodes fell, Chapungu majestically raised her wings into the air. The living statue of Chapungu was made as a protest of colonial oppression but is simultaneously, to some extent, reproducing the material language of statues: in order to make herself heard in a world dominated by art forms originating from Europe, such as commemorative statues in public spaces, Msezane expressed herself in a similar language to that of the oppressors she spoke up against. She reclaimed an urban space that for many years had

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been narrowly dominated by one group of society, and thus celebrated Black women as agents of change. She might have used the public statue as her medium and expressed herself in a similar monumental language as that of the white oppressors she opposed, but simultaneously she added significant references in her performance to Shona and Xhosa mythology. This highlights that although alternative languages of public commemoration like statues can be difficult to find in settings so accustomed to certain ways of artistic expression and public celebration, it is possible to challenge status quo and diversify symbols of commemoration in urban spaces. The changes Msezane made to the urban landscape of UCT may have been ephemeral, but nevertheless they had a lasting impact: her embodiment of Chapungu was photographed and shared widely across the globe in the days following the removal of the statue of Rhodes, and a material reminder of her performance was prominently displayed in the entrance hall of the Iziko South African National Gallery in the group show The Art of Disruptions (2016). Here Chapungu—The Day Rhodes Fell (2015) hung alongside works of other young artists and provided an image of what South Africa can also look like: a country whose public spaces also include and commemorate works of Black women and stories linked to the African continent—such as that of Chapungu—rather than solely European colonial heroes.

Remembering Queen Mary On a windswept waterfront much further north, a new addition to the landscape of statues was introduced to the Danish public in 2018: in Copenhagen, the statue I am Queen Mary, produced by La Vaughn Belle and Jeannette Ehlers, became the first collaborative sculpture to memorialize Denmark’s colonial impact in the Caribbean. Situated on the waterfront in front of the old warehouse Vestindisk Pakhus built in 1780, where goods produced in the Danish West Indies (the current US Virgin Islands) were once stored, the location of the statue has strong connections to Denmark’s colonial past. It was unveiled by the end of the centennial year, commemorating the Danish sale of St. Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas to the United States in March 1917, and resembles the historical figure Mary Thomas (1848–1905), also known as Queen Mary, who fought against the Danish colonial power during the Fireburn uprising in 1878.18 Through her involvement in the uprising, Thomas contributed to changing local working conditions and eventually the decline of Danish colonialism in the Caribbean.19 She was arrested and sentenced to lifetime imprisonment in Copenhagen and is today celebrated as a significant symbol of colonial revolt in the US Virgin Islands, where the folk song “Queen Mary, ah where you gon’ go burn?” celebrates her endeavors.20

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Figure 11.1. The I am Queen Mary statue by La Vaughn Belle and Jeannette Ehlers, as seen from Vestindisk Pakhus in the harbor of Copenhagen, 2020. Photo by Vibe Nielsen.

In Denmark, literary descriptions of Queen Mary have not been so celebratory: in 1907, Lucie Hørlyk (1870–1912), who lived on the islands when they were still a Danish colony, portrayed her in racialized terms that attributed her actions in the uprising to “a ‘natural’ tendency toward aggression and violence.”21 As Ursula Lindquist has shown, narratives like Hørlyk’s,

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that present the 1878 insurrection as an impulsive and incomprehensible phenomenon and portraits the Danish colonial era in a nostalgic light, have not been unusual.22 Still to this day, Danish narratives of the colonial past often emphasize, in a rather self-congratulatory manner, Denmark as the first nation to abolish slavery. While Denmark did abolish the transatlantic slave trade as early as 1792, with the so-called Forordning om Neger-Handelen, it was only the actual import of enslaved Africans that was abolished, not the slave labor in the Danish West Indies itself.23 On top of this, the slave trade continued across the Atlantic on Danish ships until 1803—eleven years after the alleged abolition.24 Enslaved Africans and their descendants thus continued to work as slaves on Danish-owned plantations until a rebellion resulted in the immediate emancipation of all enslaved in the Danish West Indies in 1848.25 The twenty-three-foot-tall monument raised in honor of Queen Mary in the harbor of Copenhagen was created in an attempt to interrupt “the silences that mask(ed) Denmark’s colonial histories.”26 As a symbol of a narrative that was long neglected, the statue is meant to create awareness of those who suffered under Danish colonial rule and who, until very recently, were not commemorated in Danish public spaces. Seated in a pose reminiscent of the iconic 1967 photograph of Huey P. Newton (1942–89), the cofounder of the Black Panther Party, and sculpted using the artists’ own bodies as inspiration, Queen Mary gazes, determined and strong-minded, toward the waters that once violently transported her ancestors across the Atlantic. Her material presence in the center of Copenhagen “asks us to grapple with the violent traumas of our past and decide who we will be now and in the future.”27 I am Queen Mary is thus created as an attempt to encourage passing Danes and visitors alike to pause for a moment and remember that the story of Denmark as a colonial ruler is in fact not one story but a multitude of stories with different viewpoints and diverse and entangled destinies. I am Queen Mary might be sculpted in an artistic expression reminiscent of the bronzecopy of Michelangelo’s David standing next to her but, alongside Msezane’s embodiment of Chapungu, the statue of Queen Mary nevertheless shows that Eurocentric material celebrations of white, European males are increasingly being challenged through productions of alternative public narratives that provide more diverse public commemorations.

Conclusion La Vaughn Belle and Jeannette Ehlers’ I am Queen Mary and Sethembile Msezane’s Chapungu—The Day Rhodes Fell are both significant examples of how existing commemorations in public spaces are challenged and trans-

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formed. In Cape Town as well as in Copenhagen, new statues are diversifying public commemorations in a process of decolonization that challenges status quo and makes room for alternative narratives. The two cases illustrate that although it can be difficult to find alternative languages of public commemoration in settings so accustomed to certain ways of artistic expression, it is possible to diversify symbols of commemoration and challenge public understandings of colonialism and its contemporary legacies. The two artworks might use the public, commemorative statue as their medium or inspiration, but with the added references to Shona and Xhosa mythology, in the case of Msezane’s embodiment of Chapungu, and the references to the Black Panther Party and the artists’ own bodies in the case of Queen Mary, Belle, Ehlers, and Msezane forcefully show the viewers of their artworks what commemoration can also look like. The public engagement that both artworks encourage thus asks us to rethink one-sided narratives of the past, de-commemorate our sites of commemoration, and diversify our public spaces. Vibe Nielsen obtained her PhD in anthropology from the University of Copenhagen in 2019. She is currently working on a postdoctoral research project, supported by the Carlsberg Foundation, at the University of Oxford, where she is Junior Research Fellow at Linacre College and Visiting Fellow at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Her project analyses processes of decolonization and changing curatorial practices in French and British museums. She has recently co-edited and contributed to the Routledge anthology Global Art in Local Art Worlds: Changing Hierarchies of Value (2023) and published the article “In the Absence of Rhodes: Decolonizing South African Universities” in the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies in 2021.

Notes 1. The research behind my presentation of the Cape Town case is based on my PhD research in South Africa that took place from 2016 to 2018 as part of the research project Global Europe: Constituting Europe from the outside in through artefacts at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Anthropology. The project was funded by the Danish Research Council (DFF 4180-00073) and supervised by Professor Oscar Salemink and Professor Bjarke Oxlund. A more thorough analysis of Chapungu—The Day Rhodes Fell (2015) by Sethembile Msezane and the Rhodes Must Fall movement can be found in my PhD thesis, “Demanding Recognition: Curatorial Challenges in the Exhibition of Art from South Africa” (2019), and in the journal article, “In the Absence of Rhodes: Decolonizing South African Universities,” published in Ethnic and Racial Studies 44, no. 3 (2021): 396–414. My insights into the dissemination and commemoration of Danish

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2.

3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15.

16.

17.

colonial history derives from firsthand observations and interviews undertaken as part of my master’s in Modern Culture (University of Copenhagen, 2015). The findings of my master’s thesis have been published and further developed in the article “Museale formidlinger af fortiden som kolonimagt på danske og britiske museer,” published in Slagmark 75 (2017): 81–93. I characterize Denmark as a (former) colonial power due to its continued presence in Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat) and the Faroe Islands. The latter were officially a Danish county until 1948, while Greenland remained a colony until 1953. Today Greenland and the Faroe Islands are considered autonomous territories within the Kingdom of Denmark. The Faroe Islands received home rule in 1948, which changed to a selfgovernment arrangement in 2005. Greenland received home rule in 1979 and selfrule in 2009. Denmark thus has little influence over matters of internal affairs but remains responsible for foreign policy and laws that apply to the entire Danish Realm (Rigsfællesskabet). Arjun Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” Theory, Culture & Society 7, no. 2–3 (1990): 299. Michael Herzfeld, The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of Value (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 2. Kim Miller and Brenda Schmahmann, “Introduction: Engaging with Public Art in South Africa, 1999–2015,” in Public Art in South Africa: Bronze Warriors and Plastic Presidents, ed. Kim Miller and Brenda Schmahmann (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017), viii. Owen Hatherley. “Rewriting the Past: Must Rhodes Fall?” Apollo Magazine 183, no. 639 (2016): 32. Basil Williams, “Cecil Rhodes,” in Makers of the Nineteenth Century, ed. Basil Williams (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1921). Nelson Mandela quoted in Tom Peck, “The One-Party Rainbow Nation: How South Africa Lost Hope after Mandela,” The Independent, 1 May 2014. Deborah Posel, “History as Confession: The Case of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Public Culture 20, no. 1 (2008): 133. Paul Veyne, “Conduct without Belief and Works of Art without Viewers.” Trans. Jeanne Ferguson, Diogenes 36, no. 143 (1988): 1–22. Dario Gamboni, The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution (London: Reaktion Books, 1997), 51. Wayne Curtis, “Decommissioning Lee: The Controversial Removal of a Prominent New Orleans Statue,” The American Scholar 86, no. 4 (2017): 98. Shannon Morreira, “Steps Towards Decolonial Higher Education in Southern Africa? Epistemic Disobedience in Humanities,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 52, no. 3 (2017): 287. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 1994). Vibe Nielsen, “Demanding Recognition: Curatorial Challenges in the Exhibition of Art from South Africa,” PhD diss., University of Copenhagen (2019) and “In the Absence of Rhodes: Decolonizing South African Universities” Ethnic and Racial Studies 44, no. 3 (2021): 396–414. Nicholas Coetzer, “An Imperial Axis, Counter-memorials, and the Double Bind: The Rise and Fall of Rhodes at the University of Cape Town,” Architectural Research Quarterly 24, no. 1 (2020): 68–73. Gary Van Wyk, “Illuminated Signs: Style and Meaning in the Beadwork of the Xhosaand Zulu-speaking Peoples,” African Arts 36, no. 3 (2003): 19.

122 • Vibe Nielsen 18. Anne Ring Petersen, “Spectres of Colonialism in Contemporary Art from Denmark,” Art History 43, no. 2 (2020): 259. 19. Lomarsh Roopnarine, “Contract Labor Migration as an Agent of Revolutionary Change in the Danish West Indies,” Labor History 61, no. 5–6 (2020): 692–705. 20. La Vaughn Belle, Tami Navarro, Hadiya Sewer, and Tiphanie Yanique, “Ancestral Queendom: Reflection on the Prison Records of the Rebel Queens of the 1878 Fireburn in St. Croix, USVI (formerly the Danish West Indies),” Nordisk Tidsskrift for Informationsvidenskab og Kulturformidling 8, no. 2 (2019): 20; and Ursula Lindquist, “West Indian Women in Danish Popular Fiction,” African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal 7, no. 1 (2014): 62. 21. Lindquist, “West Indian Women,” 62. 22. Lindquist, “West Indian Women,” 52–69. 23. Vibe Nielsen, “Museale formidlinger af fortiden som kolonimagt på danske og britiske museer,” Slagmark 75 (2017): 93. 24. Mikkel Venborg Pedersen, Luksus: Forbrug og kolonier i Danmark i det 18. århundrede (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2013), 54. 25. Jeannette A. Bastian, Owning Memory: How a Caribbean Community Lost Its Archives and Found Its History (Exeter: Libraries Unlimited, 2003), 23. 26. Belle et al., “Ancestral Queendom,” 27. 27. Belle et al., “Ancestral Queendom,” 27.

Bibliography Appadurai, Arjun. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Theory, Culture & Society 7, no. 2–3 (1990): 295–310. Bastian, Jeannette A. Owning Memory: How a Caribbean Community Lost Its Archives and Found Its History. Exeter: Libraries Unlimited, 2003. Belle, La Vaughn, Tami Navarro, Hadiya Sewer, and Tiphanie Yanique. “Ancestral Queendom: Reflection on the Prison Records of the Rebel Queens of the 1878 Fireburn in St. Croix, USVI (formerly the Danish West Indies).” Nordisk Tidsskrift for Informationsvidenskab og Kulturformidling 8, no. 2 (2019): 19–36. Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 1994. Coetzer, Nicholas. “An Imperial Axis, Counter-Memorials, and the Double Bind: The Rise and Fall of Rhodes at the University of Cape Town.” Architectural Research Quarterly 24, no. 1 (2020): 67–82. Curtis, Wayne. “Decommissioning Lee: The Controversial Removal of a Prominent New Orleans Statue.” The American Scholar 86, no. 4 (2017): 97–100. Gamboni, Dario. The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution. London: Reaktion Books, 1997. Hatherley, Owen. “Rewriting the Past: Must Rhodes Fall?” Apollo Magazine 183, no. 639 (2016): 30–33. Herzfeld, Michael. The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of Value. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Lindquist, Ursula. “West Indian Women in Danish Popular Fiction.” African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal 7, no. 1 (2014): 52–69.

Diversifying Public Commemorations in Cape Town and Copenhagen • 123 Miller, Kim, and Brenda Schmahmann. “Introduction: Engaging with Public Art in South Africa, 1999–2015.” In Public Art in South Africa: Bronze Warriors and Plastic Presidents, edited by Kim Miller and Brenda Schmahmann, vii–xxxvii. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017. Morreira, Shannon. “Steps Towards Decolonial Higher Education in Southern Africa? Epistemic Disobedience in Humanities.” Journal of Asian and African Studies 52, no. 3 (2017): 287–301. Nielsen, Vibe. “Demanding Recognition: Curatorial Challenges in the Exhibition of Art from South Africa.” PhD diss., University of Copenhagen, 2019. ———. “In the Absence of Rhodes: Decolonizing South African Universities.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 44, no. 3 (2021): 396–414. ———. “Museale formidlinger af fortiden som kolonimagt på danske og britiske museer.” Slagmark 75 (2017): 81–93. Peck, Tom. “The One-Party Rainbow Nation: How South Africa Lost Hope after Mandela.” The Independent, 1 May 2014. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/the-oneparty-rainbow-nation-how-south-africa-lost-hope-after-mandela-9313368.html. Pedersen, Mikkel Venborg. Luksus: Forbrug og kolonier i Danmark i det 18. århundrede. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2013. Petersen, Anne Ring. “Spectres of Colonialism in Contemporary Art from Denmark.” Art History 43, no. 2 (2020): 258–83. Posel, Deborah. “History as Confession: The Case of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” Public Culture 20, no. 1 (2008): 119–41. Roopnarine, Lomarsh. “Contract Labor Migration as an Agent of Revolutionary Change in the Danish West Indies.” Labor History 61, no. 5–6 (2020): 692–705. Van Wyk, Gary. “Illuminated Signs: Style and Meaning in the Beadwork of the Xhosa- and Zulu-Speaking Peoples.” African Arts 36, no. 3 (2003): 12–33. Veyne, Paul. “Conduct without Belief and Works of Art without Viewers.” Translated by Jeanne Ferguson. Diogenes 36, no. 143 (1988): 1–22. Williams, Basil. “Cecil Rhodes.” In Makers of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Basil Williams. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1921.

Chapter 12

DE-COMMEMORATION AS HEALING AND CONFLICT Canada and Its Colonial Past and Present Kate Korycki

8 In this chapter, I explore Canada and its recent mnemonic heating up—that is, a sudden intensification of debates about history and its public representations, as well as their implications for present-day belonging. The debates occur within and among Indigenous communities and within larger Canadian society. Indigenous communities agree that their past colonial relationship with Canada was harmful (some see this harmful relationship continuing into the present); what they disagree on is how to repudiate the material sites of that harmful past: some communities chose to demolish them, while others chose to preserve and radically transform them. Both methods are oriented toward communal healing and regeneration. Canadian society at large does not agree on the nature of its past and present relationship with Indigenous communities: some see the country as colonial in the present, some see it as colonial in the past, and some do not see coloniality at all. The society plays out those substantive disagreements over the moral valuation of history while removing and defacing, or conversely defending, its historical statues, or by staging public debates and trials about significant figures from history. Canada, it seems, engages in a contested process of de-commemoration understood as the rewriting of the story of the past and reconsidering who matters in that story, signifying a shift in moral valuation of history and a potential of a new vision of belonging.

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Indigenous Healing through Destruction On 18 February 2015, inhabitants of Alert Bay watched the demolition of a large building on their small island in northern British Columbia. The imposing red brick pile used to house the St. Michael’s Residential School, which operated there until 1975 and languished in disrepair ever since.1 Heavy machinery began the removals while emotional former students watched, sang, cried, and drummed. They also threw rocks at the school, to physically join in the destruction and “to remove the communal cancer it represented.”2 The space left by the building is now empty, flanked by a children’s play area, proud totem poles facing the ocean, and the renowned U’mista Cultural Centre devoted to the potlatch ceremony banned by the Canadian state from 1883 to 1951.3 The now destroyed St. Michael’s school opened in 1929, replacing others built there since 1882,4 and was run by the Anglican Church on behalf of the Canadian government. As with the residential schools elsewhere, St. Michael’s was a site of abduction of children from families, exploitation, deracination, and abuse. It was part of a network of schools operating in colonial Canada from the 1850s to the 1990s, meant to assimilate Indigenous children into Canadianness, or in the words of its original mandate, “to kill the Indian in a child.”5 Over 160,000 children passed through the schools during their operations; 78,994 were still living when the last of the schools closed in 1996, and 38,276 were granted compensation for sexual or other “extraordinary” abuse.6 At the time of writing, Canada is beginning to uncover unmarked mass graves of children who attended the schools.7 Prime Minister (PM) Stephen Harper apologized to Indigenous communities on behalf of the state on 11 July 2008 and offered personalized restitution to the victims—at the time, the $1.9 billion (CAD) represented the largest state settlement in Canadian history.8 In a remarkable move two years after the apology, however, speaking on the international forum, the PM denied that Canada had a colonial past.9 His views were contradicted by key institutions of the state and Indigenous communities and some segments of Canadian society. Thus, residential schools were declared sites of cultural genocide by Supreme Court Justice Beverley McLachlin in 2015, which confirmed the Canadian past was colonial.10 This finding was given a full elaboration in the workings and an extensive report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which also established the ongoing nature of the colonial present. The TRC was created in 2008 to gather voices of the remaining victims of the school system, to trace individual and communal suffering occasioned by that system, and to chart the ongoing inequalities faced by Indigenous communities. The TRC documented the endemic underfunding of services for Indigenous people on and off reserves. It demonstrated the

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dramatic overrepresentation of Indigenous people in Canadian prisons. Most importantly in the context of residential schools, it showed the continued and disproportionate removal of Indigenous children from families and placement in federal custody.11 The TRC’s report underscored the fraught relationship between past harms, their ongoing effects, present-day neglect, and the process of collective remembering that justifies the harm and the neglect.

Indigenous Healing through Transformation Reflecting the diversity of approaches, and despite the painful associations, not all Indigenous people want the old schools destroyed. Carey Newman, the artist behind The Witness Blanket—an art project resembling a quilt but constructed from objects found in residential schools assumed to belong to the children—says buildings make history real. Without their material presence, the past becomes hidden from sight, abstracted, theoretical.12 This is all the more pressing because out of an estimated 140 school buildings previously in existence, only 17 remain, and of these, many are repurposed or are in poor condition. The Canadian government does not have a heritage policy to protect them.13 The former school that is most consciously and persistently committed to the preservation through transformation and remembrance is the former Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Ontario. The Institute was the first residential school in Canada and operated the longest, from 1830 to 1972. After it closed, the community transformed it into a Woodland Cultural Center devoted to the memory of the survivors and victims. Its mandate involves documenting and honoring the lives of children, preserving their stories and artifacts, and educating the Indigenous communities about their pain, resilience, and resistance.14 Ry Moran, Indigenous activist and scholar, agrees with Woodland Cultural Center’s approach and complicates it. He sees the remaining schools and cemeteries as necessary “sites of conscience,” comparable to other sites of great pain and death left standing as places of remembrance and reflection.15 Echoing Hannah Arendt, Moran argues that the schools need to be preserved to remind all Canadians, or indeed all humanity, that we cannot simply venerate that which was glorious to the exclusion of that which was (and is) painful and shameful.16 Broadening the scope of the community affected and constituted by harm, Moran’s injunction goes to the heart of de-commemoration debate occurring in Indigenous communities. On the one hand, it reminds us that collective remembering is an ongoing process and always a struggle,17 and that it always involves a moral valuation and judgment of the past;18 on the other hand, it gestures toward foundational insights of the collective memory theory, which assumes that the process of social remembering (thus com-

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memorating and de-commemorating) pulls and arranges from the past that which is deemed morally significant in any given present, and that in doing so, it constitutes contemporary group imaginary, or who the group considers itself to be.19 In other words, the process of de-commemoration as performed on the old residential schools in Canada recovers Indigenous communities and their sense of self-worth. Involving two seemingly opposite practices—destruction of material sites or preservation and radical transformation of purpose— Indigenous people repudiate the old strategy of slow decay adopted by the Canadian state. In doing so, they repudiate forgetting, which designates the disappearing victims as those whose lives matter less; and they create spaces for healing and affirmation of moral worth of their communities. In conceptual terms, the diversity of de-commemoration practices illuminates the centrality of judgement in the process of communal self-constitution.

Canadian Society and Uncertain Judgment of the Past But the process of reevaluating the Canadian past (and present) occurs in the wider Canadian society, even if more ambiguously. Starting in 2015, and moving away from the institution of residential schools, societal remembering and conflict centered on the colonial figures who birthed the Canadian state and nation, especially but not exclusively John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first PM. The conflict within Canadian society is not like the disagreement over methods (to destroy or to transform) visible among Indigenous communities; here it concerns the substance of moral judgment itself. On one side are those who want to denounce the past and present colonial relationship between the state and Indigenous peoples; on another are those who see the colonial relationship as one of the past; and on the third, and by far the largest, are those who reject the notion of the colonial status of the Canadian state. The conflict reveals an uncertain—at present—shape of Canadian belonging. In one of the most dramatic of de-commemorative events, and one that squarely focused on judgment, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s program Ideas aired a staged symbolic trial of John A. Macdonald. The trial was symbolic in that Macdonald is long dead, but it was real in that it involved two legal sides presenting arguments, adjudicated by a judge. Its prosecutor, counsel Jean Teillet, presented two charges against what she called “core crimes” of authorizing the reign of terror on the Métis people between 1870 and 1872 and of deliberately withholding food to Plains Indians, resulting in starvation. She aimed to prove that the PM was personally responsible for acts of domicide—that is crimes against a people committed by its own government. The PM’s defender, counsel Frank Addario, did not deny that

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the crimes took place but argued that the responsibility for them could not be traced to Macdonald directly. Former Supreme Court Justice Ian Binnie delivered a verdict in which he ruled that the PM’s actions opened a possibility of a civil, but not criminal, liability. He granted the prosecutor’s request for the examination of governmental institutions so as to eliminate the violence that, like a “shape shifter,” continues to kill Indigenous people, but he absolved Macdonald.20 In similarly symbolic but also materially potent ways, the statues of public officials responsible for colonial conquest and settlement have been routinely defaced since 2013, and on three occasions removed. The protests and subsequent responses are all made in the name of the past and sometimes persisting oppression—or inequality of citizenship—of both Indigenous and racialized people. As early as 2013, John A. Macdonald’s statue was reported as vandalized in Kingston, with “this is stolen land” and “colonizer and murderer” painted on its plinth.21 In 2017, Langevin Block in Ottawa—a building that houses the Prime Minister’s Office—was quietly renamed because of Hector-Louis Langevin’s championship of the residential schools.22 In 2018, the city council of Victoria voted to remove the statue of John A. Macdonald from City Hall’s doorsteps;23 and the city council of Halifax voted to temporarily remove the statue of Edward Cornwallis. Victoria meant its removal as a gesture of reconciliation, and Halifax acted after Mi’kmaq people protested their past violent mistreatment at Cornwallis’s hands.24 In 2019, Winnipeg’s mayor began public consultation on how best to approach colonial statues of the city’s past;25 and the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador promised a comprehensive review of its historical policy.26 In 2020 in Toronto, petitions to rename Dundas Street and Ryerson University garnered four thousand signatories in a matter of days (Henry Dundas worked to delay the abolition of slavery and Egerton Ryerson helped set up the residential schools).27 The latest and most dramatic event took place in Montreal on 29 August 2020. As part of the Defund the Police protests, organized by BIPOC Liberation, the often-attacked statue of John A. Macdonald was toppled, in the process of which its head came off.28 This was the latest action in Montreal, a space of very active historical debates, defacings, and protests. In all instances of bottom-up actions, small groups organized to clean the statues and protect what they usually call “our history.” The gestures performed in all listed events mirror the Indigenous models of either removal or transformation so that the figure of veneration becomes the figure of questioning or even shame. What varies is the ambivalent, unsettled, or even divided verdict of the society at large. Sensing the heating up of the conversation about the past, The Toronto Star (a large daily) staged a debate in 2018 about the need to remove Macdonald’s statues. Each side was given space to present their arguments and

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the public was invited to take sides. Bernie M. Farber, David B. MacDonald, and Michael Dan argued in favor of the removals, claiming that statues are not of great artistic value; that Macdonald’s record on Indigenous relations is clear, unequivocal, and negative; and that no amount of achievement overrides policy of starvation and possibly genocide.29 The poll embedded in the article showed that 35 percent of readers agreed the statues should be removed and 65 percent believed they should not be removed. (The yes and no answers were confounded by provided rationales: “Yes, the statues should be removed, as no amount of cruelty overrides honors”; and “No, they should not be removed as too many are complicit in Indigenous oppression.” Indeed, in such formulation the “no” justification may be read as the more radical approach, one seeking a systemic solution rather than personified vengeance against a cold stone.) Rick Anderson penned the defense of the statues, in which he argued that individualizing oppression does not serve reconciliation, the PM did have accomplishments, and without him Canada would be part of the United States (this view is contested by historians). The same poll embedded in this article returned 20 percent votes in favor of removals and 80 percent votes against.30 It appears that 2015 in Canada represents a beginning of a mnemonic heating up, or a spirited public debate about history—although, not so much about history, as we all know what happened; what we do not seem to agree on is the moral valuation of that history. Not unexpectedly, the judgment is by far less ambiguous within Indigenous communities—who condemn colonial relations past and present—than it is within wider Canadian society—which disagrees on the nature and temporality of those relations. The heating up rests on a complex notion that the way history is narrated and commemorated in public has implications for the current notions of citizenship. If Canadians mean to enlarge their notions of present-day belonging, they may need to engage in a process of reevaluation of history and de-commemoration in its public representations. Thus far this process has taken the form of demolition or removal, or transformation and education, but the process is only beginning. Kate Korycki is Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Woman’s’ Studies at Western University in Canada. She is a political sociologist interested in systems of social stratification and inequality, and she studies how memory is used as a tool to buttress, justify, and hide the power and privilege of the powerful who benefit from various systemic stratifications. In her first project, on Poland, she studied how remembering communism is used to limit post-transition progressive politics and to narrow the imaginary of national belonging. In her current projects, which she conducts as a settler and immigrant in Canada, and in which she weaves collective

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memory, critical whiteness and nationalism studies, she examines how Canada tells the story of its past, and how in the process it implicates gender, race, class and indigeneity in the construction of its majorities. She is particularly interested in identifying the mechanisms by which majorities are constituted as not-knowing, not-benefiting and innocent of the pain of the minorities.

Notes 1. Dirk Meissner, “Demolition Ceremony Set for ‘Haunting’ Vancouver Island Residential School,” The Globe and Mail, 15 February 2015. 2. Wendy Stueck, “Alert Bay Residential School Survivors Gather for Demolition Ceremony.” The Globe and Mail, 18 February 2015. Quote from Meissner, “Demolition Ceremony Set.” 3. Similar demolition occurred in Port Alberni, BC, in 2009 (Jeff Corntassel, Chaw-win-is, and T’lakwadzi, “Indigenous Storytelling, Truth-Telling, and Community Approaches to Reconciliation,” ESC: English Studies in Canada 35, no. 1 [2009]: 137–59) and in Îllà-la-Crosse, SK, in 2016 (Tom Parry, “Preserve Indigenous Residential Schools as Sites of Conscience, MPs Urged,” CBC News, 26 September 2017). For more on the history of potlatch ceremony, see “The History of Potlatch Collection,” U’mista Cultural Centre, accessed 15 June 2021. 4. Meissner, “Demolition Ceremony Set.” 5. Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015, 369. 6. Meissner, “Demolition Ceremony Set”; Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, Lessons Learned Study of the Common Experience Payment—Final Report, 2015, ii; Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat, Independent Assessment Process—IAP Statistics, 2020. 7. Tracy Lindeman, “Canada: Remains of 215 Children Found at the Indigenous Residential School,” The Guardian, 28 May 2021; Leyland Cecco, “Canada Discovers 751 Unmarked Graves at Former Residential School,” The Guardian, 24 June 2021; Leyland Cecco, “Canada: At Least 160 More Unmarked Graves Found in British Columbia,” The Guardian, 13 July 2021. 8. Tabitha de Bruin, “Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2020. 9. Glen Sean Coulthard, Red Skins White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 105–6. 10. Sean Fine, “Chief Justice Says Canada Attempted ‘Cultural Genocide’ on Aboriginals,” The Globe and Mail, 28 May 2015. 11. Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Honouring the Truth, 135–82. 12. “Should We Demolish or Preserve Remaining Residential School Buildings?” CBC Out in the Open, 17 November 2018. 13. Sierra Bein and Maria Iqbal, “Canada’s residential schools were houses of pain, but Survivors Want These Buildings to Be Saved,” The Globe and Mail, 30 September 2019. 14. Melanie Ng and Talia Knezic, “The Mohawk Institute: A First look at the Former Residential School Preserved to Tell Its History,” CityNews Everywhere, 29 September 2020.

De-Commemoration as Healing and Conflict • 131 15. Parry, “Preserve Indigenous Residential Schools.” 16. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1950; reprint, New York: Harcourt Press, 1976), ix. 17. Jeffrey Olick, “Collective Memory: The Two Cultures,” Sociological Theory 17, no. 3 (1999): 333–48; Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana, eds., Race and the Epistemologies of Ignorance (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2017), 1–10. 18. Kate Korycki, “Memory and Politics in Post-Transition Space: The Case of Poland,” East European Politics and Societies, and Cultures 31, no. 3 (2017): 518–44. 19. Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, trans. Lewis A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 193–235. 20. “The Trial of Sir John A. Macdonald: Would He Be Guilty of Crimes Today?,” CBC Radio, Ideas, 11 April 2018; “The Verdict on Sir John A. Macdonald: Guilty or Innocent?,” CBC Radio, Ideas, 12 April 2018. 21. “Sir John A. Macdonald Statue Vandalized in Kingston,” Toronto Star, 11 January 2013. 22. Joanna Sivasankaran, “Divisive Langevin Block Renamed Office of the Prime Minister,” Centertown News, 23 December 2017. 23. “John A. Macdonald’s Statue Removed from Victoria City Hall,” CBC News, 11 August 2018. 24. Jon Tattrie, “Cornwallis Statue,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 23 January 2018. 25. Bartely Kives, “Winnipeg Wants Input on Colonial Monuments, Markers, Place Names,” CBC News, 29 January 2019. 26. “Review of Monuments Sparks Discussion of Colonial Narratives in N/L History,” CBC News, 16 June 2020. 27. Genevieve Beauchemin and Ben Cousins, “‘Their Time Has Come’: Calls Increase for Removal of Statues Linked to Colonial Legacy,” CTV News, 10 June 2020. 28. BIPOC—Black, Indigenous, and People of Color—is a term used for the loosely aligned collations of people seeking and deserving equality in Canada. Daniel Rowe, “Statue of John A. Macdonald Toppled during Defund the Police Protest,” CTV News, 29 August 2020. 29. For more on Macdonald’s support for Southern Confederate slave owners, his hostility toward Chinese people, and his elevation of the Aryan nature of Canadians, see Rachel Décoste, “Sir John A. Macdonald: 5 Frightening Facts about Our First Prime Minister,” Huffpost, 30 August 2020; Bernie Faber, David B. Macdonald, and Michael Dan, “Should Statues of Sir John A. Macdonald Be Removed? Yes,” Toronto Star, 21 August 2018. 30. Rick Anderson, “Should Statues of Sir John A. Macdonald Be Removed? No,” Toronto Star, 21 August 2018.

Bibliography Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. Lessons Learned Study of the Common Experience Payment—Final Report. 2015. https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/DAM/DAMCIRNAC-RCAANC/DAM-AEV/STAGING/texte-text/ev_lls_1468332975934_eng.pdf. Anderson, Rick. “Should Statues of Sir John A. Macdonald Be Removed? No.” Toronto Star, 21 August 2018. https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/thebigdebate/2018/08/20/ should-statues-of-sir-john-a-macdonald-be-removed-no.html.

132 • Kate Korycki Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. 1950; reprint, New York: Harcourt Press, 1976. Beauchemin, Genevieve, and Ben Cousins. “‘Their Time Has Come’: Calls Increase for Removal of Statues Linked to Colonial Legacy.” CTV News, 10 June 2020. https://www .ctvnews.ca/canada/their-time-has-come-calls-increase-for-removal-of-statues-linked-tocolonial-legacy-1.4979262. Bein, Sierra, and Maria Iqbal. “Canada’s Residential Schools Were Houses of Pain, but Survivors Want These Buildings to Be Saved.” The Globe and Mail, 30 September 2019. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canadas-residential-schoolswere-houses-of-pain-but-survivors-want/. Cecco, Leyland, “Canada: At Least 160 More Unmarked Graves Found in British Columbia.” The Guardian, 13 July 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/ jul/13/canada-unmarked-graves-british-columbia-residential-school. ———. “Canada Discovers 751 Unmarked Graves at Former Residential School.” The Guardian, 24 June 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/24/canadaschool-graves-discovery-saskatchewan. Corntassel, Jeff, Chaw-win-is, and T’lakwadzi. “Indigenous Storytelling, Truth-Telling, and Community Approaches to Reconciliation.” ESC: English Studies in Canada 35, no. 1 (2009): 137–59. Coulthard, Glen Sean. Red Skins White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. de Bruin, Tabitha. “Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2013. Updated in 2020 by David Joseph Gallant. https://www.thecanadi anencyclopedia.ca/en/article/indian-residential-schools-settlement-agreement. Décoste, Rachel. “Sir John A. Macdonald: 5 Frightening Facts about Our First Prime Minister.” Huffpost, 30 August 2020. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/rachel-decoste/john-a-mac donald_b_6450442.html?guccounter=1. Faber, Bernie, David B. Macdonald, and Michael Dan. “Should Statues of Sir John A. Macdonald Be Removed? Yes.” Toronto Star, 21 August 2018. https://www.thestar.com/ opinion/contributors/thebigdebate/2018/08/21/should-statues-of-sir-john-a-macdonaldbe-removed-yes.html. Fine, Sean. “Chief Justice Says Canada Attempted ‘Cultural Genocide’ on Aboriginals.” The Globe and Mail, 28 May 2015. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ chief-justice-says-canada-attempted-cultural-genocide-on-aboriginals/article24688854/. Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. Translated by Lewis A. Coser. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. “The History of Potlatch Collection.” U’mista Cultural Centre. Accessed 15 June 2021. https:// www.umista.ca/pages/collection-history. Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat. Independent Assessment Process IAP Statistics. 2020. http://www.iap-pei.ca/stats-eng.php. “John A. Macdonald’s Statue Removed from Victoria City Hall.” CBC News, 11 August 2018. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/john-a-macdonald-statuevictoria-city-hall-lisa-helps-1.4782065. Kives, Bartley. “Winnipeg Wants Input on Colonial Monuments, Markers, Place Names.” CBC News, 29 January 2019. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipegcolonial-statues-monuments-reconciliation-1.4997531. Korycki, Kate. “Memory and Politics in Post-Transition Space: The Case of Poland.” East European Politics and Societies, and Cultures 31, no. 3 (2017): 518–44. Lindeman, Tracy. “Canada: Remains of 215 Children Found at the Indigenous Residential School.” The Guardian, 28 May 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/28/ canada-remains-indigenous-children-mass-graves.

De-Commemoration as Healing and Conflict • 133 Meissner, Dirk. “Demolition Ceremony Set for ‘Haunting’ Vancouver Island Residential School.” The Globe and Mail, 15 February 2015. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/brit ish-columbia/demolition-ceremony-set-for-haunting-vancouver-island-residential-school/ article23006382/. Ng, Melanie, and Talia Knezic. “The Mohawk Institute: A First Look at the Former Residential School Preserved to Tell Its History.” CityNews Everywhere, 29 September 2020. https:// toronto.citynews.ca/2020/09/29/residential-school-mohawk-institute/. Olick, Jeffrey. “Collective Memory: The Two Cultures.” Sociological Theory 17, no. 3 (1999): 333–48. Parry, Tom. “Preserve Indigenous Residential Schools as Sites of Conscience, MPs Urged.” CBC News, 26 September 2017. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/indigenous-residen tial-schools-sites-ry-moran-1.4306944. “Review of Monuments Sparks Discussion of Colonial Narratives in N/L history.” CBC News, 16 June 2020. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/nlmonuments-statues-review-response-russell-1.5614239. Rowe, Daniel. “Statue of John A. Macdonald Toppled during Defund the Police Protest.” CTV News, 29 August 2020. https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/statue-of-john-a-macdon ald-toppled-during-defund-the-police-protest-1.5084561. “Should We Demolish or Preserve Remaining Residential School Buildings?” CBC Out in the Open, 17 November 2018. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/outintheopen/rewriting-histo ry-1.4386189/should-we-demolish-or-preserve-remaining-residential-school-buildings1.4386254. “Sir John A. Macdonald Statue Vandalized in Kingston.” Toronto Star, 11 January 2013. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/01/11/sir_john_a_macdonald_statue_van dalized_in_kingston.html. Sivasankaran, Joanna. “Divisive Langevin Block Renamed Office of the Prime Minister.” Centertown News, 23 December 2017. https://capitalcurrent.ca/archive/centretownnews/2017/ 12/23/divisive-langevin-block-renamed-office-of-the-prime-minister/. Stueck, Wendy. “Alert Bay Residential School Survivors Gather for Demolition Ceremony.” The Globe and Mail, 18 February 2015. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/brit ish-columbia/alert-bay-residential-school-survivors-gather-for-demolition-ceremony/ article23067233/. Sullivan, Shannon, and Nancy Tuana, eds. Race and the Epistemologies of Ignorance. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. Tattrie, Jon. “Cornwallis Statue.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 23 January 2018. https://www .thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/cornwallis-statue. “The Trial of Sir John A. Macdonald: Would He Be Guilty of Crimes Today?” CBC Radio, Ideas, 11 April 2018. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-trial-of-sir-john-a-macdonaldwould-he-be-guilty-of-war-crimes-today-1.4614303. Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Honouring the Truth, Reconciling the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 2015. “The Verdict on Sir John A. Macdonald: Guilty or Innocent?” CBC Radio, Ideas, 12 April 2018. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-verdict-on-sir-john-a-macdonaldguilty-or-innocent-1.4616181.

Chapter 13

KILLING PEDRO DE VALDIVIA AGAIN De-Commemoration of the Past and De-Neoliberalization of the Present during the 2019–2020 Chilean Revolt Manuela Badilla and Carolina Aguilera

8 On 18 October 2019 Chilean society began to experience the most massive protests since the resistance movement against Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973–90).1 The protests escalated quickly both in size and scope, turning into an enormous movement against existing social inequalities and the neoliberal model imposed by the dictatorship. Unexpectedly, a few days later, attacks on public monuments and statues of all kinds spread across the country, engaging in a global trend of antiracist and anticolonial demonumentalization. In Chile, several statues of colonial and national heroes were overturned or transformed. This mobilization resulted in more than four hundred historic monuments, located in multiple cities, being altered, torn down, decapitated, or burned down. In this chapter, we will focus on what was probably the most theatrical statue intervention that took place in Chile in those days: the case of the city of Concepción. Drawing on press reviews, historical and official documents, and interviews, we reflect on how the dynamics of the revolt activated repertoires of protest that reverberated upon unsettled postcolonial memories. We conclude that anti-neoliberal protest became, unexpectedly, part of a mobilization that brought to the public space different layers of past oppressions. Protestors not only enacted the continuity of historical injustice but also activated through their actions

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a productive dialogue among recent and long-term memories of oppression and abuse.

“It’s Not about Thirty Years, It’s about Five Hundred Years” The protests of 2019–20 exploded on 18 October. That night, and in the following days, more than seventy subway stations were burned or severely damaged in the capital, and in cities all across the country protestors fueled the city centers and peripheries with barricades. The curfew decreed by President Piñera the day after only augmented the protests. One week later, on 25 October, millions took to the streets in what is considered the most massive demonstrations ever held in the country. One month later, Congresspeople from a broad political spectrum arrived at an agreement to hold a referendum, scheduled to take place the following year, in which Chileans would decide whether to replace the current Constitution or to keep it. The Constitution was created during the dictatorship and protestors and several scholars consider it the main cause of the social problems Chile faces today, as banners during the manifestations evidenced: “A new Constitution or nothing.”2 Nobody expected a social movement of such intensity at that time. It was not coordinated by any political party or social organization. On the contrary, it was the result of a massive, disorganized, and spontaneous reaction against the thirty-peso increase in the subway fare. However, as several analysts have stated, the population reacted against something broader: an accumulated rage against political and economic elites for long-time abuses and corruption.3 Expressing this idea, the play on words “It’s not about thirty pesos, it’s about thirty years” became a popular slogan. The thirty years refers to the post-dictatorship decades when few changes were made to the structural bases of the socioeconomic neoliberal model installed by the dictatorship. Yet, quickly, a new version of the slogan started to be heard across Chile: “It’s not about thirty years, it’s about five hundred years”—going back to the Spanish conquest of America and denouncing the long-term oppression, land dispossession, and wars suffered, first from Spaniards and later from the Chilean state. In what follows, we reflect on this long-term angle of the conflict, which was particularly significant in southern Chilean cities located in former Indigenous, especially Mapuche, territories where the colonial and later national usurpation of the land constitutes one of the most important and fierce disputes to this day. In particular, we direct attention to the social drama that unfolded at Independence Square (Plaza de la Independencia) in the city of

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Concepción in the days following the initial uprising to understand how the dynamic of the revolt enacted repertoires of protest that triggered postcolonial memories that still haunt our society today.

Monument Contestation: Breaking Contemporary Silences Building and destroying public monuments are part of modern cities’ histories. These artifacts constitute public representations and mediations of national projects. Generally made by the elite, they aim to portray the cultural memory of the whole society, to transmit the origins and essences of those projects, and to make them perdurable across generations.4 Monuments commemorate figures and events to represent societal identities from a cultural or political viewpoint. Thus, when social or political relations are under challenge, as recently happened in Chile, monuments may come under attack, especially if they are considered symbols of the dominant political order. Their public character makes them open to contestation and, as Frank and Ristic have recently argued, “attacking them attracts instant public interest and attention of the mass media (television, newspaper and social media), which empowers groups with small resources and a fierce sense of vitality and justice to have their political statements seen and heard.”5 In the case presented here, the attacks on statues of the Spanish conqueror Pedro de Valdivia in Concepción reflect the performative dynamics that allow monuments, through spontaneous, joyful, and affective actions, to become sites of debate about the past. These performances activate long-term and silenced conflicts, resignifying them in connection to contemporary debates. They enable a generative public debate about the contemporary effects of different historical injustices.

The Statues As the official history tells, Pedro de Valdivia led the conquest of Chile during the sixteenth century and founded most cities, including Santiago, the capital, and Concepción. The 1810 Independence Revolution did not involve a revisionist narrative, and this figure was incorporated into Chile’s national identity by the elites that formed the republic. Thus, he is a prominent figure in Chilean national heritage, and statues in his honor adorn the central squares of most cities. In 1950, at the four-hundredth anniversary of Concepción’s founding, two works in his honor were installed in the city. A bust donated by Spain was placed close to the town hall and an approximately

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four-meter-high statue was put in Spain Square by the railway station, welcoming people into the city.6 During the dictatorship, the bigger statue was relocated to Independence Square in the city center. Independence Square also has a second statue, this one of the Mapuche leader Lautaro. The implementation of this statue results from a decision made by the central and local governments of the post-dictatorship years in an attempt at historical reparation. Lautaro was one of the Mapuche Indigenous people who led the resistance against the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, killing Valdivia and destroying the city of Concepción twice. He is also a national figure, famous for having been raised by the Spaniards as a child but later fleeing and becoming one of their worst enemies. According to the municipal decree that approved the construction of the monument, the statue of Lautaro would fill the silences of cultural memory in Concepción’s history by recognizing the values of the Mapuche people. This was confirmed by our interviewees. The statue was intentionally designed as a twin of Valdivia: the same in size and material, with identical plinths and figurative designs. They were located symmetrically in each corner of the square, backs to one another. Together, the statues intend to symbolize the dual identity of the city. In this sense, it is important to stress that in Chile, as in many Latin American countries, elites formulated an interracial cultural narrative with a positive idea of Indigenous people, praising a mestizo identity.7 This, however, prevented neither the dispossession of their lands by successive settlers and the state nor the practice of racism.8

The Drama: First Act The revolts in Concepción began the day after they were initiated in Santiago and became massive there as well. As everywhere, here the character of the protests was also unorganized and featured a panoply of carnival-like forms and all kinds of performances. At the same time, the police repressed rioters, and violent acts by protestors occurred throughout the city. The center of Concepción was heavily affected, and many sectors were destroyed. In this climate of tumult, a real decolonizing social drama stirred the city and its streets on two occasions: 29 October and 14 November. The first day, the protestors once again gathered in the city center but now attempted a new idea: to tear down the statue of Pedro de Valdivia using a rope, though it failed. The actions took place in daylight and many participants did not use face masks. They screamed and laughed while pulling the rope. It seemed a sort of improvised communal fest that did not require invitations or reservations. Several videos of these actions went viral and circulated nationally and internationally.

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After this first failed attempt, protestors went a few blocks away looking for the other tribute to Valdivia, the bust, located behind the city’s main cathedral. They managed to tear it down and drag it, covered in red paint, to Independence Square. With high symbolism, they staged the defaced Valdivia bust statue in front of Lautaro’s. A performative element adds to this interpretation. A stick was crossed through Valdivia’s bust, literally impaling his bronze representation, reenacting the most widely acknowledged version of Valdivia’s death. The choice of impaling Valdivia’s bust under the imposing figure of Lautaro was not a coincidence, as this cruel torture and killing technique was used by the Spanish colonizers to kill Caupolicán, another important Mapuche leader of that time, who also participated in Valdivia’s killing. Later, the impaled bust was also hanged from Lautaro’s monument. However, the drama did not end there.

The Second Act Two weeks later, on 14 November, the second act of this play was performed. That day was the first commemoration of the murder of a young Mapuche leader from a rural area. Camilo Catrillanca was brutally killed by the police without provocation, though they alleged they were defending themselves against an attack by him and his community, a story initially backed by the government. Cities across Chile were preparing for a day of mobilizations, and protestors gathered again in the center of Concepción. After a few hours, hundreds took to Independence Square and went straight to the unfinished job initiated two weeks before, this time knocking down the life-size statue of Valdivia. The crowd was much bigger and managed to organize itself into two columns of people. Each group was in charge of pulling a rope that was tied to the statue’s body. During the monument intervention, protestors filled the square with passionate and cheerful attitudes, many of them carrying Mapuche flags and wearing traditional clothing. Once Valdivia finally fell, the two groups pulling ropes, plus the rest of the crowd that was witnessing and cheering this second act, ran toward the fallen conqueror, surrounding and jumping over it to celebrate the results. As in the first act of this social performance, demonstrators also decided to relocate Valdivia’s body. Thus, spontaneously, numerous people pushed the enormous statue to the other corner of the square and set it behind Lautaro’s. At the time of this writing, one year after the riot, both the bust and statue are stored in the cultural department of the Concepción Municipality waiting for their restoration but especially for the political decision of what to do with them.

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Figure 13.1. Valdivia’s statue falling, 2019. Source: Alejandro Zoñez / Agencia Gradual. Used with permission.

Haunting Postcolonial Memories Violent repertoires of protest were part of the 2019–20 uprisings from the very beginning. Monuments were destroyed, as well as urban real estate, buses, subway stations, and more. In these final reflections, we would like to go further into what may be behind these violent acts. We leave aside here violence against persons, which was also dramatically present in the mobilizations given the harsh repression of rioters by police, denounced by national and international human rights organizations and institutions. As we stated, public monuments represent certain—dominant—national imaginaries, and in the case analyzed here, a dual/mestizo culture. The ValdiviaLautaro twin statues represent, from the point of view of their promoters, this cultural identity resulting from the encounter between the Native Americans and the Spaniards. Their location in Independence Square represents this horizontal encounter, where both Valdivia and Lautaro occupy a similar and equivalent position. However, the centuries of land dispossession and racism do not have a place in this picture. What we observed, then, in the drama described above was a rebalancing of the power relations between these symbolic figures, in a context where power balance between the elites and the people was under contestation. The

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drama was performed as a violent ritual, a replaying of a well-known tale every child learns at school, the killing of Valdivia by Lautaro. But this time the play evoked the whole tale, that is, to take the city of Concepción. Thus, and although these performative interventions probably have no direct or organic connection to the Indigenous movement and emerged rather spontaneously, they do have a profound ritualistic character dating back almost five hundred years. As Assmann and Czaplicka argue, cultural memory has the capacity to reconstruct the past and “always relates its knowledge to an actual and contemporary situation . . . every contemporary context relates to these differently, sometimes by appropriation, sometimes by criticism, sometimes by preservation or by transformation.”9 In the middle of the most massive mobilization of the people against the elites, those sites of cultural memory became sites of mnemonic contestation.10 They became spaces in which different historical memories of domination and violence were constructively connected, the recent imposition of a neoliberal transformation and a long history of colonial abuses, demonstrating their actuality and articulating solidarities and contestations among them. To conclude, in the last few decades, Indigenous people, mainly Mapuche, have begun to organize to demand their right to land, encountering fierce opposition from the state, conservative sectors, landowners, and occupants of their former land in the south.11 Racism against Indigenous people has also been a main sustainer of the current relationships of domination.12 However, the acts of de-commemoration we presented here show that those demands echo in a broad sector of the population who have felt similar abuses and oppression by elites. Spontaneously, in the midst of the revolt, where everything was imagined to be possible, a decolonial replaying of an old wellknown tale was put in scene to reestablish dignity of the city and the people: killing Valdivia once again. The COVID-19 global pandemic put an abrupt end to the revolt in public spaces and the disputes around the monuments are waiting for the next moment to come. In the meantime, we think reflection on this other form of mobilization should continue, as these constitute productive, rather than destructive, interpellations to our history and heritage. These interventions invite us to elaborate new conceptions for building identities based on intercultural relations between indigenous people and the state, and between marginalized groups and elites. Manuela Badilla received her PhD (2019) and MA (2013) in sociology from The New School for Social Research (USA) and graduated as a psychologist from the University of Chile (2006). She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Sociology Department at the University of Valparaíso, Chile, where she is studying the intervention of monuments that occurred

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during the 2019–20 Chilean protest. She is also an Adjunct Researcher at Political and Social Conflicts line at Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES). Her academic work has been oriented to study the effects of politics of memory in activism and post-dictatorship generations in Latin America. In her dissertation, “Mnemonic Playgrounds for Mobilization: A Radical Turn in the Construction of Public Memory in Chile” (2019), she explores the role of aesthetic interventions and the urban space in remembering the difficult past. She has published her work in Memory Studies (2017), Sociological Forum (2019), Mobilizations (2019), and Space and Culture (2020). Carolina Aguilera is a sociologist (Universidad de Chile) and has an MA (Oxford Brookes University) and PhD in Architecture and Urban Studies (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile). She has researched and worked on projects related to the production of memory sites regarding the Chilean dictatorship (1973–90) since 2008. Between 2012 and 2016, she completed the PhD program with a thesis on the urban condition of memory sites in Santiago, publishing the results in Memory Studies (2015), Revista Limite (2018), and Revista Kamchatka (2019). In 2020, she finished a postdoctoral research project about the recent changes in the cultural memory of the dictatorship. Currently, she is researching the various mnemonic expressions related to the recent social mobilizations of October 2019 in Chile.

Notes 1. We want to thank ANID Postdoctoral Fondecyt Project Number 3210074 and ANID/ FONDAP/15130009 for making possible part of the fieldwork for this study. We are also grateful to our interviewees, without whom this chapter would not be possible. 2. Fernando Atria et al., El otro modelo. Del orden neoliberal al régimen de lo público (Santiago de Chile: Santiago: Debate, 2013). 3. PNUD, Desiguales. Orígenes, cambios y desafíos de la brecha social en Chile (Santiago de Chile, Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo, 2017); and Kathya Araujo, Hilos Tensados (Santiago de Chile: Editorial USACH, 2019). 4. John R. Gillis, Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). 5. Sybille Frank and Mirjana Ristic, “Urban Fallism,” City 24, no. 3–4 (2020): 558. 6. Corporación Cultural Ngehuin, Dictionary of Biobío Region, vol. 4 (Bío Bío, Chile: Seremi de Educación Región del Biobío, 2010). 7. Nancy Appelbaum, Anne Macpherson, and Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt, eds., Race and nation in Modern Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). 8. Patricia Richards, Race and the Chilean Miracle: Neoliberalism, Democracy, and Indigenous Rights (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013).

142 • Manuela Badilla and Carolina Aguilera 9. Jan Assmann and John Czaplicka, “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity,” New German Critique 65 (1995): 130. 10. Ann Rigney, “Mediations of Outrage: How Violence against Protestors Is Remembered,” Social Research: An International Quarterly 87 (2020): 707–33. 11. José Bengoa, La emergencia indígena en América Latina (Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000); and Fernando Pairicán, Malon. La rebelión del movimiento mapuche 1990–2013 (Santiago: Pehuén Editores, 2016). 12. Richards, Race and the Chilean Miracle; and Claudio Alvarado Lincopi, “Silencios coloniales, silencios micropolíticos. Memorias de violencias y dignidades mapuche en Santiago de Chile,” Aletheia 6, no 12 (2016): 1–17.

Bibliography Alvarado Lincopi, Claudio. “Silencios coloniales, silencios micropolíticos. Memorias de violencias y dignidades mapuche en Santiago de Chile.” Aletheia 6, no. 12 (2016): 1–17. https:// dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=5711821. Appelbaum, Nancy, Anne Macpherson, and Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt, eds. Race and Nation in Modern Latin America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Araujo, Kathya. Hilos Tensados. Santiago de Chile: Editorial USACH, 2019. Assmann, Jan, and John Czaplicka. “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity.” New German Critique 65 (1995): 125–33. doi:10.2307/488538. Atria, Fernando, Guillermo Larraín, José Miguel Benavente, Javier Couso, and Alfredo Joignant. El otro modelo. Del orden neoliberal al régimen de lo público. Santiago de Chile: Debate, 2013. Bengoa, José. La emergencia indígena en América Latina. Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000. Corporación Cultural Ngehuin. Dictionary of Biobío Region, vol. 4. Bío Bío, Chile: Seremi de Educación Región del Biobío, 2010. Frank, Sybille, and Mirjana Ristic. “Urban Fallism.” City 24, no. 3–4 (2020): 552–64. Gillis, John R. Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Pairicán, Fernando. Malon. La rebelión del movimiento mapuche 1990–2013. Santiago: Pehuén Editores, 2016. PNUD. Desiguales. Orígenes, cambios y desafíos de la brecha social en Chile. Santiago de Chile: Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo, 2017. Richards, Patricia. Race and the Chilean Miracle: Neoliberalism, Democracy, and Indigenous Rights. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013. Rigney, Ann. “Mediations of Outrage: How Violence against Protestors Is Remembered.” Social Research: An International Quarterly 87 (2020): 707–33.

Chapter 14

DE-COMMEMORATING SOUND Controversies about the Reestablishment of the National Anthem in South Korea and Beyond Bae Myo-Jung

8 In June 2020, three statues at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco disappeared simultaneously.1 They were the statues of former US President Ulysses Grant, Spanish missionary Fr. Junípero Serra, and Francis Scott Key, the composer of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the national anthem of the United States. Demonstrators pulled down those statues and then marked them with red paint as a symbol of crime. The common crime the historical figures were accused of was slaveholding. The statue removal event at Golden Gate Park took place at the peak of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. According to an ABC news report, some citizens of San Francisco, including the mayor, claimed the statue removal resulted from “vandalism” or “mob violence.”2 However, from the protesters’ viewpoint, the violence they committed was an unavoidable byproduct of the process of abolishing racial discrimination, which was a direct outcome of the structural violence of racism, itself originating from slavery and white supremacy. Walking the fine line between riot and protest, the followers of the BLM movement claimed to destroy legacies of an obsolete ideology. Removing the statue of Francis Scott Key, however, is distinctive because it inevitably incorporates the discussion on the de-commemoration of sound. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is the national anthem of the United States and widely sung at public events. But criticism of the racist ideology shown in the

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lyrics has been raised intermittently. Key owned slaves at the time of writing the lyrics, and thus critics have argued that he was a racist who advocated for slavery and opposed abolitionism. That is why “The Star-Spangled Banner” is seen as disgraced as a “Racist Anthem” by advocates for its replacement. Public opposition to the US national anthem has grown even stronger since the beginning of the BLM movement. In this context, the destruction of the statue would be a partial deconstruction that would never be complete by itself. The de-commemoration of the composer would be concluded only when the de-commemoration of the sound is carried out simultaneously. The removal of the statue within the BLM movement is becoming more and more intense in the auditory struggle around the national anthem, “the patriotic sound itself.” This case is not an exception. Further examples of de-commemorating sound can be observed. In South Korea, discussions on the replacement of the national anthem and the removal of the statue of its composer are in progress. In this context, the deconstruction of the statue of a composer is directly connected with the idea of the deconstruction of sound.

Patriotic Sound versus Unpatriotic Sound A national anthem is an outcome of the process of constructing a modern nation-state. People share a sense of unity and loyalty through the act of singing their national anthem. Benedict Anderson described the performative effect of singing the national anthem with the idea of “unisonance,” meaning “the echoed physical realization of the imagined community.”3 According to Anderson, a nation is not a preexisting entity but an imagined one by various mechanisms, and print languages are presented as a representative example. A national anthem functions in the same way, making people imagine that they are integrated into one single nation-state in harmony when they are singing unisonant melodies together. In short, a national anthem as a state emblem creates public sympathy of the people similarly to vernacular languages. Under Japanese colonial rule, Koreans needed an audible national symbol. Around 1910, when the Choso˘n Dynasty (1392–1910) was forced to merge with the Japanese Empire, a large number of patriotic lyrics were written in the hope of independence. However, those nationalistic poems did not usually have original melodies, because there were few educated composers who could write music for the lyrics in those days. Mostly, those songs borrowed the melody of a Scottish folk song called “Auld Lang Syne” and matched lyrics to it. Eventually, in 1935, Ahn Eak-Tai (安益泰, 1906–65) composed “Aegukga,” which is now used as the national anthem of South Korea, based

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on the self-consciousness of a modernized intellectual who sought freedom from the domination of the Japanese colonization.4 However, Ahn’s “Aegukga” did not immediately become official. It was only after liberation in August 1945 that the melody of “Aegukga” entered the soundscape of the Korean national territory. Since then, Ahn’s song has been used in official events of the South Korean government and was included in the curriculum of public music education. As a result, “Aegukga” entered a new phase of transforming into an official sound. Ultimately, this song became an acoustic symbol representing South Korea and an emotional pivot uniting its people. Ironically, even now, “Aegukga” has not been legitimated as a South Korean national anthem by the Congress. There have been controversies over its suitability as a national anthem. Previously the controversy surrounding Ahn’s “Aegukga” revolved around its lyrics and tune. Prominent previous criticism of the song included the passive mood in the introduction, the weakened beat of the opening melody, and the absence of traditional musical nuance. Hence, discussions on composing a new national anthem or replacing Ahn’s “Aegukga” with a traditional song like “Arirang” continued until the early 2000s. Meanwhile, the situation changed rapidly as the so-called anti-Japanese nationalism issue reignited the controversy over “Aegukga.” Ahn Eak-Tai was suspected of having been a national traitor or “pro-Japanese collaborator.” This doubt was intensified in 2006 when South Korean researcher Song Byeong-Wook discovered and released a video of Ahn conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under the Nazi regime. From this point on, studies on Ahn Eak-Tai’s hidden past began to accumulate in the field of musicology. The disturbing news that Ahn, the symbol of Korean patriotism, was suspected of being pro-Japanese and pro-Nazi became a hot topic in South Korean society. It was the moment that Ahn’s “Aegukga,” which had been “the patriotic sound,” transformed into “the un-patriotic sound.” Since then, demands for the removal of the statues of the representative musicians who studied and composed Western style music in South Korea in the early twentieth century, including Ahn Eak-Tai, Hyun Jae-Myung, and Hong Nan-Pa, began to appear prominently. They were stigmatized as pro-Japanese collaborators. Doubts about pro-Japanese sentiments of these famous Korean musicians could be juxtaposed with the suspicion of Nazi collaboration raised against Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan, and that would be the outcome of applying a postcolonial viewpoint to the art of a colonial period. The recent resumption of the controversy over the musicians suspected as pro-Japanese collaborators suggests that the perception of being pro-Japanese may be an extremely flexible notion influenced by contemporary political dynamics. This directly links the matter of resolving the dispute over

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the colonial history between Korea and Japan. With the Korea-Japan Treaty in 1965, the South Korean government officially agreed to relinquish the right of claiming further compensation of forced labor victims in return for receiving immediate loans from Japan. However, in 2018, the South Korean Supreme Court ruled to overturn this agreement between the two countries. Since then, relations between South Korea and Japan have degenerated rapidly, leading to mutual trade retaliations. The No-Japan Movement, which started in 2019 in South Korea, was a national scale boycott of Japanese products like canned ASAHI beers and the casual wear brand UNIQLO in response to Japanese trade sanctions. Nevertheless, the target of the boycott of Japanese-made goods was not limited to industrial products. During the NoJapan Movement, Ahn Eak-Tai’s “Aegukga” was rebranded as Made-in-Japan. Two books, Lee Hae-Young’s Ahn Eak-Tai Case and Kim Hyeong-Seok’s Ahn Eak-Tai’s Story of Overcoming Japan, both published in 2019, showed antipodal viewpoints on Ahn’s “Aegukga.” Lee Hae-Young claimed that Ahn’s history of pro-Japanese and pro-Nazi collaboration might be based on the relationship with Ehara Kōichi (江原綱一, 1896–1969). Ehara, suspected as an espionage agent, was a Japanese Manchukuo (滿洲國) diplomat in Berlin and had been a powerful supporter of Ahn. Moreover, Ehara even wrote the lyrics for “Manchurian Fantasia” (Mandschoutiko), composed and directed by Ahn. On the other hand, Kim Hyeong-Seok’s book, which refutes Lee’s arguments, denies allegations of Ahn’s pro-Japanese past. Also, in response to the suspicion that Ahn had served the Axis powers, Kim presented Ahn’s conducting records throughout other European nations. However, the combative debate is only a miniature version of the political struggles: Ahn’s “Aegukga” is being used as a battlefield for the ideologies of left-wing and right-wing nationalism. Undoubtedly, the controversy about Ahn’s pro-Japanese proclivities had existed beforehand. In the early 2000s, there had been a national-scale investigation on the pro-Japanese sympathies of historical figures in South Korea. And back then, suspicion about Ahn’s pro-Japanese past made headlines. However, the recent controversy over “Aegukga” is intrinsically different from previous disputes. Lately, the problem of musical ethics or plagiarism is emerging with existing arguments about pro-Japanese sentiments. In August 2019, a public hearing titled ‘‘Should We Sing Ahn Eak-Tai’s ‘Aegukga’” was held in the South Korean National Assembly. This event was an occasion to condemn Ahn’s acts of cooperation with the Japanese and Nazis, simultaneously criticizing the character of his song. The most critical issue of this public hearing was the suspicion of plagiarism. Musicologist Kim Jeong-hee sought to demonstrate the similarity between Ahn’s “Aegukga” and Bulgarian folk song “O, Dobrujanski-krai!” (“О, Добруджански край!”). According to Kim Jeong-hee, the tune similarity between the two songs might be at least

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58 percent and maximally 72 percent.5 Therefore, Kim claims that ethical concerns would be an additional yet serious reason for replacing the present national anthem with a new one. Since then, pro-Japanese and plagiarism disputes have been solidly combined and make up the core argument for replacing the national anthem. Currently, the judgment on plagiarism has not been determined beyond doubt. Musical similarity cannot be judged by a simple comparison of statistical values, and musical context should also be carefully considered as well. Combining a pro-Japanese past and a plagiarism issue of a composer is not common. In the case of Ahn, deep collusion between political circles and the academic world are functioning as a key factor of the combination. Sound, being the physical existence of air vibration, has no political nature in itself. It is also difficult to argue that a specific political tendency exists in the sound of the South Korean national anthem. Therefore, it is reasonable to evaluate the combination of the pro-Japanese and plagiarism issues as an ideological attempt to reframe the sound in terms of particular political meanings. In the wake of the No-Japan movement, a series of decommemorative projects for pro-Japanese figures are being carried out. A civic organization called People’s Group for Making a New National Anthem that continuously insisted on changing the national anthem requested that the South Korean government install a pro-Japanese plaque in front of the statue of Ahn Eak-Tai. Ahn’s descendants had rejected pro-Japanese and plagiarism accusations, and they filed a lawsuit against the Seoul Central District Public Prosecutor’s Office. Currently in South Korea, “Aegukga,” once recognized as the sound of patriotism, is disintegrating into the sound of quislingism. The de-commemoration of Ahn Eak-Tai might be complete only when the project of de-commemoration of “Aegukga” has been carried out.

National Anthem as a Sound Memory Pierre Nora wrote that every entity, from material objects to immaterial existences, could be a “Realm of Memory” (Un Lieu de mémoire). According to him, a typical example of the latter would be “La Marseillaise,” the national anthem of France.6 The national anthem could be a reservoir of sound memory. In the controversy over the establishment or replacement of the national anthem, the memory of competing subjects is being practiced and recorded. For example, “La Marseillaise,” which was composed with the enthusiasm of the French Revolution, is nowadays criticized as unsuitable for a national community with immigrants of diverse backgrounds. In contradiction with the historical meaning of the lyrics, some people point out that lyrics such as “a horde of foreigners” (cohortes étrangères) or “their impure blood” (sang impur)

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may encourage xenophobia and racism. As mentioned above, in the United States, the criticism of racial discrimination led to the de-commemoration of the composer Francis Scott Keys’ statue. In Russia, the “State Anthem of the Soviet Union” (Гимн Сове´тского Сою ´за) has been re-lyricized and renamed several times during political upheavals. The uniqueness of the Russian case is that only its lyrics were rewritten while retaining the original melody. With political regime changes, alterations on the lyrics were made to erase the memory of Stalin or eradicate the tinge of communism, but the unique melody of the “Soviet Union” survived consistently. The memory of the Soviet era remains undamaged in the sound.7 In other words, it might be no more than a pseudo replacement. Meanwhile, the Japanese national anthem, “Kimigayo” (君が代), could be seen as an unsuccessful case of replacement. In the postwar period of Japan, “Kimigayo” was criticized for being reminiscent of the Tennō institution and the colonialist past. Nevertheless, despite the criticism, “Kimigayo” became legitimated as an official national anthem in 1999.8 The memory of colonialism remaining in the sound memory of “Kimigayo” was sutured hastily without sufficient discussion. A national anthem is the auditory symbol of a nation. However, it appears that a national anthem that seemed to be permanently unchangeable is in fact fleeting and changeable. Recently, conflicts surrounding numerous national anthems have been taking place. While in some cases the values of universal humanism and globalism are driving the logic of replacement of the national anthem, in others exclusive nationalism and patriotism are the driving forces. A national anthem is an immaterial place of memory that records and stores sound memory. In this chapter, the national anthem of South Korea, “Aegukga,” was analyzed as an object of sound memory revealing the entangled relations between sound and (post)colonialism, and as a present progressive form of de-commemorating sound. Now is the moment to relocate our sense of sound. For those who try to listen, the national anthem will unveil various stories that have been deeply buried. Bae Myo Jung graduated with a degree in history from Hanyang University and received a master’s degree in musicology and a PhD in performing arts from Seoul National University. She is conducting research on the themes of the colonization of senses and sound memory in East Asian culture. She was awarded the Best Dissertation Award at Seoul National University Asia Center in 2018 for her doctoral dissertation, analyzing the representation of colonialism through the interaction of linguistic and nonlinguistic texts in the all-female Takarazuka Revue of modern Japan. Subsequently this doctoral dissertation was published in July 2019 as The Dramatization of Politics, the Politicization of Drama: The Ideology of Imperial Consolidation represented by

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the Takarazuka Girls’ Revue. Currently she is a research professor of Critical Global Studies Institute at Sogang University and teaches at Seoul National University on the history and aesthetics of performing arts in East Asia.

Notes 1. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (2017S1A6A3A01079727). 2. “Mayor Breed calls for review of public art after crowds topple 3 historic statues in San Francisco,” ABC 7 News, 21 June 2020. 3. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006), 145. 4. “Aegukga” (㞶ῃṖ, 愛國歌), meaning “the song of patriotism,” has been used as the National Anthem of South Korea in an official capacity but has not been legitimated by law. 5. Kim Jeong-Hee, “Is Eak-tai Ahn’s Aegukga (Patriotic song) Plagiarized?—A Re-Examination of Eak-tai Ahn’s Aegukga,” The Korean Journal of Arts Studies 26 (2019): 75–99. 6. Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory, vol. 3: The Construction of the French Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 29–74. 7. Martin J. Daughtry, “Russia’s New Anthem and the Negotiation of National Identity,” Ethnomusicology 47, no. 1 (2003): 46–61. 8. Junko Oba, “Performing Kimigayo: Japanese National Anthem and the Sonorous Undoing of the Collective Voice,” Asian Musicology 12 (2008): 85–114.

Bibliography Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 2006. Daughtry, Martin J. “Russia’s New Anthem and the Negotiation of National Identity.” Ethnomusicology 47, no. 1 (2003): 46–61. Kim, Hyeong-Seok. Ahn Eak-Tai’s Story of Overcoming Japan. Seoul: Gyoumsa, 2019. Kim, Jeong-Hee. “Is Eak-tai Ahn’s Aegukga (Patriotic song) Plagiarized?—A Re-Examination of Eak-tai Ahn’s Aegukga.” The Korean Journal of Arts Studies 26 (2019): 75–99. Lee, Hae-Young. Ahn Eak-Tai Case. Seoul: Samin, 2019. “Mayor Breed Calls for Review of Public Art after Crowds Topple 3 Historic Statues in San Francisco.” ABC 7 News, 21 June 2020. https://abc7news.com/statues-torndown-francis-scott-key-junipero-serra-golden-gate-park/6257760/. Nora, Pierre. Realms of Memory, vol. 3: The Construction of the French Past. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. Oba, Junko. “Performing Kimigayo: Japanese National Anthem and the Sonorous Undoing of the Collective Voice.” Asian Musicology 12 (2008): 85–114.

Chapter 15

DO COMMEMORATIONS HAVE AN “EXPIRATION DATE”? A Case Study from Belgium Nicolas Moll

8 Post-conflict societies usually discuss the issue of “time” regarding the public commemoration of mass violence in two different ways. On the one hand, there is the question of how much time it takes for a group to openly and honestly remember a crime it bears responsibility for. On the other hand, the opinion is occasionally expressed that “we” should at some point stop dealing with crimes that have been committed. One example of this is the fortieth anniversary of the end of World War II in West Germany in 1985. On this occasion, some opined that “forty years were enough” to deal with National Socialist history; simultaneously, there was also a view put forward that forty years represented a necessary period of time to allow for a more open discussion about the past. Most famously, this question was addressed by West German President Richard von Weizsäcker in his speech given in federal parliament on 8 May 1985. Referring to examples from the Old Testament, he stated that “forty years thus invariably constitute a significant time-span. Man perceives them as the end of a dark age bringing hope for a new and prosperous future, or as the onset of danger that the past might be forgotten and as a warning of the consequences.”1 The argument that after a certain time we should stop commemorating atrocities is usually put forward by representatives of the “perpetrator community” who feel embarrassed by the memory of the crime or who would like to suppress or minimize it. But can it also be the case that, on occasion,

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representatives of a “victim community” might argue that a commemorative activity practiced by themselves has had its time and should be stopped? And in such a scenario, what are the motivations behind this argumentation? In this chapter, I present a case study that deals with such an act of “decommemoration” within a victim community. It relates to the village of Spontin in Belgium, where a massacre was committed at the beginning of World War I by the German Army: on 23 August 1914, forty-six of the village’s six hundred inhabitants were executed, among them the mayor and local priest, and the village was set on fire. The village was rebuilt in the following years, and in 1922 a monument with the names of the victims was erected at the entrance to the village. The memory of the massacre and of the victims was upheld through an annual commemoration organized by the municipality until 1939, and then again after the end of World War II. In 1976, following an administrative reform in Belgium, Spontin lost its status as a municipality with its own mayor and administration and instead became one of the eight communes of Yvoir. But the tradition of the annual commemoration continued, led by the local priest together with descendants of victims and members of “patriotic organizations” (predominantly veterans of World War II), often with a representative of the municipality of Yvoir also in attendance. The annual commemoration usually consisted of a mass in the church on a Sunday after 23 August, followed by a procession from the church to the monument, where flowers were laid, the names of the victims were read out, and a minute of silence was observed. But as the years progressed, the number of participants in this annual commemoration became fewer. As a result, in the years leading up to the centenary of the massacre, the local priest and Jean Germain, a very active local historian who had founded the NGO “Le Patrimoine de Spontin” (“The Heritage of Spontin”), discussed whether it would make sense to continue holding the annual ceremony. Germain at the time also presided over the informal committee he had initiated to prepare for the 2014 centennial commemoration of the massacre. During one of the committee-sessions he put forward a proposal that the 2014 commemoration should be the last official commemoration, which went unopposed. Subsequently, in 2015, no ceremony was organized at the monument.2

Questioning a Commemoration That Had Become Routine But what were the reasons behind this act of “de-commemoration”? For Jean Germain, the decision was motivated by realism and common sense. The traditional annual ceremony no longer attracted many people, with only around fifteen participating in it annually in the years leading up to the centenary, meaning that it obviously failed in the purpose of transmitting the memory of

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this event within the village community. This was especially the case among young people and the many new inhabitants of Spontin who had moved to the village in the recent decades and had no personal connection to the events of 1914. And here we come to a crucial point: this act of de-commemoration in Spontin was not at all directed against the memory of the massacre and of the victims, per se, but rather the traditional form that the commemoration had taken. In the eyes of Germain, the annual ceremony no longer fulfilled the role of keeping the memory alive, and instead possibilities for upholding the memory through other means needed to be sought to revive it, particularly among the new inhabitants and younger persons, who were in many cases entirely oblivious to what had happened in 1914. For this, the 2014 centenary presented a perfect opportunity. In order to maximize the number of interested and involved persons, the one hundredth anniversary was organized as an exceptional event, which lasted not just one day but rather three consecutive days: activities included exhibitions, the inauguration of a new monument, a memory walk following the path that some of the prisoners had taken in 1914, activities with schoolchildren who worked on the biographies of the victims and then brought flowers and short poems to their graves in the cemetery, an official ceremony with speeches at the monument to the killed (which, for the first time, included the participation of a representative of the German Embassy), culminating in a sound and light show in the center of the village, which featured testimonies by survivors from 1914 read by the village’s present-day inhabitants. According to Germain, “we wanted to commemorate in a significant way in 2014 and to leave a trace”—a trace in the memory of the inhabitants of Spontin, many of whom participated in different activities, but also a physical trace with the installation of a new monument situated a few meters from the old one. “The old one has only the names of the victims under the title ‘Martyrs of August 23rd, 1914,’ without any other information. More and more people, and not only tourists, asked ‘But what happened?’ The new commemorative stone provides concrete information about the events of 1914.”3 As another permanent testimony to the events, Jean Germain published a book that year with detailed information about the war and the massacre, the context, and the aftermath, which was sold in Spontin for a price of just €5 to make it accessible to a wider public.

New Discussions and Initiatives after the 2014 Centenary Interestingly, the 2014 commemoration was so successful that in its aftermath suggestions that “We should do this again” were made to Jean Ger-

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main. But he remained skeptical about this. “Perhaps many persons will come the first year, but what will happen in the years after? . . . There comes a time where you have to say: We did it, we succeeded in lasting one hundred years. . . . The annual commemoration was a tradition which no longer garnered support.” The centenary commemoration had not been organized with the aim of bringing a cessation to the annual commemorations, but it provided an opportunity to do so, and to “finish on a high note” with an event that also provided means to continue the memorialization in different formats. At the same time, Germain did not want to prevent others from upholding the memory in their own way: “In any case, to no longer continue with the annual official commemoration does not mean stopping personal steps, at the monument or at the cemetery. Everyone has their freedom. . . . And who knows, perhaps there will again be an official commemoration for the 110th or 150th anniversary. But that is for the people of that time to decide.” And indeed, this is not the end of the story. Another inhabitant of Spontin, Léo Couturier, was unhappy with the decision to abandon the traditional annual commemoration. And so, in the summer of 2016, with the support of another family, he contacted the new local priest (who had arrived the same year) and told him that he would like to revive the custom of a procession to the monument and holding a ceremony there after Sunday mass. The priest agreed, and Couturier then also contacted the municipality of Yvoir, which agreed to send a representative. And so the old tradition of the ceremony at the monument after a mass in the church was resurrected. For Couturier this was important, as “a monument is not enough. I like these commemorations; it is a tradition—it is a duty.”4 He retained a vivid and negative memory from a conversation with a person from Spontin around the time of the centenary in 2014, who told him that further commemorations were not necessary and added in an ironic tone, “Why not also commemorate all the victories of Napoleon?” “I found this offensive,” said Couturier. And as there was no will to continue with the annual commemoration, he decided he would step in. Does he think that one day these commemorations will stop? “If they stop, this will come from itself. Perhaps one day, in ten or twenty years, there will be nobody anymore, unless there are people like me who want to continue. We don’t know.” After 2016, the annual commemoration once again continued in the same way, in 2017, 2018, and 2019, with around fifteen—mostly elderly—people participating in the ceremony at the monument each time; similar to those before the centenary. In 2020 the ceremony could not be held, as all public gatherings were canceled by the municipality of Yvoir in an effort to combat the COVID-19 pandemic that had hit Belgium very hard.5

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A Case Study with Multiple Conclusions This case study shows, first of all, that discussions on the issue of whether to end a commemorative activity pertaining to mass violence are not limited to “perpetrator communities” but can also occur within “victim communities” in relation to commemorative activities practiced by themselves. In the case of Spontin and the massacre of 1914, nobody from Germany was involved in the discussion; rather, it was an issue exclusively addressed within the village itself. And the question did not relate to how Germany commemorated the massacre but rather how “we in Spontin” did. Second, it shows that the cessation of a commemoration is not necessarily connected to a wish to condemn and suppress the memory of the event being commemorated. In the case of Spontin, the idea of abandoning the traditional annual ceremony was linked to the conviction that it had become purely routine and had lost its mobilizing force, and that there were more appropriate means by which to perpetuate and keep alive the memory of the event in question. Third, it shows that acts of de-commemoration do not necessarily need to be accompanied by violence or sociopolitical pressure. We have become accustomed to associating acts of de-commemoration—such as the removal of statues or the replacement of street names—to times of regime change or to times in which segments of society openly contest a public remembrance considered oppressive, offensive, or illegitimate. The case of Spontin shows that de-commemorations can also take place in periods of “calm” and in an (a priori) consensual manner. Fourth, the case of Spontin illustrates that acts of de-commemoration can also lead to the revival of the “de-commemorated” activity. After nearly one century, in the years immediately preceding 2014, the annual commemoration of the 1914 massacre had largely become a routine, being held more as an automatic repetition rather than as a genuine act of memorialization—a fact that led to the proposal of Jean Germain that the commemoration ceremony no longer be organized. In 2015, the annual commemoration was not held. Its deliberate cancelation then inspired some to rediscover its meaning and to become proactive: Léo Couturier and others were motivated to take the initiative to resuscitate the commemoration from 2016 onward. The act of cessation has therefore led to a new commitment, or, in other words, the decision to stop the ceremony has given new life to a ritual that had “run out of steam.” Fifth, it shows that strong lines of division regarding the question of de-commemoration can also exist within a “victim community” and that such lines are not necessarily drawn between those with personal or familial

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Figure 15.1. The entrance to the village of Spontin with the monument to the victims erected in 1922 and the church in the background. To the left of the old monument (and on the second photo) lies the new commemorative stone added in 2014. Source: Nicolas Moll

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connections to traumatic events and those without: in the case of Spontin, family members of both Jean Germain and Léo Couturier were directly affected by the events of 23 August 1914, but this nevertheless did not lead them to the same conclusion on whether or not to continue the traditional annual commemoration. Finally, the case study provides an insight into the power of so-called milestone anniversaries as opportunities not only to launch, maintain, or revitalize a commemoration, but also to end it (or at least to propose to do so). At the same time, the case of Spontin does not provide a universal answer to the question of how long it is sensible to maintain a commemorative activity. In this case, it was after one hundred years that the idea to end the annual commemoration was articulated. In others, it might be earlier or later, or the issue might even never be explicitly addressed. This also shows that time itself explains nothing: whether and when the question of upholding a commemorative activity is raised will always depend on the context and, predominantly, on the agency of the persons concerned. It is they who determine whether, in their opinion, it is time to let a commemorative activity expire or not, with the time factor simply being used as a justification for their proposal. Nicolas Moll, born in 1965 in Brussels, is an independent researcher and has lived in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, since 2007. He studied contemporary history, French literature, and political science in Freiburg i. Br., Geneva, Aix-en-Provence, and Strasbourg, and obtained a PhD in contemporary history from the University of Freiburg i.Br., Germany, in 2002. His research interests include postwar reconciliation processes, memory studies, civil society movements, and political symbolism in contemporary Europe, with a special focus on the (post-)Yugoslav space and on Franco-German relations. He is coordinator of the network “Memory Lab – Trans-European Exchange Platform on History and Remembrance” (www.memorylabeurope.eu).

Notes 1. For more on the discussion in Germany in 1985, see, for example, Christian Meier, “Sind vierzig Jahre genug?” [Are forty years enough?], in Vierzig Jahre nach Auschwitz. Deutsche Geschichtserinnerung heute, 2nd ed. (Munich: Beck, 1990), 36–37. The speech of Richard Weizsäcker on 8 May 1985 can be found at https://www.bundespraesident.de/ SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Reden/2015/02/150202-RvW-Rede-8-Mai-1985-englisch .pdf?__blob=publicationFile.

Do Commemorations Have an “Expiration Date”? • 157 2. For further information on the massacre in Spontin in 1914, see Jean Germain and Ben Schraverus, Spontin de sang et de feu. Le village de Spontin et la région d’Yvoir dans la tourmente d’aout 14 (Namur: Éditions Martagon, 2014). The present research about the commemoration of the massacre is based on two field trips undertaken to Spontin in August 2016 and June 2017. For a more detailed account, see Nicolas Moll, “‘Enough Is Enough’: Why and How a Belgian Village Decided to Stop Commemorating a Massacre from World War One—or Did It?,” Mémoires en jeu [Memories at stake], online article (17 Jan. 2019): https://www.memoires-en-jeu.com/varia/enough-is-enough/. 3. Jean Germain, interview by author, Spontin, 23 August 2016 (also for the following quotes). 4. Léo Couturier, interview by author, Spontin, 6 June 2017 (also for the following quotes). 5. Patrick Evrard, mayor of Yvoir, email message to author, 1 September 2020.

Bibliography Germain, Jean, and Ben Schraverus. Spontin de sang et de feu. Le village de Spontin et la région d’Yvoir dans la tourmente d’aout 14. Namur: Éditions Martagon, 2014. Meier, Christian. “Sind vierzig Jahre genug?” In Vierzig Jahre nach Auschwitz. Deutsche Geschichtserinnerung heute, 2nd ed., 36–37. Munich: Beck, 1990. Moll, Nicolas. “‘Enough Is Enough’: Why and How a Belgian Village Decided to Stop Commemorating a Massacre from World War One—or Did It?” Mémoires en jeu [Memories at stake], online article (17 Jan. 2019): https://www.memoires-en-jeu.com/varia/ enough-is-enough/. von Weizsäcker, Richard. “Speech during the Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the End of War in Europe and of National-Socialist Tyranny on 8 May 1985 at the Bundestag, Bonn.” https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/ Reden/2015/02/150202-RvW-Rede-8-Mai-1985-englisch.pdf?__blob=publicationFile.

Part III

DE-COMMEMORATION TO PROPEL CHANGE

Chapter 16

DE-COMMEMORATING AUSTRALIAN SETTLER COLONIALISM Sarah Maddison

8 During 2020, the resurgent global Black Lives Matter movement demanded a new reckoning with violent, racist, colonial histories. Across the United States and the United Kingdom statues of white colonizers and slave traders were pulled down as protestors insisted that these men—and these histories—should no longer be celebrated. Far from the United States and Britain, these scenes were repeated in several Australian cities, where protestors confronted armed police charged with protecting statues of James Cook, Lachlan Macquarie, and other noted colonialists. In Australia, such acts of decommemoration target the erasure of both historical violence and the ongoing violence of settler colonialism. Indigenous activists in particular see the work of de-commemoration as part of their wider struggles for justice. Unlike other forms of colonialism where the intent was to extract the resources of a territory (often using Indigenous peoples as enslaved or exploited labor), a settler colony like Australia seeks to acquire land and in doing so to replace the Indigenous population with the peoples, institutions, and structures of the new nation. Patrick Wolfe’s seminal formulation of settler colonialism rests on the central insight that settler colonies were and are premised on the elimination of Indigenous societies, whether by their physical obliteration or by absorbing them into the wider population.1 This is what is referred to as the “logic of elimination” that is constitutive of settler colonial societies. Through physical elimination, dispossession, removal, confinement, and assimilation, settler societies seek, unsuccessfully, to eliminate Indige-

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nous sovereignty over territory.2 Under the logic of elimination, Indigenous sovereignties, creation stories, and relationships to land cannot be allowed to compete with narratives of frontier heroism, or to undermine colonial claims to territory. This chapter argues that the logic of elimination also works through the colonial statues that celebrate key historical figures, quite literally inscribed on the plaques of the white men Australia still chooses to commemorate. In what follows I contend that the refusal to remove or relocate colonial statues is part of an ongoing effort to erase the violence and illegitimacy of Australian settler colonialism. De-commemorating these colonial statues, through removal, relocation, and reinscription, would allow for a more balanced telling of Australia’s past and open space for new narratives that center the experiences and cultures of First Nations.

Commemorating the Colony Just over 250 years ago, in August 1770, Captain James Cook declared possession of the east coast of the continent now known as Australia in the name of the King of Great Britain. Despite instructions from the King that he should take possession of the land “with the consent of the natives,” Cook acted contrary to this order and sought no such consent or agreement. Eighteen years later, on 26 January 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip raised the British flag at Sydney Cove to found the colony of New South Wales. Like Cook, Phillip also ignored instructions from the King by failing to “open an intercourse with the natives, and to conciliate their affections, enjoining all our subjects to live in amity and kindness with them.” The land these men colonized was clearly populated by Indigenous nations, as it had been for some sixty thousand years prior to the arrival of the British—a fact widely recognised in historical documents and argued again in recent critical historiography.3 Colonization, then, was not the benign and heroic act depicted in historical monuments but a brutal period of invasion, violence, massacre, and dispossession. Contemporary Australia is still a settler colony, occupying Indigenous territories without treaty or agreement. Despite these well-known facts, however, today both Cook and Phillip are memorialized in statues around the country. Indeed, as the Aboriginal writer Tony Birch has suggested, Cook is “commemorated ad nauseum across the nation.”4 The plaques attached to these statues are unhelpful to say the least. The eventual unveiling of Cook’s statue in Sydney’s Hyde Park, erected by public subscription in 1879 after a decade of interest and an array of difficulties including a shortfall in subscription funds, was a grand event. It

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was estimated that around twelve thousand joined the procession to Hyde Park and sixty thousand people attended the unveiling, which was declared a public holiday in honor of both Cook and the monument.5 An inscription on the base of the statue reads: “Discovered this territory 1770.” Phillip’s statue, nearby in the Botanical Gardens, is more accurate, inscribed only, “First Governor of New South Wales 1788–1792.” Elsewhere in Hyde Park, there is also a statue of Governor Lachlan Macquarie, the fifth governor of New South Wales and the last to oversee it as a penal colony before it became a “free settlement.” The inscription on Macquarie’s statue is particularly prosaic, beginning with the words, “He was a perfect gentleman, a Christian and supreme legislator of the human heart.” Macquarie’s mausoleum on a remote Scottish island is maintained by the National Trust of Australia and is inscribed “the Father of Australia.” Macquarie is an especially egregious figure, whose role in advancing the invasion of Darug, Dharawal and Gundungurra territories to the west of what is now Sydney led to the Appin Massacre, in which Indigenous people were either shot or driven over the edge of a gorge to their deaths. Macquarie was not coy about his intentions, writing in his diary that the military detachments he deployed were “for the purpose of Punishing the Hostile Natives, by clearing the Country of them entirely.”6 He ordered his troops to hang the victims from trees in order to terrorize the survivors. By any measure, such conduct is monstrous, and yet the Hyde Park statue memorializing Macquarie gives no clue to this violence. Macquarie is also further commemorated in colonial geography: we have both the Lachlan and Macquarie Rivers, Lake Macquarie, Port Macquarie, Macquarie Island, and Macquarie Pass. In Sydney alone there is Macquarie Street (home to the New South Wales Parliament no less), Macquarie Place, and the suburb of Macquarie Fields. Each of these monuments and markers is problematic. The non-Indigenous historian Bruce Scates contends not only that these monuments “have maligned and marginalised first nations’ peoples from the first day they were erected,” but that they are foundational in their insult: “they stand, after all, on land whose sovereignty was never surrendered.”7 As Birch observes, they represent a mythical history that erases the brutal reality of colonialism: At present, these bronzed heroes stand unchallenged, representing either a fictional history of terra nullius or the passive conquest of a land inhabited by unproductive “savages” awaiting British ingenuity and capitalist exploitation. Such histories do not venture beyond myth. Aboriginal nations were invaded. Many people suffered horrific violence. And in the decades and centuries following the original killing fields of the frontier, communities continued (and continue) to suffer government policies, such as the forced removal of children, dedicated to the extinction of Aboriginal people.8

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There have been longstanding debates about these kinds of monuments in Australia; debates that were reignited in 2017 when high profile Wiradjuri (an Indigenous nation from central New South Wales) journalist Stan Grant wrote of his discomfort over the Cook statue in Hyde Park. Grant wrote that when sixty thousand people turned out to see the statue unveiled in 1879, “No-one present then questioned that this was the man who founded the nation.” But, he suggested, “Think about that today. Think of those words: ‘Discovered this territory’”: My ancestors were here when Cook dropped anchor. We know now that the first peoples of this continent had been here for at least 65,000 years, for us the beginning of human time. Yet this statue speaks to emptiness, it speaks to our invisibility; it says that nothing truly mattered, nothing truly counted until a white sailor first walked on these shores. The statue speaks still to terra nullius and the violent rupture of Aboriginal society and a legacy of pain and suffering that endures today.9

Grant’s article sparked an extraordinary response from both supporters and detractors. In Sydney, protestors who apparently agreed with Grant’s position made their own statements on the statues, spray-painting “no pride in genocide” on Cook’s statue and similar statements on the statues of Lachlan Macquarie and Queen Victoria. Grant himself was critical of these actions and had not suggested that Cook’s statue be torn down, merely that the inscription be changed to acknowledge the Indigenous presence before his arrival. Nevertheless, the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described this suggestion as “Stalinist” and declared, “Trying to edit our history is wrong. All of those statues, all of those monuments, are part of our history and we should respect them and preserve them—and by all means, put up other monuments, other statues and signs and sights that explain our history.”10 And beyond the rhetoric from political leaders, it is clear that the settler state will go to great lengths to protect their telling of history. During the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 the full force of the state was brought to bear in the protection of Cook’s Hyde Park statue, which, in extraordinary scenes, was encircled by police on horseback. Such protection is itself both problematic and revealing. As Scates asks, “Would those opposing the altering of Australia’s colonial statues have also opposed the demolition of the Berlin Wall, or the toppling of statues of Saddam Hussein?”11 Without contest over such questions, monuments to figures such as Cook and Macquarie sustain a narrative of adventure and heroism, of the conquering of land claimed as terra nullius despite the presence of sophisticated Indigenous nations for over sixty thousand years prior to British invasion. They perpetuate the logic of elimination and advance the erasure of

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Figure 16.1. James Cook statue vandalized in protest of Australia Day, 2018. Source: Darrian Traynor, Getty Images. Used with permission.

Indigenous peoples and cultures. These statues do dishonest work, inscribed as they are with claims of discovery and of fathering the nation. Such monuments commemorate not only individuals but the systems and institutions of colonization, which are sustained in the present through the structures and processes of settler colonialism.

What Should We Do with the Statues? As Australia continues to struggle with how to address the ongoing colonization of Indigenous territories, we need to ask ourselves, are the white men we choose to commemorate the people we truly want to celebrate? Are their deeds the stuff of heroism? Do these statues inform? Do they educate? Do they help us be the nation we imagine ourselves to be? Do they move us closer to justice? There are a range of views on these questions. Some, such as Tony Birch, agree that any colonial statue that “uncritically celebrates empirical conquest and violence” should be decommissioned and removed, noting that they are not only “deeply offensive to Aboriginal communities,” they also “inhibit the potential for truth-telling and the ability to produce the more honest and mature story that this country desperately needs.” However, Birch also sees that there may be merit in retaining some colonial monuments “in the

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knowledge that the story they privilege will continue to be contested by Aboriginal writers, artists and activists,” and that such contest “may provide opportunities for necessary debates about our past.”12 This is a view quite widely shared among Indigenous actors keen to educate the wider population about the impacts of colonization. Even statues such as those of Lachlan Macquarie, which cause particular offence, are thought to hold some educative value. Indigenous artist and curator Tess Allas believes Macquarie should not be honored through his statue; but rather than seeing the statue removed, Allas suggests that providing more accurate information about Macquarie’s role in the violent dispossession of the Eora nation would be more appropriate: “The full story of Macquarie’s governorship should be added to reflect his whole story.”13 Indigenous academic Bronwyn Carlson agrees, suggesting that Australia needs to “mature” and “come to terms with its brutal colonial history”; to learn how to teach history “without celebrating those who ordered and participated in massacres.”14 Non-Indigenous genocide historian Dirk Moses argues that ignoring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander claims for a more accurate representation of history is merely “repeating the silences that led to the erection of these monuments in the first place, and concealing a truth that dare not speak its name.”15 New plaques and inscriptions are an important part of correcting the historical record. In Perth, on Australia’s west coast, a group of art activists known as the Statue Review have added new plaques to statues of John Septimus Roe, the first Surveyor-General of Western Australia and a member of Western Australia’s legislative and executive councils for almost forty years. The new plaques add the fact that “On 28 October 1834, John Septimus Roe participated in the Pinjarra Massacre, an attack on the Bindjareb Noongar camp that killed up to 80 Noongar men, women and children.” The same information is now included on the plaque attached to the statue of Captain James Stirling, a British naval officer and colonial administrator whose statue stands in Perth’s central business district. “He belongs in a museum,” both plaques read. “Not on our streets.” As the Statue Review activists have argued, without such additions, these statues, which are “glorifying people who partook in ethnic cleansing,” perpetuate elimination and erasure: “If you can’t see the problem, It doesn’t exist.”16 A final strategy, and one that I support, involves moving the statues from the street to a museum. The Statue Review collective argue that while statues in the street tell us that “the man in bronze is a hero,” if they were to be moved to museums they “would be seen as history and something we could learn about from both sides.”17 In July 2020 an open letter to the City of Sydney asking that the Captain James Cook statue in Hyde Park be relocated

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to a public museum was published in an Australian newspaper, signed by dozens of Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics, artists, and curators. The letter (which, in full disclosure, I both contributed to writing and also signed) argues that “the statue’s proper place is in a public museum where its historical and aesthetic contexts can be better understood, displayed and conserved.” The letter concludes, “Let the museum speak of the past; things must change in order for truth to be heard and future histories made.” Despite such urging, the monument to Cook still towers over Hyde Park, championed by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and others intent on preserving a whitewashed view of Australia’s colonial past and present. Removing, reinscribing, or relocating colonial statues are all appropriate means by which to de-commemorate the historical figures who advanced the colonization and dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, these calls are routinely met with outrage from political conservatives who allege that anything less than veneration of these figures is an attempt to erase or edit Australian history. Such claims seem to miss a fundamental point. The “repressive erasure by dispossession” that is intrinsic to colonialism is quite different from “the restorative erasure of removing colonial statues to restore an Indigenous sense of place.”18 The former perpetuates the settler-colonial logic of elimination; the latter rightly makes colonial history the subject of contemporary politics and Indigenous struggles for justice. Removing and relocating colonial structures would also make space for new narratives of Australia to emerge—narratives that center Indigenous knowledge, experience, and culture. Rather than resistance, Australia’s political leaders could support the use of public space to celebrate and commemorate the survival of the oldest living cultures on the planet as a small but important step toward justice. Sarah Maddison is Professor of Politics in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne and Director of the university’s Australian Centre. She is interested in work that helps reconceptualize political relationships between Indigenous peoples and settler states. She has published widely in this field, including as author or editor of nine books, most recently, The Colonial Fantasy: Why White Australia Can’t Solve Black Problems. Her other books in the field include The Limits of Settler Colonial Reconciliation (2016), Conflict Transformation and Reconciliation (2015), Beyond White Guilt (2011), Unsettling the Settler State (2011), and Black Politics (2009). Sarah was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow for 2011–14, undertaking a project that examined reconciliation in Australia, South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Guatemala.

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Notes 1. Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology (London: Cassel, 1991), 2. 2. Patrick Wolfe, Traces of History (London: Verso, 2016), 35–36. 3. Henry Reynolds, Truth-Telling (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2021). 4. Tony Birch, “Do Monuments Hold Any Value?,” IndigenousX, 14 January 2021, 2. 5. City of Sydney, “Captain Cook.” 6. Lachlan Macquarie, The Governor’s Diary & Memorandum Book Commencing on and from Wednesday the 10th Day of April 1816. 7. Bruce Scates, “Monumental Errors,” The Conversation, 27 August 2017. 8. Tony Birch, “If We Are to Recognise Heroes, Where Are the Stories of Aboriginal Courage?,” The Guardian, 8 September 2017, 2. 9. Stan Grant, “It Is a ‘Damaging Myth’ That Captain Cook Discovered Australia,” ABC News, 23 August 2017. 10. Quoted in Katherine Murphy, “Changing Colonial Statues Is Stalinist, Says Malcolm Turnbull,” The Guardian, 24 August 2017. 11. Scates, “Monumental Errors.” 12. Birch, “Do Monuments Hold Any Value?,” 2. 13. Quoted in Andrew Taylor, “Clover Moore Refers Concerns about Macquarie Statue to Indigenous Panel,” Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August 2017. 14. Quoted in Taylor, “Clover Moore Refers Concerns.” 15. A. Dirk Moses, “Who Is Really Airbrushing the Past?’ ABC Religion and Ethics, 1 September 2017, 1–2. 16. Quoted in Gavin Butler, “Australian Activists Give Racist Statues New Plaques to Highlight Colonial Violence,” Vice, 15 September 2020. 17. Quoted in Butler, “Australian Activists.” 18. Reuben Rose-Redwood and Wil Patrick, “Why Activists Are Vandalizing Statues to Colonialism,” The Conversation, 17 March 2020.

Bibliography Baker, Nick. “As ‘Racist Statues’ Topple around the World, Australia Is Being Urged to Address Its Own Monuments.” SBS News, 10 June 2020. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/as-raciststatues-topple-around-the-world-australia-is-being-urged-to-address-its-own-monuments. Birch, Tony. “Do Monuments Hold Any Value?” IndigenousX, 14 January 2021. https://indig enousx.com.au/do-monuments-hold-any-value/. ———. “If We Are to Recognise Heroes, Where Are the Stories of Aboriginal Courage?” The Guardian, 8 September 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/08/ if-we-are-to-recognise-heroes-where-are-the-stories-of-aboriginal-courage? Butler, Gavin. “Australian Activists Give Racist Statues New Plaques to Highlight Colonial Violence.” Vice, 15 September 2020. https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ayez3/ australian-activists-give-racist-statues-new-plaques-to-highlight-colonial-violence. City of Sydney. “Captain Cook,” n.d. https://www.cityartsydney.com.au/artwork/captaincook/.

De-Commemorating Australian Settler Colonialism • 169 Grant, Stan. “It Is a ‘Damaging Myth’ That Captain Cook Discovered Australia.” ABC News, 23 August 2017. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-23/stan-grant:-damagingmyth-captain-cook-discovered-australia/8833536. Macquarie, Lachlan (1816) The Governor’s Diary & Memorandum Book Commencing on and from Wednesday the 10th Day of April 1816, Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie Archive, Macquari University, https://www.mq.edu.au/macquarie-archive/lema/1816/1816april .html Moses, A. Dirk. “Who Is Really Airbrushing the Past? Genocide, Slavery and the Return of the Colonial Repressed.” ABC Religion and Ethics, 31 August 2017. https://www.abc.net .au/religion/who-is-really-airbrushing-the-past-genocide-slavery-and-the-retu/10095434. Murphy, Katharine. “Changing Colonial Statues Is Stalinist, Says Malcolm Turnbull.” The Guardian, 24 August 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/25/ changing-colonial-statues-is-stalinist-says-malcolm-turnbull. “Open Letter: Relocate the Captain Cook Statue.” The Saturday Paper, 4–10 July 2020. https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2020/07/04/relocate-the-capta in-cook-statue/159378480010061#hrd. Reynolds, Henry. Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty, and the Uluru Statement. Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2021. Rose-Redwood, Reuben, and Wil Patrick. “Why Activists Are Vandalizing Statues to Colonialism.” The Conversation, 17 March 2020. https://theconversation.com/whyactivists-are-vandalizing-statues-to-colonialism-129750. Scates, Bruce. “Monumental Errors: How Australia Can Fix Its Racist Colonial Statues.” The Conversation, 27 August 2017. https://theconversation.com/monumental-errors-howaustralia-can-fix-its-racist-colonial-statues-82980. Taylor, Andrew. “Clover Moore Refers Concerns about Macquarie Statue to Indigenous Panel.” Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August 2017. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/ clover-moore-refers-concerns-about-macquarie-statue--to-indigenous-panel-20170822-gy 1jn4.html. Wolfe, Patrick. Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event. London: Cassell, 1999. ———. Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race. London: Verso, 2016.

Chapter 17

THE PRESENT IS ALL THAT MATTERS De-Commemoration Practices in Israel Tracy Adams and Yinon Guttel-Klein

8 The latest global movement of de-commemoration in the form of destruction, demolition, and tearing down of previously accepted icons seems to have passed over Israel. Statues are not being torn down, monuments are not being destroyed or toppled, and there is seemingly an overall lack of concern with material de-commemoration. Since collective memory and practices of commemoration are primary characteristics of Israeli culture,1 this absence of renegotiation of the legacies of the past through the destruction of cultural heritage demands our attention. We thus set out to explore the existing, yet scarce, material rewriting of the past and to shed light on the Israeli culture of de-commemoration. We identify three mnemonic landscapes in which de-commemoration takes place in Israel—typically in the form of spray-painting and graffiti: burial sites, spaces in which military-related figures and events are commemorated, and physical spaces that represent the memory of the Holocaust. Thus, de-commemoration practices in Israel occur in the form of desecration, that is, “de-commemoration in its most basic form, namely, the dismantling and destruction of memorials.”2 Accordingly, we contend that although de-commemoration practices in the world criticize the past and reflect political statements regarding the present, in Israel, de-commemoration practices are primarily instrumental. Thus, in Israel the past is not officially under negotiation and is targeted to protest the current political agenda.

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Israel as a Commemorative State Much research has focused on the Israeli culture of collective memory, primarily on mythmaking,3 various commemoration practices including military memorialization,4 and Holocaust memory.5 Within these lines of inquiry, it is agreed that modern Israeli commemoration is deeply rooted in Jewish historiography and that new and renewing traditions of the Israeli nationstate infuse current memorialization practices.6 Similar to other societies that are composed of a myriad of communities and sub-cultures,7 Israeli commemoration is far from being unitary and cohesive and emphasizes conflicting interpretations and contesting narratives.8 Its multivocal commemorative culture is also related to its status as a state that is preoccupied with the ongoing intractable conflict.9 Broadly, for the Palestinians—with or without Israeli citizenship—the establishment of the state of Israel resulted in the loss of lands and the sudden drastic “devaluation of their status.”10 This was further exacerbated through de-commemoration of Palestinian mnemonic landscapes.11 As in other countries, in Israel militaristic figures and events are widely commemorated during official ceremonies and national memorial days.12 Militaristic monuments serve as a political aide-mémoire, as they relay public messages both political and, at times, controversial. By focusing on the material commemoration of past wars and militaristic figures, commonality can be found and a sense of shared experience and solidarity achieved.13

Does De-Commemoration Exist in Israel? The global protest movement of tearing down memorials that reinforce racism and colonialism calls attention to the vibrancy embodied in such a medium of memory. As “official art,”14 monuments have become the focus of these protest movements as historical forces have come unraveled and the materiality that embodies these perspectives and understandings is now the clash point. The now-offensive past is reexamined through the lens of the present, and its material manifestation can no longer be tolerated. Although it may seem at first glance as though Israeli society is not involved with widespread destructive actions, our research shows that de-commemoration does exist in Israel, although it is imminently different than the global trend and also indicates—in its limited presence—the unique nature of the Israeli case. Building on findings from previous research and using multiple qualitative methods, we identify cases in which de-commemoration practices are performed, mostly through acts of vandalism and desecration of memorial sites. Primarily, these acts of de-commemoration are a form of political

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protest, executed anonymously and during the night by “extremists”—labeled thus by media and authorities. We suggest a threefold division of Israeli practices of de-commemoration according to types of targeted mnemonic landscapes: burial sites, military-related memorials, and Holocaust memorial sites. In practice, agency, and meaning, all three are similar insofar as they consist of desecration performed under cover of darkness by actors who defy and protest against the hegemonic culture, differing only in the landscape within which de-commemoration is performed. Nevertheless, as a whole, in contrast to the worldwide trend of renegotiation with the past, these practices instrumentally target dominant mnemonic landscapes that tell the story of the past only to politically protest against the present. De-Commemoration of Burial Sites Burial sites, as has been previously established, constitute communal and national forms of commemoration. Desecration of such mnemonic landscapes can undeniably be considered practices of de-commemoration since they shake the societal foundations that commemoration attempts to establish.15 In 2005 there was a wave of vandalism on graves of the founding fathers of Israel and Zionism, David Ben Gurion and Theodor Herzl. Performed by extreme right-wing activists in response to the announcement of the Israeli plan to disengage from the Gaza strip (i.e., the dismantling of twenty-one Israeli settlements), these actions convey the deep political and civil strife in Israeli society. One prominent example includes graffiti sprayed on the grave of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1994. Black paint was sprayed to block out the names of Rabin and his wife Leah, and the words “murderous dog” were scrawled on the gravesite in the National Leaders’ Memorial Park in Mount Herzl. On other occasions, Rabin’s memorial in Tel Aviv was vandalized. In more recent years, one can find desecration of graves in one of the most important Jewish cemeteries on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. The cemetery is constantly under attack by Palestinians living in adjacent neighborhoods, who shatter and burn dozens of graves. In 2020, graffiti of crosses and swastikas were painted on several graves, among them the graves of prominent Rabbis. In 2021, young Bedouins committed similar acts of vandalism in the cemetery at Nevatim, a moshav in southern Israel. De-Commemoration of Armed Forces Memorials Other acts of de-commemoration consist of vandalism of militaristic memorials, such as graffiti at Ammunition Hill Jerusalem on Remembrance Day. A

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monument in memory of Israel Defense Force soldiers in Ben Shemen Forest was spray-painted with inscriptions of “army of destruction” and “recruitment of destruction” by Ultra-Orthodox extremists, demonstrating against mandatory recruitment to the army. In 2014 “‫( ”داﻋﺶ‬the Arabic acronym of ISIL or ISIS) was spray-painted on the Monument in memory of fallen Druze soldiers in Daliyat al-Karmel. All these incidents target military-related memorials and take place mostly anonymously and under cover of darkness. Indeed, as these mnemonic landscapes are a relatively durable tool for mediating national-political messages, they underline which version of the past is deemed true. Thus, their targeting by extremists embodies a political statement about the present.16 De-Commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Sites Additional cases of de-commemoration in Israel consist of acts of vandalism and desecration of Holocaust memorial sites. For instance, in 2012 hategraffiti was spray-painted in numerous places at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, including the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto Square monument. Extreme ultra-Orthodox Jews scrawled statements such as, “The Zionists wanted the Holocaust,” “If Hitler hadn’t existed, the Zionists would have invented him,” and similar expressions attacking Zionism (see figure 17.1). In 2018 the statement “Death to LGBT” was spray-painted onto a

Figure 17.1. “If Hitler hadn’t existed, the Zionists would have invented him.” Hate Graffiti in Yad Vashem. (Courtesy of Yad Vashem)

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monument situated in Gan Meir, Tel Aviv, dedicated to the memory of gays and lesbians persecuted in the Holocaust. In 2019, a few days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the “Power of Hope” monument, dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust, was knocked down. Situated in Ramat Gan, a city that borders Bnei Brak, a center of Haredi Judaism, this act of vandalism was carried out anonymously at night. Constituting a basis for remembering and for expressing the past in the present, “anchor(ing) events in space and time,”17 monuments and memorials can serve as a moral and normative compass to guide a society.18 Consequently, desecration of such mnemonic landscapes reflects the ongoing societal struggle within a conflicting collective.

Toward Cultural De-Commemoration: Concluding Remarks The Israeli case of de-commemoration is distinct from the wider movement that is observed throughout the Western world in both scale and practice. Israeli acts of de-commemoration by desecration convey a reckoning with the past by specific individuals that consider themselves to be marginalized in Israeli society. Although material memorial sites are targeted, these acts are not an attempt to reckon with collective memory or to judge historic events or figures by present moral standards. In contrast to the worldwide phenomenon of reevaluation of the past, in Israel these memorial sites are targeted due to their value in generating attention to one’s protest against governing ideologies. As such, these acts express discontent with the present and call attention to current struggles and strife. They constitute de-commemoration de facto. Notwithstanding the above, we identify what may be the beginning of an Israeli interpretation to de-commemoration as it is currently undertaken in the world. We term this phenomenon cultural de-commemoration and illustrate it through the removal of the iconic Peeping Toms street mural in Tel Aviv in 2020. The image of teenage boys peeking into the women’s changing room at the beach was made in tribute to the 1972 Israeli cult film of the same name. Notably, in 2014 suspicions were raised regarding abuse and sexual harassment during the production of the movie. Following several occasions in which women’s rights activists, some of whom take part in the “counter gender-terrorism unit,” publicly vandalized the wall (see figure 17.2), this cultural memory mural was removed by the municipality. This case demonstrates what is currently prevalent in the worldwide movement of decommemoration: observing the past through the lens of the present. What was once considered the norm and deserving of respectful commemoration is no longer perceived as such and must be removed. It demonstrates how

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Figure 17.2. “Rape Culture.” “Peeping Toms” street mural, Tel Aviv. Courtesy of “LOTEM – counter gender-based terrorism unit.”

public consciousness is transformed in the present so the past can be reremembered. However, this case is the exception that is indicative of the rule in Israel. In general, Israeli acts of de-commemoration target memorial sites as part of the discussion about the present. The past is a tool to use, but it is hardly relevant. True, it is the memorial site that is targeted and wrecked, but not because the past constitutes a problem or challenges the values of the present but rather because of the understanding that the memorial’s desecration will attract attention. The Israeli case thus constitutes a stark contrast to acts of de-commemoration around the world. How, then, can we explain Israeli practices of de-commemoration in light of those of the world? The social use of memory comes to the fore in acts of de-commemoration, exemplifying how memory is used to define identity.19 If, as Burke suggests, history is indeed forgotten by the victors, it is up to the losers to reflect upon it. On the losing side, those groups in society that cannot contend with the commonly agreed-on version of the past reopen the story and change it through acts of de-commemoration.20 The Israeli case is thus especially illuminating, as acts of de-commemoration reveal the discontent of marginalized individuals in Israeli society with the political present. They do so through the attack on memorial sites. Nonetheless, in using

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memorial sites as a target for venting and protest, perhaps unintentionally, these acts of de-commemoration can also undermine the “mnemonic comfort zone” and the existing common understanding of the past.21 Since collective memory is the past made present,22 any act of vandalism on a memorial site against the current state of affairs inherently entails in it also an act of reckoning with the past, even if this is not the inceptive intention of the protestors. The Israeli practices of targeting memorial sites in the form of anonymous spray-painting hate-graffiti or the underground toppling of a monument in the dead of night are far from some of the public and extensively mediated destructions of monuments that are the current global trend. This may suggest the development of a countermemory, one that is distinctly different from the master narrative that guides and shapes Israeli political culture.23 And so, while the de-commemoration acts that currently take place around the world occur in line with the now-common and almost-hegemonic revisionism of the past, Israeli practices of de-commemoration are the underground actions of subcultures in society. To this extent, while the global trend of de-commemoration is an explicit demonstration of the zeitgeist of these times, the Israeli practices of de-commemoration are subversive, the attempts of specific individuals that perceive themselves to be marginalized to raise awareness of their discontent with the current political climate through acts of de-commemoration. Tracy Adams is a research affiliate at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University. Her PhD from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem focused on “traveling” collective memory and the many ways in which memory is mobilized in political rhetoric. Her research interests include the intersection of memory, conflict, and politics and how meaning is constructed through interactive processes of negotiation. She has been published in high-ranking journals such as The British Journal of Sociology, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, The Sociological Quarterly, Media, Culture & Society, and Memory Studies. Yinon Guttel-Klein is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a senior advisor to the President of the State of Israel. In recent years, he has managed departments in the President’s Office that deal with heritage, society, and government. He holds previous degrees in political science, communication, and gender studies (cum laude), also from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His dissertation focuses on the processes of solidarity, multivocality, pantheonization, and de-pantheonization in pantheonic and national cemeteries;

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and his research interests include collective memory, nationality, death, mnemonic landscapes, and commemoration. He has recently won scholarships and awards from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture; Yad Ora Memorial Fund for research on ethnographic and geopolitical topics; The Shaine Center for Research in Social Sciences; Levi Eshkol Institute for the Study of the Economy, Society, and Policy in Israel; and The Greenstein Prize for the Research of the History of the Land of Israel.

Notes 1. Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, Forget-Me-Not: Yitzhak Rabin Assassination and the Dilemmas of Commemoration (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008). 2. Tracy Adams and Yinon Guttel-Klein, “Make It till You Break It: Toward a Typology of De-Commemoration,” Sociological Forum 37, no. 2 (2022): 603–25. 3. Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996); Barry Schwartz, Yael Zerubavel, and Bernice M. Barnett, “The Recovery of Masada: A Study in Collective Memory,” Sociological Quarterly 27, no. 2 (1986): 147–64. 4. Udi Lebel, Politics of Memory: The Israeli Underground’s Struggle for Inclusion in the National Pantheon and Military Commemoralization (London: Routledge, 2013); Ilana Shamir, Commemoration and Remembrance: Israel’s Way of Molding Its Collective Memory Patterns (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1996). 5. Tracy Adams, “Sharing the Same Space: How the Memory of the Holocaust Travels in Political Speech,” The Sociological Quarterly 63, no. 2 (2022): 247–65; Yechiel Klar, Noa Schori‐Eyal, and Yonat Klar, “The ‘Never Again’ State of Israel: The Emergence of the Holocaust as a Core Feature of Israeli Identity and Its Four Incongruent Voices,” Journal of Social Issues 69, no. 1 (2013): 125–43; Idith Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 6. Yosef H. Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996). Maoz Azaryahu, State Cults: Celebrating Independence and Commemorating the Fallen in Israel, 1948–1956 (Sdeh-Boker: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 1995); Emmanuel Sivan, The 1948 Generation: Myths, Profile and Memory (Ma’arachot: The Ministry of Defence Publications, 1991); Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). 7. Jeffrey K. Olick and Daniel Levy, “Collective Memory and Cultural Constraint: Holocaust Myth and Rationality in German Politics,” American Sociological Review 62, no. 6 (1997): 921–36; Henry Rousso, The Haunting Past: History, Memory, and Justice in Contemporary France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002); Jenny Wüstenberg, Civil Society and Memory in Postwar Germany (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 8. Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, “Commemorating a Difficult Past: Yitzhak Rabin’s Memorials,” American Sociological Review 67, no. 1 (2002): 30–51. 9. Vinitzky-Seroussi, “Commemorating a Difficult Past,” 39.

178 • Tracy Adams and Yinon Guttel-Klein 10. Tamir Sorek, Palestinian Commemoration in Israel: Calendars, Monuments, and Martyrs (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015). 11. Amit Pinchevski and E. Torgovnik, “Signifying Passages: The Signs of Change in Israeli Street Names,” Media, Culture & Society 24, no. 3 (2002): 365–88; Laleh Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Uri Ram, “Ways of Forgetting: Israel and the Obliterated Memory of the Palestinian Nakba,” Journal of Historical Sociology 22, no. 3 (2009): 366– 95; Tamir Sorek, “Cautious Commemoration: Localism, Communalism, and Nationalism in Palestinian Memorial Monuments in Israel,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 50, no. 2 (2008): 337–68. 12. Avner Ben-Amos, “War Commemoration and the Formation of Israeli National Identity,” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 31, no. 2 (2003): 171–95; Oz Almog, “War Memorials: A Semiological Analysis,” in Designing Memory, pt. 2, Catalog 98/21, 196– 231 (Tel Aviv: Ascola-Meimad College of Art and Design, 1991); Maoz Azaryahu, “War Memorials and the Commemoration of the Israeli War of Independence, 1948–1956,” Studies in Zionism 13, no. 1 (1992): 57–77; Esther Levinger, War Memorials in Israel (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1993); Don Handelman and Elihu Katz, “State Ceremonies of Israel: Remembrance Day and Independence Day,” in Models and Mirrors: Towards an Anthropology of Public Events, ed. Don Handelman (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 191–223; Edna Lomsky-Feder, “Competing Models of Nationalism: An Analysis of Memorial Ceremonies in Schools,” Nation and Nationalism 17, no. 3 (2011): 581–603; Udi Lebel, “Second Class Loss: Political Culture as a Recovery Barrier—The Families of Terrorist Casualties’ Struggle for National Honors, Recognition, and Belonging,” Death Studies 38, no. 1 (2014): 9–19. 13. George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 14. Annette Becker, Les Monuments aux Mort (Paris: Errance, 1987). 15. Robin Wagner-Pacifici and Barry Schwartz, “The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Commemorating a Difficult Past,” American Journal of Sociology 97, no. 2 (1991): 376–420. 16. Barry Schwartz, “Social Change and Collective Memory: The Democratization of George Washington,” American Sociological Review 56, no. 2 (1991): 221–36; Sarah Gensburger, Memory on My Doorstep: Chronicles of the Bataclan Neighborhood, Paris 2015–2016 (Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2019). 17. Robin Wagner-Pacifici, What Is an Event? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017). 18. Avner Ben-Amos, “Monuments and Memory in French Nationalism,” History and Memory 5, no. 2 (1993): 50–81; Eric Hobsbawn, “Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870– 1914,” in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, 263–308 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012); George L. Mosse, Masses and Man: Nationalist and Fascist Perceptions of Reality (New York: Howard Fertig, 1980). 19. Peter Burke, Varieties of Cultural History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997). 20. Guy Beiner, Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 21. Yael Zerubavel, “Numerical Commemoration and the Challenges of Collective Remembrance in Israel,” History and Memory 26, no. 1 (2014): 5–38. 22. Gensburger, Memory on My Doorstep; Sarah Gensburger and Sandrine Lefranc, Beyond Memory: Can We Really Learn From the Past? (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). 23. Zerubavel, Recovered Roots, 10.

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Bibliography Adams, Tracy. “Sharing the Same Space: How the Memory of the Holocaust Travels in Political Speech.” The Sociological Quarterly 63, no. 2 (2022): 247–65. Adams, Tracy, and Yinon Guttel-Klein. “Make It till You Break It: Toward a Typology of De-Commemoration.” Sociological Forum 37, no. 2 (2022): 603–25. Almog, Oz. “War Memorials: A Semiological Analysis.” In Designing Memory, pt. 2, Catalog 98/21, 196–231. Tel Aviv: Ascola-Meimad College of Art and Design, 1991. Azaryahu, Maoz. State Cults: Celebrating Independence and Commemorating the Fallen in Israel, 1948–1956. Sdeh-Boker: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 1995. ———. “War Memorials and the Commemoration of the Israeli War of Independence, 1948–1956.” Studies in Zionism 13, no. 1 (1992): 57–77. Becker, Annette. Les Monuments aux Mort. Paris: Errance, 1987. Beiner, Guy. Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Ben-Amos, Avner. “Monuments and Memory in French Nationalism.” History and Memory 5, no. 2 (1993): 50–81. ———. “War Commemoration and the Formation of Israeli National Identity.” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 31, no. 2 (2003): 171–95. Ben-Yehuda, Nachman. Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. Burke, Peter. Varieties of Cultural History. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. Gensburger, Sarah. Memory on My Doorstep: Chronicles of the Bataclan Neighborhood, Paris 2015–2016. Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2019. Gensburger, Sarah, and Sandrine Lefranc. Beyond Memory: Can We Really Learn from the Past? London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. Handelman, Don, and Elihu Katz. “State Ceremonies of Israel: Remembrance Day and Independence Day.” In Models and Mirrors: Towards an Anthropology of Public Events, edited by Don Handelman. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Hobsbawn, Eric. “Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870–1914.” In The Invention of Tradition, edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Khalili, Laleh. Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Klar, Yechiel, Noa Schori‐Eyal, and Yonat Klar. “The ‘Never Again’ State of Israel: The Emergence of the Holocaust as a Core Feature of Israeli Identity and Its Four Incongruent Voices.” Journal of Social Issues 69, no. 1 (2013): 125–43. Lebel, Udi. Politics of Memory: The Israeli Underground’s Struggle for Inclusion in the National Pantheon and Military Commemoralization. London: Routledge, 2013. ———. “Second Class Loss: Political Culture as a Recovery Barrier—The Families of Terrorist Casualties’ Struggle for National Honors, Recognition, and Belonging.” Death Studies 38, no. 1 (2014): 9–19. Levinger, Esther. War Memorials in Israel. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1993. Lomsky-Feder, Edna. “Competing Models of Nationalism: An Analysis of Memorial Ceremonies in Schools,” Nation and Nationalism 17, no. 3 (2011): 581–603. Mosse, George L. Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. ———. Masses and Man: Nationalist and Fascist Perceptions of Reality. New York: Howard Fertig, 1980.

180 • Tracy Adams and Yinon Guttel-Klein Olick, Jeffrey K., and Daniel Levy. “Collective Memory and Cultural Constraint: Holocaust Myth and Rationality in German Politics.” American Sociological Review 62, no. 6 (1997): 921–36. Pinchevski, Amit, and E. Torgovnik. “Signifying Passages: The Signs of Change in Israeli Street Names.” Media, Culture & Society 24, no. 3 (2002): 365–88. Ram, Uri. “Ways of Forgetting: Israel and the Obliterated Memory of the Palestinian Nakba.” Journal of Historical Sociology 22, no. 3 (2009): 366–95. Rousso, Henry. The Haunting Past: History, Memory, and Justice in Contemporary France. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. Schwartz, Barry. “Social Change and Collective Memory: The Democratization of George Washington.” American Sociological Review 56, no. 2 (1991): 221–36. Schwartz, Barry, Yael Zerubavel, and Bernice M. Barnett. “The Recovery of Masada: A Study in Collective Memory.” Sociological Quarterly 27, no. 2 (1986): 147–64. Shamir, Ilana. Commemoration and Remembrance: Israel’s Way of Molding Its Collective Memory Patterns. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1996. Sivan, Emmanuel. The 1948 Generation: Myths, Profile and Memory. Ma’arachot: The Ministry of Defence Publications (in Hebrew), 1991. Sorek, Tamir. “Cautious Commemoration: Localism, Communalism, and Nationalism in Palestinian Memorial Monuments in Israel.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 50, no. 2 (2008): 337–68. ———. Palestinian Commemoration in Israel: Calendars, Monuments, and Martyrs. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015. Vinitzky-Seroussi, Vered. “Commemorating a Difficult Past: Yitzhak Rabin’s Memorials.” American Sociological Review 67, no. 1 (2002): 30–51. ———. Forget-Me-Not: Yitzhak Rabin Assassination and the Dilemmas of Commemoration. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. Wagner-Pacifici, Robin. What Is an Event? Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. Wagner-Pacifici, Robin, and Barry Schwartz. “The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Commemorating a Difficult Past.” American Journal of Sociology 97, no. 2 (1991): 376–420. Winter, Jay. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Wüstenberg, Jenny. Civil Society and Memory in Postwar Germany. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Yerushalmi, Yosef H. Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996. Zertal, Idith. Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Zerubavel, Yael. “Numerical Commemoration and the Challenges of Collective Remembrance in Israel.” History and Memory 26, no. 1 (2014): 5–38. ———. Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Chapter 18

DE-COMMEMORATIONS AND THE UNSETTLED PAST IN CONTEMPORARY BRAZIL Ricardo Santhiago

8 In June 2020, after the wave of monument removals and destructions following the killing of George Floyd, the state government of São Paulo assigned a patrol to protect the statue of Borba Gato on a 24/7 basis—an order that elicited mockery from the press and the public due to the monument’s most notable feature: its lack of aesthetic merit.1 Commissioned in 1957 to the undistinguished sculptor Júlio Guerra, the forty-one-foot high figure carrying a rifle usually served as the ultimate example of bad taste in art. Recently, another aspect of the statue has come up for discussion. Just like the sculpture, the man it honors is anything but special: he was one of the bandeirantes—men who, hired by the late seventeenth-century colonial government, explored the interior of Brazil and, in the process, enslaved and murdered thousands of Indigenous people, raped women, and looted mines for precious metals. Once celebrated as a pioneering expansionist enterprise, these men’s actions and legacy are now being scrutinized. The deconstruction of a mythic, triumphalist narrative of the bandeirantes’ epic—which used to be ubiquitous in basic school textbooks—has also affected the urban landscape, since these men’s names were given to streets, avenues, highways, and even government palaces. The steadfast surveillance of the quasi-irrelevant statue of Gato points to the unease of governments in responding to public demands for reconsideration of what should be commemorated. Moreover, it raises the question of how to approach these demands in a productive way without ignoring that

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commemorations are constructions but also without bending to pressures that could efface the inevitable vicissitudes in the construction of public memory. And as Brazil’s three major national historical traumas—the colonial heritage, slavery, and state-sponsored violence—are being more clearly elaborated in the public sphere in response to present social pressures, this discussion takes on great urgency. In this chapter, I discuss how these traumas have given rise to recent popular de-commemorative actions, which have yielded an interesting repertoire of actions and verbal justifications for de-commemoration. I also discuss how, on the other hand, de-commemorative actions can, in litigious political contexts such as Brazil today, be used by the established powers to stifle popular icons and values.

Colonial Heritage, Slavery, and State-Sponsored Violence In the stereotypical discourse, Brazil is often construed as a “country without memory”—a rhetoric employed both to express resentment of the widespread disinterest in national symbols and to contest the impenetrability of state-sponsored national history in relation to events unconnected to the “great men” of the nation. And the persistent public neglect of historical institutions does not fail to confirm the stereotype: the tragic fire of Rio de Janeiro’s National Museum in 2018 is only one recent illustration. As for dealing with its difficult pasts, Brazil’s slowness is evident to both scholars and civilians: the belated implementation of a truth commission on statesponsored crimes, created only in 2011, demonstrates it. Thus, it is not strange that the first thing the São Paulo government did regarding the global wave of statue removals was to rush to patrol Gato’s statue instead of discussing the growing revulsion toward the bandeirantes’ legacy, which first exploded in 2013. October of that year, an initial protest had as its target a masterful granite sculpture created by the renowned artist Victor Brecheret. The 142-foot-long Monument to the Bandeiras, an impressive piece that depicts Blacks, mestizos, religiously converted Native Americans, and Portuguese men pulling an expedition canoe, was accused of disguising the violence perpetrated by the latter. It was bathed in dramatic red paint during a large protest against a constitutional amendment that would withdraw from the federal government the autonomy to demarcate Indigenous lands.2 The protest enlivened debates about the boundaries between vandalism and free expression and prompted appealing arguments. A representative of the Guarani people argued, in a beautiful line, that for Indigenous people, painting the body is not an act of aggression but a means to transform it.3 Three years later, in 2016, the Bandeiras was found covered in paint again, as was the much less significant Borba Gato. The colonial barbarism and the

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Indigenous genocide remained as nodal points of that action, which occurred during city election campaigns, but a new context brought greater complexity to the event. The rise of the extreme right was already a reality, and the achievements of the progressive governments of Lula (2002–11) and the recently impeached Dilma Rousseff (2011–16) were increasingly disputed by figures such as Jair Bolsonaro, who would become president in 2019. Bolsonaro is an exemplary specimen of negationism and an avowed enthusiast of dictatorship and violent repression. His rise represented not only a political dispute between center-left and extreme right politics, but also the reheating of the 1960s pre-dictatorship culture wars. His populist right-wing appeal catalyzed a reaction against the advance of progressive agendas unfolding since 2002, including affirmative action and memory policies. Created in 2011 by Rousseff—herself a former political activist who was arrested and tortured—the National Truth Commission was notable among these policies.4 Its mission was to investigate human rights violations between 1946 and 1988, with a special focus on the military dictatorship (1964–85). In carrying out its tasks between 2011 and 2014, the Commission also kindled social demands for memory: several other commissions were created at the state, city, and local levels; families of missing persons formed or resumed the activities of associations; university research centers focusing on political violence gained new strength; memory activists formed collectives that deployed public history in audiovisual products, public programs, grassroot oral history archives, as well as public art and a variety of urban interventions. Many de-commemorative practices arose, including the symbolic renaming of streets, avenues, and bridges, often employing humor. In Brasília in 2012, a bridge in honor of the dictator Costa e Silva, president from 1967 to 1969 (who enacted Institutional Act no. 5, the most repressive of the legal acts created by the dictatorship), was symbolically renamed for Bezerra da Silva, a Black samba singer and percussionist, considered an authentic representative of the urban favelas.5 These ephemeral, illicit interventions contributed to accelerating discussions on state-led geographical renaming. After the release of the Truth Commission’s final report, several local administrations removed busts and plaques in honor of dictators. In São Paulo, a huge, elevated roadway had Costa e Silva’s name replaced with João Goulart: the leftist president who was overthrown by the 1964 military coup.6 This was one of forty public places renamed as part of the city project Memory Streets, which generated considerable controversy and accusations of ideological revanchism. Since then, demands for removing plaques and monuments, and for changing public names connected to the violent legacy of the military dictatorship, have grown exponentially. More importantly, all this has stimulated a profound rediscussion of memory policies, whose very existence have become more widely visible. Changes have even led to court battles: an important

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avenue in Porto Alegre had its name changed in 2014 from Castelo Branco (the first president of the military dictatorship) to Legality and Democracy, but in 2018 the state Court of Justice accepted a writ of mandamus by rightwing parties and concluded the change was “illegal.”7 Public consultations are mechanisms often seen as an appropriate solution when these controversies arise. But in May 2021, only nine days after the death of a celebrated young comic from COVID-19, the city of Niterói held a public consultation asking whether residents would agree to giving his name to a street named after Moreira César—a late nineteenth-century colonel who was known for employing violence and cruelty against popular uprisings, including the famous War of Canudos, in which he was murdered. As much as César’s historical meaning is up for discussion—he was known as “the beheader” in his time—one must ask whether the rush to pay homage to an actor who was extremely popular, but with a limited contribution to the Brazilian cultural tradition, really represents a maturation in the public discussion of the dynamics of commemoration and de-commemoration.8 While the revision of tributes relating to the military dictatorship have taken place only in the last decade, since the 1970s Black movements in Brazil have sought to put in motion parallel acts to affirm Blacks as protagonists in the history of the last Western country to abolish slavery. This included calling into question the symbols usually associated with its 350-year history. The date of abolition, 13 May 1888, and Isabel, the white princess who signed the decree that freed the Black population, have been progressively denuded of meaning. For some decades now, they have been seen as elitist heroic symbols that erase the Black protagonists who effectively engaged in abolitionist struggles. In 2011 the parliament finally promulgated a bill creating the Day of Black Consciousness on 20 November in honor of the quilombola leader Zumbi dos Palmares (1655–95), a symbol of Black struggles for freedom. Since nothing is ever simple, Zumbi is also known for enforcing allegiance and violently punishing any sort of disloyalty.9 With some justification, his brutality is now the basis for attacks from right-wing critics.10

When It Cuts Both Ways In February 2018, the Commander-in-Chief of the Brazilian Army Eduardo Villas Bôas did not think twice before saying (while leading a disastrous federal intervention in Rio de Janeiro’s security forces, aimed at combating criminal organizations) that for the army to act correctly, it should be “reassured that no other truth commission will show up in the future.”11 In March 2019, President Jair Bolsonaro ordered the armed forces to celebrate the 1964 coup, which, he declared, should be “properly commemorated.”12 While this may

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seem outrageous, it is a reminder that when it comes to memory, its questioning and re-elaboration are not specific to a certain political spectrum. It constitutes a warning regarding the desirability of leaving commemoration and de-commemoration to the tide of current politics. If recent de-commemorative acts have become effective for self-proclaimed progressive purposes—as a device capable of generating strong public discussion and engagement—it should not be surprising that it can be used for opposite ends as well. An instructive case that generated an innovative circuit of commemoration and de-commemoration is a street sign in homage to Marielle Franco, a city council representative from January 2017 until her death in March 2018. A young, Black, lesbian, feminist, human rights activist, Marielle was shot to death in downtown Rio de Janeiro. Popular in her life, she became a martyr the same night she died: an example of the struggle for justice, and also an example of brutality in Rio. The tributes to Marielle are countless. Her name adorns libraries, feminist collectives, a public garden in Paris, a mural in Berlin, and a plaque in Buenos Aires. She is mentioned in dozens of songs and was the theme of two samba school parades in 2020. Her face is on T-shirts, bags, and stationery items. The loud repetition of the phrase “Marielle presente” became a ritual in political meetings. Postmortem, the National Congress awarded her the Bertha Lutz Diploma, dedicated to women’s rights defenders. In short, Marielle’s cult tellingly expresses how the terrain of commemoration continues to expand. Out of these different media, practices, and rituals, nothing rivaled the strength of an inexpensive object: a street sign that absorbed (and transformed) the well cemented practice of toponymic commemoration. Only a month after Marielle’s shooting, a street in the town of Ribeirão Preto, in the state of São Paulo, officially took on her name, and it spawned a prompt mimicking throughout the country. Imitative street signs started to be used in symbolic renamings and euphorically shared in social media. It is not surprising that these media would become the target of groups that opposed the values represented by Marielle. Still, it came as a shock when, during a rally in the 2018 national elections, two scarcely known right-wing candidates proudly posed for photos holding a broken Marielle sign. Their action disturbed many in the country, but also directly targeted the candidates’ constituency.13 The men’s gesture seems to have been effective, since both ended up being elected. On the other hand, Marielle’s commemoration intensified. Crowdfunding campaigns popped up, having as their goals producing and distributing, for free, street signs. They can now be purchased for five dollars in home decor stores and souvenir shops. Thousands of them decorate walls in university offices, unions, party headquarters, and houses. Official street signs now name streets throughout the country and even a hall at the Brazilian

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Congress, showing that the de-commemorative ambitions of those candidates led to mixed results. But that is not always the case. In 2019, Jair Bolsonaro appointed as a director of the Palmares Foundation—a federal organ aimed at “promoting the preservation of cultural, social and economic values resulting from the Black influence in the formation of Brazilian society”—a man who denies the existence of racism, argues that slavery was “terrible, but beneficial to slaves’ descendants,” defends the “extinction” of any Black rights movement, and promises a medal to “the first white man to put a Black militant in jail for racism.”14 He may not have found a recipient for that medal, but in December 2020 he withdrew a national honor granted by the Foundation to twenty-seven individuals. He had already done it with the environmentalist and former senator Marina Silva, claiming that her contributions to Black people were not relevant and that she “declares herself to be Black only for political convenience.”15 Then, he extended the dishonor to a list that included the internationally renowned composer Gilberto Gil, the pioneering actress Zezé Motta, and the first Black senator in the country, Benedita da Silva.16 These were not the only figures the government sought to dishonor. The world-famous educator Paulo Freire, who died in 1997, was posthumously honored as the Patron of Brazilian Education in 2012, when an unprecedented law created the title—a symbolic tribute accompanied by the approval of a National Education Plan.17 Creator of a literacy pedagogy based on the recognition of social oppression by the oppressed, he had already received awards from Unesco (in 1986) and the Organization of American States (in 1992). In 2017, a right-wing movement unsuccessfully petitioned the Senate to remove Freire’s title. The action, on the contrary, galvanized strong support from cultural and educational segments and made Freire’s legacy a subject of numerous debates in the media. Two years later, the decommemorative plan gained support from Bolsonaro, who proposed replacing him with José de Anchieta, the sixteenth century Spanish priest who forced the Brazilian native people to adopt Catholicism, but the president faced the opposition even of Anchieta’s disciples.18 That year, when Bolsonaro called Freire an “energumen,” two hundred thousand people searched for the word on Google, and the searches for biographical information about Freire grew by 550 percent. In 2021, the centenary of Freire’s birth, the controversy remains more alive than ever. The strong current controversy surrounding hypervisible icons such as Marielle Franco and Paulo Freire offer no final response to the challenges of commemorating and de-commemorating in our time. In fact, the intangible dimension of these figures makes these debates even more complex: breaking Marielle’s street signs and threatening to revoke Freire’s title actually intensified their strength in public popular memory. In a way, they return us to the conun-

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drum raised by a paradigmatic intervention in Brazilian public art: the 1979 night when the collective of artists 3Nós3 wrapped black garbage bags around the most important monuments of the city of São Paulo—only to make them even more visible, for weeks on end, in the press and popular conversations.19 Reversing Pierre Nora’s famous assertion that “we speak so much of memory because there is so little left of it,”20 what these recent cases suggest is that instead of being a “country without memory,” what is not readily available in Brazil is a mature repertoire of ways to deal with the complexity of national, social, and group representations of the past. Public memory, and the disputes involving what is to be commemorated and de-commemorated, only replicates this lack. Be it colonization, slavery, the military dictatorship, or the recent struggles for democracy and inclusion, these pasts are unavoidably marked by resentment and ambivalence. Added to this is the shortage of solid memory institutions able to aid the public in navigating between competing, but interwoven, memories while transcending the pressures brought by the politics of the moment. Ricardo Santhiago is a professor at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), Brazil, where he directs the Urban Memory Center (CMUrb). His scholarly work is in oral history and memory studies, public history, Brazilian culture, music, and popular media. He has published numerous books, articles, chapters, entries, and reviews in Brazil and abroad, including Solistas Dissonantes: História (oral) de cantoras negras [Dissonant Soloists: An (Oral) History of Black Women Singers] (2009); História oral na sala de aula [Oral History in the Classroom] (2015); and the co-edited book Que história pública queremos? What Public History Do We Want? (2018). For the 2020–22 term, he was Vice President of the Brazilian Oral History Association and the editor of the journal História Oral. A pioneer of public history in Brazil, he is also a founding member of the Brazilian Public History Network.

Notes 1. Mônica Bergamo, “Estátua de Borba Gato é agora vigiada 24 horas por dia,” Folha de S.Paulo, 11 June 2020, https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/monicabergamo/ 2020/06/estatua-de-borba-gato-e-agora-vigiada-24-horas-por-dia.shtml. 2. Márcio Pinho, “Na rota dos protestos, Monumento às Bandeiras vira alvo de pichações,” Folha de S.Paulo, 3 October 2013. 3. Redação, “‘Monumento às Bandeiras homenageia aqueles que nos massacraram,’ diz liderança indígena,” Revista Fórum, 5 October 2013, https://revistaforum.com.br/movi

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4. 5.

6. 7.

8.

9. 10.

11.

12.

13. 14. 15.

16.

17. 18.

19. 20.

mentos/2013/10/5/monumento-s-bandeiras-homenageia-aqueles-que-nos-massacaramdiz-liderana-indigena-7641.html. Samantha Viz Quadrat, “The Historian’s Role, Public History, and the National Truth Commission in Brazil,” International Public History 3, no. 2 (2020). “Grupo ‘rebatiza’ ponte em Brasília com homenagem a Bezerra da Silva,” G1, 11 July 2012, https://g1.globo.com/distrito-federal/noticia/2012/07/grupo-rebatiza-ponte-embrasilia-com-homenagem-bezerra-da-silva.html. Tatiana Santiago, “Lei que muda nome do Minhocão para Elevado João Goulart é sancionada,” G1, 25 July 2016. Lucas Abati, “Justiça anula lei que mudou nome da Avenida Castelo Branco para Legalidade,” GZH Porto Alegre, 26 April 2018, https://gauchazh.clicrbs.com.br/porto-alegre/ noticia/2018/04/justica-anula-lei-que-mudou-nome-da-avenida-castelo-branco-para-le galidade-cjggvdqw203de01qonijhaa1e.html. “Troca do nome de rua para Paulo Gustavo é aprovada por vereadores de Niterói,” G1, 13 May 2021, https://g1.globo.com/rj/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/2021/05/13/troca-do-nomede-rua-para-paulo-gustavo-e-aprovada-por-vereadores-de-niteroi.ghtml. Flávio Gomes, Palmares (São Paulo: Contexto, 2005). Felipe Moura Brasil, “Zumbi dos Palmares sequestrava mulheres, mas Dilma o exalta como ‘grande herói brasileiro,’” Veja, 2014, https://veja.abril.com.br/coluna/felipemoura-brasil/zumbi-dos-palmares-sequestrava-mulheres-mas-dilma-o-exalta-como-82 20-grande-heroi-brasileiro-8221/. Cristiana Lôbo, “‘Militares precisam ter garantia para agir sem o risco de surgir uma nova Comissão da Verdade,’ diz comandante do Exército,” G1, 19 February 2018, https:// g1.globo.com/politica/blog/cristiana-lobo/post/general-vilas-boas-militares-precisam-tergarantia-para-agir-sem-o-risco-de-surgir-uma-nova-comissao-da-verdade.ghtml. Letícia Mori, “Como ordem de Bolsonaro para comemorar golpe de 1964 se transformou em problema para as Forças Armadas,” BBC News Brasil, 29 March 2019, https://www .bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-47741593. “As placas de Marielle,” Jornal do Brasil, 23 February 2019. “Preto de alma branca: o que faz Sérgio Camargo no comando da Fundação Palmares?,” Jornal do Campus, 27 December 2020. David Miranda, “Presidente da Fundação Palmares exclui Marina Silva da lista de personalidades negras do órgão,” G1, 13 October 2020, https://g1.globo.com/politica/ noticia/2020/10/13/presidente-da-fundacao-palmares-exclui-marina-silva-de-lista-depersonalidades-negras-do-orgao.ghtml. Gustavo Fioratti, “Fundação Palmares exclui 27 negros de lista de personalidades homenageadas,” Folha de S.Paulo, 3 December 2020, https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/coti diano/2020/12/fundacao-palmares-exclui-27-negros-de-lista-de-personalidades-homena geadas.shtml. “Paulo Freire é declarado o patrono da educação brasileira,” Ministério da Educação, 16 April 2012. Eduardo Campos Lima, “Who Gets to Be Brazil’s Patron of Education under Bolsonaro? Paulo Freire or a Jesuit Saint?,” America: The Jesuit Review, 1 July 2019, https://www .americamagazine.org/politics-society/2019/07/01/who-gets-be-brazils-patron-educat ion-under-bolsonaro-paulo-freire-or. Mario Ramiro, 3Nós3: intervenções urbanas, 1979-1982 (São Paulo: Ubu, 2017). Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).

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Bibliography Nora, Pierre. Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past. Vol. 1. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Quadrat, Samantha Viz. “The Historian’s Role, Public History, and the National Truth Commission in Brazil.” International Public History 3, no. 2 (2020), published online.

Chapter 19

DECOLONIZING COLONIAL MONUMENTS Counter-Memory Activism in Madrid and Barcelona Fabiola Arellano Cruz

8 In the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, dozens of racialized groups and organized migrants, mostly from Latin America, gathered in the Plaza de Colón in Madrid to protest the monument built in homage to Christopher Columbus. They placed a five-meter-long banner with the slogan “Fire to the Colonial Order” and dyed the fountain’s water red to symbolize the blood for which they believed Columbus to be responsible.1 Similar protests took place in Barcelona, where another Columbus monument is located. This chapter seeks to delve deeper into the demands and motivations behind these actions, embedding them within a broader context. First, I introduce the concept of coloniality and its connections to current forms of racism. From a decolonial perspective, I then critically review the idea of Hispanidad and opposed memory discourses around the “discovery of America.” By using the concept counter-memory, I highlight the counter-hegemonic character of these social and political practices of memory (de-)construction that coexist with the dominant ones but are commonly suppressed.

Approaching the Concept of Coloniality In the early 1990s, a multidisciplinary network of Latin American intellectuals known as “modernity/(de)coloniality group” emerged. Central to their propositions is the concept of coloniality of power: a set of discourses, practices,

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beliefs, and forms of organization within a hierarchical matrix of power that classifies the world’s population around the idea of race.2 This pattern of global domination originated during the era of European colonialism in the early sixteenth century, when European modernity also emerged. The compound concept modernity/coloniality refers to their causal connections: “Coloniality is constitutive, not derivative, of modernity.”3 That is to say, there is no progress without exploitation.4 Decoloniality is the process of equal recognition of other histories, trajectories, and forms of being that are different from the prevailing Eurocentric Western canon. A decolonial perspective centers the discussion on power relations of exploitation and domination installed centuries ago between the European colonizers and the colonized, whose legacies are part of the everyday lives of millions of people today. Race and ethnicity are important factors that have shaped the immigration experience of those coming from former colonies to Europe. From a decolonial perspective, Grosfoguel, Oso, and Christou examine racism and racialization in migrant incorporation in Western urban spaces, foregrounding the relevance of coloniality. They argue: “Migrants . . . arrive . . . in metropolitan spaces that are already ‘polluted’ by racial power relations with a long colonial history, colonial imaginary, colonial knowledge and racial/ethnic hierarchies linking to a history of empire; in other words, migrants arrive in a space of power relations that is already informed and constituted by coloniality.”5 In Europe, the old-fashioned biological notion of racism seems to have been replaced by references to “culture.”6 Balibar defines this shift as neo-racism: “It is a racism whose dominant theme is not biological heredity but the insurmountability of cultural differences, a racism that does not postulate the superiority of certain groups of peoples in relation to others but ‘only’ the harmfulness of abolishing frontiers, the incompatibility of life-styles and traditions.”7 This “cultural” justification for discrimination impacts migrant communities in Europe, principally those who belong to ethnic or racial minorities but also racialized non-white Europeans, because it downplays the current existence of racism in society and within institutions. Attributing the causes of the social situation of discriminated communities to their own cultural characteristics intends to hide old colonial/racial hierarchies in the metropoles.8 According to Martín-Cabrera, racism against Latin American immigrants is upheld by both, the “new” racism based on cultural incompatibility and the older one, exercised by the colonizer on the colonized.9

Hispanic Day On 12 October 1492 Columbus arrived in America, forging the path to the subsequent conquest of territories and the birth of the Spanish Empire. Spain was chronologically disconnected from the other European states’ “progress,”

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being an “empire without colonies in the nineteenth century, and a dictatorship surrounded by democracies in the twentieth.”10 This story of failed modernization and backwardness was intended to be set aside in 1992.11 With extravagant festivities planned, such as the Olympic Games in Barcelona and the Universal Exposition of Seville, Spain wanted to show it was as modern as any other European country.12 The year 1992 also marked the Fifth Centenary Commemoration of the “discovery of America,” as it was—and still is—proclaimed. The official discourse around the Fifth Centenary assumes, despite Spain’s difficult relationship with its former overseas colonies, there is something like an Ibero-American community of peoples characterized by a common history, culture, religion, and language, and that 1992 should be used as an opportunity to strengthen it.13 Unsurprisingly, this discourse was rejected among diverse Indigenous movements in the Americas, who called for a critical review of the event. At the end of the twentieth century, Indigenous movements reached an unprecedented level of visibility in the political arena, and it was precisely the five-hundredth anniversary of the conquest of America that served as a catalyst for Indigenous resistance: “The Amerindian peoples took advantage of this event to publicly demonstrate that they were living peoples and that there was a continuity between the pre-Hispanic indigenous peoples and those of the twentieth century.”14 However, the celebrations were all characterized by a superficial treatment of the historical significance of that date and the tensions around this topic remained. Hispanic Day, officially called “Fiesta Nacional de España,” is commemorated every year on 12 October.15 Yet, this labeling of what actually happened more than five hundred years ago is problematic. Certainly it was a “discovery” only from a European perspective, and this fact is only evident years after 1492, because Columbus was initially convinced he had reached India. Other interpretations of the same event depict it as an invasion and associate it with a cover-up of the history and culture of Indigenous people.16 Also, the notion of Hispanidad is controversial. It implies a supposed shared cultural identity, which symbolizes a sort of fraternity between Spain and its former colonies. Nevertheless, “Latin American immigrants in Spain, contrary to this notion, have been constructed as Others despite cultural similarities and shared language.”17 On the one hand, Hispanidad tends to construct cultural bridges and highlight alleged cultural bonds; but on the other hand, there is a factual dissociation with former colonies, as exemplified by the strict migration regulations for non-EU citizens. Paradoxically, as explained above, references to culture are commonly used to diminish the very racism upon which dominant colonial structures were established.18 In other words, if Hispanics from the South stay in their territories, they are culturally similar, but as soon as they arrive, stay, or are even born in Spain, and are visually different, their cultural features no longer correspond to “Hispanic values.”

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Counter-Memory Activism In parallel to the annual celebrations of Hispanic Day, which take place in the Plaza de Colón in Madrid, diverse collectives of migrant and racialized people, mainly from Latin America, take to the streets to demand a date change of this national holiday. Their motto is “12 October. Nothing to celebrate.” This date is also questioned by some progressive Spanish groups, but in this case it is mainly criticized for its Francoist legacy or, in the case of proindependence movements, for the fact of belonging to the Spanish state without any reference to the colonial history. In the last decade, several migrant organizations throughout Spain joined forces and created the Asamblea Plaza de los Pueblos (People’s Assembly), a network of migrant collectives mostly from Latin America and the Caribbean based in Madrid. Its origin is framed within the demonstrations around 15 May, the date that gives its name to the 15M Movement, also known as Movimiento de los Indignados (Movement of the Indignant). During the month of May 2011, a series of demonstrations took place throughout Spain wherein citizens showed their discontent with the economic crisis of 2008 and cuts in social and public aid. In this context, America Latina Indignada emerged “with the intention of generating a movement to denounce violations of the rights of Indigenous peoples and to promote Mother Earth and Good Living in Abya Yala and Europe.”19 In 2015 it officially became Plaza de los Pueblos, a meeting space between groups of migrants of political-social vindication, members of the anti-racist movement, cultural associations, and some allied local collectives. They coordinate joint actions, disseminate political manifestos, denounce historical and current colonization and institutional racism, and claim reparations. Moreover, as they argue, this collaborative work has allowed them to “consolidate the spirituality and knowledge of native peoples as the basis of our political action, adding to the actions ritual interventions in the Plaza de Colón in Madrid.”20 Plaza de los Pueblos organizes several actions around 12 October, especially the political-cultural event “ArtEvento Descolonicémonos: 12 de octubre Nada Que Celebrar” (Let’s Decolonize: 12 October Nothing to Celebrate). Anti-racist and decolonial activists bring to the spaces they now inhabit transnational and transcultural perspectives to the meanings of old existing commemorative dates and colonial monuments as well as the values they represent. By centering coloniality in memory and migration discourses, it is perceptible that the colonial past is in fact the present reality of immigrants in Spain, who are frequently challenged by social rejection, legal discrimination, and institutionalized racism. Therefore, the yearly commemoration of this contested event without any critical review is regarded as painful: “For many people who come from Abya Yala territories . . . to learn that the Span-

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ish State has 12 October as a national holiday is a blow to the memory and dignity of our peoples that stirs a deep wound.”21 The monuments honoring Columbus in Madrid and in Barcelona are both iconic and very popular in their respective cities. Certainly they were not intentionally erected to honor violence. Yet it is precisely because they can be perceived as “benign historical figures,” as Azarmandi indicates, that their “historical ties to coloniality [are] so insidious.” For her, colonial monuments are sites of the replication of violence.22 For several years now decolonial collectives have been asking for the definitive removal of all the monuments that glorify colonization. For example, in 2018 a group of decolonial activists made a call through social media to participate in a “political-poetic ritual” in front of the statue of Columbus in Madrid on 11 October, “the last day of freedom before colonization,” as they call it according to decolonial activist Jackeline Sosa.23 In this symbolic act they asked for the demolition of the statue. Also back in 2014, the Monumentos Coloniales campaign was launched by a group of anonymous artists and activists calling for the removal of colonial monuments in Barcelona. It was an intervention, mainly online, that identified different colonial monuments in the Catalan capital and the first monument referred to in this campaign was the imposing statue of Columbus located at the end of the famous tourist corridor of Las Ramblas.24 The anonymous nature of these actions is justified because some of them may not be authorized or some of the people participating in them may not have a regular migratory status. This is a fact that Jackeline mentioned in our conversation about the specific case of the intervention on the Columbus monument in Madrid in 2020 (figure 19.1): “We made a call but we could not do it publicly because it was a criminal act, it was not authorized to tear down a statue that is a symbol of Spanish culture and around which they celebrate their national holiday.”25 For undocumented immigrants to participate in these types of activities is quite risky, as their lack of papers could be exposed, should they be arrested. Having taken that risk, Jackeline recounts: “When we were reading the manifesto, eight police cars showed up, but our mediators were there to explain that it was an artistic manifestation, a performance, and that it was about to end. We were protected by freedom of expression.”26 Asked why they want to tear down the statue of Columbus, they answer: “Because the figure of Christopher Columbus and 12 October symbolize the beginning of the global colonial process and its trail of death that today remains in full force inside and outside European borders. . . . Racialized populations want streets free of representations of white supremacism on our bodies.”27 Although these kind of protests and demands are not new, they are now gaining more public and international attention. The phenomenon has been referred to as “Urban fallism”: “the contestation, transformation and pulling-

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Figure 19.1. Image of the performance in the Plaza de Colón in Madrid, 17.07.2020. Source: Jakeline Sosa. Used with permission.

down of public monuments by minority, marginalized and/or oppressed civic groups in today’s socially, politically and ethnically diverse cities as a means of political struggle for social recognition and inclusion.”28 These dynamics do not take place in a vacuum but in the middle of battlefields, where power relations coexist in which some memories, those who do not correspond with the historical canon, are ignored, silenced, or erased. Therefore, I consider these counter-memory actions as a way to perform decoloniality. The omnipresence

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of the colonial past in urban landscapes is considered a gesture to maintain (old) structures of power, as activist Jackeline stresses: For me that [monument] means to sustain, to revere, to maintain, to justify what they did in my territories, what they did to my grandfathers and grandmothers. . . . They are grateful for that; they want to maintain that foreign policy. They always want to maintain the status of conqueror and ours of the conquered people. . . . That is why I am talking about the issues of privileges in terms of citizenship and legal status: even if you come here with papers and everything . . . with a scholarship . . . if you are a migrant and if you are racialized and you are visibly from Abya Yala, 80 percent of the population, unfortunately, even if you are an academic, is racist and shows it to you.29

This statement reveals that even with a privileged migratory status, the localization as a racialized “other” remains. In this regard, activist Triksia Chinchay affirms: “When I arrived here, there were many discourses on migration . . . but they were not intertwined with antiracist discourses.” According to her, the Columbus monument is geographically and symbolically placed in “a very strategic place within the identity of Spain. . . . That area in Madrid is . . . the materialization of the image of a facha Spain, proud of being colonizers and of their history of Empire.”30 Evidently, these views and claims also cause the rejection of some sectors of the population. Demonstrations defending the Hispanidad and the Columbus monument in Barcelona were organized by the far-right party VOX under the slogan “Our history is not to be touched, but to be defended!”31 As a counterpoint, Peruvian artist Daniela Ortiz suggests in an interview: “The act of tearing down a monument is an act that also builds history.”32 Nevertheless, public controversies about what should count as memorable and honorable are dominated by those with more public power. Groups that are outside the hegemonic spectrum are not always invited to participate in the construction of a national memory narrative. These are marginal memories that exist outside the historical canon.

Conclusion In Spain, the “memory boom” began later than in other parts of the world. During the late 1990s a revision of recent Spanish history began with an official recognition of the crimes perpetrated by the Franco dictatorship, legally manifested in 2007 with the “Ley de Memoria Histórica” (Law on Historical Memory). Yet the colonial past—and present—does not play a role in general debates around collective memory. I believe the actions around colonial memory discussed in this chapter, while adding to de-commemoration, also reveal

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that much work remains to be done, not only among decolonial activism but especially on the part of Spanish memory policies. Toppling the statues of Columbus in Madrid and Barcelona is de facto impossible. In fact, many of these decolonial actions take place in the symbolic and/or political-artistic realm; many of them clandestine and ephemeral. However, the claims behind them are not limited to the commemorative but also encompass the factual, as they challenge the coloniality that runs through the daily lives of immigrants in Spain. My reflections on counter-memory activism from a decolonial perspective have tried to broaden the scope of “fallism” to allow us to better understand the stories and memories of racialized migrants.33 Their struggles not only seek to publicly disseminate their demands for recognition but also to make visible those colonial continuities that are intended to be forgotten and are not being linked to current racial/colonial injustices. That is why I call it counter-memory, because it challenges the official Spanish “memoria histórica,” which does not see the need to integrate this part of history. Finally, counter-memory activism builds on a resistance of more than five hundred years. Fabiola Arellano Cruz is a Peruvian art mediator and cultural historian. She holds a magister in art history and art education, and a PhD in cultural history from the Ludwig Maximilians Universität (LMU, Munich). In her dissertation, “Politische Gewalt ausstellen” (transcript 2018), she investigates the politics of memory concerning the recent South American history and musealization processes in Chile and Peru. Her research interests include commemoration—especially its aesthetic and artistic forms of expression—critical museology, and decoloniality. She works at the RautenstrauchJoest-Museum/Cultures of the World (Cologne, Germany) as director of the department of Education and Mediation. She is Cofounder of MemoriAL – Interdisciplinary Latin American Memory Research Network. She is also a member of the Memory Studies Association (MSA) and Museum Detox, a network of BIPOC museum professionals committed to increase inclusion and diversity in the cultural sector.

Notes I would like to thank decolonial activists Jackeline Sosa, Triksia Chinchay, and the collective “Asamblea Plaza de los Pueblos Madrid” for sharing their experiences and knowledge with me. 1. “Fuego al Orden Colonial” is the original name. Note: this and further names and quotations from Spanish texts have been translated by the author.

198 • Fabiola Arellano Cruz 2. Aníbal Quijano, “Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America,” International Sociology 15, no. 2 (2000): 215. 3. Walter Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018), 4. 4. Mignolo argues that modernity/coloniality are two sides of the same coin. This idea and his critic on Eurocentrism are explained in Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011). 5. Ramon Grosfoguel, Laura Oso, and Anastasia Christou, “‘Racism,’ Intersectionality and Migration Studies: Framing Some Theoretical Reflections,” Identities 22, no. 6 (2015): 641. 6. Scholars Fatima El-Tayeb and Gloria Wekker, for the German and the Dutch context correspondingly, conclude that dominant ways of dealing with racism in contemporary Europe are denial and/or colorblindness, which generally leads to the causal deduction or the superficial impression that the inexistence of race means there is no racism. See El-Tayeb, Undeutsch: Die Konstruktion des Anderen in der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2016); Wekker, White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016). 7. Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities (London: Verso, 1991), 21. 8. Grosfoguel, Oso, and Christou, “‘Racism,’ Intersectionality and Migration Studies,” 647. 9. Luis Martín-Cabrera, “Postcolonial Memories and Racial Violence in Flores de Otro Mundo,” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 3, no. 1 (2002): 50. 10. Martín-Cabrera, “Postcolonial Memories,” 45. 11. This year the Spanish State ratified the Treaty on the European Union. The bases of economic neoliberalism were accepted and the borders with Latin American countries were closed. 12. Paradoxically, 1992 was also the year in which a young Dominican immigrant named Lucrecia was killed by a neo-Nazi group of young men. Her assassination is known as the first racially motivated death in democratic Spain. Martín-Cabrera argues that she represents an alternative memory that challenges Spain’s repressed colonial past. He sees in this case “two relatively new phenomena in Spanish culture: the formation of immigrant communities and the appearance of racial violence as a response to the visibility of these groups,” (“Postcolonial Memories,” 43). 13. Gerhard Kruip, “Jubelfeier oder gefährliche Erinnerung? Der Stand der spanischen Vorbereitungen und Diskussion zum ‘Quinto Centenario’ – ein Konfliktpanorama (Sept. 1991),” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 33 (1992): 203. 14. Nieves Zúñiga García-Falces, “Emergencia y pobreza indígena,” in Pueblos indígenas y derechos humanos, ed. Mikel Berraondo (Bilbao: Instituto de Derechos Humanos Universidad de Deusto, 2006), 652. 15. Each Spanish-speaking country commemorates it in a different way, some more critically than others, as can be seen in the various names: “Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity” in Argentina; “Day of Indigenous Peoples and Intercultural Dialogue” in Peru; “Day of Indigenous Resistance” in Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Peru; or “Day of Decolonization” in Bolivia. The renaming of commemorative names in the early twentieth-century, a consequence of the critics raised by the revisionist movements of the 1990s, has a strong symbolic character. Unfortunately, it has not been accompanied, in the majority of the cases, by a policy of strengthening Indigenous Rights. 16. See Enrique Dussel, 1942. El encubrimiento del otro. Hacia el origen del mito de la modernidad (Quito: Ediciones ABYA-YALA, 1994). 17. Nelson Danilo León, “Children of the Motherland: The Otherization of Latin American Immigrants in Contemporary Spain,” Rocky Mountain Review 73, no. 1 (2019): 27.

Decolonizing Colonial Monuments • 199 18. M. Cristina Alcalde, “Coloniality, Belonging, and Indigeneity in Peruvian Migration Narratives,” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies (2020): 6. 19. Abya Yala, meaning “land in its full maturity” or “living or blossoming land,” was the term used by the Kuna, the original inhabitants of Panama and Colombia, to designate the territory comprising the whole American continent. This term is now used by several movements in a vindictive manner as a self-designation and as a counterpoint to “America.” “Asamblea Plaza de los Pueblos Madrid” was asked to write an article for the magazine Matices in April 2020. The article, with the title “Descolonicémonos: En el Estado español el 12 de octubre no hay nada que celebrar” [Let’s decolonize ourselves: In the Spanish State on October 12 there is nothing to celebrate], is a testimony of their trajectory. Here they also denounce the connections between colonial history and current extractivist policies and violations of the rights of native peoples. Retrieved 3 February 2021 from https://www.matices-magazin.de/archiv/101-decolonicemonos/decolonicemonos/. 20. Asamblea Plaza de los Pueblos Madrid, “Descolonicémonos.” 21. Asamblea Plaza de los Pueblos Madrid, “Descolonicémonos.” 22. Mahdis Azarmandi, “Commemorating No-bodies: Christopher Columbus and the Violence of Social-Forgetting,” Somatechnics 6, no. 1 (2016): 57. 23. Jackeline Sosa, interview with the author, Maastricht, 2 August 2021. 24. Mahdis Azarmandi, “Monumentos coloniales, migración y memoria en la Barcelona (post)colonial,” RiMe. Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea 7, no. 2 (2020): 175–77. 25. Jackeline Sosa, interview with the author, Maastricht, 8 December 2020. 26. Sosa, interview, 8 December 2020. 27. Manifesto read at the latest demonstration in Madrid. Retrieved 10 February 2021 from https://www.eldiario.es/desalambre/activistas-antirracistas-cuelgan-pancarta-estatua-colon-ma drid-fuego-orden-colonial_1_6112115.html. 28. Sybille Frank and Mirjana Ristic, “Urban Fallism: Monuments, Iconoclasm and Activism,” City 24, no 3–4, (2020): 556. “Fallism” was originally used in the South African context around decolonial actions lead by Black students against the statue of British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes. 29. Sosa, interview, 8 December 2020. 30. “Facha” or “facho,” short for fascist, is a derogatory way of referring to people with nationalist and authoritarian views. In this case, she is referring to the country as “facha.” Triksia Chinchay, interview with the author, Maastricht, 14 January 2021. 31. “Vox fracasa en su última ‘performance’ en Barcelona” [Vox fails in its last “performance” in Barcelona], El National, 27 June 2020, https://www.elnacional.cat/es/politica/vox-fra casa-performance-barcelona_517725_102.html. 32. Daniela Ortiz, a Peruvian artist, thematizes in her work colonialism, migration, and racism in Europe. “Monumentos anti-coloniales,” a series of six small sculptures, is her suggestion for counter-monuments replacing monuments of Columbus in different cities, such as New York or Lima. She was based in Barcelona for years, but after public declarations against the Columbus-monument and other colonial symbols in Spain, she had to abruptly leave the country because of constant death threats. See the interview here: Juan José Santos Mateo, “Anti-Colonial Monuments: An Interview with Daniela Ortiz,” BerlinArtLink, 25 August 2020, https://www.berlinartlink.com/2020/08/25/ anti-colonial-monuments-an-interview-with-daniela-ortiz/. 33. A recent publication deals with the topic through testimonies of Latin American and Caribbean migrants in Spain. See Caroline Betemps Bozzano and Lucía Egaña Rojas, eds., Acá soy la que se fue. Relatos sudakas en la europa fortaleza (Barcelona: T.I.C.T.A.C. Ediciones, 2019).

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Bibliography Alcalde, M. Cristina. “Coloniality, Belonging, and Indigeneity in Peruvian Migration Narratives.” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 17 (2020): 58–77. Asamblea de los Pueblos Madrid. “Descolonicémonos: En el Estado español el 12 de octubre no hay nada que celebrar.” [Let’s decolonize ourselves: In the Spanish State on October 12 there is nothing to celebrate.] Matices. Online Special (2020). https://www.matices-maga zin.de/archiv/101-decolonicemonos/decolonicemonos/. Azarmandi, Mahdis. “Commemorating No-bodies: Christopher Columbus and the Violence of Social-Forgetting.” Somatechnics 6, no. 1 (2016): 56–71. ———. “Monumentos coloniales, migración y memoria en la Barcelona (post)colonial.” RiMe. Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea 7, no. 2 (2020): 169–202. Balibar, Étienne, and Immanuel Wallerstein. Race, Nation, Class. Ambiguous Identities. London: Verso, 1991. Betemps Bozzano, Caroline, and Lucía Egaña Rojas, eds. Acá soy la que se fue. Relatos sudakas en la europa fortaleza. Barcelona: T.I.C.T.A.C. Ediciones, 2019. Dussel, Enrique. 1942. El encubrimiento del otro. Hacia el origen del mito de la modernidad. Quito: Ediciones ABYA-YALA, 1994. El-Tayeb, Fatima. Undeutsch: Die Konstruktion des Anderen in der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2016. Frank, Sybille, and Mirjana Ristic. “Urban Fallism. Monuments, Iconoclasm and Activism.” City 24, no. 3–4 (2020): 552–64. Grosfoguel, Ramon, Laura Oso, and Anastasia Christou. “‘Racism,’ Intersectionality and Migration Studies: Framing Some Theoretical Reflections.” Identities 22, no. 6 (2015): 635–52. Kruip, Gerhard. “Jubelfeier oder gefährliche Erinnerung? Der Stand der spanischen Vorbereitungen und Diskussion zum ‘Quinto Centenario’ – ein Konfliktpanorama (Sept. 1991).” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 33 (1992): 197–225. León, Nelson Danilo. “Children of the Motherland: The Otherization of Latin American Immigrants in Contemporary Spain.” Rocky Mountain Review 73, no. 1 (2019): 27–41. Martín-Cabrera, Luis. “Postcolonial Memories and Racial Violence in Flores de Otro Mundo.” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 3, no 1 (2002): 43–55. Mignolo, Walter. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011. Mignolo, Walter, and Catherine E. Walsh. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018. Quijano, Aníbal. “Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America.” International Sociology 15, no. 2 (2000): 215–32. Santos Mateo, Juan José. “Anti-Colonial Monuments: An Interview with Daniela Ortiz.” BerlinArtLink: Online Magazine for Contemporary Art, 25 August 2020. https://www.berlinar tlink.com/2020/08/25/anti-colonial-monuments-an-interview-with-daniela-ortiz/. Wekker, Gloria. White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. Zúñiga García-Falces, Nieves. “Emergencia y pobreza indígena.” In Pueblos indígenas y derechos humanos, edited by Mikel Berraondo, 645–62. Bilbao: Instituto de Derechos Humanos Universidad de Deusto, 2006.

Chapter 20

TRANSNATIONAL MEMORY STRUGGLES Guerrilla Remembrances in Colombia and Venezuela in the 2000s Jimena Perry

8 In September 2008, in the popular neighborhood 23 de enero (January 23rd) of Caracas, Venezuela, followers of the Colombian guerrilla fighter Manuel Marulanda Vélez—a.k.a. Tirofijo, the leader of the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia-People’s Army, FARC-EP—unveiled a bronze bust to honor Tirofijo, who had died six months before. Two years later, in 2010, in El Amparo, a border town between Colombia and Venezuela, followers of Tirofijo built a square and raised another statue to honor him, causing great distress among Colombians. This increased the tensions that have prevailed between the two countries since the 1960s. Tirofijo led the FARC-EP for more than fifty years, and under his command, the rebel group perpetrated 238 massacres, forced displacement, kidnappings, and bombings leaving rural Colombian populations in poverty and fear.1 Infamous for his marksmanship, cold-blooded nature, and antiestablishment beliefs, he was one of the only guerrilla leaders to die of old age at seventy-eight. He came to be known for his strategic planning and resistance to the establishment. For some journalists and politicians, he was a revolutionary due to his opposition of the government and for proclaiming Cuban-style revolutionary ideals in Colombia. In 2013, attempting to ease relations between Colombia and Venezuela, Leopoldo López, a progressive Venezuelan politician, declared that

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peace between the sister nations should be a priority and tore down the statue in El Amparo. However, the bust located in 23 de enero still stands. Who calls for de-commemoration and using what arguments? Using this case study, I explore how some memorialization efforts have different meanings depending on the context in which they are made. In addition, this example illustrates how historical perspectives influence the ways in which social groups purposely remember. In this chapter I examine why Tirofijo’s statue was a meaningful commemoration for some Venezuelans but caused outrage for Colombians. First, I provide some background about Tirofijo and the FARC-EP in Colombia. Then, I describe the reactions toward the monuments. Lastly, I discuss issues related to the significance of who remembers perpetrators of violence, how they remember, and why they do so.

The Founding Father of the FARC-EP, Tirofijo, and His Victims There is no definitive number for the fatalities of the Colombian armed conflict of the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. One reason is that authorities are still finding bodies and mass graves, which makes it difficult to have an accurate record. The state agency Unidad para la atención y reparación integral a las víctimas (Unit for the Victims Assistance and Reparation), created in 2016 during the presidency of Juan Manuel Santos (2010–18), registered 8,931,614 victims up to December 2010, but that might not be the final number.2 Since the FARC-EP was the guerrilla group that committed most of the recorded atrocities known to date, the idea of honoring their leader, Tirofijo, is very problematic for many Colombians. Pedro Antonio Marín, alias Manuel Marulanda Vélez or Tirofijo, was born in the Colombian coffee region in Department of Quindío. From a young age he started working to help his household. He came from a humble peasant liberal family, was the oldest of five siblings, and worked in a lumber mill until 1948 when the so-called Bogotazo erupted. The trigger of this uprising was the assassination of the liberal politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, whose murder is still unsolved. This episode initiated the ten years of La Violencia (1948–58), a period known for the vicious attacks Conservatives and Liberals committed against each other. At the core of the conflict was land ownership. One year after the Bogotazo, nineteen-year-old Tirofijo, who identified ideologically with the Liberal Party, organized an armed group to defend himself and his family from Conservative attacks. Tirofijo founded the FARC-EP in 1964 because of his deep disagreements with the establishment and praised the guerrilla as a movement that fought for justice, social rights, and equality for all. Since this rebel group identified

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with the principles of the Cuban Revolution, the Colombian government felt threatened and devoted incommensurable efforts to defeat it, without success. Tirofijo’s skillfulness, the influence of communism in the guerrilla forces, and the abandonment of the countryside by the Colombian state enabled the rapid and noticeable growth of the FARC-EP. Until his death in 2008, Tirofijo always served as the military leader and the coordinator of peasant activities in the FARC-EP zones.3 He and the mentioned guerrilla had a not-so-bad reputation in the Colombian countryside until 1980, when they began kidnapping as a way to fund their cause. This practice terrorized the population and was heavily condemned. After his confrontations with the National Army, Tirofijo became a legend. One of his friends described him as a very meticulous and fearless warrior. The rumor was that when Tirofijo was in combat, it was extremely hard for the National Army to win. The guerrilla fighter became such a feared and popular figure that people reported seeing him at the same time in different places, and several chronicles of his death surfaced, even with pictures. As scholars such as Eduardo Pizarro Leongómez and Arturo Alape note, Tirofijo only understood the logic of war. Due to his upbringing and background, he felt that taking up arms was the only way to fight against a state that had abandoned and mistreated poor communities. However, the FARC-EP’s methods of war were controversial. This guerrilla group claimed to fight for people’s rights, but at the same time they bombed entire towns, leaving blood, anger, and death.4 Since the 1980s, the FARC-EP’s bloody reputation has driven away popular support. The repulsion Colombians felt toward this guerrilla force reflected in the government’s inflexible policies toward them. When Tirofijo died on 26 March 2008, Colombian state representatives viewed a new chance for reaching a peace process with the rebel group. For the government and the conservative media, Tirofijo was a terrorist and an outlaw, an obstacle to achieving peace.

Who Is Entitled to Remember Tirofijo? After Tirofijo’s death the FARC-EP began its decline and Colombians felt that a path to achieve peace in the country was clearing up. Only a few sectors of the population thought of Tirofijo in a positive light. For the Colombian journalist Arturo Alape, Tirofijo was not a terrorist but a revolutionary. For others such as Roberto Pombo, he was just a guerrilla fighter. But opinions were not only divided in Colombia but in Venezuela as well. For Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (in office 1999–2013), Tirofijo represented

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the nationalist ideals of what has been known as the Bolivarian Revolution. Chavez’s party, the Movement of the Fifth Republic, MVR, supported the president’s ideals of encouraging a Hispanic American patriotism and the four pillars in which he based the revolution: anti-imperialism, social democracy, anti-neoliberalism, and a transition toward socialism. Consequently, in 2010, when Colombians noticed the existence of the statues, their protests poured forth. While still in office, President of Colombia Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002–10), well-known for his right-wing tendencies, stated that these monuments were “ignominious” and “despicable.” Also, the Colombian chancellor, Jaime Bermúdez, declared that no one had the right to honor a terrorist who had inflicted so much pain, fear, and death in the country. On the other hand, Gustavo Rodríguez, member of the leftist Coordinadora Simón Bolívar (Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordination), claimed that Tirofijo and the FARC-EP were an example of struggle and dignity. The inhabitants of January 23rd, considered a Chavista bastion, also welcomed the bust. These representations of the guerrilla leader became contentious objects because Venezuelans intended to give Tirofijo a symbolic meaning of class struggle and equal rights that Colombians clearly thought he does not deserve. They became what anthropologist Sharon MacDonald has described as “difficult heritage” and have triggered controversies about this heritage in the present. According to MacDonald, the term “difficult heritage” can refer to buildings and their meanings, but it can also denote artifacts, therefore it applies to the aforementioned statues. MacDonald defines difficult heritage as a “a past that is recognized as meaningful in the present but that is also contested and awkward for public reconciliation with a positive, selfaffirming contemporary identity.” 5 Both the bronze bust, and the statue were seen by Colombians as a provocation, which also eroded the FARC-EP’s victims voices. The clash of memories triggered by these two statues, between Colombians and Venezuelans, also created a memory competition. Precisely what sociologist Elizabeth Jelin warned about, in her book State Repression and the Labors of Memory, when there are a variety of recollections of the same event or violence happened. The diversity of memories collides, Jelin insists, when each one tries to become the most accurate, visible, truthful, and vivid—in other words, hegemonic: making remembrances and their representations subjects of political struggle. However, states Jelin, collective remembrances bring people together and strengthen their sense of belonging to a group or community: “Furthermore, especially for oppressed, silenced, or discriminated groups, the reference to a shared past often facilitates building feelings of self-respect and greater reliance in oneself and in the group.”6 This was

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clearly the case for Colombians who mostly came together to condemn the existence of the statues in Venezuela.

Memorizing Tirofijo Jelin’s work reminds us that when talking about these polemic effigies, asking to whom the memory belongs is as crucial as where the memory is. Jelin, as other scholars before her (such as French philosopher Paul Ricoeur), has addressed the issue of memory proprietorship, bringing our attention to who decided what, how, why, and when to remember perpetrators and atrocities. Following Ricoeur, analyzing memories’ creation allows us to understand which cultural decisions come into play when omitting certain accounts of brutalities. Thus, the Venezuelans’ choice to remember Tirofijo and not to mention the recent Colombian violent past is the product of the intentional deliberation to consider Tirofijo as a hero. Aware of the distress the statues of Tirofijo caused in Colombia, Venezuelan politician Leopoldo López traveled to El Amparo in 2013 and, with help of some of his teammates, tore down the statue of Tirofijo. During his tour through the border, López stated that he and his followers were aiming to recover Venezuela’s sovereignty and that figure was an impediment to reaching their goal.7 López’s action has several meanings and implications. Beyond being an act of protest, it draws our attention to the relevance of memory and forgetting as political statements related to the current controversies surrounding the demolition of effigies of Confederate characters in the United States, for instance. Currently, the destruction of statues is becoming part of new ways of remembrance. Following James Booth, it is not about collective memory anymore but of political acts that claim diverse ways of representing or remembering the past. It is a call to think about oblivion as part of a collective memory and not as an elimination from historical records. Booth’s remarks also encourage us to go beyond the remembering/forgetting binary when he states that the act of choosing what should become a memory is intentional. The same happens with the deliberate act of not recalling certain events.8 Tearing down Tirofijo’s statue in El Amparo had the symbolic meaning of attempting to create a different collective memory about the historically tense relationship between Colombia and Venezuela. López called to open a communication channel between the two countries—a space in which dialogue could flourish and agreements could be reached. The politician was contesting memories in which victims and survivors of atrocities were not incorporated. His act, in addition, meant to pave the way for more inclusive ways

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of remembering and to reminded citizens of both countries that Tirofijo was a perpetrator of brutalities, which not only affected Colombia but also Venezuela. Destroying the statue was not an enactment to erase Tirofijo’s atrocities, it was a clear political stance of the ways in which remembrance of perpetrators can easily become part of a binary memory that does not serve those who suffered the firsthand consequences of the Colombian internal war. When López crushed the statue, he was also concurring with what historian Michael Rothberg has called multidirectional memory. This scholar, agreeing with Jelin, says there are fundamental questions related to memory production that frequently emerge: What happens when different histories confront each other in the public sphere? Does the remembrance of one history delete others from view? Rothberg argues that memory must not be understood as competitive but multidirectional, which means being “subject to ongoing negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing; as productive and not privative.”9 This implies that memory is a contested sphere in which each one of its participants thinks they have the most “truthful” version of past events. In this sense, remembrances belong to those who create them, and struggles arise when they fight for having the most visible prominence. Along these lines, López attempted to eliminate the historical memory version of Tirofijo as a revolutionary leader and provide more context about the damage he inflicted upon Colombians. López tore down a statue that represented only one version of a narrative that has multiple voices. Therefore, bringing down the effigy contested a collective memory and aimed to make its demolition a democratic occasion rather than a “sovereign locale of legitimacy.”10 Leopoldo López’s message for Colombians was clear. He wanted peace between the two countries. However, ironically, the Venezuelan politician accidentally destroyed not the statue of Tirofijo but of the leftist revolutionary leader Fidel Castro. Apparently, this confusion originated in 2010 when some journalists knew about the existence of a square in El Amparo in which there were four statues. They belonged to Simón Bolívar (Independence hero of the current countries of Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama from the Spanish Empire), Hugo Chávez (President of Venezuela), Ernesto “Che Guevara” (Marxist Argentinian and a major figure in the Cuban Revolution), and Fidel Castro (leader of the Cuban Revolution). When the statue was demolished, members of the FARC-EP made a statement clarifying that it was not the one depicting their leader. López’s misunderstanding meant two things. First, that due to his concern to win over Colombians and their government, he did not really care who the statue was depicting. Second, his actions were not concerned with memory and its representations but with more immediate outcomes such as votes and the spotlight.

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Conclusions The previous discussion still leaves an unanswered question: Should the memorial have remained? Bringing it down seemed the correct move for Colombians at the time. Today, however, considering the conversations about keeping or removing statues, doubts persist. Writer Makeda Easter suggests the decision to remove statues, effigies, or monuments belongs directly to the people affected by the commemoration. She proposes this discussion is an opportunity to replace controversial monuments with something chosen by the community, giving citizens the chance to decide what they want to remember. Some historians, however, such as Mary Beard, assert that removing statues does not address the real issue these monuments represent. She is critical of the tendency to erase or superficially analyze difficult pasts, stating the effigies remind us of what is culturally relevant for communities to remember and how.11 I concur with the claims about the need to confront difficult pasts, and in this case, as in all, context is crucial. Tirofijo’s statute refers to a particular reality and Latin American history related to political violence, injustice, and giving voice to the victims and survivors of atrocities. It also alludes to time. Tirofijo’s brutalities ended in the mid-2000s and are still fresh in Colombians’ minds. Not enough years have passed to look at that past critically. Colombian citizens need time to heal before creating a historical memory of their choosing about Tirofijo. His representation is charged with resentment and this memorialization happened too soon. Nevertheless, it is necessary to talk about Tirofijo, the atrocities he committed, and what purpose his remembrance serves Colombians—a complex task in a country where violence does not cease. Jimena Perry is a Latin American Scholar specialized in Colombia. She earned a BS in anthropology from the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia, an MPhil in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge, UK, and a PhD in history from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research areas are violence, museums, and memory. She brings these three bodies of scholarship together to understand which remembrances individuals and communities privilege to pass on to future generations or to forget. Jimena is also a public historian and has been the Project Manager of Explorers of the International Federation for Public History since 2018. She has also been a curator, a college instructor, and currently teaches Latin American History in the history department at Iona University. She has published the books Caminos de la antropología en Colombia: Gregorio Hernández de Alba (2016); Museums, Exhibitions, and Memories of Violence in Colombia: Trying

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to Remember (2023); and Comunidades digitales, museos e historia pública: Experiencias en torno a América Latina, Universidad Externado de Colombia y Universidad San Francisco de Quito, (2023).

Notes 1. Martha Nubia Abello, ed., BASTA YA! Colombia: Memories of War and Dignity. General Report by the Historical Memory Group (Bogotá: Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica, 2016), 53. 2. “Víctimas del conflicto armado,” Unidad para la Atención y Reparación Integral a las Víctimas. 3. Daniel Samper Pizano, “La Última Muerte de Tirofijo,” El País, 11 August 2002. 4. Abello, BASTA YA!, 35. 5. Sharon MacDonald, Difficult Heritage: Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond (New York: Routledge, 2009), 55. 6. Elizabeth Jelin, State Repression and the Labors of Memory, trans. Judy Rein and Marcial Godoy-Anativia (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 2003). 7. El Espectador, “Derriban estatua de ‘Tirofijo’ en Venezuela,” El Espectador, 24 October 2013. 8. James Booth, “The Work of Memory: Time, Identity, and Justice,” Social Research 75, no. 1 (2008): 237–62. 9. Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009). 10. Booth, “The Work of Memory.” 11. Mary Beard, “Statue Wars,” The Times Literary Supplement (blog), June 2020.

Bibliography Abello, Martha Nubia, ed. BASTA YA! Colombia: Memories of War and Dignity. General Report by the Historical Memory Group. Bogotá: Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica, 2016. Beard, Mary. “Statue Wars.” The Times Literary Supplement (blog), June 2020. https://www .the-tls.co.uk/articles/statue-wars-blog-post-mary-beard/. Booth, James. “The Work of Memory: Time, Identity, and Justice.” Social Research 75, no. 1 (2008): 237–62. El Espectador. “Derriban estatua de ‘Tirofijo’ en Venezuela.” El Espectador, 24 October 2013. https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/el-mundo/derriban-estatua-de-tirofijoen-venezuela/. Jelin, Elizabeth. State Repression and the Labors of Memory. Translated by Judy Rein and Marcial Godoy-Anativia. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 2003. MacDonald, Sharon. Difficult Heritage: Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Transnational Memory Struggles • 209 Rothberg, Michael. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Samper Pizano, Daniel. “La Última Muerte de Tirofijo.” El País, 11 August 2002. http://elpais .com/diario/2002/08/11/domingo/1029037960_850215.html. “Víctimas del conflicto armado,” Unidad para la Atención y Reparación Integral a las Víctimas. https://www.unidadvictimas.gov.co/es.

Chapter 21

“NEXT STOP ANTON-WILHELM-AMO STRASSE” Place Names, De-Commemoration, and Memory Activism in Berlin Duane Jethro and Samuel Merrill

8 On 4 June 2020 a sign was attached to an entrance of a U-Bahn station in Berlin, Mitte, renaming it George-Floyd-Straße to unofficially commemorate the resident of Minneapolis who had recently been publicly choked to death by a police officer.1 His death reawakened the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the United States, triggering outrage and protests around the world. As a commemoration, the placement of his name at this particular U-Bahn station imputed the renaming with added local significance. Afro-German activist groups had contested the name of the U-Bahn station and the street on which it was located for more than a decade, advocating for them to be changed in honor of a Black German figure of esteem, Anton Wilhelm Amo. The street and station names were problematic, they argued, because they used the word “Mohr,” widely accepted as being an outdated racist term for dark skinned people from north Africa. The anonymous adaptation of the station’s name—which, given its racially offensive character, we refer to as M_Straße wherever possible—thus enfolded a local Black activist struggle over discriminatory place names in Berlin into a global wave of BLM protests triggered by Floyd’s murder. The intervention established empowering conceptual links bridging commemorative foci in Germany with those in the United States. It suggests that commemorations are a dynamic form of representation that connect struggles

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over memory occurring in different places at the same time.2 Some could see the intervention as silencing the Berlin debate as it more strongly foregrounds George Floyd. Evoking erasure, removal, or substitution, this argument points to a tension inherent to all commemorations: that in the instance of calling attention to a significant person, place, or event, another is occluded. BLM demonstrations ensued in Berlin later that summer, and the local debate about structural racism in Germany was revived. Encompassing issues of colonial legacies, race, and racism, local points of commemorative contestation, such as the M_Straße U-Bahn station name, also soon came to the media’s attention. Following sustained media coverage of these issues during May and early June 2020, the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), the city’s public transport authority, made the unexpected and controversial announcement that it would rename the station. This chapter explores the response to the announcement as cast in arguments made by the public, politicians, and journalists expressed in the press and social media, and, in turn, the mnemonic influence of the BVG as a mundane intermediary.3

M_Straße’s Station(s) of De-Commemoration The BVG made its announcement on 3 July 2020 via social media posts on Twitter and Instagram. It featured an image of the station entrance with the word “Mohr” struck out in red (figure 21.1). The text conceded and confessed: “For too long our station has carried this name. We are putting an end to it and changing its name. Next stop: Glinkastraße.” The announcement generated a considerable Twitter response, amplifying the social media debate about the place name as triggered by the earlier Floyd renaming and boosted by an online petition for the street to be renamed (see circle and square peaks in figure 21.2). Based on a sample of 4,686 public tweets featuring “Mohrenstraße” dating from 1 June through 31 August 2020 (collected 7 December 2020), the street name was mentioned in seven times as many tweets (2,801) in the two weeks following the BVG’s announcement than in the two weeks before it (399) (see red ring in figure 21.2). Of this sample, 89.5 percent (4,195) of the tweets were in German, indicating the national specificity of the debate and the BVG’s audience. As the fourteen thousand plus “likes” accrued by BVG’s announcement on Twitter suggest, most social media responses praised the decision to rename the station. Many thanked the BVG. Others noted the announcement’s political timeliness. However, some also ridiculed it as political correctness “gone mad.” Commenters also suggested BVG had more important issues to deal with than the renaming. Such arguments were also refracted by political polarization and used to mask ongoing forms of discrimination. The Berlin

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Figure 21.1. Screenshot of BVG’s Twitter announcement to rename M_Straße U-Bahn Station, Berlin, 30 March 2021. The name Glinkastraße has since been discarded. © Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVH). Used with permission.

wing of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland political party, for example, replied with a link to one of its earlier YouTube videos. In the video a party representative argued that the street name’s historical longevity outweighed its contemporary racist connotations and that it should be retained to avoid inflicting financial costs on the street’s residents. Another even more sinister tweet featured a meme with the caption “a politically correct Berlin without Mohrenstraße in 2030” that included the following dialogue: Where can I find Baader-Meinhof-Platz? It’s very simple: you go up George-Floyd-Straße then turn left into MohammedAtta-Allee [sic], past Anis-Amri School and the Bin Laden monument and you are there.

This meme played on far-right discourses that sought to demonize Floyd and, in turn, anti-racism movements like BLM by associating them with

Figure 21.2. Counts of Tweets featuring “Mohrenstraße,” 1 June through 31 August 2020. Source: Samuel Merrill.

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radical left-wing and Islamist terrorism.4 It also tapped into white nationalist conspiracy theories of racial substitution. These and other responses were underpinned by a conservative perspective that appealed to a narrow concept of heritage that implicitly assumed a white, European ancestry. The strength of this toponymic conservativism is interesting given that Berlin has experienced multiple waves of renaming during the twentieth century connected to the rise of Nazism, the city’s Cold War division, and reunification. Indeed, while M_Straße has carried its name since 1707, the station located on it was only designated such in October 1991. The 1991 renaming de-commemorated the Germany Democratic Republic’s first prime minister, Otto Grotewohl, whose name the station bore from April 1986. At that time, the newly reunified BVG had more pressing concerns and evidently failed to recognize M_Straße’s racist associations.5 Berlin’s different District Assemblies oversaw protracted processes of street and place renaming during the 1990s.6 The BVG, under the remit of Berlin’s Senate, had more freedom to change names of stations simply by reorientating their reference to alternative nearby streets.7 The station had originally been opened in October 1908 as Kaiserhof, but was renamed Thälmannplatz in 1950, retaining that name until 1986. It has therefore gone through cycles of commemorative and de-commemorative name changes—a microcosm of de-commemoration. The BVG’s full 2020 press release drew attention to this earlier history of name changes, citing that the proposed new name “Glinkastraße” was selected according to the same principles that had informed M_Straße’s selection in 1991. The press release also stated: “Out of understanding and respect for the occasionally controversial debate about the street name, the BVG has now decided to stop using it to name the U-Bahn station. As a cosmopolitan company and one of the largest employers in the capital, the BVG rejects any form of racism or other forms of discrimination.”8 However, these statements were thrown into doubt three days later when the journalist Judith Kessler (2020) revealed why Glinkastraße—renamed by the East German government in May 1951 after the early nineteenth century Russian composer Michail Glinka—was also a poor choice of name.9 Glinka was known to have used antisemitic slurs and his compositions actively drew on and circulated antisemitic tropes and ideas. This revelation further fueled the Twitter debate about the renaming, with 827 of the sampled tweets posted the next day— the greatest number for any day during the sample period (see triangle peak in figure 21.2). The positive publicity generated by the BVG’s announcement now turned negative as Twitter users and journalists highlighted the irony of how, in trying to reject all forms of discrimination, it had proposed replacing a racist name with an antisemitic one. The BVG’s choice of Glinkastraße followed the precedent of its earlier selection of M_Straße not only in aiming to provide practical orientation but also in its impulsiveness. It failed to

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adequately research its selection as it seemed to be more focused on reacting to BLM publicity. These shortcomings not only lent renewed force to accusations of excessive political correctness; they also revived arguments of those supporting activist groups, which although generally supportive, highlighted how self-serving and long overdue the renaming decision seemed.

Marketing and Mobilizing De-Commemorative Place Naming The timing of the BVG’s announcement can be broadly contrasted with its evolving marketing campaigns. It has tried, for example, to connect with the city’s now (in)famous self-image as “poor but sexy” by using graffiti as an advertising medium in the same year that it spent millions of euros cleaning graffiti from its network.10 It has also explored using heritage as a marketing device as exemplified by its December 2019 announcement of its intention to apply for World Heritage recognition. Despite its absurdity, the latter campaign indicates that the BVG public relations team is familiar with heritage discourses and is willing to use them to promote the transport authority’s brand. This raises the question, was the renaming announcement merely a case of social justice greenwashing intended to resonate with young, cosmopolitan audiences? Elaborating on this skepticism, social media users called-out the BVG for having ignored activist groups’ decades-long advocacy about the station name and their suggestions for a more inclusive, appropriate alternative. As Peter Rölle-Dahl, a reporter from DW News, tweeted: Renaming Berlin’s Mohrenstrasse station is an important step in Germany’s long-overdue journey towards a more racially just & inclusive society. But one has to wonder: What took so long? POC have demanded this for years. Why did it take #GeorgeFloyd’s death for BVG to listen?

The BVG’s action was therefore criticized for being opportunistic and publicity orientated. Inclusivity, tolerance, and change seemed second to positive headlines and public positioning around a “hot” social issue. Since the 1990s, Afro-German activists have been calling attention to their exclusion from a national project of unification that was tied to memorialization and the cultural memory of the Holocaust. The adoption of the M_Straße U-Bahn station name was exemplary of this exclusion, occurring amid commemorative activity in Berlin replacing East German names and places of significance, all the while ignoring a small but increasingly vocal Black German community. These de-commemorative efforts incited popular protests, especially in East Berlin where at least some place names were retained thanks to activist efforts. As early as November 1991 left-wing activists renamed stations

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in Berlin in commemoration of victims of the neo-Nazi racially motivated violence that accompanied reunification.11 However, it was the politically motivated neo-Nazi murder of Silvio Meier in Friedrichshain’s Samariterstraße U-Bahn station in November 1992 that led to the counter-naming of stations more regularly entering local activist repertoires.12 A street close to that station was eventually renamed after Meier in April 2013. This was only after an attempted renaming of the station was dropped due to BVG’s opposition and concerns over costs. Similarly, earlier grassroots activist efforts between 2004 and 2008 to have Mitte’s Kochstraße renamed after the German student movement leader Rudi Dutschke only succeeded in having part of the street renamed because BVG opposed the renaming of the section of the street under which its station lay, again on the grounds of incurred costs.13 Clearly, in the recent past the BVG has tended to hinder political efforts to change place names. This contrasted with their marketing rhetoric that often embraced heritage as a theme.14 More significantly, the BVG’s announcement about the M_Straße station broke this trend because, despite its inept handling, ironically, it sped up a renaming process that was indicative of positive political change. Afro-German activists have been actively seeking the renaming of the M_Straße since at least 2009.15 Organizations such as the Initiative of Black People in Germany (ISD) and Berlin Postkolonial, among many others, have consistently called for M_Straße to be renamed after Anton Wilhelm Amo, an eighteenth-century scholar originally from Ghana who wrote about issues of race and belonging in Germany. More recently, Decolonize Berlin, a civil society network of Berlin-based Black, diasporic, postcolonial, and development groups, emerged in 2019 to further support initiatives for urban change. This action has intentionally tried to shift the renaming debate away from removal and substitution of one name for another to ideas of emphasis, parallels, and transparency. It has also included affective inversion and political appropriation with a long-running annual street renaming festival that celebrates the opportunity to oppose problematic street and place names and discuss ways of making the city more representative.16 The BVG’s announcement added weight to these demands and also to the official calls of Berlin’s Green Party leader to have M_Straße renamed that were first raised following the Floyd intervention.17 Following BVG’s Glinka mishap, and as the political significance of the debate continued to increase, the Senate instructed the transport authority to delay renaming their station until after a political decision had been reached on the street name.18 The BVG agreed and expressed an openness to seeking a new solution, on the condition that any new station name provide spatial orientation for its passengers. While initially the Green Party hinted toward support for a street name that might address the gender imbalance in Berlin’s place names, the

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party eventually supported the proposal for Anton Wilhelm Amo.19 Triggering yet more Twitter debate (see the blue highlight in figure 21.2), in late August 2020 Mitte’s District Assembly voted to rename M_Straße, AntonWilhelm-Amo Strasse. The station is likely to take on this name in future.

Conclusion The case of M_Straße reveals the mnemonic influence of commercially orientated public utilities in Berlin. But in this respect the city is not unique. Similar actors are involved or engaged in commemorative practices in cities across the world. In short, acts of de-commemoration are determined not only by states and their apparatus or by grassroots actors. They are also increasingly shaped by intermediary commercial enterprises such as public service providers. These mundane mnemonic intermediaries can, for example, step in to fill the commemorative voids created by a lack of state resources or will.20 Or, especially in relation to decolonization processes, they can be drawn into debates about commemoration by being held accountable for the space they control and manage. Their own historically embedded forms of racial discrimination are therefore also called into question. In the United States, for example, the BLM movement triggered a tipping-point within public debates about the racially insensitive NFL team name and logo of the Washington Redskins, who have since changed to the Commanders. Ultimately, the M_Straße U-Bahn station will not be renamed after George-Floyd. Yet, as we have shown in this chapter, all the aspirational yet provisional, awkward, and sometimes ironic tensions surrounding that renaming intervention carried through the difficult debates about the name in the weeks that followed. Commemoration is always de-commemoration, in some sense. We have demonstrated how the BVG’s bold decision to publicly announce the station’s renaming backfired and in effect illustrated how renaming as a form of de-commemoration is not necessarily inherently positive. Even when initiated for good intentions it could be highly problematic. The BVG’s decision to rename the station Glinkastraße was called out as self-serving and antisemitic. Still, the timing of the BVG’s announcement, in the context of renewed local and international attention to issues of race and commemoration, contributed to accelerating the process of the street being renamed. And despite not recognizing the work of Afro-German activist groups, the BVG’s announcement bolstered their case to rename the street after Anton Wilhelm Amo. This street renaming has now been confirmed by the Berlin Senate, and once the process is complete, the station name will likely follow. In this case, the BVG’s actions can be read against their history of preventing commemorative street and station renaming. It can also be

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contrasted with the transport authority’s upbeat and playful celebration of heritage within marketing campaigns. Overall, its actions foregrounded the BVG’s mundane mnemonic influence as an actor responsible for public infrastructure that can lend critical visibility to de-commemoration debates in the city. “Next stop Anton-Wilhelm-Amo Strasse!” Duane Jethro is a Lecturer in the Department of African Studies and Linguistics at the University of Cape Town. He held a post-doctoral research position in the project “Making Differences: Transforming Museums and Heritage in the 21st Century” at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage, CARMAH, at the Humboldt University Berlin. His work focused on contested public cultures, particularly the colonial past as surfaced and contested in the context of street names in Berlin. He has published in Material Religion, International Journal of Heritage Studies, and Tourist Studies. His book, Heritage Formation and the Senses in Post-A partheid South Africa: Aesthetics of Power was published in 2020 by Bloomsbury Academic. Samuel Merrill is Associate Professor at Umeå University’s Department of Sociology and Centre for Digital Social Research (DIGSUM). His research centers on social movements, collective memory, cultural heritage, and digital media with respect to a broadly conceived underground. He has a doctorate in cultural geography from University College London, UK, a masters in heritage studies from the Brandenburg Technical University in Cottbus, Germany, and a bachelors in archaeology and ancient history from the University of Birmingham, UK. His doctoral thesis won the Peter Lang 2014 Young Scholar in Memory Studies Competition and was published as Networked Remembrance: Excavating Buried Memories in the Railways Beneath London and Berlin in 2017.

Notes 1. Duane Jethro’s research toward this chapter was funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation as part of the research award for Sharon Macdonald’s Alexander von Humboldt Professorship and was carried out at CARMAH at the Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. I would like to thank Sharon Macdonald and CARMHEES for their collegiality, inspiration, and support for this research. We thank Simon Lindgren for advice on collecting Twitter data.

“Next Stop Anton-Wilhelm-Amo Strasse” • 219 2. Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009). 3. Samuel Merrill, Networked Remembrance: Excavating Buried Memories in the Railways beneath London and Berlin (Oxford: Peter Lang Publishing Group, 2017). 4. Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof were key figures within the Red Army Faction, founded in West-Germany in 1970. Mohamed Atta was the ringleader of the 9/11 terror attacks, masterminded by Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda in 2001. Anis Amri was the perpetrator of the 2016 Berlin Christmas market attack organized by ISIS. 5. Samuel Merrill, “Identities in Transit: The (Re)connections and (Re)brandings of Berlin’s Municipal Railway Infrastructure after 1989,” Journal of Historical Geography 50 (2015): 76–91. 6. Maoz Azaryahu, “German Reunification and the Politics of Street Names: The Case of East Berlin,” Political Geography 16, no. 6 (1997): 479–93. 7. Merrill, Networked Remembrance. 8. “Großer Bahnhof für Glinka,” BVG Press Release. 9. Judith Kessler, “Schlehte Wahl,” Jüdishe Allgemeine, 7 July 2020. 10. Samuel Merrill, “‘Beachten Sie die Lücken’: Reviewing the Cultural Histories and Geographies of Public Transport in Berlin,” Mobility in History 8, no. 1 (2017): 77–84. 11. TAZ, “Bahnhofsumbenennung von ‘Autonomen,’” Die Tageszeitung, 22 November 1991, 21. 12. Merrill, Networked Remembrance. 13. Merrill, Networked Remembrance. 14. In 2019 it ran a tongue-in-cheek marketing campaign for UNESCO World Heritage status of the Berlin underground network. 15. Svenja Bergt, “Mit Mohrrüben gegen die Nation,” Die Tageszeitung, 13 Februar 2009, 23. 16. Duane Jethro, “Changing Street Names: Decolonisation and Toponymic Reinscription for Doing Diversity in Berlin,” in Doing Diversity in Museums and Heritage: A Berlin Ethnography, ed. Sharon Macdonald (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2022). 17. “Grünen-Fraktionschefin will Mohrenstraße umbenennen,” RBB. 18. “Grüne und SPD würden Mohrenstraße nach Amo umbenennen,” RBB. 19. “Grünen-Fraktionschefin will Mohrenstraße umbenennen”; “Grüne und SPD würden Mohrenstraße nach Amo umbenennen.” 20. Sabine Marschall, “The Sunday Times Heritage Project: Heritage, the Media and the Formation of National Consciousness,” Social Dynamics 37, no. 3 (2011): 409–23.

Bibliography Azaryahu, Maoz. “German Reunification and the Politics of Street Names: The Case of East Berlin.” Political Geography 16, no. 6 (1997): 479–93. Bergt, Svenja. “Mit Mohrrüben gegen die Nation.” Die Tageszeitung, 13 February 2009, 23. “Großer Bahnhof für Glinka.” BVG Press Release. Accessed 5 August 2021. https://unterneh men.bvg.de/pressemitteilung/grosser-bahnhof-fuer-glinka/. “Grüne und SPD würden Mohrenstraße nach Amo umbenennen.” RBB. Accessed 5 August 2021. https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2020/07/mohrenstrasse-u-bahn-stationberlin-unbenennung-gruene.html.

220 • Duane Jethro and Samuel Merrill “Grünen-Fraktionschefin will Mohrenstraße umbenennen.” RBB. Accessed 5 August 2021. https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2020/06/berlin-mohrenstrasse-gruene-antje-kapekumbenennung-george-floyd.html. Jethro, Duane. “Changing Street Names: Decolonisation and Toponymic Reinscription for Doing Diversity in Berlin.” In Doing Diversity in Museums and Heritage: A Berlin Ethnography, edited by Sharon Macdonald, 137–56. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2022. Kessler, Judith. “Schlehte Wahl.” Jüdishe Allgemeine, 7 July 2020. Accessed 5 August 2021. https://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/kultur/schlechte-wahl/. Marschall, Sabine. “The Sunday Times Heritage Project: Heritage, the Media and the Formation of National Consciousness.” Social Dynamics 37, no. 3 (2011): 409–23. Merrill, Samuel. “‘Beachten Sie die Lücken’: Reviewing the Cultural Histories and Geographies of Public Transport in Berlin.” Mobility in History 8, no. 1 (2017): 77–84. ———. “Identities in Transit: The (Re)connections and (Re)brandings of Berlin’s Municipal Railway Infrastructure after 1989.” Journal of Historical Geography 50 (2015): 76–91. ———. Networked Remembrance: Excavating Buried Memories in the Railways Beneath London and Berlin. Oxford: Peter Lang Publishing Group, 2017. Rothberg, Michael. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. TAZ. “Bahnhofsumbenennung von ‘Autonomen.’” Die Tageszeitung, 22 November 1991, 21.

Chapter 22

FROM DECAPITATION TO DESTRUCTION Making Sense of Toppling Statues in Contemporary Martinique Audrey Célestine, Valérie-Ann Edmond-Mariette, and Zaka Toto

8 From May to July 2020, a wave of toppling statues took place in Fort-deFrance, the capital city of Martinique in the French Caribbean. While the destructions were sometimes presented as a local version of the global “Black Lives Matter wave,” we argue that these destructions cannot be understood as such; rather, they epitomize a mix of issues specific to the post-departmentalization context of Martinique.1 The actions were led by young activists known as the RVN (Red-Green-Black, colors of the flag created by Martinican supporters of independence) movement.2 The chapter is based on ongoing research by the three authors. While the work is still in progress, we have built a diversified corpus of data made up of videos and written work by the activists who destroyed the statues, op-eds written in local newspapers, public statements and reactions on the destructions issued between May and September 2020, visual archives related to colonial statuary, and official documents created by the city of Fort-de-France on “memory and transmission.” Indeed, after the toppling of statues on 22 May 2020, the mayor established a commission on memory and transmission. While the commission had already been announced during the mayoral electoral campaign several months before, the destruction accelerated its launching in July 2020. It is composed of thirty members, mainly elected officials, scholars, experts on “identity and history,” members of associations and “civil society”—including representatives of the movement that toppled

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the statues—and secondary education teachers of history. Its mission is to guide the actions of the city on memory matters and controversies.3

Traces of the Colonial Past and “Cannibalization” of Post-Departmentalization Fort-de-France The process of departmentalization guaranteed equality between the inhabitants of the French “Old Colonies” (including Martinique and Guadeloupe) and French citizens one century after the abolition of slavery in the French colonies in 1848. While the former slaves did officially become citizens in 1848, the colonial status of their territories remained along with specific laws and rules, giving them fewer rights than in mainland France and securing significant power for the governors appointed by the central state. Departmentalization should have entailed legal assimilation and the application of French laws in the former colonies. However, despite some economic and social progress, hopes were soon dashed. And in the urban landscape of Martinique, traces of the colonial past persisted. Charles de Courbon Blénac was governor of Martinique between 1677 and 1696. He contributed to the creation and building of the city of FortRoyal (prior name of Fort-de-France). Blénac was a torturer of slaves, and he used them to build the town. He gave his name to one of the main streets of the city. Joséphine de Beauharnais was born in Martinique in a family of white landowners (“Békés”). She became the first wife of Napoleon and was the Empress of France when slavery was reinstated by her husband. The statue of Joséphine was inaugurated in 1859 (see figure 22.1). The statue of the French abolitionist Victor Schoelcher was erected in 1904 for the centenary of his birth. In 1935, the statue of Belain D’Esnambuc, colonizer and first governor of Martinique, was inaugurated for the tricentenary of the French colonization while the Tricentennial Gate (la Porte du Tricentenaire) was constructed. Thus, at various historical moments, monuments were erected to the glory of colonialism. In 1935, they were still marking the urban landscape of Fort-de-France. About ten years later, Aimé Césaire became mayor and started implementing a “new grammar” of the city.4 Streets were named after French and Francophone revolutionaries of the nineteenth century: the neighborhood Terres-Sainville received the names of figures from the Enlightenment and the French Revolution as well as Caribbean and South American revolutionaries. Newer districts got the names of writers, thinkers, and figures from twentieth-century independence movements. Thanks to Césaire’s “cannibalism”5—a notion theorized with his wife Suzanne Roussi Césaire in their literary and political writings around the reappropriation of colonial symbols to

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Figure 22.1. The statue of Josephine before the head was removed, 1899, Source: Andre Salle, gallica.bnf.fr / BnF. Public domain.

carry out a true decolonization—many streets and avenues of Fort-de-France became an ode to the revolutions and emancipations of the African diaspora. Caribbean and South American revolutionaries like Toussaint Louverture and Louis Delgrès, African American intellectuals such as Toni Morrison, and great figures of anti-colonial movements such as Lumumba and Gandhi were thus all assembled in the streets of this small Caribbean city. Beyond Césaire’s public urban policy, the city serves as living testimony to the political struggles of the time. In the early 1980s, nationalistic movements were at their apex, with multiple military movements operating in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana, the three territories that formed the French West Indies. Among them, the Caribbean Revolutionary Alliance

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(Alliance Révolutionnaire Caribéenne, ARC), an armed nationalistic faction, carried out multiple bombings across all three territories as well as in Paris. It failed in achieving a new independent nation, and most members of the groups were arrested and jailed. In Martinique, the last remnants undertook one last symbolic act: in 1991 they beheaded the statue of Joséphine in one of the main squares of the city, La Savane, and poured pig blood all over it (see figure 22.2). They then disappeared. Aimé Césaire, whose administration

Figure 22.2. The beheaded statue of Josephine, 2018. Photo © Audrey Célestine.

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had already moved the statue from the center of the square to the western fringe so it would be less visible and central, decided to keep the beheaded statue without having it restored. It was also added, as such, to the official registry of French National Heritage. There is thus a paradox here: one of the most vibrant symbols of an act of national resistance and anti-colonialism in Martinique was also a testimony to its defeat while becoming part of French monumentalization.

De-Commemoration: Answering the Multifaceted Crisis in Post-Colonial Martinique The recent destruction of the statue marks a new step in this process. Martinique has experienced several crises in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Its population is aging rapidly and numerically declining; unemployment is much higher than in mainland France, especially for young adults; the cost of living is high; and the quality of public services is low in comparison to regions in mainland France. For several years the scandal of chlordecone, a pesticide legally used in banana plantations in Martinique until the 1990s while it had been banned in the rest of France for several years, has been at the heart of political concerns. Indeed, chlordecone has poisoned the land locally and has been associated with high levels of cancer, an issue on which associations have been conducting political and environmental actions for several years.6 On Martinique’s commemoration of the abolition of slavery on 22 May 2020, a group destroyed two statues of the abolitionist Victor Schoelcher, on the basis of the nineteenth-century politician’s “anti-Black” writings, his role in the commission that granted compensations to slaveholders (and not slaves), and his involvement in the French colonial project. The two young women who claimed responsibility for the destruction of the statues of Victor Schoelcher in a video posted online hours after the events were already known locally as members of groups self-labeled as “anti-chlordecone activists.” The groups are known for disruptive actions against the actors they hold responsible for the chlordecone crisis: the Békés. The term is used to designate the white descendants of former European settlers and slaveholders in Martinique. They are the owners of the biggest banana plantations. The anti-chlordecone group’s explicit claim, as well as their activist trajectories, show that they still consider Martinique to be a colony whose economy is fully dominated by the “Béké cast.” By doing so, the activists reactivate the main interpretative framework of social movements that have emerged during the first half of the twentieth century in Martinique.7 They argue that the French state does not have any legitimacy in Martinique, often waving the

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pro-independence flag without explicitly advocating for independence. Even though it is unknown if there is any relation between the current groups and past generations of pro-independence leaders, some of these former leaders appear to act as “mentors” to these present-day activists. The lack of a structured organization results in the absence of coherence in the display of ideas and actions, leaving room to a wide array of interpretations. The group also has connections to actors who, while now advocating for Pan-Africanism, had long been “Afro-supremacist” groups.8 Another important dimension that will not be explored further here is the strong spiritual component of the multifaceted movement.

Beyond the Memory of Slavery: Conflicting Perspectives in Local Post-Colonial Politics The destructions of the two Schoelcher statues in May 2020 sparked numerous reactions. More than fifty op-eds were published in the only local newspaper, France-Antilles. Even though they do not provide a clear view of the “public opinion,”9 these writings help us understand reactions and certain interpretations of the social and political configuration. Apart from one article by a visual artist lamenting the destruction of pieces of art built by local artists, most contributions show no affective link to the statues themselves. Rather, the contributions can be divided into three main categories. First, there are positive opinions that consider the destructions legitimate. They are seen as the “desperate actions” of the “Martinican youth” in the face of structural problems of the local polity and society. Their actions are viewed as a struggle against the colonial power of France, as well as against the “historical fallacies and manipulations” of the public memory of slavery and abolition. They criticize the condescending reactions of “intellectuals” and politicians who have “lectured” and been judgmental by condemning spontaneous actions of a “new generation of activists.” The destructions are also seen as a new act in the anti-colonial struggle of the Martinican people. Second, the destructions are considered “understandable” in light of the structural problems facing the youth but lamented for the “method” (undemocratic, violent) or the lack of clarity of the political agenda of these “young activists.” The reactions in this second category sometimes pointed out that the destructions paved the way to a collective and political discussion regarding the future of Martinique. Finally, others find the destructions illegitimate. The actions were thus considered neither spontaneous nor mere cries of anger of a desperate youth. Rather, a strong political content was sometimes attributed to the activ-

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ists, accused of brutalizing the public sphere, falsifying the historical truth, and, more importantly, overshadowing recent struggles to acknowledge the colonial past and reverse the long-standing colonial narratives in Martinican politics. This very basic typology stresses that the relationship to the past is rarely considered for its own sake but more often than not constitutes a way of addressing the structural problems of society and the polity in Martinique. Whatever sides they belonged to, several op-eds display a belief in “collective memory” to “bring society together” and cure the “ills” of the island. They indicate the importance attributed to “memory” as a tool for public policy, even if several op-eds also doubt memory alone could solve the problem of inequalities inherited from the colonial era. At the municipal level, the issue of the traces of the past in the public space did not emerge in May 2020. The nomination of a commission on “memory and transmission” had been in preparation for several months when the toppling down of statues took place. Presented as the continuation of the city’s policy on memory (begun mainly with the naming of streets under Aimé Césaire’s mayorship), it constitutes a new step in the institutionalization of a local public policy of memory.10 The commission is still operating in 2023 even though its actions have been slowed down by the COVID-19 crisis. The first official statements of the city of Fort-de-France on the work by the commission indicate that the expertise of historians and educators has been deemed central in determining priorities (e.g., evolution in the naming of sites, relocation or removal of statues). In 2023, although the commission has not had very regular meetings, public consultations have been conducted by City Hall and some street name changes have been proposed and approved. The municipal commission’s first decision to remove D’Esnambuc’s statue was however quickly challenged since the groups responsible for the destruction of the statues of Victor Schoelcher destroyed those of Josephine and D’Esnambuc. The interactions between the mayor and the activists are thus marked by a great tension that seems to go well beyond the disagreement between the city’s action in terms of memory and the desire first expressed to see the colonial symbols disappear. In response to the question of what the municipality intends to do when it deals with memory, the mayor wanted to insist on democratic debate guided by history and expertise. The answer given by the activists shows that, to them, the framework offered by the mayor’s office is not considered legitimate. According to them, some statue removals should not require any prior discussion nor debate. Through an opposition between the “debates” of the elites and the “action” of the people they claim to represent, the removal of statues constitutes the only acceptable response to these traces of the colonial and slave past in the public space.

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Conclusion The sequence of events of the summer of 2020 in Fort-de-France is not a mere Martinican version of the US movement of de-commemoration. The beheaded statue of Josephine had often been presented as an educational and very positive way of dealing with colonial symbols. To begin to understand the destruction of a statue that seemed to fulfill such a function of historical transmission, one needs to understand the local conditions that have shaped political action since the end of the colonial status in Martinique. At the time of Josephine’s decapitation, the local political context was marked by the significant decline of the nationalist and independence movements of the 1970s and 1980s in favor of, in particular, an essentially cultural militancy around the valorization of Black and mixed-race identities. Since then, the political space in Martinique seems to have been marked by both technical debates on its legal status within the French republic and by a relative inability of local political forces to propose a political project in the context of multifaceted crises. Audrey Celestine is a social scientist and an associate professor at the University of Lille. She is the author of several books, including La fabrique des identités. L’encadrement politique des minorités caribéennes en France et aux Etats-Unis (Karthala, 2018), which discusses identity politics and collective mobilization of French Caribbeans in France and Puerto Ricans in the United States. Her work focuses on migration, memory, race, and identity in France, the French Caribbean (Martinique, Guadeloupe), and the United States. Valérie-Ann Edmond-Mariette is a PhD student in history at the University of the Antilles. She works under the supervision of historian Jean-Pierre Sainton in the AIHP-GEODE research center. Her doctoral project is titled “Memory of Colonial Slavery, Societies and Music in the French West Indies from 1956 to Kassav” and combines the history of Antillean music, the memory of slavery, and social and cultural history. Zaka Toto is an author, a publisher, and a PhD student in history at the University of the Antilles. His doctoral project is tentatively entitled “Identity and Social Movements in the French Caribbean. From the 1982 Regionalization to the 2009 Social Movement: The Dynamics of Post-Nationalism.” He is the editor of the French Caribbean cultural webzine ZIST.

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Notes 1. In 1946 Martinique, along with the other “Old Colonies” Guadeloupe, the Reunion Island, and French Guiana, was fully incorporated into the French republic and became a “département.” It was the official end of the colonial status. 2. Ulrike Zander, “Le drapeau rouge-vert-noir en Martinique: un emblème national?” Autrepart 42, no. 2 (2007): 181–96. 3. Two authors, Audrey Célestine and Zaka Toto, were members of this commission. 4. Valérie-Ann Edmond-Mariette and Zaka Toto, “En-Ville Cannibale: Déconstruire et repenser la ville coloniale,” ZIST, 20 July 2020. 5. Edmond-Mariette and Toto, “En-Ville Cannibale.” 6. Malcom Ferdinand, Une écologie décoloniale—Penser l’écologie depuis le monde caribéen (Paris: Seuil, 2019). 7. Justin Daniel, “Entre négation, prétérition et racialisation de l’ordre politique: la race comme catégorie politique à la Martinique,” in La Fabrique de la race dans la Caraïbe de l’époque moderne à nos jours, ed. Sylvain Lloret et al. (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2021). 8. Toto Zaka, “Le Sucre,” ZIST, 28 January 2020. 9. Michèle Baussant, Marina Chauliac, Sarah Gensburger, and Nancy Venel, Les terrains de la mémoire: approches croisées à l’échelle locale (Nanterre: Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2018). 10. Sarah Gensburger and Mathilde De Saint Léger, “Quelle action municipale en matière de ‘mémoire’? L’exemple de la ville de Paris,” in Les terrains de la mémoire, 75–93.

Bibliography Daniel, Justin. “Entre négation, prétérition et racialisation de l’ordre politique: la race comme catégorie politique à la Martinique.” In La Fabrique de la race dans la Caraïbe de l’époque moderne à nos jours, edited by Sylvain Lloret et al. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2021. Edmond-Mariette, Valérie-Ann, and Zaka Toto. “En-Ville Cannibale: Déconstruire et repenser la ville coloniale.” ZIST, 20 July 2020. https://www.zist.co/2020/07/20/ en-ville-cannibale-deconstruire-et-repenser-la-ville-coloniale/. Ferdinand, Malcom. Une écologie décoloniale—Penser l’écologie depuis le monde caribéen. Paris: Seuil, 2019. Gensburger, Sarah, and Mathilde De Saint Léger. “Quelle action municipale en matière de ‘mémoire’? L’exemple de la ville de Paris.” In Les terrains de la mémoire. Approches croisées à l’échelle locale, edited by Michèle Baussant, Marina Chauliac, Sarah Gensburger, and Nancy Venel, 75–92. Nanterre: Presses Universitaires de Nanterre, 2018. Toto, Zaka. “Le Sucre.” ZIST, 28 January 2020. Zander, Ulrike. “Le drapeau rouge-vert-noir en Martinique: un emblème national?” Autrepart 42, no. 2 (2007): 181–96.

Chapter 23

DE-COMMEMORATION IN GREAT BRITAIN Stephen Small

8 For several hundred years British elites built statues and monuments and named streets and buildings to glorify the men who colonized African lands and transported millions of Africans into vicious slavery.1 Monuments and memorials are the physical embodiment of partiality and distortion, dedicated to creating a partisan and even mythological memory of the British Empire. They privileged the experiences and memories of elite white men— occasionally white women—and avoided or erased the violence and exploitation that was the daily reality for Black women and men during and since colonialism. They are the living legacy of colonialism. Across Great Britain today there are thousands of memorials commemorating the men that made the British Empire great during both slavery and imperialism. The most visible include Edward Colston in Bristol, Winston Churchill in London, and William Gladstone in Liverpool. But less well known are memorials to Joseph Chamberlain in Birmingham, Robert Baden Powell in Poole, and Robert Napier in London. Protests against institutional racism in the police, educational systems, and many other arenas in British society escalated dramatically as a direct result of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. Many Black people in Great Britain saw the striking similarities in the Black experience in both nations, despite the distinct differences. Memorials were targeted because they are a constant reminder of the endemic racism and injustice that has shaped the lives of Black people during the British Empire and ever since. But this was not the first time Black people protested—it was simply another

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round of protests in a long tradition that has been underway for decades, generations, and even centuries.2 More importantly, Black people have always had their own memorials to challenge this one-sided account, and they can be found in a wide range of cultural spheres, from music and dance to theatre and performance. In this chapter I draw on examples across Great Britain that exemplify de-commemoration activities in many places across the world. And I suggest several distinctions between British slavery and British imperialism that merit our attention.3

De-Commemoration as an End in Itself For most Black people in Great Britain—and many non-Black people too— the range of de-commemoration initiatives underway is an end in itself. They are an attempt to challenge the meaning of memorials dedicated to the elite white men that ruled the British Empire. Protesters reject the idea of celebrating these men’s existence or what they represent. In fact, they are resented as an affront to humanity and an insult to our intelligence concerning the facts of colonialism. Opinions about what to do with memorials are varied and contingent. Some people want to destroy them; some want to remove them to museums; others want to keep them in place and provide informational plaques about them. At the time of writing (summer 2021), the vast majority of memorials remain in place, very few statues have been removed, and very few buildings and street names have been changed.

De-Commemoration as a Means to an End De-commemoration of memorials is also a means to an end because removing or renaming them alone will not transform the educational system, increase access to employment, or end police brutality. Nor will it undermine racism in British media. Protestors know that this is just a first step to far more fundamental transformations. They know the British educational system has fulfilled similar roles and achieved similar goals as memorials, deploying a variety of tactics—from silence, evasion, and euphemism to distortion, misinformation, and sometimes outright lies—to preserve the idea that the British Empire was nothing but good. British media has overwhelmingly embraced and disseminated these tactics with similar effects. And these tactics have worked because more than 33 percent of British people today still believe the British Empire was overwhelmingly good and that colonies were better off because of imperial rule.4

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Imperialism and Its Legacies Are Hidden in Plain Sight Most de-commemoration activities today focus on slavery and its legacies; far fewer focus on imperialism and its legacies. British imperialism consolidated and expanded the political domination, economic exploitation, and social subordination of Africa and Africans—and their descendants in the Americas— far beyond the legal abolition of British slavery in the 1830s.5 British imperialism is a direct legacy of slavery, and it created its own distinctive legacies. In many respects the legacies of British imperialism are more evident, more obvious, and in many instances more consequential today than are the legacies of slavery. They demand our attention for several reasons. First, many of the memorials being targeted today are actually imperial creations (e.g., the memorials to Colston, Churchill, Gladstone, BadenPowell, Cecil Rhodes, and Robert Napier; as are many of the streets and buildings of imperial merchants, businessmen, and politicians).6 Second, a study of imperialism reveals that the unabashed celebration of British abolition—almost an obsession—is a lie. Political domination, economic exploitation, and social subordination did not end with the British legal abolition of slavery. Great Britain got more money from US, Brazilian, and Spanish Caribbean slavery after legal abolition than it got from British slavery before legal abolition.7 Great Britain achieved control of Egypt and the Suez Canal-access to India during imperialism; gold and diamond mines were not discovered in southern Africa nor did Cecil Rhodes ravage and ransack that region until the final decades of the nineteenth century.8 And the British empire did not control 25 percent of the world until around 1900. In other words, all of this took place after slavery had ended. Third, the racist ideologies and institutional practices common across Britain today—less visible but no less virulent than those of the United States and of South Africa during apartheid—have far more in common with those developed under imperialism than those created before abolition, including a move from the biological and scientific racism that prevailed during slavery to social Darwinism, eugenics, and cultural racism.9 And then there is the British Commonwealth, which created institutions based on racist systems whose effects are still manifest in the twenty-first century. Finally, during imperialism, legacies were also created that provide tremendous opportunities for learning. Black people generated far more information, far more writings, and far more evidence about Black lives than we were ever able to do under slavery.10 As a result, today in Great Britain there exist far more insights by and about Black women’s educational, intellectual, and political interventions.11 There are writings from the first Pan-African Conference in London in 1900, organized by Henry Sylvester Williams and attended by prominent African Americans like W. E. B. Dubois and Anna

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Julia Cooper. We have far more contributions from prominent Africans like Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta. These writers provide key insights that challenge the one-sided, multifaceted masquerade that has managed to pass as educational objectivity in Great Britain for so long.

From De-Commemoration to (Continuing) Re-Commemoration Black people in Great Britain do not have impressive statues to commemorate our achievements, celebrate our heroes, or challenge hegemonic articulations of the British Empire. But we have always challenged British racism in our community centers, churches, and homes. We have always created organizations, bookstores, and educational centers to challenge the dominant narratives of colonialism. Black peoples’ symbolic monuments and substantive memorials are evident in music, art, and sculpture, in dance, theatre, and performance, as well as in photographs, video, and film. Black voices and visions can be heard and seen in narratives, biographies, songs, and in our religious and spiritual texts.12 Right now, there is an opening to build on these long-established initiatives, reinvigorated as they are by protests following the murder of George Floyd. Several significant changes happened in 2020, including the removal of the Colston statue in Bristol and the Rhodes statue in Oxford. The University of Liverpool renamed Gladstone Hall for Dorothy Kuya, a Liverpool-born Black women, educationalist, community organizer, and Pan-Africanist. Some of the nation’s top scholars have written reports documenting the legacies of slavery manifested in monuments, museums, and country mansions.13 Black organizations remain highly active on all fronts and pay far more attention to transforming racist institutions than removing statues.14 And there is more mobilization around reparations than there has been in this nation since the Right Honorable Bernie Grant MP established Reparations UK in the 1990s.15 For example, in 2019, the University of Glasgow pledged 20 million pounds to the University of the West Indies as reparations for slavery. Unsurprisingly, there is backlash too, as the British government, several institutions, and many British people have made it clear they will not accept these challenges quietly. In 2021 Prime Minister Boris Johnson, muttering that he was fed up with people cringing over these issues, provided police protection of a Winston Churchill statue in Whitehall, London, and insisted he would defend Churchill to his very last breath. Several cities have insisted their statues will remain in place—for example, the statue of Thomas Picton in Carmarthen, Wales (a murderous military governor in the Caribbean). And new memorials have appeared in recent years—for example, a Bronze bust of William Gladstone was unveiled in the town of Seaforth, close to

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Liverpool, in 2013. The UK culture minister, Oliver Dowden, promised that the Government would defend statues with new laws. At the time of writing, Oxford University had already returned the Rhodes statue to its roost. There are efforts to protect colonial education too. For example, Conservative minister Kemi Badenoch announced that the British government is steadfastly against the teaching of critical race theory, and that anyone teaching white privilege may be breaking the law.

Conclusion In recent years, Great Britain has seen a dramatic increase in protests that interrogate legacies of British colonialism—including removing or renaming statues, street names, and buildings. Current initiatives are an end in themselves and a means to an end. As an end in themselves they seek to remove the most visible physical symbols of colonialism and its legacies. As a means to an end, they are a first step in a broader process to transform British education and to tackle the widespread institutional racism in multiple arenas across British society. These initiatives have created an opening and the possibility of receptivity to change. If the momentum can be maintained, there is potential for significant change. But there is backlash too. There is also protest about museums and stately homes. Many are filled with precious objects and cultural artifacts acquired during imperialism, and many were built with proceeds from British imperialism.16 Artifacts can be found in the British Museum in London, National Museums of Liverpool, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, and the Manchester Museum. There are also museums in Scotland and Wales and stately homes like Harewood House in Yorkshire and Doddington Park in Gloucestershire. Some museums existed during slavery, but many became far bigger, during imperialism.17 And several museums were established during imperialism, like the Pitt Rivers in Oxford founded in 1884. Many artifacts were acquired during imperialism too, including the Benin Bronzes acquired in 1897, artifacts, jewels and manuscripts from the British Expedition and Punitive Raid on Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1868, and the Cullinan Diamond discovered in South Africa in 1905.18 And then there are the universities, many of which were partly funded by imperialists—like Alfred Jones and William Lever at the University of Liverpool. Many scholars published racist research justifying imperialism, and many universities named buildings, lecture halls, and professorial chairs after imperialists, as with William Ewart Gladstone also at the University of Liverpool.19 At present, far more attention is being paid to the legacies of British slavery than to those of British imperialism. The two lengthy periods of political domination, economic exploitation, and social subordination are intertwined, but I

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argue that British imperialism also created new and distinctive legacies beyond those of British slavery—legacies that are far more resonant and consequential at the present time than those of British slavery. A focus on slavery alone will not give us the full picture; neither will a focus on imperialism alone. But consideration of their entanglements and of the distinctive legacies of both will give us a far fuller picture than the one we have now. As a matter of de-commemoration, imperialism needs far more of our attention than it currently has. It is unlikely there will be an immediate national solution to these issues, and any changes are likely to be uneven across the nation. We could hardly expect it be otherwise. While protestors don’t have the power or resources to fully de-commemorate, they do have the power to ensure that these issues will always remain in the public realm. And any review of history demonstrates that what Black people lack in resources we make up for in perseverance and endurance. Stephen Small is Professor of African Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1995, and is currently Director of the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. He is a faculty member of the Black Europe Summer School, Amsterdam. He has held visiting positions at universities in Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Belgium, Brazil, Japan, and Zimbabwe. He was a Guest Curator at the Atlantic Slave Trade Gallery, 1994 (which became the International Slavery Museum in 2007), at the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool. His most recent books are 20 Questions and Answers on Black Europe (Amrit, 2018) and In the Shadows of the Big House: Twenty-First Century Antebellum Slave Cabins and Heritage Tourism in Louisiana (University Press of Mississippi, 2023). He is coauthor of Black Europe and the African Diaspora (University of Illinois Press, 2009) and Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002). He is currently researching legacies of imperialism in Black Europe with an emphasis on Great Britain in general and Liverpool in particular. As part of that project, he’s investigating the voices and visions of Black men and women from across Africa and the diaspora in anti-colonial movements for self-determination.

Notes 1. Katie Donington, Ryan Hanley and Jessica Moody, eds., Britain’s History and Memory of Transatlantic Slavery: Local Nuances of a “National Sin” (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016).

236 • Stephen Small 2. Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain (Aldershot: Gower Publishing Company, 1987); Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie, and Suzanne Scafe, The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain (London, Virago Press, 1985). 3. British slavery officially lasted from the 1560s until legal abolition in 1834–38; and then Britain massively expanded its empire. The peak of British imperialism was around 1900 when it controlled 25 percent of the world’s population. See John Darwin, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830–1970 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 4. Robert Booth, “UK More Nostalgic for Empire than Other Ex-Colonial Powers,” Guardian, 11 March 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/ uk-more-nostalgic-for-empire-than-other-ex-colonial-powers. 5. Darwin, Empire Project. 6. Sally-Ann Huxtable, Corinne Fowler, Christo Kefalas, and Emma Slocombe, Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery (London: National Trust, September 2020). 7. Marika Sherwood, After Abolition: Britain and the Slave Trade After 1807 (London: I. B. Taurus, 2007). 8. Colin Samson, The Colonialism of Human Rights: Ongoing Hypocrisies of Western Liberalism (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2020). 9. Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain 1800–1960 (London: Macmillan, 1982). 10. Stephen Small, “Black Expressive Culture in England and Europe,” in Reflections: Cultural Voices of Black British Irrepressible Resistance, ed. Pawlet Brookes, 13–69 (Leicester: Serendipity Arts, 2020). 11. Ellen Craft and William Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999); Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969). 12. Small, “Black Expressive Culture in England and Europe.” 13. Madge Dresser and Andrew Hann, Slavery and the British Country House (Swindon: English Heritage, 2013). Huxtable et al., “Interim Report”; Dan Hicks, The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (London: Pluto Press, 2020). 14. Adam Elliott-Cooper, Black Resistance to British Policing (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021); Eddie Chambers, Roots & Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain (London: I. B. Tauris, 2017); Diana Watt and Adele Jones, Catching Hell and Doing Well: Black Women in the UK (London: The Abasindi Collective, UCL Institute of Education Press, 2015). 15. Stephen Small, “Contextualizing the Black Presence in British Museums: Representations, Resources and Response,” in Museums and Multiculturalism in Britain, ed. Eilean Hooper Greenhill, 50–66 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1997). 16. Dresser and Hann, Slavery and the British Country House. 17. Hicks, Brutish Museums. 18. Annie Coombes, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). 19. David Gillborne, Racism and Education: Coincidence or Conspiracy? (London: Routledge, 2008); Ramón Grosfoguel. “The Structure of Knowledge in Westernized Universities,” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self Knowledge 11 (2013) 73–90.

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Bibliography Bryan, Beverley, Stella Dadzie, and Suzanne Scafe. The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain. London: Virago Press, 1985. Chambers, Eddie. Roots & Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain. London: I. B. Tauris, 2017. Coombes, Annie. Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Cooper, Anna Julia. A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969. Craft, Ellen, and William Craft. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999. Darwin, John. The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830–1970. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Donington, Katie, Ryan Hanley, and Jessica Moody, eds. Britain’s History and Memory of Transatlantic Slavery: Local Nuances of a “National Sin.” Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016. Dresser, Madge, and Andrew Hann, eds. Slavery and the British Country House. Swindon: English Heritage, 2013. Elliott-Cooper, Adam. Black Resistance to British Policing. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021. Gillborn, David. Racism and Education: Coincidence or Conspiracy? London: Routledge, 2008. Grosfoguel, Ramón. “The Structure of Knowledge in Westernized Universities.” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self Knowledge 11 (2013): 73–90. Hicks, Dan. The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution. London: Pluto Press, 2020. Huxtable, Sally-Anne, Corinne Fowler, Christo Kefalas, and Emma Slocombe. Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery. London: National Trust, September 2020. Ramdin, Ron. The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain. Aldershot: Gower Publishing Company, 1987. Samson, Colin. The Colonialism of Human Rights: Ongoing Hypocrisies of Western Liberalism. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2020. Sherwood Marika. After Abolition: Britain and the Slave Trade After 1807. London: I. B. Taurus, 2007. Small, Stephen “Black Expressive Culture in England and Europe.” In Reflections: Cultural Voices of Black British Irrepressible Resistance, edited by Pawlet Brookes, 13–69. Leicester: Serendipity, 2020. ———. “Contextualizing the Black Presence in British Museums: Representations, Resources and Response.” In Museums and Multiculturalism in Britain, edited by Eilean Hooper Greenhill, 50–66. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1997. Stepan, Nancy. The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain 1800–1960. London: Macmillan, 1982. Watt, Diana, and Adele Jones. Catching Hell and Doing Well: Black Women in the UK. London: The Abasindi Collective, UCL Institute of Education Press, 2015.

Chapter 24

THE ROLE OF NONPROFITS IN DE-COMMEMORATION The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Whose Heritage? Report Seth Levi and Kimberly Probolus

8 On 28 February 1923, the US Senate approved bill S. 4119, which called for the creation of a statue to the mammy figure in the nation’s capital. According to historian Micki McElya, this effort was “spearheaded by the Jefferson Davis Chapter” of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Washington, DC.1 Not surprisingly, African Americans objected to this offensive portrayal rooted in the mythology of the faithful slave. The NAACP joined the Black press—including the St. Louis Argus, The Chicago Defender, The AfroAmerican (Baltimore), and The Washington Tribune—in voicing their strong opposition to the Bill in editorials and cartoons. Their activism was effective in shifting public opinion, and the Bill never made it to the House floor. This case illustrates how, for nearly a century, African Americans have played a central role in de-commemorating and opposing the creation of Confederate monuments. Scholars, too, have contributed to de-commemoration efforts by advancing this field of knowledge. More than three decades ago, historical geographer John Winberry showed that Confederate monuments on courthouse lawns were erected largely after 1895, and noted how Reconstruction may have informed groups’ decision to construct new monuments.2 Similarly, in her 2003 text (republished in 2019), historian Karen Cox argues that the United Daughters of the Confederacy used monuments to promote the Lost Cause ideology, whitewashing the Civil War.3 Winberry’s and Cox’s work

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promotes a fuller understanding of how and why monuments commemorated the American Civil War, which explains why the de-commemoration of Confederate monuments is so important. Unlike Black activists who have a long history of contesting Confederate memorials and scholars who have studied the white supremacist origins of Confederate monuments, nonprofits are relative newcomers in the Confederate memorial de-commemoration landscape.4 The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is among the nonprofits contributing to de-commemoration efforts. By collecting and publicizing data about Confederate memorials across the United States, the Whose Heritage? project helps communities identify and remove these symbols of hate and white supremacy. Put another way, the organization believes collecting data on commemoration is a first and essential step toward de-commemoration. Thus, de-commemoration allows the SPLC to realize their mission of serving as a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthening intersectional movements, and advancing the human rights of all people. The Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation’s Contested Histories in Public Spaces project and the Equal Justice Initiative have also supported de-commemoration efforts.5 Moreover, the Mellon Foundation recently committed $250 million to “transform the nation’s commemorative landscape by supporting public projects that more completely and accurately represent the multiplicity and complexity of American stories,” providing additional aid for new and existing de-commemoration projects.6 These examples demonstrate how nonprofits are joining state actors, scholars, and activists who have long been working to de-commemorate public space. This chapter seeks to better understand what role nonprofits play in de-commemoration, using the SPLC’s Whose Heritage? project as a case study. We ask: What unique contributions can nonprofits make to de-commemoration efforts? Whose Heritage? aims to dispel myths about the Civil War and the Lost Cause. We encourage scholars, activists, journalists, and members of the public to analyze, interpret, augment, and even correct our data; this open-access initiative and unfiltered access to data seeks to inspire new stories about de-commemorating Confederate memorials.7 Moreover, the SPLC has the media contacts and resources to publicize the conclusions drawn from our data, reinforcing the arguments scholars have already made on the platforms most likely to reach wide audiences. Whose Heritage? has been cited by virtually every major media outlet, including the Associated Press, CBS News, The Washington Post, USA Today, The New York Times, Last Week Tonight, NBC News, and National Geographic. Therefore, we argue that nonprofits can contribute to de-commemoration by correcting false narratives about the Civil War through collecting and analyzing data that is publicized through public outreach, digital and online resources, and earned media.

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We will draw on traditional archival sources (such as press releases) and polling data to make this argument. Our affiliation with the SPLC—Seth Levi is Chief Strategy Officer and Kimberly Probolus is a fellow—will allow us to supplement more traditional academic sources with a self-reflexive account of our involvement with the project. Admittedly, this limits our ability to look “objectively” at the SPLC’s de-commemoration efforts. Any effort to commemorate or record history—whether through a monument or a chapter for an edited volume—is necessarily partial. Acknowledging how one’s biases and assumptions informs both argument and method is an important step in crafting more accurate, honest, and effective histories. Our interdisciplinary methodology underscores that history is subjective and draws attention to the way claims of objectivity have been used as a gatekeeping strategy to exclude the voices of historically marginalized groups. We see this in our area of research; whereas the blatantly false “Lost Cause” narrative continues to circulate widely, the history of African Americans’ early and persistent calls for de-commemoration do not.8 This chapter will unfold in two parts. In Part I we will focus on the origins of the project, explaining how the Charleston Church massacre motivated the SPLC to begin documenting Confederate memorials throughout the United States and how our status as a nonprofit allowed us to publicize our data without proprietary or copyright concerns.9 Part II will shift from the origins of the project to its impact outside the organization, examining how our communications team allows us to reach broad audiences. Finally, the conclusion will draw on polling data to consider how nonprofits can support de-commemoration.

De-Commemoration Data The abundance of Confederate monuments and other memorials has long been apparent to anyone living in or traveling through the former Confederate states. In Montgomery, Alabama, the grounds of the state Capitol (which briefly served as the Capitol to the Confederate Congress, and one hundred years later was where the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march ended) are adorned with Confederate monuments, including a nearly twenty-foot monument of Jefferson Davis. The SPLC first became involved in de-commemorating Confederate memorials through our support of a 1992 lawsuit that removed the Confederate flag from the Alabama Capitol dome.10 But the SPLC largely accepted the omnipresence of these symbols as an offensive and immutable characteristic of the Deep South. Like most Americans, we were deeply shocked and horrified by the heinousness of the Charleston Church massacre on 17 June 2015, when a white

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supremacist gunman murdered nine Black members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church during a Bible study meeting. While white supremacists have long marched under the banner of the Confederate battle flag, the photos of the killer mugging to the camera holding Confederate flags prompted many activists, elected officials, and citizens to reconsider the role of Confederate memorials on public land. Many Confederate memorials were treated with reverence: in 2015, South Carolina State Capitol still flew the Confederate flag. During our initial internal discussions in the wake of Charleston about how to remove Confederate memorials, we realized we had no idea how many existed. How could we launch a campaign to remove them if we did not know where they were? And that was the genesis of Whose Heritage?—a project to document all Confederate monuments and symbols on public lands.11 While our initial literature review identified several sources that had cataloged monuments—large memorials usually made of stone, sponsored by a Confederate heritage group like the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and residing on the grounds of county courthouses—we were unable to find any one resource that covered the full continuum of Confederate memorials. These included school names, street names, city and county names, state holidays, and oddities like state-funded college scholarships named for Confederates. To compile a comprehensive list, we searched for Confederates in databases of public art, scanned the news for stories about Confederate memorials, and asked the public to email us memorials in their communities. As a nonprofit with a goal of dismantling white supremacy, we were uniquely well suited to take on this research. The project aligned with our mission: to fight hate and bigotry and to seek justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. This, coupled with our nonprofit status, allowed us to put considerable resources into Whose Heritage? without any expectation or need to earn back the research expenses. At times since launching the project, we have had upward of fifteen staff simultaneously reviewing thousands of entries in public art databases and hundreds of submissions from the public. Moreover, we do not need to limit the project to a specific length of time. Instead, it is indefinitely ongoing. Even if we were to stop having a full-time employee update the data when new memorials are identified, as a large organization with nearly four hundred employees, we would likely still be able to find people who could spend several hours a week to make crucial updates. Two-way communication with the various individuals, stakeholders, and organizations to which we make our research available is both a result of our nonprofit status and simultaneously strengthens our project. If someone believes we got something wrong with a monument in our database, we encourage them to contact us. We have made corrections based on feedback from the public, and their comments even helped us refine our method. Indi-

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viduals, members of the press, and local government officials pointed out that some memorials we listed had recently been removed, and they felt that our data should reflect that. Although this was not our initial goal, we responded to the demand because it felt like a worthy need. The platform we have from being well-known advocacy organization made it quite easy to crowdsource the data collection with the public. Aggregating the data on the decommemoration of Confederate memorials allows trends to emerge that can potentially help communities develop better strategies for memorial removal. For example, our data reveals that the de-commemoration of Confederate memorials is most likely to occur in the wake of a tragedy or a hate crime. Thus, data on de-commemoration points to the need for more sustained efforts at de-commemoration as opposed to the current model whereby communities engage in commemoration in reaction to a tragic event. Perhaps the most consequential decision we made was publishing our raw data, which includes names, geocoded location, dedication date, and sponsor, among other information. This was motivated, in part, by our organization’s commitment to transparency. Traditional scholarly publishing encourages academics to protect their data until their research has been published. Once it is made available, it is not protected by copyright, allowing others to legally use it to create competing reports and derivatives, hampering the original researcher’s own ability to claim credit for their research.12 We were not concerned with the fact that the published data could not be protected by copyright. Because our primary concern was seeing monuments removed, the organization did not need to worry about the financial or professional implications of making all our data publicly available on the Internet. In fact, we wanted others to use it to create their own reports, joining our efforts in educating the public about the history of Confederate memorials. And that is what happened—researchers and journalists have used it to conduct their own independent analysis of the data as well as visualizations.

Using Data to Change Narratives While publicizing our data helps journalists, scholars, and even members of the public tell new and engaging stories about why de-commemorating Confederate monuments matters, our in-house communications team supplements these efforts and crafts messaging that ensures the public understands how and why memorials’ origins are in hate and white supremacy. Through the Whose Heritage? reports, press releases, and editorial content, the SPLC publicizes its findings, carefully crafting simple narratives that help members of the general public easily grasp why Confederate memorials are deeply offensive and need to be removed from public space.

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Although Whose Heritage? reproduces and extends the data other scholars have collected, reinforcing arguments about why these should be decommemorated, the project has a broader reach than most scholarly books or articles. This is because the communications team uses multiple platforms, including websites, social media, television, radio, and print media. Polling data shows that 25 percent of voters trust online and digital media as sources of information about the Civil War. Communications experts at nonprofits know how to manipulate online and digital media in ways that allow their message about de-commemoration to reach the widest possible audience. For example, during a data drop on Confederate symbols in the military, Probolus provided data to the creative team, which created visuals for Instagram and gave the images to the social media strategist, whose post received 1,298 likes. The ability to quickly craft narratives for online and digital mediums allows nonprofits to target multiple audiences about the need to de-commemorate Confederate memorials. Aside from online and digital media, communications teams can use their contacts with the media to draw attention to de-commemoration.13 The first and second editions of the Whose Heritage? report attracted considerable coverage from local and national news outlets.14 Press releases are another tool communications teams can use. Since launching Whose Heritage?, the SPLC has published more than fifty press releases related to Confederate memorials. The communications team can use their contacts to target journalists and increase coverage; in August 2021, when the SPLC held a media advisory about schools named after Confederates, Kimberly Allen, the Senior Media Strategist for Confederate memorials at the SPLC, targeted journalists who covered education. Finally, reporters will often contact the SPLC for an interview about Confederate monuments and memorials. Communications strategists work with subject matter experts to review talking points and to stage mock interviews to ensure our messages about the de-commemoration of Confederate monuments are polished. Reports, press releases, and media advisories all provide scaffolding for journalists who can craft compelling stories centered on de-commemoration, educating the public about these symbols of hate and increasing support for their removal. The SPLC is not limited to relying on outside media outlets to help spread the word on Confederate memorials. Our editorial team crafts stories that ground our data in first-person narratives. To date, thirty-six “Features and Stories” have been published on the SPLC’s main website.15 Similarly, the SPLC’s Hatewatch blog, which monitors and exposes the activities of the American radical right, has posted thirty-five stories.16 Finally, the SPLC works across departments to find new ways to de-commemorate the Southern landscape. For example, the SPLC partnered with six different activist groups and sponsored billboards advocating for the removal of a Confederate memo-

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rial in their community. Season two of the SPLC’s podcast Sounds Like Hate featured Camille Bennett, an activist working to remove a Confederate monument from her hometown of Florence, Alabama. These projects humanize the data, transforming numbers into narratives that inspire communities to remove symbols of hate and white supremacy.

Conclusion While it is unclear the extent to which Whose Heritage? and the SPLC’s open-access initiative influenced public opinion—the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville and the murder of George Floyd undoubtedly informed the shift—education clearly promotes support for de-commemoration. The percentage of voters who believed Confederate monuments should be removed increased when they were told that these memorials were largely erected in response to Reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement, evidence that suggests people are open to changing their position on Confederate memorials once they are better informed about the issue.17 But there is still more work to be done. Today, 65 percent of Georgia voters believe “states’ rights” was a reason why the Civil War was fought, and 22 percent believe it was “mostly about states’ rights” (6 percent don’t even know why it was fought). The Civil War was fought over slavery—not states’ rights. The fact that so many people still believe this pernicious myth that erases the role white supremacy played in the Civil War reinforces the need for the de-commemoration of Confederate memorials. Moreover, 55 percent of voters support permitting Confederate monuments on public land. To challenge the effective misinformation campaign waged by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and facilitate the de-commemoration of the Southern landscape, nonprofits must take advantage of their media savvy, publicizing data and shaping narratives in ways that support the work of activists, organizers, and politicians working to create more fair, just, and equitable public spaces. Seth Levi is the chief strategy officer at the SPLC, where he oversees strategy for the SPLC Action Fund, the SPLC’s 501(c)(4) affiliate organization. This includes building out the Action Fund’s electioneering work and advocacy campaigns the that 501(c)(3) organizations are prohibited from conducting. Seth has worked across the organization to pilot new initiatives, including launching the SPLC’s Voting Rights practice group, its Policy Department, and the Action Fund. He previously worked as the director of strategic initiatives for an at-large Philadelphia city councilman. He also previously worked for Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell in a variety of capacities, including as

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deputy campaign manager. Levi has a bachelor’s degree in film studies from Cornell University, and a master’s degree in arts administration from Columbia University. Kimberly Probolus is a public historian who studies racial inequality in the United States. She received her PhD from the American Studies Department at George Washington University in 2019 and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in 2019–20. Winner of the Early Career Award from the European Society for the History of the Human Sciences and the Gerald R. Ford Dissertation Award from the Ford Library, her research focuses on how gifted and talented programs reinscribe the very inequalities Brown vs. Board of Education sought to dismantle. That work has been supported by grants from the LBJ Foundation, the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, the Jeffrey C. Kasch Foundation, and the Rockefeller Archives Center. As a public historian, Kimberly is committed to writing for broad audiences and has published in the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Journal of Urban History, The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, a textbook for secondary school students, and the award-winning Black Perspectives blog. She also teaches a class on public history in Washington, DC, and is passionate about bringing history to bear on issues of contemporary consequence.

Notes 1. Micki McElya, “Commemorating the Color Line: The National Mammy Monument Controversy of the 1920s,” in Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory, ed. Cynthia J. Mills and Pamela H. Simpson (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2019), p. 205. 2. John Winberry, “‘Lest We Forget’: The Confederate Monument and the Southern Townscape,” Southeastern Geographer 55, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 19–31. 3. Karen L. Cox, Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2019). 4. The National Council of Nonprofits notes that while there are different tax-exempt organizations in the United States, “the one common condition is not paying out profits.” In practice, “America’s 1.3 million charitable nonprofits feed, heal, shelter, educate, inspire, enlighten, and nurture people of every age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status. . . . They foster civic engagement and leadership, drive economic growth, and strengthen the fabric of our communities.” The Southern Poverty Law Center is a 501(c)(3). See “What is a Nonprofit?,” National Council of Nonprofits, accessed 4 October 2021, https:// www.councilofnonprofits.org/what-is-a-nonprofit. For more information on the SPLC’s nonprofit status, see “Financial Information,” Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 6 October 2021, https://www.splcenter.org/about/financial-information.

246 • Seth Levi and Kimberly Probolus 5. See “Contested Histories in Public Spaces,” Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation, accessed 28 September 2021, https://ihjr.org/ethics-and-legacy/; and “Community Remembrance Project,” Equal Justice Initiative, accessed 28 September 2021, https://eji .org/projects/community-remembrance-project/. 6. See “The Monuments Project: Our Commemorative Landscape,” The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, accessed 28 September 2021, https://mellon.org/initiatives/monuments/. 7. For example, National Geographic published a longform article on Confederate memorials based on data supplied by the SPLC. Robert Draper, “Toppling Statues Is a First Step Toward Ending Confederate Myths,” National Geographic, 2 July 2020, accessed 28 September 20121, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/ toppling-statues-is-first-step-toward-ending-confederate-myths. 8. Even today, more historical scholarship discusses the Lost Cause than African Americans’ de-commemoration efforts. Within the broad literature on Confederate memorials, see especially David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001); Sanford Levinson, Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018); and Ty Seidule, Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020). Karen Cox’s most recent book, however, addresses how Black activists have worked to de-commemorate monuments and challenged the Confederate battle flag. See Karen L. Cox, No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2021). 9. This chapter follows historian Seth Bruggeman’s description of monuments and memorials. According to Bruggeman, monument “usually refers to a commemorative structure or edifice, whereas ‘memorial’ applies to almost anything—including buildings, books, roads, stadiums—that recalls the dead or the experience of profound loss. The Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, D.C., is also a monument, because the structure itself functions as a well of national regard for Lincoln’s sacrifice and vision. Across town, however, only sports fans likely consider the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium a monument. Its tribute to Kennedy’s memory is in name alone.” Bruggeman notes that these categories are fluid, but they offer a useful guideline for differentiating between physical objects and anything else that commemorates a person or idea. See Seth Bruggeman, “Memorials and Monuments,” The Inclusive Historian’s Handbook, 18 July 2019, accessed 28 September 2021, https://inclusivehistorian.com/memorials-and-monuments/. 10. For more information, see “Holmes v. Hunt,” Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 6 October 2021, https://www.splcenter.org/seeking-justice/case-docket/holmes-v-hunt. 11. Initially we decided to omit memorials on private land because we did not think there was any advocacy that could get them taken down, as well as ones on battle fields and in cemeteries because at the time we thought there was a valid argument that these were largely about honoring dead soldiers rather than glorifying the Confederacy. 12. Broadly speaking, the compiled data in a list or database cannot be copyrighted (see Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co.). This would highly likely be the case with our database of Confederate memorials—only our commentary and analysis on the data would be covered by copyright, as well as “creative” arrangements of the data, such as visualizations. 13. In the extensive scholarship on the role the media played in advancing the Civil Rights movement, see especially Aniko Bodroghkozy, Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012); and Matthew F. Delmont, Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016).

The Role of Nonprofits in De-Commemoration • 247 14. See “Whose Heritage?,” Southern Poverty Law Center, last modified 1 February 2019, https://www.splcenter.org/20190201/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy. See also “Whose Heritage?: Public Symbols of the Confederacy,” Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 6 October 2021, https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/com_whose_ heritage.pdf. 15. For the past three years, all SPLC “news” has received over one million page views per year. 16. Last year, Hatewatch had more than three million visitors. 17. Tulchin Research, Georgia Statewide Polling: Confederate Memorials, San Francisco, 17–22 August 2021.

Bibliography Blight, David W. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001. Bodroghkozy, Aniko. Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012. Bruggeman, Seth. “Memorials and Monument.” The Inclusive Historian’s Handbook, 18 July 2019. https://inclusivehistorian.com/memorials-and-monuments/. Cox, Karen L. Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture. 2nd ed. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2019. Delmont, Matthew F. Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation. Oakland: University of California Press, 2016. Draper, Robert. “Toppling Statues Is a First Step Toward Ending Confederate Myths.” National Geographic, 2 July 2020. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/ toppling-statues-is-first-step-toward-ending-confederate-myths. Levinson, Sanford. Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. McElya, Micki. “Commemorating the Color Line: The National Mammy Monument Controversy of the 1920s.” In Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory, edited by Cynthia J. Mills and Pamela H. Simpson, 203–18. 2nd ed. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2019. Seidule, Ty. Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020. Winberry, John. “‘Lest We Forget’: The Confederate Monument and the Southern Townscape.” Southeastern Geographer 55, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 19–31.

Part IV

DE-COMMEMORATION AS SMOKE SCREEN

Chapter 25

DE-COMMEMORATION WITHOUT DECOLONIZATION? The Peculiar Case of the Philippines Lila Ramos Shahani

8 In this chapter, I examine how forms of protest against the legacies and continuing effects of colonial rule—most recently enunciated by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement all over the world—apply to developing countries like the Philippines. Having been variously colonized by Spain and the United States (with brief forays by Britain and Japan), the Philippines has primarily privileged Spanish Catholicism and American formal education, as well as Tagalog (“Filipino”) and Visayan languages, cultures, and notions of “nation.” The country’s recognition of its geographic position in the maritime crossroads of Southeast Asia comes belatedly, with greater lip service now being paid to regional linkages in terms of economic policy and education. Still, it remains difficult to speak of de-commemoration when the country has yet to effectively decolonize on a number of symbolic registers.

A Brief History of Colonial Erasure Precolonial societies in the archipelago were linguistically plural and composed of segmented groupings without centralized clusters or state structures.1 This suggests there was neither the technology nor the social need for monumental sites.2 Despite this, sacred sites and vernacular architecture

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did exist, although many were subjected to colonial and metropolitan erasure, remaining largely undervalued or unrecognized altogether.3 At the same time, intangible heritage in the form of rituals, as well as ornamental and functional traditions—such as chants, scripts, games, weaving, jewelry- and weapon-making, tattooing, and decorative dentistry, many of which focus on the body as the bearer of status—have continued to flourish. The building of monuments and sites was a much later phenomenon, with traceable influences from Islamic, Chinese, Spanish, American, and Japanese architecture. Islamic sultanates, established in the southern part of the archipelago from the thirteenth century onward, were followed by 350 years of Spanish rule (1565–1898), with Augustinian friars and others orchestrating the construction of churches and cathedrals. The Catholic majority rarely saw Islamic architecture (e.g., mosques and the homes of sultans) as being part of what would eventually be seen as the Filipino nation. Indeed, although the 1987 Constitution designated Spanish as an “optional” rather than official language, the continuing power of the Spanish Catholic Church remains undeniable, leading to critical contradictions in the spirit and practice of Philippine law.4 For instance, despite its exhortations on the absence of a state religion, inviolable separation of church and state, and importance of religious tolerance and inclusivity, the “Almighty God” invoked in the first line of its preamble is clearly a Christian reference.5 Indeed, the Catholic “inculturation” of the Philippine public sphere is fairly obvious. This has had pernicious consequences: while the law treats intentional attacks against religious buildings and facilities as war crimes, the rehabilitation of the primarily Muslim city of Marawi, bombed by ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) in 2017 and resulting in the destruction of twenty-five mosques (including the tragic displacement of over 120,000 people), has been laboriously slow. Sadly, the Philippine Registry of Cultural Property for the entire Bangsamoro recognizes a woefully small number of Islamic heritage sites, most of which have severely deteriorated as a result of political conflict, ecological damage, and sluggish state investment in their restoration.6 Another tragic irony, in turn, is true: long before the Marawi siege, many Islamic clerics have remained scornful of indigenous Maranao and other folk cultures, encouraging the systemic destruction of pre-Islamic texts and practices. These forms of cultural erasure contributed to a general refusal to challenge Catholicism and the decadence of some members of its church hierarchy, which has meant that Catholic monuments have remained intact and are deemed sacrosanct to this day. This may help explain the persistence of inequality (both socioeconomic and symbolic) in the country; it also highlights how critical inquiry—certainly with respect to historical and cultural canons, such as Christian symbols—is strongly discouraged in favor of submission and obeisance. And if being “civilized” under Spanish rule implied

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the twin imperative of erasure and religious conversion, one might argue that it was under the Americans (1898–1941 and 1945–46) that “modernization” was seen as being synonymous with Westernization itself. In this new colonial context, the abstract and foundational language of “liberty” in the United States shifted to more concrete terms related to returns on investment, and what would later be described as “development.” After the 1898 ceding by Spain of the Philippines to the United States, American aesthetics flourished in urban architecture and public spaces. Most noteworthy, perhaps, were Daniel Burnham’s plans for Manila and Baguio (following the “City Beautiful” movements in San Francisco, Chicago, and elsewhere), as well as a number of neo-classical and art deco buildings by American and Filipino architects. This era also saw the construction of critical infrastructures and institutions, such as government buildings, ports, forts, bridges, roads, housing, and prisons. But monuments to US colonial figures like General Douglas MacArthur and others were erected well after American rule in large part because they apparently had little intention of staying in the colony for long. Instead, they chose to monumentalize major Filipino heroes, such as Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio. In contrast to religious conversion, the strategy of the American colonial (and early capitalist) project consisted of domesticating and containing Filipino elites. Indeed, the most pertinent feature of this period was the establishment of a secularized public school system and the use of English as a medium of instruction, an effective tool in eliciting collaboration. In comparison, the horrors of the Japanese Occupation (1942–45) have tended to resist memorialization altogether.7 The state-sponsored dismantling of a comfort woman statue and historical marker—honoring one of a thousand or more Filipino women (among approximately two hundred thousand others of various nationalities)8 coerced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during the war—along Manila’s Roxas Boulevard in 2018 was followed by the removal later that year of another statue in a women’s shelter in Laguna (south of Manila), taken down a mere two days after its unveiling. The absence of a consistent public outcry against these removals must be seen in the larger context of a collective indifference to Japanese memorials (gardens and shrines honoring the dead and Filipino-Japanese friendship) that proliferate all over the country. Even more troubling are erections of statues and a museum honoring Kamikaze pilots in Mabalacat, Pampanga (north of Manila). To date, no official historical marker has corrected or expanded upon this glorification of Japanese rule, and the only remaining memorials tracing the ordeals faced by Filipino comfort women are an obscure historical marker in Manila erected in 2003 and a statue of two women on private property in Panay (central Philippines).9 To what do we attribute these glaring historical erasures? I would argue that the heady rhetoric of decolonization, while initially empowering, has

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had limited impact on the overall acceptance of colonial history in the Philippines. This is in large part because the conditions enabling the emergence of a Filipino “nation” were largely predicated upon (and determined by) the colonization of the archipelago by Spain, the United States, and Japan. The restoration of monuments depicting imperial, religious, and national prestige by cultural gatekeepers in and outside government amply demonstrates that colonial values and standards, particularly those of Spain and the United States, remain deeply imbricated in public consciousness. It also points to the collaboration of Filipino elites with colonial and other forms of oppression. So, how is the contemporary search for a national identity to be defined beyond the merely “anti-clerical,” “anti-Spanish,” “anti-American,” “antiJapanese,” or “anti-colonial”? What are the ideological moorings underpinning the conventional urge to merely archive objects and add to collections according to an accepted nationalist narrative that ultimately accommodates, rather than opposes, colonial rule? Admittedly, the most celebrated form of political iconoclasm in the twentieth century, along with a great deal of protest art and literature during and after the dictatorship of President Ferdinand E. Marcos (1965–86), was the 2002 destruction of a large, concrete bust of the strongman in Benguet province (northern Philippines), attributed to the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army. This was foreshadowed by the storming of the Presidential Palace upon the ousting of Marcos in 1986. But these forms of violent resistance to symbolic oppression are relatively rare. Today, almost all UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the Philippines representing “built” (and not “natural”) heritage continue to represent the concerns and histories of colonial and social elites. Indeed, very few monuments and sites explicitly commemorate colonial incarceration and oppression. The majority depict patriots deemed to be “heroic” precisely because they overcame (rather than suffered under or submitted to) colonial oppression. Similarly, sites celebrating those who resisted the Marcos dictatorship have received much wider recognition than those where an untold number of human rights violations took place. What we see, then, is the almost artificial crafting of a heroic sense of identity, where dominant historical narratives (primarily sponsored by the state) have been repurposed for nation-building.

Remapping Postcolonial Memory In view of the relative paucity of monuments in the Philippines, a careful reexamination of official historical markers in former colonial sites—instead of outright iconoclasm—may be warranted. This symbolic decolonization could include plazas and churches built during Spanish rule, as well as the

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Legaspi-Urdaneta monument honoring Miguel López de Legazpi (who conquered Cebu and Manila) erected in Manila by the Americans (1900–1902). Certainly, a scrutiny of monuments and sites honoring Japan is long overdue. Beyond monuments, the commemoration of Magellan’s “discovery” of, and voyage around, parts of the archipelago by the National Historical Commission could include a discussion of the violent displacements that took place under colonial rule. Finally, celebrations of the Galleon trade (1565–1815 in Manila) could commemorate not only the Spanish and Mexican merchants who benefitted from it but also the Chinese traders and Filipino laborers who made the entire enterprise possible. If decolonization is to be more than cosmetic, it will have to map precolonial sites, those representing colonial oppression (and not just their contestation), and native dispossession. Possible memorials include living heritage sites inhabited by Indigenous groups that were almost fully decimated by colonial rule, as well as Islamic, folk Catholic, and Protestant sites. For colonial history, one might consider Spanish prison outposts used for political dissidents; US concentration camps in Batangas (south of Manila) and elsewhere during the Filipino-American War; and the Bahay na Pula (Red House) in Bulacan (north of Manila), one among many stations where Filipino women and children were held as “sex slaves” during the Japanese Occupation in World War II. Equally, official historical markers could be revised to begin conveying multiple (and often contested) interpretations of history. Another critical line of inquiry would be who and what are deemed worthy of memorialization. This further suggests the need for a broader conversation about the possibility of diversifying representation to include such minorities as Indigenous peoples, non-Catholic religious and animist denominations, anti-clerical groups, the urban and rural poor, and figures from the LGBTQ+ communities. Here the 2018 memorial marker for Kian de los Santos in Caloocan, Manila, honoring the memory of the murdered teen and other victims among the urban poor in Duterte’s “war on drugs,” is a critical start. It should be noted, however, that the Philippines, like several Asian countries, does not generally emulate Western forms of metaphorical patricide (except in modern and contemporary art). Instead of Oedipal impulses to overturn the colonial/political father, one observes in much of the unexamined colonial symbolism a kind of logic of addition—one of continuous accretion, if you will—as opposed to subtraction altogether. There is thus an almost reactionary assertion, rather than a dialectical unhinging, of power relations. This is largely because the de-commemoration of monuments often comes from above (with the notable exception of anti-Marcos gestures) rather than from subaltern origins. Indeed, ethnolinguistic cultures throughout the archipelago are hardly “monumental” in their material expression. They rarely revolve around the

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bronze and marble statues that have dominated the visual rhetoric surrounding the BLM movement all over the world. Instead, the language of anticolonial (and anti-state) subversion has tended to be more subtle, located in such spaces and practices as the chanting of the Christian Passion,10 folk Catholicism, vernacular theater, and, most recently, in art and literature. A compelling example of protest art is a 1992 painting by Manuel Ocampo featuring a grotesque cabal of figures holding hands under a map of the world with the words “Why I Hate Europeans” emblazoned over their heads. At the bottom of the painting is a reference to “Sani-White,” a whitening product used to whiten nurses’ shoes, alluding to the whitewashing of colonial violence. Pio Abad’s multimedia pieces on the Marcos dictatorship also stand out, such as The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders project (2014– ).11 But it is perhaps Mideo M. Cruz, with his condom-wearing Jesus (2011) and portrait of a gun-toting Duterte photoshopped onto the image of the Sacred Heart (2017), whose creative force is most striking. If these works are primarily appreciated by educated elites, one can also look at the social protests during the State of the Nation Addresses (SONAs) of various Philippine presidents for more democratic forms of expression. From the 1970s onward, protestors have rallied against foreign (primarily US, Japanese, and Chinese) interference, as well as state-sponsored dictatorship, corruption, and violations of human rights. But state censorship during the Duterte administration (where political opponents like the Aquino family,12 the urban and rural poor, and women in the opposition have been subjected to routine harassment) has led to a palpable sense of fear, significantly quashing dissent. While the absence of a BLM movement in the country is understandable, given the relatively small number of Black people (and other people of color) in the country, many Filipinos continue to harbor xenophobic and colorist sentiments toward Chinese, Indian, Muslim, Indigenous, and other minorities. Moreover, the relationship between Filipinos and Filipino Americans has remained tenuous at best, in large part because Filipino concerns have less to do with symbolic oppression than pressing material needs. Educational policy would therefore do well to incorporate notions of inclusivity in official pedagogic practices to help counteract the general indifference of hegemonic groups to those dispossessed on account of their race, culture, class, gender, and sexuality. Under the right conditions, we might even see greater attention to a commemoration of injustice that will move away from the state’s continuing preoccupation with the heroism and historical lineage of a select few and toward cultural policies that welcome a more expansive definition of Philippine heritage.

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Figure 25.1. LordDigs, by Mideo M. Cruz, 2017. Source: Mideo M. Cruz. Used with permission.

258 • Lila Ramos Shahani

Lila Ramos Shahani is an Expert and Associate Member of two International Scientific Committees of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS): the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites (ICIP) and Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICICH). She is the former SecretaryGeneral of the Philippine National Commission to UNESCO. Under her leadership and in collaboration with other experts, her team managed to garner four UNESCO designations for the country: in Intangible Cultural Heritage, Memory of the World, and Creative Cities. In 2019, she chose to step down because of ethical concerns related to the policies and practices of the Duterte administration. Lila served in the Philippine government for a total of thirteen years under three presidential administrations. As Assistant Secretary, she worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs, Human Development and Poverty Reduction Cabinet Cluster (twenty-six agencies dealing with poverty and development), Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, and National Anti-Poverty Commission. She was also Deputy Director of the Humanities Museum, Cultural Center of the Philippines. She has been adjunct faculty of the University of the Philippines, Ateneo School of Government, and Asian Institute of Management. Prior to this, she did editorial, research, policy, and communications work for Oxford University Press and the United Nations (UNICEF and UNDP) in New York.

Notes 1. Scott suggests precolonial societies generally derived from common Austronesian roots, with borrowings from Sanskrit and Cantonese/Hookien loan words. (Scott, Prehispanic Source Materials). For this section, I have drawn from the following works: Patricio Abinales and Donna Amoroso, State and Society in the Philippines, rev. ed. (Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2016); Teodoro Agoncillo, A History of the Filipino People, 8th ed. (Manila: University of the Philippines, 1990); Harold Conklin, Ethnographic Atlas of Ifugao (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980); Prospero Covar, Larangan: Seminal Essays on Philippine Culture (Manila: National Commission on Culture and the Arts, 1998); Renato Constantino and Leticia Constantino, The Philippines: A Past Revisited (Manila: Renato Constantino, 1975); Vicente L. Rafael, “Colonial Contractions: the Modern Philippines, 1565–1946,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018); and William H. Scott, Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History (Manila: University of Santo Tomas, 1968), among others. 2. I owe this insight to Vicente L. Rafael (personal communication, 2021), based on his reading of Scott, Prehispanic Source Materials. 3. Florentino H. Hornedo, Taming the Wind: Ethno-Cultural History on the Ivatan of the Batanes Isles (Manila: University of Santo Tomas, 2000). 4. Republic of the Philippines, “Philippine Constitution of 1987,” 5 October 2022.

De-Commemoration without Decolonization? • 259 5. Raul C. Pangalangan, “National Report for the Philippines,” in Religion and the Secular State: National Reports, ed. Javier Martínez-Torrón and W. Cole Durham, Jr. (Madrid: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad Complutense, 2015). 6. Bangsamoro is an autonomous and primarily Muslim region in the southern part of the Philippines. 7. Ricardo T. José, “War and Violence, History and Memory: The Philippine Experience of the Second World War,” Asian Journal of Social Science 29, no. 3 (2001): 457–70. 8. Larry Niksch, “Memorandum Providing Background concerning the System of ‘Comfort Women’ Organized by the Japanese Military during the 1930s and 1940s” (a study instrumental in the crafting of US House of Representatives Resolution 121 of 2007), Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 10 April 2006, https://www.awf .or.jp/pdf/h0076.pdf. 9. It was installed in 2019 in the family property of feminist activist Nelia Sancho in Caticlan (Aklan), Panay. 10. Reynaldo Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Uprisings in the Philippines, 1840–1910 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press, 1979). 11. According to the artist, “Jane Ryan and William Saunders were the false identities used by the [Marcos] couple to register their account with Credit Suisse Zurich in 1968, the first of many accounts that enabled them to transform $10 billion from the Philippine treasury into private wealth.” Pio Abad, “The Collection of Jan Ryan and William Saunders,” accessed 14 April 2023, https://www.pioabad.com/ the-collection-of-jane-ryan-and-william-saunders. 12. This refers to the Aquino family in the Philippines, namely Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. (1967–72); President Corazon “Cory” C. Aquino (1986–92); and President Benigno “Noynoy” S. Aquino, III (2010–16). Examples of historical revisionism related to them during the Duterte administration include the clandestine burial of President Ferdinand E. Marcos (1965–86) in the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Cemetery of Heroes) in Manila; the lack of official support for the annual People Power anniversary (22–25 February 1986) that had ousted the dictator; and the ongoing invisibility of martial law atrocities in school textbooks and curricula.

Bibliography Abinales, Patricio, and Donna Amoroso. State and Society in the Philippines. Rev. ed. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2016. Acabado, Stephen. “A Bayesian Approach to Dating Agricultural Terraces: A Case from the Philippines.” Antiquity 83 no. 321 (2009): 801–14. Agoncillo, Teodoro. A History of the Filipino People. 8th ed. Manila: University of the Philippines, 1990. Conklin, Harold. Ethnographic Atlas of Ifugao. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. Constantino, Renato, and Leticia Constantino. The Philippines: A Past Revisited. Manila: Renato Constantino, 1975. Covar, Prospero. Larangan: Seminal Essays on Philippine Culture. Manila: National Commission on Culture and the Arts, 1998. Hornedo, Florentino H. Taming the Wind: Ethno-Cultural History on the Ivatan of the Batanes Isles. Manila: University of Santo Tomas, 2000.

260 • Lila Ramos Shahani Ileto, Reynaldo. Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Uprisings in the Philippines, 1840–1910. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1979. José, Ricardo T. “War and Violence, History and Memory: The Philippine Experience of the Second World War.” Asian Journal of Social Science 29, no. 3 (2001): 457–70. May, Natalie N., ed. Iconoclasm and Text Destruction in the Ancient Near East and Beyond. Illinois: University of Chicago, Oriental Institute, 2001. Mojares, Resil. Brains of the Nation: Pedro Paterno, T. H. Pardo de Tavera, Isabelo de Los Reyes, and the Production of Modern Knowledge. Manila: Ateneo University Press, 2006. Pangalangan, Raul. “National Report for the Philippines.” In Religion and the Secular State: National Reports, edited by Javier Martínez-Torrón and W. Cole Durham, Jr. Madrid: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad Complutense, 2015. Platt, Verity. Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature and Religion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Rafael, Vicente L. “Colonial Contractions: The Modern Philippines, 1565–1946.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Republic of the Philippines. “Philippines Constitution of 1987.” 5 October 2022. https:// www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Philippines_1987.pdf?lang=en. ———. “Republic Act 10066.” Accessed 14 April 2023. https://ncca.gov.ph/republic-actno-10066. Scott, William H. Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History. Manila: University of Santo Tomas, 1968.

Chapter 26

TWICE REMOVED The Mystery of Manila’s Missing Comfort Woman Monument Catherine Lianza Aquino and Jocelyn S. Martin

8 When Japan rampaged across Asia during World War II, it also waged a war on women. From 1937 to 1945, around four hundred thousand women and girls, some as young as nine years old, were subjected to relentless rape, mutilation, physical abuse, starvation, and other horrors in “comfort stations” legally created by the Imperial Army.1 Today, these girls are known as “comfort women.” Those who survived continue to demand justice for themselves and for those who perished during the war. Their fight for redress began when sixty-seven-year-old Korean Kim Hak Sun publicly came forward in 1991 to speak about her life in a comfort station. She inspired hundreds of other “grandmothers” to share their own harrowing accounts, to pressure the Japanese government to issue official apologies and financial compensation for themselves and their families, and to organize antimilitary sexual slavery advocacy groups to ensure that genderand sex-based violence will never become a tool for warfare ever again. The transnational nature of this movement cannot be denied. The former “comfort women” and their supporters have shared their testimonies with United Nations commissions, international, and national courts. Memorials of girls in chima jeogori (a traditional Korean woman’s clothing) representing the comfort women’s younger selves sit in Berlin, San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto, Shanghai, Seoul, and even Okinawa. Korea’s “Wednesday Demonstration Demanding Japan to Redress the Comfort Women Problems” has

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also seen generations of Koreans and tourists march to the Japanese embassy in Seoul every Wednesday without fail since 1992.2 The Japanese government’s handling of the “comfort women” issue has been extremely controversial. Numerous cases of Japanese wartime rape were raised as early as the 1946–48 International Military Tribunal for the Far East, but none of its reparations for formerly occupied nations have officially accounted for military sexual slavery. The Japanese citizen-financed Asian Women’s Fund for former “comfort women” was created in 1991, but many “grandmothers” refused to accept these donations since they were privately funded instead of coming from the Japanese government. Several Japanese officials have also personally apologized to the “comfort women” via letters and speeches.3 But for many grandmothers, Japan must pay official reparations to crimes of military sexual slavery specifically (as opposed to the umbrella of all Japanese World War II atrocities) and include the realities of the comfort stations in their history school books.4 Moreover, the Japanese government still rejects the United Nations-sanctioned categorization of comfort women’s experiences as an issue of sexual slavery. Also, within Japan are “revisionist forces, determined to defend the honor of the wartime Imperial military, [insisting] stubbornly that Japanese soldiers did not forcibly recruit comfort women, who, they claimed, were either volunteers or paid ‘professionals.’”5 Nevertheless, Japan’s unsatisfactory response has spurred the “comfort women” and their allies to pursue justice, especially with more elderly grandmothers passing away each year. In the Philippines, only six lolas (grandmothers) remain. With LILA Pilipina, the Philippines’ foremost organization of comfort women and their supporters, these surviving lolas have led rallies, petitions, lawsuits, and cultural projects against Japan. Among the most important focus of their memorializing efforts is the bronze comfort woman statue by Jonas Roces that once stood in front of the Japanese embassy in Roxas Boulevard, Manila. Tulay Foundation—a humanitarian Filipino-Chinese nongovernmental organization—commissioned the $20,500 statue in February 2015 during the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Japanese occupation. Unfortunately, it stood for only five months. It was removed by the Philippine government upon the demand of the Japanese embassy. Further, around September 2019, unknown men allegedly stole the dismantled statue, which was never to be seen again. Sadly, it was the only Philippine National Historical Institute-approved comfort women memorial. This chapter illustrates this process of de-commemoration within the power play of memory politics. We call such memory power play mnemonic articulation and memory entrepreneurship. We draw the idea of articulation from Stuart Hall to describe the ways in which one is positioned by and how one positions others within the shifting powers in socio-politico-cultural rela-

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Figure 26.1. The missing comfort woman statue where it once stood across from the Japanese embassy on Roxas Boulevard. Photo by Angie de Silva for Rappler, 26 December 2017. Used with permission.

tions. Mnemonic articulation depends on memory entrepreneurs, who “play a vital role in anchoring official collective memory . . . in conjunction with the press, government bodies, educational institutions, and other actors.”6 Mnemonic articulation thus indicates how memory, politics, and practices travel and thrive within cultural and historical hegemonic agents. Ultimately, we argue that, in the current discourse of mnemonic articulation, Philippine President Duterte’s government and official Japanese authorities hold the hegemonic upper hand to the detriment of the lolas. The statue’s disappearance thus signifies an attempt at repressive forgetting.7 Thanks to civic organizations and artists who produce “portable monuments,”8 the mnemonic power game, however, may be balanced.

A Twice-Removed Statue The seven-feet-tall bronze statue depicts a blindfolded woman clutching a panuelo (a shawl) tightly to her chest. Her legs and bare feet are exposed by a tear in her dress that splits the lower half of the skirt right between her knees—a possible indicator of sexual violence. According to Roces, the blindfold symbolizes “injustice or the continuous desire for justice,” referencing

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the idiom “justice is blind” and the Japanese government’s refusal to give an official apology. In contrast, the cadena de amor (coral vine) flowers around the skirt “stands for the [comfort women’s] resilience.”9 Finally, Roces positioned the effigy against Manila Bay’s sunset as a symbol of defiance against Japan, which is commonly known as the “Land of the Rising Sun.”10 Although the artist completed the project in 2015 after interviewing the lolas, the monument was only erected two years later on 8 December 2017, once the Tulay Foundation and its affiliated Chinese-Filipino organization Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran (hereafter Kaisa) secured the National Historical Institute’s (NHCP) endorsement under the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009. This approval was intended to safeguard the statue against “intentional destruction, demolition, mutilation, damage, modification, and alteration,” and prohibits any construction within five meters of the sculpture “without the prior written permission” from the NHCP.11 Both Philippine and Japanese government officials were not pleased with the statue’s inauguration. After the memorial’s 8 December unveiling, the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) asked Manila City Hall to provide information on the monument’s erection via a letter labelled “EXTREMELY URGENT” dated 12 December.12 Japanese Minister Seiko Noda told President Duterte that it was “regrettable for this kind of statue to suddenly appear.”13 Afterward, Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Cayetano added that the statue jeopardized Philippine-Japanese relations by “bringing up things that . . . are settled.” According to Cayetano, if the intention “is just to honor [the comfort women] . . . that’s okay.” However, if such act “anger[s] people, that’s [a] concern.”14 On 20 April 2018, a Komatsu backhoe and tractor were photographed next to the memorial. Under the guise of improving the bay walk area and fixing drainage for flood control, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) “temporarily” removed the statue.15 However, in the year that followed, the DPWH made no efforts to reinstall the statue, which had been stored in Jonas Roces’s studio, hidden from the public eye for a year and five months until its complete disappearance. Around August 2019, the statue was allegedly stolen. Kaisa was about to reinstall it at the Baclaran Redemptorist Church when Jonas Roces confirmed that “men came to his workshop and took the statue away.” Such “men,” Roces claimed, came from Manila City Hall and the DPWH. However, upon Kaisa’s founding president Teresa Ang See’s attempt at confirmation, Roces suddenly “refused to take [their] calls,” “scared [of ] ‘those’ threatening him.”16 Nevertheless, several cause-oriented organizations (including Kaisa, Tulay Foundation, GabrielaWomen’s Party, LILA Pilipina, Wha Chi Descendants, Memorare Manila, and many others) who had come together

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Figure 26.2. The comfort woman memorial’s unveiling in Baclaran Redemptorist Church. Lola Estelita and Lola Narcisa, two former comfort women, stand on either side of it, 25 August 2019. Photo taken by Atty Dennis Gorecho (flowers4lolas campaign) and published in Tulay: Fortnightly Filipino-Chinese Digest. Used with permission.

to create the flowers4lolas campaign out of shared concern for the statue’s removal and disappearance then mounted a marker for the missing comfort woman monument in Baclaran Redemptorist Church on 25 August 2019. In lieu of the statue was a tall steel frame with tarpaulins on all four sides with a picture of the missing edifice, photographs of some Filipina comfort women, and the words “JUSTICE for COMFORT WOMEN!” The memorial plaque leans on an empty black stone pedestal that resembles the original effigy, calling attention to its missing figure. The pedestal has a large stripe of broken colorful mosaic tiles and tessellate images of the Japanese occupation and wartime violence, channeling the comfort women’s pain. According to Kaisa, the tiles “[symbolize] the broken lives of many lolas . . . made whole and beautiful again because of their courage to share their experiences and tragedies, and the world’s efforts to recognize and honor . . . their struggle for justice.”17 Neither the Japanese nor Philippine governments have commented on this memorial. These events, however, need to be contextualized within the Philippines’ and Japan’s economic and political relationships, past and present.

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Mnemonic Articulation and Portable Monuments as Afterlives The Philippines’ dependence on Japan officially began in 1956, when both countries signed the Reparations Agreement, promising that Japan would give the Philippines $550 million worth of goods and services in restitution for World War II. These goods and services took the form of cash, telecommunication modernization, and, during dictator Ferdinand Marcos’s regime, massive infrastructure and road projects such as the Philippine-Japan Friendship Highway, the longest highway in the entire Philippines. Since then, Japan has granted the Philippines trillions of dollars’ worth of livelihood and professional training; natural disaster preparedness projects and equipment; bridges; and thousands of kilometers of national road construction and rehabilitation with the intent of supporting “the Philippines’ aspiration for sustained economic growth.”18 Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte signed the “Japan-Philippines Joint Statement On Bilateral Cooperation for the Next Five Years” with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in October 2017— shortly before the comfort women statue’s unveiling. This agreement—which promised to provide the Philippines one trillion yen for Duterte’s “BuildBuild-Build” infrastructure program, the under-construction Metro Manila Subway, Duterte’s antidrug campaign, and his other presidential goals (Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs 2017)—compounded with the Philippines’ long-standing dependence on Japan, likely prompted the Philippine government to remove the comfort women memorial. In our example, mnemonic articulation is played by the different transnational mnemonic entrepreneurs who, positively or negatively, relate to one another: Korean grandmothers, the lolas of the Philippines, civil movements, Jonas Roces, the National Historical Commission, embassies, governments, and even mysterious snatchers. On the one hand, the statue’s double removal resembles repressive forgetting, which, enforced through “structural violence,” “creates a cultural frame of power that allows some voices to be heard while others are notoriously silenced.”19 On the other hand, since cultural hegemony “is never about pure victory or pure domination [but] always about shifting the balance of power,”20 counter mnemonic entrepreneurs in art and literature may balance articulative play. The lolas’ stories are memorialized in books such as Comfort Woman: A Filipina’s Story of Prostitution and Slavery under the Japanese Military (1999) by Maria Rosa Henson, the first Filipina comfort woman to come forward, and My Mother Is More than a Comfort Woman (2021), a trilingual (English-Tagalog-Japanese) anthology by four Filipina daughters of “comfort women.” Equally paying tribute to the lolas’ memories are animated short films such as Lola Loleng (2016); “In the Spaces We Mend,” a 2019 student-curated exhibit at Ateneo de Manila University; and Nana Rosa (2019), a play written by

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Rody Vera based on Comfort Woman. Literary and artistic texts are what Ann Rigney calls “portable monuments” that play a role “in arousing interest in histories which are not one’s own,”21 thus allowing the possibility of empathy. Today, while many monuments of former (male) imperialists are being taken down all over the world, ironically, in Manila, the double removal of the comfort woman statue sadly indicates a prevailing macho, institutional status quo that is a transnational and state-imposed, top-down de-commemoration as a way to erase the disputed past from both public space and debates. But, from another perspective, the missing statue provoked a displaced commemoration of the comfort woman through the portable monuments of the arts and the protesters on the streets. Ironically, the emptied space on Roxas Boulevard does not exactly correspond to a forgetting but rather to a repressed memory. Like a trauma, like a haunting, the comfort woman story is, in Freudian terms, “acted out” or “repeated” in these displaced commemorations, trying to legitimize narration elsewhere. Catherine Lianza Aquino is a Filipino author, graphic novelist, and former grade schoolteacher of Philippine history. She is currently pursuing an Erasmus Mundus International master’s degree in children’s literature, media, and culture with the University of Glasgow, Aarhus University, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Tilburg University, Wroclaw University, and University of British Columbia. https://cataquino.net. Jocelyn S. Martin is Associate Professor in the English Department of the Ateneo de Manila University, where she teaches and researches on Memory, Postcolonial, and Translation Studies; climate fiction; and political listening. She has published in several peer-reviewed journals and, in early 2020, was Zumkehr Lecturer for the University of Ohio. Holder of a PhD in langues et lettres from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Jocelyn is an Advisory Board member of the Memory Studies Association. She is currently based in Angers, France.

Notes 1. Peipei Qiu, Su Zhiliang, and Chen Lifei, Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves (London: Oxford University Press, 2014). 2. Jihwan Yoon and Derek H. Alderman, “When Memoryscapes Move: ‘Comfort Women’ Memorials as Transnational,” in The Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place, ed. Sarah de Nardi, Hilary Orange, Steven High, and Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto, 119–28. (London: Routledge, 2019).

268 • Catherine Lianza Aquino and Jocelyn S. Martin 3. Julie McCarthy, “Philippine ‘Comfort Women’: Demanding Justice from Japan for WWII Sexual Slavery,” NPR, 4 December 2020. 4. LILA Pilipina, “For the Japanese Government,” Movement for the Lolas, accessed 28 January 2021. 5. Rumiko Nishino, Puja Kim, and Akane Onozawa, Denying the Comfort Women: The Japanese State’s Assault on Historical Truth (London: Routledge, 2018). 6. Jennifer A. Jordan, Structures of Memory: Understanding Urban Change in Berlin and Beyond (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006). 7. Aleida Assmann, “Forms of Forgetting,” Public Lecture, Castrum Peregrini, The Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, 2014. 8. Ann Rigney, “Portable Monuments,” Poetics Today 2, no. 25 (2004): 361–96. 9. Jervis Manahan, “Sculptor Cried over Removal of ‘Comfort Woman’ Statue,” ABS-CBN News, 10 May 2018. 10. Aie Balagtas See, “Artist Hurting over Banished ‘Comfort Woman’ Statue,” INQUIRER. net, 6 May 2018. 11. Raymund Villanueva, “Gabriela Condemns Govt’s Removal of Comfort Woman Statue,” Bulatlat, 18 April 2018. 12. Jose Rodel Clapano, “DFA Questions Manila Execs on Comfort Woman Statue,” The Philippine Star, 18 December 2017. 13. ABS-CBN News, “Manila ‘Comfort Woman’ Statue Catches DFA’s Attention,” ABSCBN News, 20 December 2017. 14. Rappler, “Cayetano Says Japan Ties at Stake over Comfort Woman Statue,” YouTube, 13 January 2018—translation ours. 15. Jason Cayabyab, “Charges Mulled over Missing ‘Comfort Woman’ Statue,” The Philippine Star, 1 September 2019. 16. Cayabyab, “Charges Mulled.” 17. Dennis R. Gorecho, “Finding Lola: The Case of the Missing Statue,” Tulay: Fortnightly Filipino-Chinese Digest, 10 September 2019. 18. Japan International Cooperation Agency. 60 Years of Japan-Philippines Cooperation, accessed 28 February 2021. 19. Assmann, “Forms of Forgetting.” 20. Stuart Hall, “What Is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?,” in Stuart Hall Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, ed. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, 465–78. (London: Routledge, 1996). 21. Rigney, “Portable Monuments.”

Bibliography ABS-CBN News. “Manila ‘Comfort Woman’ Statue Catches DFA’s Attention.” ABS-CBN News, 20 December 2017. https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/12/20/17/manila-comfortwoman-statue-catches-dfas-attention. Assmann, Aleida. “Forms of Forgetting.” Public Lecture. Castrum Peregrini. The Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. 2014. http://castrumperegrini.org/forms3of3forgetting4. Cayabyab, Jason. “Charges Mulled over Missing ‘Comfort Woman’ Statue.” The Philippine Star, 1 September 2019. https://www.philstar.com/nation/2019/09/01/1948004/ charges-mulled-over-missing-comfort-woman-statue.

Twice Removed • 269 Clapano, Jose Rodel. “DFA Questions Manila Execs on Comfort Woman Statue.” The Philippine Star, 18 December 2017. https://www.philstar.com/metro/2017/12/18/1769713/ dfa-questions-manila-execs-comfort-woman-statue. Department of Foreign Affairs. “Japan—Philippines Joint Statement on Bilateral Cooperation for the Next Five Years.” Republic of the Philippines, 30 October 2017. https://dfa .gov.ph/dfa-news/statements-and-advisoriesupdate/14482-japan-philippines-joint-state ment-on-bilateral-cooperation-for-the-next-five-years. Gorecho, Dennis R. “Finding Lola: The Case of the Missing Statue.” Tulay: Fortnightly Filipino-Chinese Digest, 10 September 2019. https://tulay.ph/2019/09/10/finding-lolathe-case-of-the-missing-statue. Hall, Stuart. “What Is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?” In Stuart Hall Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, edited by David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, 465–78. London: Routledge, 1996. Henson, Maria Rosa. Comfort Woman: A Filipina’s Story of Prostitution and Slavery under the Japanese Military. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999. Japan International Cooperation Agency. 60 Years of Japan-Philippines Cooperation. Accessed 28 February 2021. https://www.jica.go.jp/philippine/english/office/topics/ c8h0vm00008t460t-att/oda60anniversary_01.pdf. Jordan, Jennifer A. Structures of Memory: Understanding Urban Change in Berlin and Beyond. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006. LILA Pilipina. “For the Japanese Government.” Movement for the Lolas. Accessed 28 January 2021. https://movementforthelolas.wordpress.com. Manahan, Jervis. “Sculptor Cried over Removal of ‘Comfort Woman’ Statue.” ABS-CBN News, 10 May 2018. news.abs-cbn.com/focus/05/10/18/sculptor-cried-over-removalof-comfort-woman-statue. McCarthy, Julie. “Philippine ‘Comfort Women’: Demanding Justice from Japan for WWII Sexual Slavery.” NPR, 4 December 2020, https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsand soda/2020/12/04/940819094/photos-there-still-is-no-comfort-for-the-comfort-womenof-the-philippines. The Mothers’ Storybook Project Team. My Mother Is More than a Comfort Woman. Illustrated by Naoko Okimoto. Metro Manila: Gantala Press, 2021. Nishino, Rumiko, Puja Kim, and Akane Onozawa. Denying the Comfort Women: The Japanese State’s Assault on Historical Truth. London: Routledge, 2018. Qiu, Peipei, Su Zhiliang, and Chen Lifei. Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves. London: Oxford University Press, 2014. Rappler. “Cayetano Says Japan Ties at Stake over Comfort Woman Statue.” YouTube, 13 January 2018. 0:42. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT-jdgLHIuk. Rigney, Ann. “Portable Monuments.” Poetics Today 2, no. 25 (2004): 361–96. See, Aie Balagtas. “Artist Hurting over Banished ‘Comfort Woman’ Statue.” INQUIRER.net, 6 May 2018. newsinfo.inquirer.net/987867/artist-hurting-over-banished-comfort-woman-statue. Tagyamon, Che. “Lola Loleng.” Viddsee, YouTube, 15 December 2017. 8:25. https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=SeahrOCeIvc. Villanueva, Raymund. “Gabriela Condemns Govt’s Removal of Comfort Woman Statue.” Bulatlat, 18 April 2018. https://www.bulatlat.com/2018/04/28/gabrielacondemns-govts-removal-comfort-woman-statue. Yoon, Jihwan, and Derek H. Alderman. “When Memoryscapes Move: ‘Comfort Women’ Memorials as Transnational.” In The Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place, edited by Sarah de Nardi, Hilary Orange, Steven High, and Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto, 119–28. London: Routledge, 2019.

Chapter 27

COUNTER-MEMORY AND STATE DE-COMMEMORATION The Khavaran Mass Grave in Iran Chowra Makaremi

8 In Iran, the control of public and urban areas is overt, and the coercive imprint of state ideology on space cannot be ignored, its most direct experience being gender segregation and the mandatory veil. Another tangible layer of state presence is the memory discourse that shapes the public and urban spaces, most visible in two aspects of everyday life: the naming of streets that have undergone massive change after the revolution,1 and the presence of monuments and murals celebrating the martyrs of the war with Iraq. Through urban landscapes and mapping, the Iranian postrevolutionary state has built, and is constantly reasserting, its Islamic identity.2 At the core of this enterprise, the remembrance of the “Islamic revolution” and the “imposed war” against Iraq reconnects the public, through the figure(s) of the martyr(s) (shahid), with Shi’a Islam’s founding epic and also with Shi’a’s eschatological temporality (the cyclic repetition of deeds and the waiting of the end-of-time justice to come). This process has been studied by numerous researchers who point out its nuances, complexities, and pathology.3 Beyond disagreeing on political interpretations and affinities, these studies reveal how the memorialization of postrevolutionary history through Shi’a martyrdom has been a formidable discourse of power: all-pervasive, hegemonic, and homogeneous.4 However, since the country has made it through the harsher era of war and terror in the first decade after the 1979 revolution, and engaged in later

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phases of “reconstruction” and then “reform” in the 1990s, Iranian civil society did not remain a captive audience to these extensive commemorations and policies of memory. On the contrary, middle-class Iranians and urban youth have developed much aptitude for passive resistance. Escaping a public space saturated by iconographies, remembrance, and mourning, they have found new ways to reinvest private spaces and develop underground, subversive countercultures. Alongside the work on the cult of the martyrs and public mourning, an equally abundant body of empirical studies has thus explored the refined art of subversion and duplicity as political subjectivation in Iran.5 Does this mean notions of consent, adhesion, and dissent are to be radically redefined in the Iranian authoritarian context? Are the hegemonic practices of remembrance met with stances other than avoidance and escape (indifference, undercover derision, viral WhatsApp jokes)? In regard to these questions, the mass grave of Khavaran offers a peculiar case of memory struggle.

“Khavaran Is a Name for Not Forgetting” Khavaran is an old non-Muslim cemetery divided into different sections allocated to religious minorities: Christians, Baha’is, Jews, and Buddhists.6 This vast cemetery, which contains treasures of traditional architecture, is located on the road between Tehran and Kashan, 15 kilometers southeast of the capital. Administratively, it belongs to the main cemetery of Tehran: Beheshte Zahra (Zahra’s Paradise). Since 1978, Beheshte Zahra became an important site of the revolutionary uprising. Political prisoners executed by the Savak political police under the former Shah’s regime were buried there and celebrated as “martyrs” (shahid). Demonstrators killed during the 1978 uprisings were also buried there, and their funerals were attended by a growing crowd: the stages of mourning—commemorations on the seventh day after death, then again on the fortieth day (the chehlom)—became the occasions of public meetings around the shahids’ graves; the meetings turned into demonstrations against the Shah; and when new demonstrators were killed by the riot police, their funerals, in Beheshte Zahra, gathered even larger crowds. From chehlom to chehlom, the cemetery became one of the places where the 1978 uprisings matured into a revolutionary movement, as the political figure of the shahid emerged. It was in Beheshte Zahra that Ayatollah Khomeini gave his speech when he returned from exile in February 1979: he greeted the martyrs and their families and spoke of human rights and the right of the people to freely choose their leaders. Very soon however, the discourse changed drastically as the new Islamic Republic and its theocratic constitution founded on the velayat-e faqi (the guidance of the leader) were both adopted by a large majority in a referendum

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by the end 1979. The Iranian revolution was consolidated over the following decade through the double violence of a “sacred war” against Iraq,7 which claimed more than half a million victims and resulted in the physical elimination of political opponents redefined as “internal enemies.”8 Tens of thousands of activists and former revolutionaries who opposed the government, as well as members of subaltern groups, were killed and tortured. Prison massacres took place in 1981, 1984, and 1988. One of the leading perpetrators of the 1988 massacres, which killed several thousands in a few weeks, was elected president of the republic in June 2021. In Iran, the memory of this violent genesis has evolved from an initial phase of silence and prohibition to a new phase of state denial from the 2010s. This consists of destroying forensic evidence but also rewriting the past through multiple vectors of memorialization, such as digital archives, oral history projects, blockbuster movies, and museums. This new memory politics came in reaction to extensive efforts by the Iranian community abroad to record and remember state violence through testimonies,9 legal fora such as People’s Tribunals,10 fact-finding reports establishing “crimes against humanity,”11 and finally, the prosecution in the Stockholm Hight Court in 2021 of a deputyprosecutor of Gohar-Dasht prison in Karaj for “war crimes” and “aggravated murders” in 1988. In Gohar-Dasht, as well as in other prisons in or around Tehran (Evin, Ghezel Hessar), after the first prison massacres in the summer of 1981, leftwing prisoners were secretly buried at the back of the Khavaran cemetery in a wasteland of about 8,500 square meters, bordering the section called Golestan Javid, which belonged to the Baha’i community (a severely persecuted religious minority). Throughout the country, the cemeteries that had been crucial sites of political mobilization during the 1978–79 revolution had turned into public spaces that were over-invested by the cult of the martyrs of the war with Iraq. Therefore, it was all the more important to respect the spatial separation in death between Muslims and non-Muslims (kaafar). As “materialists” and “atheists,” Marxist opponents fell under the category of kaafar and had to be buried separately. This ideological quest for religious purity through spatial segregation went as far as ordering the digging-up of Marxist shahids of the revolution (famous opponents killed under the Shah regime) buried in Beheshte Zahra, and their re-burial in Khavaran. After 1981, in some prisons, the administration ensured families respected the prohibition of funerals in Muslim cemeteries; in other cases, the prison buried the executed prisoners itself in separate spaces and then informed the relatives—or not. The news about the existence of a mass grave in Khavaran gradually spread among the families who were looking for missing prisoners. As testimonies would reveal, the disappeared had been hastily buried not far below ground with their clothes and shoes. In the dry, hard soil, the freshly turned earth was clearly

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visible. Next to the rectangles marked by darker, loose soil, other holes, the size of small collective graves, had been dug and remained empty. Rumors began to circulate among the families of the missing prisoners: soon, some parents, spouses, brothers, and sisters went to Khavaran at night, without news of their loved ones who had probably been arrested. Some families tried to place a gravestone on the spot where they thought the grave of a loved one was located: a fresh lump of earth whose appearance coincided with the date of the announcement of an execution, a portion of ground dug in search of a body or a piece of clothing to recognize. The homemade gravestones were broken and removed each time. The ground remained deserted. However, relatives had taken to identifying or assigning a portion as the “grave” of their missing loved one (by counting steps from the perimeter wall, placing small stones, shells on the ground, etc.). The prison authorities referred to this place as kaafarestan (the land of non-Muslims) or la’nataabad (the land of the damned). The daughter of a missing prisoner probably buried there recalls the place: We went to Khavaran, but it was not a cemetery. Everyone knows what a cemetery looks like . . . there were lumps of earth turned over, crying mothers sitting on the ground pouring dirt on their faces . . . . We came from Kermanshah, and every time we arrived in Khavaran, we saw a woman sitting on my mother’s grave. She was from Tehran itself, and she was always sitting in the same place. It was usual for families to visit each other’s graves in solidarity, and then we realized that she thought that it was her daughter who was buried in that same place. This woman once showed a piece of navy blue clothing to my grandmother and asked her if [my mother] had a clothe of this color. She had dug the earth because she was looking for her daughter’s corpse and she had found a body that had been decomposing for a year, so it was unrecognizable, wearing a garment of that fabric. And we never knew.12

Over time, groups of mothers of the disappeared, the “Mourning Mothers” and the “Khavaran Mothers,” met on the site on the first Friday of every month—the traditional day to visit cemeteries to remember missing ones. Here memory became a tool of resistance and immediately led the state to actively work at transforming the public space as a way to alter the commemoration. Shortly before 1988, the authorities reinforced perimeter walls, installed an iron gate, and placed cameras in the corners. Many of the prisoners massacred in the summer of 1988 were reportedly buried in the wasteland. In the months that followed, gatherings were banned and families were summoned to the local Komiteh, where some mothers were briefly detained. However, the tradition has solidified over the years: a flower-selling stand opened on the road leading to the wasteland; intercity buses began to spontaneously add a stop there. The weekly and monthly meetings, the stones and

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flowers brought by the families, and the services that have developed alongside these practices have contributed to turning Khavaran into an informal cemetery, enacting a cemeterization of the mass grave as an act of collective resistance.13 The place, which was used to cover up state violence, became the main evidence of the existence of these practices in the public space, and in so doing, it became a site of countermemory.14 Every year, especially after the election of a reformist government in 1997, a public commemoration of the 1988 massacres was organized in Khavaran: civil society activists started to join these ceremonies, which evolved into demonstrations with critical speeches against the regime. These demonstrations—one of the most radical forms of dissent—were attacked by agents in plain clothes, their participants arrested and sentenced to prison terms.15 In 2008, the gates of the vacant lot were locked and bulldozers brought in to turn over the land. Municipal signs indicated that the city council was carrying out a project to “transform the urban landscape.”16 When the wasteland was reopened, young trees had been planted, which dried up in the following weeks. Several testimonies relayed by human rights organizations stated that the earth had been turned over in order to move the contents of the mass graves; sandals and bones had been seen on the ground.17 According to these testimonies, it is possible that the forensic evidence was then removed to a “secondary mass grave.”18 Commemorations and public gatherings ceased after the violent crackdown of the “green wave” protests against President Ahmadinejad’s reelection in 2009. Activist children of former prisoners buried in Khavaran were arrested or exiled, demonstrations became dangerous, and control over the families was stricter. In 2012, at least seven members of the associations of mothers were detained on charges of “propaganda against the system” and “gathering and colluding with intent to harm national security.”19 During the 2010s, the mass grave was under tight surveillance and the annual gatherings forbidden, although the place was accessible to the victims’ close relatives. The flower stall was closed; the bus did not stop anymore: the cemeterization in progress was not completed and took a different turn. In April 2021, a new operation was carried out in Khavaran: new grave holes were dug and assigned to the Baha’i families who were required to bury their dead on top of the well-known mass grave. In reaction, members of the “Khavaran families” in exile campaigned heavily on social media and attracted the attention of Iranian media abroad, while a network of “Khavaran families” in Iran sent open letters to Tehran’s city counselors, the mayor’s office, and president Rohani. However, the families in Iran did not sign or relay the campaign of the exiled activists and were careful not to implicate them in their mobilization on-site. These combined transnational and hyper-local mobilizations, carried-on a few weeks before the 2021 presidential election, managed to put the violent

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re-cemeterization of Khavaran on hold. However, the struggle over Khavaran has spread throughout the country, with many cemetery sections of those executed and placed in mass graves being destroyed, covered by roads or cement, or turned into dumps, private parking lots, and malls since the late 2010s.20

Struggle over Traces The destruction of burial sites touches upon three intertwined stakes. The first issue is of course the concealment of forensic evidence as part of a politics of denial. The lack of access to forensic evidence is at the heart of the defense argumentation in the trial of Hamid Noury for his participation in the 1988 massacres at the Swedish Hight Court. The second issue goes back to the violence of open-endedness in mourning. Referring to unofficial commemorations in Khavaran does not mean private forms of mourning developed as counterpractices and resistances where public mourning was forbidden. On the contrary, and somewhat paradoxically, the prohibition of public mourning made private mourning impossible: this is what the term “open wounds” means when referring to enforced disappearances.21 The banning of burials and mourning was a way to target families, local communities, and so on in their intimacy—to impact them at the most private level with long-lasting effects over decades. And this is precisely why resistance and countermemories took root in this prohibited remembrance: their objective was, and still is, to mark symbolically and physically the deaths that have been denied being mourned. Assigning a burial space for the body of a relative is what draws a line between a disappeared and a deceased person. This is crucial since the experience of mourning and pain and the disruption in social fabric implied by these two conditions are very different. What the grave destructions of the late 2010s in Iran reveal is that the process works both ways: if identifying a body puts an end to disappearance, in the same way, erasing a burial site can turn a deceased person into a disappeared for their relatives, even decades after their deaths.22 A third stake is at play in relation to memory and its political power and uses. Khavaran is a site of crime turned into a site of remembrance while perpetrators are still in power. It bears witness to another account of the 1979 revolution: not that of the unanimous triumph of the Islamic political project as the manifestation of people’s sovereignty, but a history of competing revolutionary projects and the extreme violence through which the new state apparatus emerged by suppressing all alternatives. Khavaran has become a site of counter-commemoration in two ways, both because the commemorative practices have remained unofficial, at times clandestine, and because, beyond mourning and asking for truth and justice, they also undermine and

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directly oppose the hegemonic memory discourse on the Islamic revolution, on which state legitimacy is founded. The ways in which the Iranian authorities, at different levels, have responded to these counter-commemorations map the economy of silence and public secrets as long-term projects that must be defended: concealment of crimes is not ensured once and for all, it is multitemporal and has to be re-actualized. The undoing of commemoration, de-commemoration, in this case is a secretive state practice trapped in a relation of power and resistance, albeit asymmetrical: mass graves can be destroyed and mourning mothers imprisoned. But in a transnational connected world, the Iranian State cannot prevent these acts from nurturing and reshaping the possibility of a dissident resistance, born literally from the remains of suppressed political opposition. The memory struggle around mass violence in the 1980s, then, poses a challenge, which is rooted in the very anthropological truth that the Islamic Republic has exploited since its founding years, and that confronts it today with its possible overthrow: the incomparable political power of affect, grief, and loss. Chowra Makaremi is a tenured research scholar at CNRS in Paris (IRIS EHESS). She has worked on border detention in France, and has coordinated several research collectives on migration control in Europe. She is also working on the long Iranian Revolution (1979–89). She has published Aziz’s Notebook at the Hearth of the Iranian Revolution (Gallimard, 2011) and with Hannah Darabi Enghelab Street. A revolution through books 1979-83 (Le Bal/ Spector, 2019). In 2019, she directed the movie Hitch. An Iranian Story (Alter Ego, France, 78 min.). She leads the ERC research program “Off-Site” (“Violence, State formation and memory politics: an off-site ethnography of post-revolution Iran”).

Notes 1. Toloo Riazi, “The Politics of Naming Public Spaces in Tehran,” Culture, Health & Sexuality 21, no. 10 (2019). 2. Hamid Dabashi and Peter J. Chelkowski, Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran (New York: New York University Press, 1999). 3. Agnès Devictor, “Shahid Morteza Avini, cinéaste et martyr,” La pensee de midi 27, no. 1 (2009); Farhad Khosrokhavar, L’utopie sacrifiée. Sociologie de la révolution iranienne (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1993). 4. Hannah Darabi and Chowra Makaremi, Rue Enghelab, La Révolution par les Livres, Iran 1979–1983 (Leipzig: Spector Books, 2019).

Counter-Memory and State De-Commemoration • 277 5. Shahram Khosravi, Young and Defiant in Tehran (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). 6. Reza Moini, “Khavaran naami hast baraye faramoosh nakardan” [Khavaran is a name for not forgetting], Arash 67 (2002). 7. The war is renamed a “defensive jihad” and called “Sacred Defense” (Defaa’e moghaddas). Iranian offensives are named “Karbala” in reference to the battle that marked the beginning of the rupture between the Shiites and the Sunnis in this Iraqi city. See, for instance, Darabi and Makaremi, Rue Enghelab. 8. Nenni Panourgiá, Dangerous Citizens: The Greek Left and the Terror of the State (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009). 9. Shahrzad Mojab, “Years of Solitude, Years of Defiance: Women Political Prisoners in Iran,” in We Lived to Tell: Political Prison Memoirs of Iranian Women, A. Agah, S. Mehr, and S. Parsi (Toronto: McGilligan Books, 2007), 7–18; Nasser Mohajer, Voices of a Massacre: Untold Stories of Life and Death in Iran, 1988 (London: Oneworld Publications, 2020); Shahla Talebi, Ghosts of Revolution Ghosts of Revolution Rekindled Memories of Imprisonment in Iran (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011). 10. Geoffrey Nice, Hamid Sabi, Shokoufeh Sakhi, and Roya Ghiasi, “The Iran Tribunal: An International People’s Tribunal for the Promotion of Truth and Justice,” in People’s Tribunals, Human Rights and the Law, ed. Regina Menachery Paulose, 99–111 (London: Routledge, 2019); Talebi, Ghosts of Revolution. 11. Geoffrey Robertson, The Massacre of Political Prisoners in Iran, 1988, Report of an Inquiry (Washington, DC: Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, 2010). 12. Sahar Mohammadi’s testimony, Iran Tribunal/International People’s Tribunal, Findings of the Truth Commision on the Abuse and Mass Killings of Political Prisoners in Iran, 1981– 1988 (Stockholm: Iran Tribunal Press, 2012), 295. 13. Chowra Makaremi, “State Violence and Death Politics in Post-Revolutionary Iran,” in Destruction and Human Remains: Disposal and Concealment in Genocide and Mass Violence, ed. Élisabeth Anstett and Jean-Marc Dreyfus (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014). 14. Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire,” in Hommage à Jean Hyppolite (Paris: P.U.F., 1971), 145–72. 15. Amnesty International, “Iran: Fear of Ill-Treatment/Possible Prisoner of Conscience,” 2 November 2007. 16. Amnesty International, “Iran: Preserve the Khavaran Grave Site for Investigation into Mass Killings,” 20 January 2009. 17. Amnesty International, “Iran: Preserve the Khavaran Grave Site.” 18. A secondary mass grave is produced by the displacement of the remains buried in one or several mass graves, further complicating later forensic investigation. Secondary and even tertiary mass graves were a common practice of the Serbian authorities, who displaced their victims’ remains behind their retreat lines after the 1995 Dayton agreement. See Élisabeth Anstett and Jean-Marc Dreyfus, Destruction and Human Remains. 19. Amnesty International, “Iran Urged to Quash Prison Sentence for ‘Mourning Mothers’ Activist,” 13 April 2012. 20. Chowra Makaremi, “Violence d’État et Politiques du Déni en Iran: les Tracés du Pouvoir,” Monde Commun 1 (2018): 54–75. 21. Antonia García Castro, La Muerte Lenta de los Desaparecidos en Chile (Providencia: Cuarto Propio, 2011). 22. Chowra Makaremi and Emmanuel Alloa, “Counter-Investigations: On Matchboxes, Black Boxes and Other Forgotten Futures,” in Counter-Memories in Iranian Cinema, ed. Matthias Wittman and Ute Holl (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021).

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Bibliography Amnesty International. “Iran: Fear of Ill-Treatment/Possible Prisoner of Conscience.” 2 November 2007. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/128/2007/en/. ———. “Iran: Preserve the Khavaran Grave Site for Investigation into Mass Killings.” 20 January 2009. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/006/2009/en/. ———. “Iran Urged to Quash Prison Sentence for ‘Mourning Mothers’ Activist.” 13 April 2012. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2012/04/iran-urged-quash-prison-sente nce-mourning-mothers-activist/. Anstett, Élisabeth, and Jean-Marc Dreyfus. Destruction and Human Remains: Disposal and Concealment in Genocide and Mass Violence. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014. Castro, Antonia García. La Muerte Lenta de los Desaparecidos en Chile. Providencia: Cuarto Propio, 2011. Dabashi, Hamid, and Peter J. Chelkowski. Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Darabi, Hannah, and Chowra Makaremi. Rue Enghelab, La Révolution Par Les Livres, Iran 1979–1983. Leipzig: Spector Books, 2019. Devictor, Agnès. “Shahid Morteza Avini, cinéaste et martyr.” La pensee de midi 27, no. 1 (2009): 54–60. Foucault, Michel. “Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire.” In Hommage à Jean Hyppolite. Paris: P.U.F., 1971. Hirschman, Albert O. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Vol. 25. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970. Iran Tribunal/International People’s Tribunal. Findings of the Truth Commission on the Abuse and Mass Killings of Political Prisoners in Iran, 1981–1988. Stockholm: Iran Tribunal Press, 2012. Khosravi, Shahram. Young and Defiant in Tehran. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Khosrokhavar, Farhad. L’utopie sacrifiée. Sociologie de la révolution iranienne. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1993. Khosronejad, Pedram. Unburied Memories: The Politics of Bodies of Sacred Defense Martyrs in Iran. London: Routledge, 2013. Makaremi, Chowra. “State Violence and Death Politics in Post-Revolutionary Iran.” In Destruction and Human Remains: Disposal and Concealment in Genocide and Mass Violence, edited by Élisabeth Anstett and Jean-Marc Dreyfus. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014. ———. “Violence d’État et Politiques du Déni en Iran: les Tracés du Pouvoir.” Monde Commun 1 (2018): 54–75. Makaremi, Chowra, and Emmanuel Alloa. “Counter-Investigations: On Matchboxes, Black Boxes and Other Forgotten Futures.” In Counter-Memories in Iranian Cinema, edited by Matthias Wittmann and Ute Holl. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. Mohajer, Nasser. Voices of a Massacre: Untold Stories of Life and Death in Iran, 1988. London: Oneworld Publications, 2020. Moini, Reza. “Khavaran naami hast baraye faramoosh nakardan” [Khavaran is a name for not forgetting]. Arash 67 (2002): 35–48. Mojab, Shahrzad. “Years of Solitude, Years of Defiance: Women Political Prisoners in Iran.” In We Lived to Tell: Political Prison Memoirs of Iranian Women, A. Agah, S. Mehr, and S. Parsi. Toronto: McGilligan Books, 2007.

Counter-Memory and State De-Commemoration • 279 Nice, Geoffrey, Hamid Sabi, Shokoufeh Sakhi, and Roya Ghiasi. “The Iran Tribunal: An International People’s Tribunal for the Promotion of Truth and Justice.” In People’s Tribunals, Human Rights and the Law, edited by Regina Menachery Paulose, 99–111. London: Routledge, 2019. Panourgiá, Nenni. Dangerous Citizens: The Greek Left and the Terror of the State. New York: Fordham University Press, 2009. Riazi, Toloo. “The Politics of Naming Public Spaces in Tehran.” Culture, Health & Sexuality 21, no. 10 (2019): 1146–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2018.1543801. Robertson, Geoffrey. The Massacre of Political Prisoners in Iran, 1988, Report of an Inquiry. Washington, DC: Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, 2010. Talebi, Shahla. “Ethnography of Witnessing and Ethnography as Witnessing: Topographies of Two Court Hearings.” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 42, no. 2 (2019): 226–43. ———. Ghosts of Revolution Ghosts of Revolution Rekindled Memories of Imprisonment in Iran. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.

Chapter 28

THE TOPPLING OF THE EQUESTRIAN STATUE AND THE FUTURE OF COLONIAL-ERA MEMORIALS IN NAMIBIA Vilho Amukwaya Shigwedha

8 Many of the towns in Namibia that were occupied by German colonialists between 1884 and 1915 contain historical memorials dedicated to the history of German colonialist settlers in Germany South West Africa (GSWA). Following Namibia’s independence from South Africa in 1990, activists and some local politicians pushed to have several settler-colonialism-related memorials and monuments dismantled. The battle against settler-colonialist memorial landscape in Namibia was launched in 2013 when the Namibian government toppled the imperial German’s Equestrian, or Südwester Reiter, statue and relocated it from its traditional site in the heart of Windhoek to a camouflaged location where its presence in town became less obvious to the public. Protesters in Namibia have been demanding the demolition of other colonial-era memorials in various Namibian towns since the fall of the Equestrian statue. Several statues linked with settler colonialism in Namibia have been spray-painted and defaced by rebellious activists calling for the removal of statues of colonial figures from postcolonial Namibia’s public space. Left-wing groups perceive the presence of colonialist settlers’ memorials on Namibia’s postwar public space as maintaining the minority’s white supremacy regardless of the Black majority rule since Namibia’s independence. In light of these groups’ perspectives, this chapter uses the Namibian govern-

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ment’s decision to topple the Equestrian statue as a departure point. The aim is to develop a discursive narrative that attempts to explore what is at risk when historical memorials in Namibia are defaced and obliterated. The chapter begins by briefly describing the context and purpose of the Equestrian statue’s construction. The prima facie concept, placement, and significance attributed to this statue by imperial Germany, as well as subsequent local interpretations across time, will be examined. Second, this chapter aims to start a conversation about colonial-era memorials as both ahistorical public figures and problematic proof of colonialists’ immense atrocities and injustices against Indigenous African communities.

Made in Germany The idea for the Equestrian sculpture was conceived in Berlin, just like every other aspect of German colonial policies and programs that were implemented in GSWA. It was likewise created and built there by a German sculptor, named Adolf Kurle. It is, however, intriguing to note that the materials used to build the Equestrian statue were exported to Germany from areas that were ferocious battlegrounds during the war that massacred thousands of the Herero and Nama people between 1904 and 1908. From concentration camps around GSWA, Herero and Nama prisoners of war, especially women and children, were ordered to collect cartridge casings (copper metallic materials) of guns ammunition from different scenes where battles were fought. These cartridges were shipped to Germany, where they were processed and used to make a three-hundred-ton bronze statue for the imperial German colony in GSWA. Kurle used copper alloys to complete the Equestrian monument in 1910. This spectacular statue was modeled after the Südwester Reiter, or Rider of the South West, seated on a bronze horse with ammo around his waist, a riffle in his right hand, and dressed in bronze army uniforms that matched the Schutztruppe combat outfits. The structural parts of the Equestrian statue were bundled in wooden crates and shipped by sea to GSWA in 1911. After arriving at Swakopmund, a Namibian coastal town, they were transported by train to Windhoek in the hinterland of GSWA. The statue’s component parts were assembled in Windhoek and placed on the crest of a hill with a view over the northern half of Windhoek’s lower ground. On 27 January 1912, which marked the fifty-third birthday of Emperor (Kaiser) Wilhelm II of Germany, the Equestrian statue was officially inaugurated. Theodore Seitz, the administrator of GSWA, officiated during the opening ceremony of the Equestrian statue on behalf of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The fact that the Equestrian statue was unveiled on Kaiser

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Wilhelm’s birthday is, arguably, a demonstration of GSWA’s reverence for the emperor’s legacy of imperialism, racial injustice, and suppression of Indigenous people. Similarly, this occasion also appears to idolize the Emperor of Germany as an icon of self-sacrifice, greater than the collective sacrifices made by German soldiers and civilians who died for the German Empire during armed confrontations with Indigenous inhabitants in GSWA.

Standing Tall in Windhoek From 1912 until its toppling in 2009, the Equestrian statue was one of Windhoek’s most visible landmarks. Helvi Elago described it as “a reminder of the significance of 1904 [the massacre of the Herero and Nama people] in visual historiography, as well as an icon used by commercial businesses and the tourism industry” in Namibia.1 The fact that the location of the Equestrian statue was ringed by historical sites parallels Elago’s observation and interpretation of the significance of the Equestrian statue to the tourism industry in Namibia. In particular, the shards of one of the Schutztruppe concentration camps, where thousands of Herero victims of the 1904–8 genocidal massacre were crammed into a small contained area, could be found near the historic site were the Equestrian statue stood for many decades. By 1906, the overcrowded and cramped Windhoek concentration camp had held almost five thousand prisoners of war, many of whom died as a result of the severe living circumstances.2 A short distance north of the original spot of the Equestrian statue lies the Christuskirche monument. The Equestrian monument was bordered to the south by the Alte Feste Museum, a historic German Colonial Fort erected by Curt Von François in 1890 and utilized as the Schutztruppe’s command headquarters. These historical sites are still standing and are popular tourist destinations in Windhoek. In other words, the area around the Equestrian statue, now known as Robert Mugabe Avenue, became a favorite gathering spot for Windhoekers and visitors. With its surrounding collections of colonial-era monuments and varied historical memories, some tourists consider this place to be Namibia’s finest urban public archive and memorial to Germany’s occupancy of GSWA. Thus, the Equestrian’s jumble of fragmented monumental histories provided some visitors with useful historical fragments to piece together diverse pieces of Namibia’s past, which this historical geography and location depicts in a fragmented but distinctive material of cultural and political depictions. It is also worth noting that the Equestrian monument, which was located less than five minutes’ walk from Windhoek’s Central Business District

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(CBD), was perhaps the city’s most conspicuous landmark whose initial political context was gradually reinvented and transformed. The reinterpretation of the colonial history is evident in the plethora of fascinating local mythology and urban legends that regard the Equestrian statue as a spectacular and distinctive landmark, a symbol of the city’s pride and identity. It may thus be argued that, in addition to its political ego and significance, the Equestrian statue was something that some Indigenous Namibians perceived as part of their inheritance. For instance, Windhoek is known as Otjirongo tjOkakambe in Otjiherero praise songs, idioms, and stories; similarly, in the Oshiwambo language it is known as Oshilongo shOkakambe. Both versions allude to a city of a solid horse rider who never dismounted from the steel horse’s back against all odds. In essence, the Equestrian statue’s placement on a hilltop raised the horse rider’s gaze above other built environment structures in the town. Windhoek was actually little more than a hamlet settlement at the time of the Equestrian statue’s inauguration in 1912, with few modern structures and a small population. As a result, during Germany’s conquest and governance of GSWA, the Equestrian monument towered over all other architectural environment in Windhoek.

The Afterlife of the Equestrian Statue Following the removal of the Equestrian statue from the public space, Namibia has seen an unprecedented rise in left-wing voices calling for the abolition of the remaining historical places they regard as canonizing and reinforcing colonialism’s history of violence committed against Indigenous Africans. Some notable Namibian politicians and activists, in particular, think sculptures commemorating colonialists’ imperial legacies and atrocities against their subjects should be de-commemorated following the country’s independence. For instance, a petition calling for the removal of some important historical figures in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital city, was circulating on social media at the time of writing this chapter. Under the banner “A Curt Farewell,” Hildegard Titus launched an online petition on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to rally support for the removal of the Curt von François statue from public space, which some Namibians regard as a sign of nostalgic pride. According to Titus, “Curt von François is most notoriously known for carrying out the 1893 Hoornkrans Massacre in which mainly women and children were killed.”3 In February 2021, the council of the City of Windhoek (CoW) deliberated on the removal of the Curt von François statue from the space it currently occupies with a view to relocate it to the National Museum of Namibia.4 Sim-

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ilarly, in 2015, Usutuaije Maamberua, the President of the South West Africa National Union (SWANU), warned the Namibian National Assembly that the Curt von François statue was “an abomination” that should be demolished since it commemorates colonial atrocities against Namibians. It is within this frame of reference that Anna Stephanus indicated in a recent media posting that “Namibians . . . should not glorify this Christopher Columbus.” The parallel between Christopher Columbus and Curt von François, although intriguing, is a subject for another study. However, it should be mentioned that in 1888, the German Colonial Society asked von François to lead the colonial soldiers, the Schutztruppe, in the newly created colony of German South West Africa. On 24 June 1889, Curt von François landed with twentyone soldiers in Walvis Bay, a Namibian coastal town.5 Two years later, in 1891, he succeeded Heinrich Göring, the father of a Nazi leader Hermann Göring, as imperial commissioner of GSWA. To commemorate the seventyfifth anniversary of colonial Windhoek’s establishment, a bronze statue of von François, whom the colonialists claimed to have discovered Windhoek, was unveiled in the center of the city in 1965. Certainly, calls to tear down the von François bronze statue and other monuments associated with Namibia’s difficult colonial history do not reflect opinions of all Namibians. However, protests to dismantle or vandalize colonial-era monuments highlight how such historical effigies are important national avenues for public investigation and debate on Namibia’s racial divide and injustice. While some Namibians regard colonial-era statues as essential historical effigies for postcolonial Namibia to reflect on, re-examine, and renegotiate its traumatic past, other Namibians perceive these historical structures as polluting the public space with edifices that are tantamount to environmental racism. However, despite ongoing calls to remove colonial-era memorials from public spaces, no colonial-era statues have been destroyed since the Equestrian statue was demolished in 2013. The Namibian government, on the other hand, has concentrated its efforts on “decolonizing” street names and other significant state entities, such as renaming the J. G. Strijdom Airport into Hosea Kutako International Airport.6 To conclude, one of the sociopolitical dynamics that has dominated the discourse of Namibia’s postwar national identity formation has been its desire to decolonize the landscape of memorialization inherent in colonial memorials across Namibia’s major towns. Certainly, colonialism victimized many Namibians through systems of organized invasion of Indigenous land, murder of local populations, skills exploitation, looting of natural resources, forced labor, and slavery. Because every dark history is contagious, it is definite that generations of offspring from the direct victims of colonial injustices and mass killings of Indigenous population groups in Namibia have accumulated and inherited some grievances from their ancestors. Thus,

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seeing some groups in Namibian society advocating for the total removal of colonial memorials across Namibia signifies how grief and discontent are socially constructed and culturally contagious. However, when examined closely, one may construe that, at their core, these voices are not calling for the physical removal of colonial-era memorials or to cause harm to these mementos and historic effigies. Instead, what is entangled in these voices is the demand for postcolonial Namibia to address the continuing legacy of racial inequalities left behind by colonialism and apartheid. Therefore, it should be argued that demolishing colonial-era memorials, which are the result of the other’s racial stereotyping, is less productive than preserving them. This chapter argues that colonial memorials, no matter how historically significant, are not identical with the difficult past. As a matter of fact, the past that constructed and commemorated these historical effigies is a solid barrier that no one can overcome, alter, or change. As a result, it is problematic and ahistoric to believe that colonial-era memorials honor and perpetuate the heinous legacy of white supremacy and colonial brutality in a postcolonial society. Perhaps one can also argue that statues are not historical relics or remnants of past events. Instead, they are man-made structures that are dormant, inert, and inactive. Dead things, in fact, are unable to reflect or keep memories of previous events since they do not speak and have no emotions or sentiments. Rather, they objectify, manufacture, commodify, and fabricate history. Therefore, Namibia should, above all, take inspiration from certain nations that have chosen peaceful means of transforming concrete landscapes of difficult histories into inspirational tools for redressing past injustices and crimes. For example, post-apartheid South Africa has designated the former notorious Robben Island Maximum Security prison as an inspirational national treasure and world heritage site that symbolizes the triumph of the human spirit over extreme adversity and injustice in an effort to promote the spirit of selfreflection, critical debate, and lifelong learning.7 Vilho Amukwaya Shigwedha is a senior lecturer in Public History and Heritage Studies at the University of Namibia. He is the author of a number of books and academic articles, including The Aftermath of the Cassinga Massacre: Survivors, Deniers and Injustice (Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2017), “The Return of Herero and Nama Bones from Germany: The Victims’ Struggle for Recognition and Recurring Genocide Memories in Namibia,” “The Missing Are Not Dead Yet: Efraim Kamati Kapolo and the Impossibility of Disappearing without a Trace,” “Photography, Mass Violence, and Survivors,” “Keep Our Fire Burning: The Traditional Homestead,” and “The PreColonial Costumes of Aawambo.”

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Notes 1. Helvi Elago, “Colonial Monuments in a Post-Colonial Era: A Case Study of the Equestrian Monument,” in Re-Viewing Resistance in Namibian History, ed. Jeremy Silvester (Windhoek: University of Namibia Press, 2015), 277. 2. “The largest of the concentration camps were built in Swakopmund, Karibib, Windhoek, Okahandja, and Luderitz.” See Casper Erichsen, “Namibia Concentration Camps.” 3. The German colonial authorities in GSWA were worried about the independence of the Witboois (a community of Nama speaking people) and their rejection of German’s offer of protection. Under the leadership of Von François, two hundred German soldiers attacked Witbooi’s headquarters at Hoornkrans on 12 April 1893. This prompted Witbooi’s guerrilla campaign against the Germans. See “Curt von François: Time to Go,” IPPR blog, 16 June 2020, ippr.org.na/blog/curt-von-francois-time-to-fall/. 4. See, “CoW Moves against Colonial Statues, Street Names,” Windhoek Observer, 2 February 2021, Front page. Curt von François’ statue currently stands in front of the Windhoek municipal head offices. In the main, the battle against the presence of colonial-era statues in postcolonial Namibia also includes the renaming of streets and state entities that bear colonialists’ nametags. 5. See, for instance, George Steinmetz, The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 149. 6. For a list of the streets and other places that have been renamed since Namibia’s independence, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_renamed_places_in_Namibia. 7. See Robben Island Museum, “Vision & Mission,” 29 June 2022, https://www.robbenisland.org.za/vision-mission/.

Bibliography “CoW Moves Against Colonial Statues, Street Names.” Windhoek Observer, 2 February 2021. Elago, Helvi. “Colonial Monuments in a Post-Colonial Era: A Case Study of the Equestrian Monument.” In Re-Viewing Resistance in Namibian History, edited by Jeremy Silvester. Windhoek: University of Namibia Press, 2015. Erichsen, Casper. “Namibia Concentration Camps.” Accessed 15 April 2023. https://www .namibweb.com/ccamps.htm. Steinmetz, George. The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Chapter 29

AN UNMARKED REBELLION The Politics of Forgetting Denmark Vesey Vanessa Lynn Lovelace and Jamie Huff

8 On Ashley Avenue in Charleston, South Carolina, a tree divides the street. This space once served as an execution site for enslaved Black people. The original tree was replaced in the 1970s, but the site remains a reminder of the deaths of countless unnamed Black people. This is rumored to be the site where Denmark Vesey was hanged after being convicted of conspiring to commit a slave rebellion in 1822. Vesey was born enslaved in 1767, and he bought his freedom for $800 after winning $1500 in the South Carolina lottery. Tourists in Charleston are unlikely to encounter information about Vesey, whose actions challenged the violence of slavery. Memorializing these actions would rupture the commonly held notion that slavery in the US South was a benevolent institution. This chapter explores how the South continues to promote racial violence by failing to cultivate a public memory of slavery. We analyze the racial violence of state-sanctioned memory by examining how Vesey is commemorated throughout the city of Charleston and by expanding our archival research to include geography. As we move through a political moment in which symbols of oppression are de-commemorated, we must also seek out ways to build memory that challenge the myths associated with slavery. De-commemoration as a means of divesting from historical myth is not enough—communities must also commemorate historical moments that better represent histories of marginalization to the public.

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Figure 29.1. Purported Vesey hanging site, Ashley Avenue, May 11, 2011. © Vanessa Lovelace.

Archive as Method The methodological process of archival research is an investigation of objects. Postcolonial, feminist, queer, and women of color scholars have noted that the challenge of engaging with the archive is that those for whom they are searching—those like themselves—are erased. Because the archive is a representation of power, documenting history and memory in an official capacity, those without power are relegated to alternative, fractured, and fictitious histories and memorializations.1 Things find their way into official archives because they are deemed to have value. Those who seek to tell the stories of the lives of the colonized or enslaved find themselves challenging valuation working with fragments and ghosts (hidden, haunting figures, texts, or images).2 Memorialized landscapes present the same challenge in terms

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of which narratives of space hold value. Geography can be seen as a kind of archival work, as place holds past and present together to create a multilayered, multidimensional, multigenerational account of history. Black geographies have expanded the archive to include an understanding of how sites are represented and hold racialized power.3 Our main site of focus in Charleston was the Avery Center for African American History and Culture, which holds two private archival collections and a general collection on “Slavery and Free Blacks” that mention Vesey. The historical record provides little about Vesey. Thus, Vesey’s narrative was filled out by the archivist with whom we worked, Jessica Farrell, and her knowledge of local oral history. What we know are basics: Vesey lived in Charleston, purchased his freedom, and was executed by the state of South Carolina for conspiracy to commit rebellion. Every account of Vesey’s life is constructed by others. His participation in his trial was minimal; he neither confessed nor gave any information about his involvement in the rebellion.4 Documentation of Vesey’s life, like that of many enslaved people’s lives, is inaccurate and dislocated, and this is no more evident than in the places associated with him.

Commemorating the Genteel South Commemoration and current movements for de-commemoration of historical sites are a key part of the construction of public memory. That which is commemorated becomes part of an enduring public memory, and that which is not may be forgotten.5 For much of Charleston’s history, the city commemorated its Confederate past. In 1887, a statue paying homage to John C. Calhoun, a Charlestonian known for his support for slavery, was erected in Marion Square Park. The city’s most visited park, White Point Gardens, contains a statue dedicated to “the Confederate defenders of Charleston.” The public memory promoted by these monuments is one in which slaveholders were noble defenders of their culture; the living conditions of the enslaved are barely an afterthought. Though Charleston has added memorials to African American history over the past several decades, the city still relies on nostalgia for its Confederate past as a tourism draw. In 2010 the city held a “Secession Ball” to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the state’s secession from the union. Attended by around three hundred people, the ball included a reenactment of the secession convention, but without any discussion of slavery. The spectacle of the Secession Ball is emblematic of the broader issue the city faces: the tension between the commemoration of secession and an unwillingness to address the centrality of slavery to that moment. The elision of slavery in public memory contributes to what Eichstedt and Small term the “symbolic annihilation” of the enslaved.6 The erasure of the

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enslaved shapes the memory of slavery in the South.7 The city of Charleston promotes tourism at six nearby plantations as well as sites downtown, such as the Old City Jail. Tourists at these sites are encouraged to view the space through a lens emphasizing the wealth, grandeur, and manners of the plantation elite, often without mention of the enslaved labor that created all that wealth.8 Practices of slavery are trivialized, and tourists can come away from a plantation tour with little understanding of the physical and legal violence inherent in Southern slavery. If the city of Charleston is unwilling to illuminate the experiences of the enslaved who lived there, it is even more hesitant to commemorate Vesey’s story. Uprisings among the enslaved were a fear of elite whites in the antebellum South, a fear often responsible for whites deciding to further legally restrict the enslaved or even to brutally murder them.9 The historical knowledge of uprisings helps reveal the violence of slavery. When confronting the fact that oppressed people were forced to resort to armed rebellion to obtain liberation, it is impossible to ignore that conditions of slavery were unbearable for the enslaved. The sanitized language of “household servants” cannot

Figure 29.2. The misidentified Vesey House, May 12, 2011. © Vanessa Lovelace.

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Figure 29.3. Historical marker from 56 Bull Street, May 12, 2011. © Vanessa Lovelace.

be reconciled with the fact that enslaved people sought freedom through whatever means necessary. The fact that enslaved people rebelled, again and again, ruptures the public memory that Southern states have worked to uphold—that of a beneficent antebellum culture. As communities seek to de-commemorate Confederate monuments as a means of divesting from Confederate nostalgia, they may also consider how commemorating people like Vesey can further educate the public about slavery.

The Unmarked Vesey Landscape One of the only marked sites associated with Vesey is a house located at 56 Bull Street. In the 1970s the city added a historical marker to the property at the request of the Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation. A local historian attempted to locate sites associated with Vesey, ultimately recommending the marking of the house at 56 Bull Street. The marker provides little information about Vesey or his rebellion. There is another problem with this site: Vesey never lived there. Historical records indicate that Vesey lived at 20 Bull Street

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in 1822, and records from his trial suggest that Vesey’s house was several houses down from the marked home at 56 Bull Street.10 The fact that 56 Bull Street is mistakenly marked and provides no information about Vesey’s rebellion shows discomfort with the subject. Here commemoration is a form of de-commemoration of the actual facts and the political implications of it. The true location of the Vesey home, if paired with educational information, would be a significant space to mark if it were possible. Vesey’s desire to rebel was shaped by his religious beliefs as well as his knowledge of the Haitian Revolution and Toussaint Louverture, the formerly enslaved man who became a leader in that revolution. Louverture was self-educated, familiar with political philosophy, and committed to ending slavery in Haiti. Vesey’s familiarity with Louverture shows his own engagement in political thought—Vesey believed in the importance of Black sovereignty. Vesey spent time in his home reading about other rebellions and political thinkers and leading religious meetings.11 His actions show his devotion to intellectual endeavors as well as his talent as a leader. The marking of Vesey’s home offers an opportunity to shift public memory and rupture myths associated with the antebellum South, but the currently marked site does not achieve this end.

Figure 29.4. Tourists pass by the Old City Jail and the public housing near it, May 11, 2011. © Vanessa Lovelace.

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After Vesey was arrested for his purported role in the rebellion, he was imprisoned while awaiting trial. While the Old City Jail displays a historical marker, the site across the street where enslaved people were imprisoned does not. Vesey spent some of his time in the Old City Jail, but the Avery Center archives indicate that he was also held in a nearby workhouse exclusively for enslaved people as a means of “breaking” them. That building no longer remains; it has been replaced by public housing. Records show that the area around the Old City Jail was public land used to house those who were poor, had disabilities, or who were institutionalized for mental illness. No marker exists to note the similarity between the historic use of the land and the current use, which houses primarily poor African American residents of Charleston. The space of Vesey’s confinement illuminates yet another connection between the institution of slavery and the prison. In the workhouse, enslaved people were not only confined while awaiting trial; they were also expected to work, mirroring the uncompensated labor these same people performed while ostensibly “free” from prison.12 The system of slave law in Southern states allowed harsh physical abuse of imprisoned enslaved people.13 To mark the site more fully would lay bare the way in which Vesey, a manumitted man, was re-enslaved during his confinement. Even beyond Vesey’s own imprisonment, it is noteworthy that the former site of the workhouse now contains public housing. Much of the Black population of Charleston count among their ancestors the city’s numerous enslaved people, who even after the end of the Civil War were repressed by Black Codes and Jim Crow law. Many of the people who live in the public housing near the Old City Jail carry with them the legacy of legal and social segregation and marginalization that has trapped Black people at the bottom of the social hierarchy. A site marker outlining the history of the property would make visible the links between the system that Vesey rebelled against and the deep racial injustice of contemporary American society. Vesey’s status as the purported leader of what would have been one of the largest slave rebellions in US history makes him a prominent Charlestonian, one whose passion and actions should be memorialized throughout the city. The paucity of markers for sites associated with Vesey’s rebellion minimizes the resistance of the city’s enslaved people to the system that enslaved them. The city has either failed to mark or mistakenly marked the most important sites relevant to Vesey’s rebellion: the house where Vesey lived, the prison where he was kept during his trial, and the place where his execution was carried out. We began this chapter with the image of the hanging site, which is rumored to have been the place of Vesey’s execution. Still, there is no proof that this is the site where he was hanged. What we have is a tree that splits a street, and folklore handed down by locals. This tree continues to divide the

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street because at this site the violence of whiteness—slavery, Black codes, Jim Crow—was and is put on display through the hanging of Black people. Charleston’s commemoration and encouragement of Confederate nostalgia is being challenged as the city begins to remove statues that lionized politicians who supported slavery. However, it is not only de-commemoration that is necessary to divest from the myths of a genteel antebellum South. There must also be a commemoration of people, events, and sites that illuminate the violent truths of slavery, such as Vesey and his rebellion. Through examination of historical sites, we have been attentive to the ways in which the memory of Vesey’s life and rebellion are distorted by the current state of sites in Charleston. For the better part of a hundred years, sites associated with Vesey have been mismarked or unmarked, allowing myths about slavery and Black rebellion to flourish. While the city finally erected a memorial to Vesey in 2014, the monument is located in a park far from the most visited historical sites in Charleston. The monument has also not been without controversy—before it was created, there was a bitter debate in which Vesey was characterized as a “terrorist,” and the statue was vandalized in 2017, illustrating the overlapping between commemoration, de-commemoration, forgetting, and counter-commemoration. Vesey’s life was a testament to the struggle against slavery. He freed himself, and his rebellion was an attempt to liberate his community. Today, his memory remains a challenge to the Confederate nostalgia engendered in Southern states, and further commemoration of his rebellion would allow a necessary confrontation with the racial injustice of Charleston’s past and its present. Dr. Vanessa Lynn Lovelace is a Black postcolonial feminist educator and activist. She is an Assistant Professor of Crime and Justice Studies at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Her research and teaching centers on abolitionisms and sits at the intersections of critical legal and justice studies, Black feminist geographies, and anti-oppressive feminist studies. In particular, her work unpacks the theoretical concept of freedom and how narratives of freedom become mapped on/in the land. Her current research employs Black geographies to examine the role geography plays in the construction Black women’s identities, rebellion, and activism. Dr. Jamie Huff is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Bridgewater State University. Her research and teaching focus on legal marginalization, socio-legal history, and law and culture. Her past research has taken a critical lens on historical memory in the US South through case studies of marginalized nineteenth-century women criminal defendants. Currently, she is working on a project about slavery in New England and law in the lives of the early African American residents of Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

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Notes 1. Jacques Derrida and Eric Prenowitz, “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression,” Diacritics 25, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 11; Sarah Mills, “Cultural-Historical Geographies of the Archives: Fragments, Objects and Ghosts,” Geography Compass 7, no. 10 (Oct. 2013): 703–70. 2. Anjali Arondekar, For the Record: On Sexuality and the Colonial Archive in India (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009), 3; Marisa Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 4; Avery Gordon, Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 195. 3. Adam Bledsoe, Latoya Eaves, and Brian Williams, “Introduction: Black Geographies in and of the United States South,” Southeastern Geographer 57, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 9. 4. Michael Johnson, “Denmark Vesey and His Co-Conspirators,” The William and Mary Quarterly 58, no. 4 (Oct. 2001): 915–17. 5. Jamie Huff, “Song and Silence at the Gallows: Cultural Representations of Violence, Region, and Race in State v. McTaggart Slaves and State v. Frances Silver,” Law, Culture, and the Humanities 18, no. 2 (June 2018): 14. 6. Jennifer Eichstedt and Stephen Small, Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2002), 108. 7. Tara McPherson, Reconstructing Dixie: Race, Gender, and Nostalgia in the Imagined South (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 25. 8. Eichstedt and Small, Representations of Slavery, 58. 9. James Horton and Lois Horton, Slavery and the Making of America (London: Oxford University Press, 2005), 69. 10. “Slavery and Free Blacks, 1819–1845,” Collection, Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture Repositor, Box 1, Folder 3. 11. “Slavery and Free Blacks, 1819–1845,” Box 1, Folder 3. 12. Betty Wood, “Prisons, Workhouses, and the Control of Slave Labour in Low Country Georgia, 1763–1815,” Slavery and Abolition 8, no. 3 (June 1987): 247. 13. Thomas Morris, Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619–1860 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 325.

Bibliography Arondekar, Anjali. For the Record: On Sexuality and the Colonial Archive in India. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. Bledsoe, Adam, Latoya E. Eaves, and Brian Williams. “Introduction: Black Geographies in and of the United States South.” Southeastern Geographer 57, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 6–11. doi:10.1353/sgo.2017.0002. Derrida, Jacques. “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression.” Diacritics 25, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 9–63. Eichstedt, Jennifer, and Stephen Small. Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2002. Fuentes, Marisa. Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.

296 • Vanessa Lynn Lovelace and Jamie Huff Gordon, Avery. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Horton, James, and Lois Horton. Slavery and the Making of America. London: Oxford University Press, 2005. Huff, Jamie. “Song and Silence at the Gallows: Cultural Representations of Violence, Region, and Race in State v. McTaggart Slaves and State v. Frances Silver.” Law, Culture, and the Humanities 18, no. 14 (June 2018): 405–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872118784003. Johnson, Michael. “Denmark Vesey and His Co-Conspirators.” The William and Mary Quarterly 58, no. 4 (Oct. 2001): 915–76. McPherson, Tara. Reconstructing Dixie: Race, Gender, and Nostalgia in the Imagined South. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. Mills, Sarah. “Cultural-Historical Geographies of the Archives: Fragments, Objects and Ghosts.” Geography Compass 7, no. 10 (Oct. 2013): 701–71. Morris, Thomas. Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619–1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. “Slavery and Free Blacks, 1819–1845.” Collection, Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture Repository. Box 1, Folder 3. Wood, Betty. “Prisons, Workhouses, and the Control of Slave Labour in Low Country Georgia, 1763–1815.” Slavery and Abolition 8, no. 3 (June 1987): 247–71. https://doi .org/10.1080/01440398708574938.

Chapter 30

EXPLORING THE SCOPE OF DE-COMMEMORATION Touring Trafalgar Square in London and Beyond Stuart Burch

8 How should we make sense of contemporary calls for tearing down statues and renaming places? We can do so, firstly, by determining whether, in the long history of memorializing people and events, de-commemoration is actually anything new and, secondly, by wondering if it is game changing. This chapter looks for clues by going on a ceremonial tour of London’s Trafalgar Square. This choice has been motivated by its prominence, meaning that it is recognizable even to those who have never visited the British capital.1 Given its familiarity, it is remarkable how minor a role this preeminent memorial landscape has played in the often-heated debates regarding statues and place naming. Should we therefore accept Trafalgar Square for what it purports to be, namely a historically settled place forming a benign touristic backdrop? And, if so, does its endurance indicate that the rhetoric about de-commemoration is both overblown and transitory?

Commemorative Context Given this book’s international readership, it is instructive to first provide some context. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a parliamentary monarchy under a hereditary head of state. The present king’s

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predecessors include George IV (1762–1830) and his brother William IV (1765–1837), as well as Charles I (1600–1649), whose execution during the Civil War led to the installation of Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector and the only period when Britain has been a republic (1649–60). These rulers feature in the rich memorial landscape of Westminster, the central London borough that contains the Houses of Parliament. The center-right Conservative and Unionist Party has held power there since 2010. Its most famous leader, Winston Churchill, was Prime Minister during World War II and again in the 1950s. The Conservatives or “Tories” are traditionally associated with the establishment and privilege, a reputation that is embodied in the erudite, patrician figure of Jacob Rees-Mogg.2 Rees-Mogg was a vocal supporter of Brexit, which culminated in the UK leaving the European Union in 2020. The country has since then pursued a “global” agenda, confirming that the adage “Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role” still rings true.3 Echoes of vanished greatness continue to reverberate in the present, as we shall see in debates about memorials to nineteenth-century generals and admirals commemorated in Trafalgar Square. The relocation of one such statue has prompted me to riff on the title of this book by suggesting additional prefixes for “commemoration”: (ab) – away from; (re) – again; (zo) – animals. Other neologisms are possible, especially in this era of hyper-commemoration (hyper – abundant; excessive). For example, a decision to add a new inscription to mitigate a contentious monument can be seen as an instance of epi-commemoration (epi – on; after). And the ways in which such legacy symbols are drawn into the politics of the present transforms them into neo-commemorations (neo – new; fresh). We shall now turn to an illustrative example of this. It occurred at the start of 2021, just after Britain had finally left the EU. The vagaries of the Westminster electoral system had turned a minority share of the popular vote into a huge parliamentary majority for the Conservatives. So, with the political present secure, Jacob Rees-Mogg and his fellow Tories set about consolidating their grip over the political past by fanning the flames of an incipient culture war.

Gosh, That’s Gordon On 21 January 2021, a jocund Jacob Rees-Mogg alerted his fellow parliamentarians to measures aimed at increasing legal protections to safeguard statues from “woke” activists, a loose rhetorical term used to dismiss those on the political left who challenge the status quo.4 The Leader of the House of Commons mused: “In a funny way, the woke brigade have done the nation a service, because they have reminded people of the great heroes we have. With lots of statues that people used to walk past and not really notice, they suddenly think,

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‘Gosh, that’s Gordon of Khartoum. He’s an interesting figure. I want to know more about him and what he did to put down the slave trade in the Sudan.’”5 Rees-Mogg neglected to mention the precipitous drop in footfall experienced by Gordon of Khartoum’s Westminster statue. It stands not far from parliament, tucked away in a narrow park facing the River Thames (see figure 30.1). This is a far cry from its original location immediately behind Nelson’s

Figure 30.1. William Hamo Thornycroft, Memorial to General Gordon, 1888. Embankment Gardens, London. © Stuart Burch.

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Column in Trafalgar Square. It was erected there one early October morning in 1888 with none of the ceremonial fanfare that normally accompanies a statue’s inauguration. This was due to a ban on gatherings following the events of Bloody Sunday the previous year when thousands of demonstrators fought with police and troops in Trafalgar Square. Public protest is, then, nothing new, nor is a concern to protect statues from would-be iconoclasts. Gordon remained in Nelson’s shadow until the former was removed in 1943. A decade later this displaced Trafalgar Square ab-commemoration was deposited in its current backwater. This demotion was not at the behest of the politically correct “woke brigade.”6 It was, instead, an officially sanctioned act of commemorative degradation. Such monumental reshuffling goes on all the time. While it may draw far less attention than a baying mob, it is no less significant in terms of signaling a downshift in meaning—a fact confirmed by Rees-Mogg who rightly implied that most Britons alive today know nothing about Charles George Gordon (1833–85). Of course, as a privately educated Old Etonian, this doyen of the Conservative Party was “woke” where the “Martyr General” was concerned. The choice of Gordon, an imperialist and religious fanatic who “aroused hostility and idolatry in equal measure,” is perfectly attuned to Rees-Mogg’s divide and rule agenda.7 This instrumental use of heritage can be modulated as required. ReesMogg could, for example, draw on Gordon again, this time by calling for the return of his effigy to its rightful place in Trafalgar Square. The vacant site remains conveniently crossed out—a ghostly trace in this urban palimpsest (figure 30.2). That spot is equidistant from the square’s famous fountains. They gained heightened media attention in the summer of 2020 when members of the Animal Rebellion turned the waters blood-red. This zo-commemoration was a protest against animal exploitation, which the activists claimed was the root cause of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.8 Later that year, antilockdown protestors banded with opponents of the COVID vaccine and together they clashed with riot police in the square.9 The choice of battleground for all these groups was deliberate; each knew that this iconic stage would amplify their respective causes. Indeed, Trafalgar Square was doubly appropriate given that another of its monumental evictees is Edward Jenner, inventor of the smallpox vaccine. His seated figure in bronze was erected in 1858 to the south of Nelson’s Column and in front of a still extant statue to Major General Sir Charles James Napier. This prompted a mixed response at the time, with one commentator happy to see “the saver before the destroyer of life,” while another questioned why a mere scientist had been “placed among the heroes?”10 The latter view prevailed and, in 1862, Jenner was exiled to Kensington Gardens. This doctor fared better than William IV, however. Silly Billy never even made it to Trafalgar Square, leaving a purpose-built pedestal empty for a

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Figure 30.2. Site of Thornycroft’s Memorial to General Gordon (1888–1943). The Fourth Plinth can be seen to the rear, then occupied by Michael Rakowitz’s The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist, 2018. Trafalgar Square, London. © Stuart Burch.

century and a half. A solution of sorts came in 1999 when the first in a series of works of modern sculpture was allowed to occupy it on a temporary basis (figure 30.2). This so-called Fourth Plinth continues to function as a re-commemorative device, with each new occupant serving as a foil for the more enduring monuments. But permanence and orderliness are illusory. William IV’s unrealized memorial was meant as a pendant to his brother on the other side of the square. For its part, George IV’s equestrian statue was never intended for that location but was in fact designed to sit on top of Marble Arch. The square’s other bronze horseman had an even more dramatic gestation: Charles I’s statue dates from 1633. Following the king’s beheading, it had to be buried to prevent it from being melted down. This truly fantastic tale is on par with the monument’s cameo appearance in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). The brainwashed denizens of this dystopian

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London have been led to believe that the mounted figure is in fact a representation of the monarch’s nemesis, Oliver Cromwell. This mistake is because the city’s commemorative associations have been deliberately trashed: “One could not learn history from architecture any more than one could learn it from books. Statues, inscriptions, memorial stones, the names of streets—anything that might throw light upon the past had been systematically altered.”11 This reaches its apotheosis in “Victory Square,” where Nelson has been usurped by Big Brother, whose face glares out from the ubiquitous telescreens that swamp the square and all else besides.12

Our History, Our Statues, Our Education Orwell’s nightmarish vision was published a few years after World War II, during which the Nazis, confident of victory, made plans to relocate Nelson’s Column to Berlin.13 The London likeness of this British hero may have escaped the evil clutches of fascist Germany, but his avatar in Dublin was powerless to resist the machinations of Irish nationalists. In the Republic of Ireland, Nelson’s Pillar was viewed as an unwelcome reminder of occupation, culminating in it being blown-up in 1966. Deliberately timed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising against British rule, the circumstances of its destruction have spawned multiple urban myths.14 Meanwhile, in Bridgetown, Barbados, Nelson survived the renaming of Trafalgar Square to “National Heroes Square” in 1999, but eventually succumbed to the inevitable in 2020.15 In November of that year this relic of slavery was removed to a museum—the same fate reserved for the severed head of Dublin’s Nelson following the blast of 1966. Rees-Mogg’s greatest fear would be to see the London version slide off its column and into the adjacent National Portrait Gallery—hence the legislation to which he referred at the start. This was originally announced by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. He characterized it using similar language to Rees-Mogg, telling readers of the right-wing Daily Telegraph that the proposed law would protect monuments from hordes of “woke worthies” operating at the behest of Labour, the Official Opposition party in the House of Commons.16 This evoked memories of the socialist Ken Livingstone’s tenure as the Mayor of London, during which he tried and failed to remove the statue of Napier plus that of Sir Henry Havelock on the grounds that he had no idea who the generals were.17 This was, of course, disingenuous. He, like Rees-Mogg, was seeking to use statues for party political advantage. Culture wars are, then, proxy political battles. Characterizing it in these terms is fitting given that the memorial glue binding so many of London’s

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monuments is war and killing. This was brought into sharp relief by Ecce Homo, the title Mark Wallinger gave to his life-size figure of Christ. This was the first contemporary artwork to be placed on the Fourth Plinth. Five years later the same pedestal was occupied by Alison Lapper Pregnant. Its sculptor was similarly motivated by a desire to insert nurturing and lifegiving into a realm that revels in heroic death. This martial theme continues down Whitehall to the Cenotaph. Even the statue of Winston Churchill just beyond is a war memorial of sorts. It depicts the statesman as he looked in photographs taken of him as he grimly inspected the wrecked House of Commons following its firebombing by the Luftwaffe in 1941.18 Churchill’s role in guiding the nation and its empire to victory in World War II trumps his other less salubrious qualities. The fact that his monument became a flashpoint in recent street protests confirms that “statues of great [sic] figures have always been political . . . [and] subject to contestation.”19 That this should still come as a surprise to many will surely strike future generations as odd. An interesting thought experiment is to imagine our enlightened era from a future perspective. The promise of genetic modification and autonomous fighting machines will render the current crop of statues utterly anachronistic and alien. But a no less distancing effect would be caused if our descendants found a way to rid the human species of the bane of nationalism. This suffuses the commemorative landscape, making it appear natural, inevitable, and forever. Thus, for nationalism to have any chance of being excised it will be necessary to consign to history a figure such as Jacob Rees-Mogg. He invoked the revenant Gordon of Khartoum precisely to revive past jingoisms and inculcate it in the children of today. The general’s statue must continue to stand, he said, to “remind people of our . . . most fantastic history that we should be proud of and celebrate in our statues and in our education.” To this end he repeated his thanks to “the wokery classes” for “improving our understanding of our noble history.”20 Rees-Mogg’s repeated use of “our” entrenches the status quo, casting those that oppose him as “other.” His type of exclusionary politics is entirely self-interested. Rees-Mogg is the epitome of an establishment figure. His political fortunes and chances of being posthumously remembered are contingent on the continuance of the Westminster system. Both he and Robert Jenrick are grateful to “the woke brigade” and actively welcome conflict over statues as part of a culture war because they know it diverts attention from what really matters. This is not without its risks, however. For example, in the spring of 2021, a public outcry at the murder of Sarah Everard led to accusations that the government was more interested in protecting statues of dead men than securing the safety and wellbeing of living women.21 And, further afield, the siege of the US Capitol in January 2021 was a cautionary warning of what happens when wars of words turn physical. This might seem improbable in

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the apparently more placid UK. But imagine if Rees-Mogg or Jenrick do one day decide to return Gordon of Khartoum to his place of honor in Trafalgar Square. The pomp and circumstance of the reinauguration might trigger exactly that which was feared in 1888, when memories of Bloody Sunday were still fresh. A riot in Trafalgar Square could spill out into Whitehall and lead to the storming of the Houses of Parliament. If that were to occur, it might serve as a catalyst for real change. Because, in the final analysis, tearing down statues and renaming places are not new and nor are they enough.22 Revolutionizing Britain’s moribund political system necessitates the dissolution of the unelected House of Lords; an end to the Commons’ grossly unfair constituency system; and a halt on a meddling monarchy that still presides over the aptly named Palace of Westminster, a.k.a. the Houses of Parliament.23 Without such shifts it matters little how many statues are toppled or names excised. Stuart Burch has over twenty years’ experience in higher education teaching, now specializing in collaborative partnerships between British and Chinese universities. At present he is managing and delivering undergraduate and postgraduate courses in museum and heritage studies, broadcast journalism, communication, and media—all taught in Beijing and Nottingham. Research interests include public history and memory studies, resulting in multiple peer-reviewed articles and one monograph: London and the Politics of Memory: In the Shadow of Big Ben (Routledge, 2020). Professional recognition includes SFHEA (Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Association) and AMA (Associateship of the Museums Association). In addition to academic undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, Stuart also holds a PGCHE (Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education). In 2022, he won Nottingham Trent University’s Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in recognition of his engagement with international students. Aside from his work in China, Stuart has an area specialism in the Nordic region, and speaks Swedish at an advanced level.

Notes 1. Stuart Burch, “Virtual Oasis: Trafalgar Square’s Arch of Palmyra,” ArchNet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research 11, no. 3 (2017): 58–77. 2. Paul Staines and Harry Cole, “Tory Toff Jacob Rees-Mogg,” Daily Star Sunday, 4 March 2012, 26. 3. Douglas Brinkley, “Dean Acheson and the ‘Special Relationship’: The West Point Speech of December 1962,” The Historical Journal 33, no. 3 (1990): 599–608.

Exploring the Scope of De-Commemoration • 305 4. Philip Bump, “The Rhetorical Power of the Word ‘Woke’ Is Far More Obvious than Its Definition,” The Washington Post, 8 November 2021. 5. Archived Commons Hansard: House of Commons Debates, vol. 164, Col. 1144, UK Parliament, 21 January 2021. 6. Alex von Tunzelmann, Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History (London: Headline, 2021), 3. 7. Philip Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster, vol. 1 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011), 332–33. 8. Len Read, “Fountain of ‘Blood,’” The Sun, 12 July 2020, 6. 9. Oli Smith, “Violence as Anti-Lockdown and Anti-Vaccine Protesters Gather in Trafalgar Square,” Sunday Express, 20 September 2020, 4–5. 10. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster, xxxv and 270. 11. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (London: Penguin, 1976), 82. 12. Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 93–94. 13. Stuart Burch, “Have Buildings, Will Travel,” in Face-to-face: The Story of the Baltic Exchange, ed. Carl-Dag Lige et al. (Tallinn: Museum of Estonian Architecture, 2016), 99–101. 14. Jerome Reilly, “Fifty Years on, the Real Truth behind the Myth of Nelson’s Pillar,” Sunday Independent (Dublin), 13 March 2016, 34. 15. “Nelson Statue Removed from Barbados,” The Times (London), 18 November 2020, 28. 16. Robert Jenrick, “We Will Save Our History from Woke Militants,” The Sunday Telegraph, 17 January 2021, 21. 17. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster, 296. 18. Stuart Burch, London and the Politics of Memory: In the Shadow of Big Ben (London: Routledge, 2020), 141. 19. Steven Fielding, “The Defacing of Churchill’s Statue,” Oxford University Press (blog), 5 September 2020. 20. Archived Commons Hansard, vol. 164, Col. 1144. 21. Jess Phillips, “Bill Offers More Protection to Statues than to Women,” i-Independent, 16 March 2021, 7. 22. von Tunzelmann, Fallen Idols, 216. 23. Burch, London and the Politics of Memory, 141.

Bibliography Anon. “Nelson Statue Removed from Barbados.” The Times (London), 18 November 2020. Archived Commons Hansard: House of Commons Debates. Vol. 164, Col. 1144. UK Parliament, 21 January 2021. Brinkley, Douglas. “Dean Acheson and the ‘Special Relationship’: The West Point Speech of December 1962.” The Historical Journal 33, no. 3 (1990): 599–608. Bump, Philip. “The Rhetorical Power of the Word ‘Woke’ Is Far More Obvious than Its Definition.” The Washington Post, 8 November 2021, LexisNexis Academic. Burch, Stuart. “Have Buildings, Will Travel.” In Face-to-face: The Story of the Baltic Exchange, edited by Carl-Dag Lige et al., 99–101. Tallinn: Museum of Estonian Architecture, 2016. ———. London and the Politics of Memory: In the Shadow of Big Ben. London: Routledge, 2020.

306 • Stuart Burch ———. “Virtual Oasis: Trafalgar Square’s Arch of Palmyra.” ArchNet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research 11, no. 3 (2017): 58–77. Fielding, Steven. “The Defacing of Churchill’s Statue.” Oxford University Press (blog), 5 September 2020. https://blog.oup.com/2020/09/the-defacing-of-churchills-statue/. Jenrick, Robert. “We Will Save Our History from Woke Militants.” The Sunday Telegraph, 17 January 2021. Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Penguin, 1976. Phillips, Jess. “Bill Offers More Protection to Statues than to Women.” i-Independent, 16 March 2021. Read, Len. “Fountain of ‘Blood.’” The Sun, 12 July 2020. Reilly, Jerome. “Fifty Years on, the Real Truth behind the Myth of Nelson’s Pillar.” Sunday Independent (Dublin), 13 March 2016. Smith, Oli. “Violence as Anti-Lockdown and Anti-Vaccine Protesters Gather in Trafalgar Square.” Sunday Express, 20 September 2020. Staines, Paul, and Harry Cole. “Tory Toff Jacob Rees-Mogg.” Daily Star Sunday, 4 March 2012. von Tunzelmann, Alex. Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History. London: Headline, 2021. Ward-Jackson, Philip. Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Vol. 1. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011.

Part V

DE-COMMEMORATION TO CHALLENGE MEMORY

Chapter 31

FROM DE-COMMEMORATION OF NAMES TO REPARATIVE NAMESCAPES Geographical Case Studies in the United States Jordan P. Brasher and Derek Alderman

8 In 2013, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma (USA), “renamed” Brady Street in its downtown arts district to M. B. Brady Street to distance itself from Wyatt “Tate” Brady, the original namesake. Tate Brady, a Tulsa founder and Ku Klux Klan leader, participated in the infamous 1921 massacre that killed, injured, and displaced many Black Tulsans. It was one of the worst episodes of antiBlack violence in American history; white mobs killed hundreds and made thousands more homeless, wreaking havoc on Tulsa’s affluent Black Greenwood District.1 For most of the one hundred years since, Tulsa leaders and Oklahoma state officials maintained the city as a “wounded place,” refusing to grapple with the memories and legacies of the massacre.2 In light of this political-emotional context, the city of Tulsa chose a superficial, insensitive approach to de-commemoration—exchanging the memorialization of Tate Brady for Matthew Brady, a Civil War photographer with the same last name but no ties to Tate Brady nor Tulsa.3 The decision outraged many, who recognized it as being about keeping things the same rather than fully acknowledging the past. In the words of one citizen, “Because [the] Brady [name] did not change . . . it will always be Brady Street to the community.”4 Tulsa city officials, in pursuing what they saw as practical and convenient commemorative reform, lost an important opportunity to (ad)dress historical and contemporary wounds.

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Tulsa’s renaming process, like others, is characterized by multiple tensions. Not only is renaming a highly charged struggle to remove racist appellations but it is also about deciding what (and who) belongs in their place. While monuments can be torn down and have their footprint obliterated, the name of a street, park, or other public place must, out of necessity, be rewritten. A street cannot be left without a name in the same way a removed statue can leave behind an empty pedestal. In this respect, calls to rename places can never be fully understood or evaluated outside of the context of name replacement. How the rescripting of street names happens has a major bearing on the political efficacy of the name change, and whether it does justice to long silenced memories. Our observations of recent renaming campaigns in Tulsa and across North America suggest that many authorities play a “name game” in which they remove problematic names and replace them with generic, color-blind monikers.5 For example, five years after the 2013 faux renaming of Brady Street, it was finally stripped of the Brady name and dubbed “Reconciliation Way.” Meanwhile, other communities have carefully chosen replacement names that honor an important figure from marginalized communities. These commemorative decisions offer a more just and responsible solution, especially given the long history of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color) invisibility within public memorial spaces, but they also can be fraught with debate and dismissed by some as empty, performative gestures. We argue that making sense of contemporary calls to rename places requires a shift toward a reparative framework. Specifically, it is necessary to move beyond simply a consideration of whether we should de-commemorate problematic names to questions of how to do reparative justice work through the practice of BIPOC counter-commemoration and renaming. In contrast to Tulsa’s name game, a reparative approach seeks to configure namescapes to begin to heal the lingering wounds of racism, colonialism, patriarchy, and other forms of oppression. We sketch this “reparative renaming” through three key pathways: (1) the politics of surrogation, the battles over what name should replace the old problematic one; (2) memory-work, the broad effort to bring recognition and visibility to silenced historical narratives and memories; and (3) namescapes, the social, geographic, and commemorative landscape context surrounding the un-named or renamed area.

The Politics of Surrogation In the case of Tulsa, the city initially “renamed” Brady Street without actually getting rid of the Brady name, signaling to some Black residents and their allies that the city remained unprepared or unwilling to fully grapple with the memory of the Tulsa Race Massacre.6 The debate in the city in Okla-

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homa exposes how name reform can lead to unsatisfying results for some public groups when elected officials see the de-commemoration issue as one of simply airbrushing over honorific references to white supremacist historical figures. We suggest that realizing the full reparative capacity of renaming practices requires that communities find a suitable replacement moniker that signals a meaningful change in who and what is memorialized publicly. We question whether color-blind monikers like Reconciliation Way fully accomplish this. We see the renaming process deeply embedded within the “politics of surrogation,” a concept that recognizes the importance and the difficulty of filling the voids in memory and identity left open by generations of racism, exclusion, and trauma.7 Reparative name change requires a focus on counter-commemoration and choosing a surrogate that can redress historically silenced communities and reference, by name, marginalized BIPOC. Filling these emotional and political cavities with a reparative surrogate is not easy, and there is often considerable public debate about not just what/ whose new name and memory should be valorized but how much work the renaming should do in driving continued discussions about race. Tulsa is not alone: numerous municipalities have failed to use the de-commemoration of the names of racists to repair the long-time neglect of Black histories in public commemorative spaces.8 Instead, they have used renaming as a politically expedient method to invoke feel-good narratives of racial harmony (i.e., “Reconciliation Way“) or to “change the subject” altogether, moving the public away from taking on any of “the messy and contradictory realities of white supremacy, racism and genocide.”9 The value of a reparative renaming is not simply about putting BIPOC on the map; it is also in making fundamental daily interventions in how communities talk about their past and who matters and belongs within its present spaces. Finally, reparative renaming is not just about leaders commemorating Black historical figures. Procedural justice must guide the choosing of a name: the needs and demands of generationally harmed groups should be fully considered, and they should have full participation in the selection of a surrogate to represent their histories and contributions. Doing so also makes space for the capacity-building work of memory, which we explain next.

Renaming as Memory-Work The concept of memory-work recognizes that how we remember and grapple with traumatic pasts is not a passive, inevitable process, but one that decidedly requires certain measures of physical, intellectual, emotional, and political labor. For some communities, this involves political forms of witnessing that respect and acknowledge those individuals and communities

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who have been harmed, injured, or killed, and attends to past injustices that continue to haunt contemporary places. Some examples include holding vigil for those displaced by urban renewal in Bogotá, Colombia, organizing Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in postconflict societies like Liberia to support transitional justice, or creating commemorative sites like the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama (USA), to recover the memories of the victims of racial terror lynchings.10 The array of activities that can be characterized as constituting memory-work share in common the capacity to foster new forms of public memory by creating spaces for grieving, mourning, witnessing, and claiming the right to narrate past trauma. We have argued elsewhere that renaming places that commemorate problematic historical figures—including those implicated in perpetuating genocide, events of mass violence and terrorism, and enslaving others—presents an opportunity to carry out memory-work.11 Although renaming a place might not seem on the surface to carry the same capacity for politicalemotional repair as something as moving as a visit to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, place names are at least as embedded in the fabric of community life as a vigil, a commission, or a memorial. The names of streets, schools, and parks make up the foundational grammar required to navigate a neighborhood or city as part of both its physical infrastructure (i.e., street signs) and its system of spatial reference. Additionally, renaming ceremonies may be held in conjunction with a vigil, protest, moment of silence, spoken word, or other commemorative event to supplement the capacity to challenge and change the collective memories of a wounded place. Yet, as research increasingly shows, renaming by itself has limitations as a form of memory-work. As noted previously, selecting any old replacement name will not do. Further still, some scholars argue that renaming a place often serves as a way for public officials to dodge rather than meet loftier demands made by the marginalized. Antar Tichavakunda has argued that in attempting to carry out acts of “racial redress” on university campuses via renaming, new surrogate names can be perceived as empty symbols that do little to change the material realities of BIPOC who live, work, and study on campus.12 This suggests that for renaming to reach its full potential for carrying out memory-work, cities and campuses should avoid using the renaming moment as an opportunity to appease marginalized groups without meeting their wider demands or changing their material conditions, but should be accompanied by broader material and policy change to both symbolically and materially repair structural harm. At the same time, the symbolic and material realms can never be completely separated. Thus, changing symbols through place renaming holds the potential to shape the political-emotional wellbeing of a community and—through memory-work—spur needed material change.

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From Names to Namescapes Although place renaming retains a powerful capacity for promoting (or foreclosing) memory-work, the reparative potential of these reforms remains incomplete without a wider understanding of the social, geographic, and commemorative landscape context surrounding problematic, contested, or replaced names. There is a tendency among public officials, scholars, and even some activists to focus exclusively on the commemorative place name itself and treat the renaming process as narrowly defined, merely symbolic change. In doing so, they fail to fully operationalize how renaming, as a social process, is part of and contributes to broader spaces, processes, and effects of social (in)justice. Place names—rather than isolated memorials—work with social actors, politicized histories, government policies, and lived places to form broader namescapes. These namescapes can affect, positively or negatively, the psychosocial wellbeing of communities, and they mark and help reproduce larger social geographies of disparity or opportunity. Thus, any renaming effort must delve into the racialized worlds and political-emotional-economic lives attached to commemorative monikers—not just in the past but also in the present.13 A reparative namescape approach contends that place names are nodes within wider assemblages of power, identity, histories, memories, and belonging. Thus, doing meaningful commemorative reform requires a fuller understanding of the site and situation of embattled or replaced surrogate names. Place names are positioned within and emerge from immediate physical, symbolic, and social settings and are situated within broader environments, patterns, movements, and inequalities. It is important, then, to consider the place name not just in a vacuum, simply choosing a random surrogate name. Instead, it is helpful to consider place names as part of complex namescapes through which compounded networks of belonging are negotiated and come to matter and make sense to harmed communities. From a reparative namescape perspective, Tulsa officials failed to connect the Brady Street renaming to the wider namescape it formed with the city’s racialized history and geography. For example, the fact that it took eighty years for the city to release a report about the harm caused to the Greenwood District in the 1921 massacre is not inconsequential to the politicalemotional responses of Black Tulsans to the street’s 2013 “renaming.”14 Its situation within a long history of denial and cover-up of the massacre makes the faux renaming particularly painful for some residents. Indeed, the city of Tulsa arguably missed a second opportunity to do reparative memory-work in 2018 when it finally dropped the Brady name. Still, renaming the street to Reconciliation Way prompts the question of for whom reconciliation symbolically stands in as a surrogate. Replacing the Brady name with Rec-

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onciliation Way, rather than working toward repair, arguably made way for business as usual, as private development and ongoing construction on the road continues (see figure 31.1). Further, since the 2001 report was released, massacre survivors, community advocates, and public officials have fought to pass reparative legislation for the

Figure 31.1. Image of Reconciliation Way in Tulsa, Oklahoma, March 21, 2021. Photo by Rebecca Sheehan. Used with permission.

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victims, survivors, and descendants of the massacre to no avail. Although no reparative legislation has been enacted, a renewed effort to recover the memories—and literally the bodies—of the massacred has been underway since 2019. Recently discovered unmarked graves in Tulsa’s Oaklawn Cemetery suspected to contain the bodies of the massacred may be exhumed by the city, which at the time of this writing has yet to issue an exhumation order.15 Thus, a reparative approach in Tulsa would acknowledge the broader namescape formed around the Brady/Reconciliation name and how it is invariably assembled with and interpreted through the memories, spaces, and the bodies of the massacred and a broader urban development history of denying responsibility for the racialized violence. A truly just replacement would, we believe, respond to the social, emotional, political, historical, and geographic context enlivening named places, which is at least as important as the place name itself. The namescape approach recognizes the meaningful public reflections that might arise when reparative surrogate names signpost and are assembled with wider geographies of memorials. If Tulsa leaders had replaced the reference to Brady with the name of someone victimized in 1921 or someone who has fought to preserve and tell the story of the massacre, imagine the powerful connections possible between that renaming and the memory work occurring at the newly christened Greenwood Rising museum, which opened August 2021. This innovative museum is designed to narrate the history and memory of the Tulsa Massacre, serve as a “safe space for healing from racial trauma,” and provide an “emotional exit” for those who find the more graphic representations of the massacre’s violence unbearable.16

Conclusion Making sense of de-commemoration involves understanding the geographic and practical differences between calls to tear down statues versus those involving renaming places. While monuments can be torn down or removed, place names—out of practical necessity—must be rewritten and reimagined. A street cannot be left without a name in the same way a removed statue can leave behind an empty pedestal. In this respect, place name removal can never be fully understood or evaluated outside of the context of name replacement—a moment of new or unrealized commemoration. We have offered three lenses through which to begin to make sense of rechristening embattled place names. The politics of surrogation suggests that the selection of a replacement name—both the process and the outcome—is at least as important as deliberations over whether to unname. Suitable surrogate names can either make space for, or in the case of Tulsa’s Brady Street, foreclose the possibilities of wider memory-work—the capacity to create new forms of

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public memory. Finally, we caution against reductionism that overly fixates on the name itself as the problem and the solution to repairing harmed communities. We offer namescapes that consider place names as nodes within wider networks of meaning-making and belonging as a useful approach to consider the site and situation surrounding contested place names more fully. Ultimately, we argue that making sense of de-commemoration requires a reparative approach that both takes seriously the place name demands of marginalized communities and understands them within wider namescapes of woundedness and harm. Jordan P. Brasher is an Assistant Professor of Geography at Columbus State University, where he teaches and conducts research in the areas of Geographic Information Systems, critical memory studies, and human geography. His research on the politics of remembering the Confederacy has been featured in widely circulated news outlets such as USA Today, The Washington Post, Folha de São Paulo, and The Conversation (US). Dr. Brasher is an affiliated faculty member with the Columbus Community Geography Center and a research fellow with Tourism RESET, an interdisciplinary, multi-university initiative devoted to studying and challenging social inequities in travel, tourism, and geographic mobility. Derek H. Alderman is Professor of Geography at the University of Tennessee, where he teaches and conducts research in the areas of critical place name study, race, civil rights, and geographies of public memory and heritage tourism. He is the coauthor of over 150 articles, book chapters, and other essays. The National Science Foundation and the National Endowment of the Humanities have funded his scholarship. Dr. Alderman is a past President of the American Association of Geographers and Founder of Tourism RESET.

Notes 1. James S. Hirsch, Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003); “Tulsa Race Massacre,” HISTORY, 20 January 2021. 2. Karen E. Till, “Wounded Cities: Memory-Work and a Place-Based Ethics of Care,” Political Geography 31 (2012): 3–14; Jordan P. Brasher, Derek H. Alderman, and Aswin Subanthore, “Was Tulsa’s Brady Street Really Renamed? Racial (In)justice, Memory-Work, and the Neoliberal Politics of Practicality,” Social & Cultural Geography 21, no. 4 (2020): 1223–44.

From De-Commemoration of Names to Reparative Namescapes • 317 3. Brasher, Alderman, and Subanthore, “Was Tulsa’s Brady Street Really Renamed?” 4. “Brady St. in Tulsa Changes Namesake from KKK Member to Photographer,” Guardian, 16 August 2013. 5. Jordan P. Brasher, Derek H. Alderman, and Joshua F. J. Inwood, “Applying Critical Race and Memory Studies to University Place Naming Controversies: Toward a Responsible Landscape Policy,” Papers in Applied Geography 3, no. 3–4 (2017): 292–307; Brasher, Alderman, and Subanthore, “Was Tulsa’s Brady Street Really Renamed?,” 1225. 6. Brasher, Alderman, and Subanthore, “Was Tulsa’s Brady Street Really Renamed?” 7. David Lambert, “‘Part of the Blood and Dream’: Surrogation, Memory and the National Hero in the Postcolonial Caribbean,” Patterns of Prejudice 41, no. 3–4 (2007): 356. 8. Deirdre Mask, The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020). 9. Joshua F. J. Inwood, and Derek H. Alderman, “Taking Down the Flag Is Just a Start: Toward the Memory-Work of Racial Reconciliation in White Supremist America,” Southeastern Geographer 56, no. 1 (2016): 12. 10. Till, “Wounded Cities”; Courtney E. Cole, “Commemorating Mass Violence: Truth Commission Hearings as a Genre of Public Memory,” Southern Communication Journal 83, no. 3 (2018): 149–66; Marouf Hasian and Nicholas S. Paliewicz, “Taking the Reparatory Turn at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice,” International Journal of Communication 14 (2020): 2227–45. 11. Brasher, Alderman, and Inwood, “Applying Critical Race and Memory Studies”; Brasher, Alderman, and Subanthore, “Was Tulsa’s Brady Street Really Renamed?” 12. Antar A. Tichavakunda, “A Critical Race Analysis of University Acts of Racial ‘Redress’: The Limited Potential of Racial Symbols,” Educational Policy 35, no. 2 (2021): 304. 13. Derek H. Alderman and Reuben Rose-Redwood, “The Classroom as ‘Toponymic Workspace’: Towards a Critical Pedagogy of Campus Place Renaming,” Journal of Geography in Higher Education 44, no. 1 (2020): 124–41. 14. “Tulsa Race Riot: A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,” Oklahoma Historical Society, 28 February 2001. 15. Alexis Clark, “How the Tulsa Race Massacre Was Covered Up,” HISTORY, 27 January 2021. 16. Sarah Cascone, “A New Museum Dedicated to the Tulsa Race Massacre Lets Visitors Choose to See the Full Grim Picture, or Take an ‘Emotional Exit,’” Artnet News, 20 April 2021.

Bibliography Alderman, Derek H., and Reuben Rose-Redwood. “The Classroom as ‘Toponymic Workspace’: Towards a Critical Pedagogy of Campus Place Renaming.” Journal of Geography in Higher Education 44, no. 1 (2020): 124–41. doi:10.1080/03098265.2019.1695108. “Brady St. in Tulsa Changes Namesake from KKK Member to Photographer.” Guardian, 16 August 2013. www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/16/tusla-street-name-bradykkk-member. Brasher, Jordan P., Derek H. Alderman, and Joshua F. J. Inwood. “Applying Critical Race and Memory Studies to University Place Naming Controversies: Toward a Responsible Land-

318 • Jordan P. Brasher and Derek Alderman scape Policy.” Papers in Applied Geography 3, no. 3–4 (2017): 292–307. doi:10.1080/2375 4931.2017.1369892. Brasher, Jordan P., Derek H. Alderman, and Aswin Subanthore. “Was Tulsa’s Brady Street Really Renamed? Racial (In)justice, Memory-Work, and the Neoliberal Politics of Practicality.” Social & Cultural Geography 21, no. 4 (2020): 1223–44. doi:10.1080/14649365 .2018.1550580. Cascone, Sarah. “A New Museum Dedicated to the Tulsa Race Massacre Lets Visitors Choose to See the Full Grim Picture, or Take an ‘Emotional Exit.’” Artnet News, 20 April 2021. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/tulsa-opens-race-massacre-history-center-1960017. Clark, Alexis. “How the Tulsa Race Massacre Was Covered Up.” HISTORY, 27 January 2021. www.history.com/news/tulsa-race-massacre-cover-up. Cole, Courtney E. “Commemorating Mass Violence: Truth Commission Hearings as a Genre of Public Memory.” Southern Communication Journal 83, no. 3 (2018): 149–66. doi.org: 10.1080/1041794X.2018.1432067. Hasian, Marouf, and Nicholas S. Paliewicz. “Taking the Reparatory Turn at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.” International Journal of Communication 14 (2020): 2227– 45. ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/12312. Hirsch, James, S. Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003. Inwood, Joshua F. J., and Derek H. Alderman. “Taking Down the Flag Is Just a Start: Toward the Memory-Work of Racial Reconciliation in White Supremist America.” Southeastern Geographer 56, no. 1 (2016): 9–15. doi:10.1353/sgo.2016.0003. Johnson, Hannibal B. “Tulsa, Then and Now: Reflections on the Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.” Great Plains Quarterly 40, no. 3 (2020): 181–85. doi:10.1353/gpq.2020.0031. Lambert, David. “‘Part of the Blood and Dream’: Surrogation, Memory and the National Hero in the Postcolonial Caribbean.” Patterns of Prejudice 41, no. 3–4 (2007): 345–71. doi:10.1080/00313220701431468. Mask, Deirdre. The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020. Tichavakunda, Antar A. “A Critical Race Analysis of University Acts of Racial ‘Redress’: The Limited Potential of Racial Symbols.” Educational Policy 35, no. 2 (2021): 304–22. doi:10.1177percent2F0895904820983031. Till, Karen E. “Wounded Cities: Memory-Work and a Place-Based Ethics of Care.” Political Geography 31 (2012): 3–14. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2011.10.008. “Tulsa Race Massacre.” HISTORY, 8 March 2018, updated 20 January 2021. www.history .com/topics/roaring-twenties/tulsa-race-massacre. “Tulsa Race Riot: A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.” Oklahoma Historical Society, 28 February 2001. https://www.okhistory.org/ research/forms/freport.pdf.

Chapter 32

DE-COMMEMORATION UNDER THE LAW The Removal of Statues in France and the United States Thomas Hochmann

8 The removal of statues, the renaming of streets, and other instruments of de-commemoration have always been a pervasive issue.1 In recent years, however, the controversy has grown in intensity all over the world, particularly in France and the United States. The violent racist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 gave new vigor to the debate over the removal of Confederate monuments. The globalization of the anti-racist movement, particularly following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, has raised the problem of monuments considered to be racist all over the world. In France, some criticize, for instance, the many statues of Colbert, the minister of King Louis XIV, for his role in the drafting of the “Black Code,” which organized the legal status of slaves. The various positions expressed in this debate are quite easy to outline. Some wish to “unbolt” the problematic statues to condemn their glorification of racism. Among those who wish to leave the statues intact, a handful of individuals intend to defend the racist ideas they associate with them. Most supporters of a conservation of the statues rather claim that a society should not “rewrite history” or give in to “cancel culture.” Between the two extreme points of view (destroy the statues or leave them intact), a large number of participants in the debate adopt the view—often presented as an original compromise, though it might be the most widespread opinion—that the statue should be preserved but escorted by some dispositive that explains its presence and condemns racism.

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If one perceives the exhibition of a statue as a speech act, the various positions can be described as speech censorship (remove the statue), speech protection (leave the statue in place), and a demand for “more speech” (add some explanation text to the statue). Conceiving the exhibition of a statue as a speech act also leads to considering the question from a legal point of view. Is the government (i.e., any local or national public authority) authorized to remove a statue? Does it sometimes have to do so? In this chapter, I attempt to provide some answers to these questions, especially in American law and to a lesser extent in French law. I will show that some legal arguments can be made for a duty to remove a statue communicating a racist message. However, the implementation of this obligation raises strong difficulties relating to the interpretation of the monument. Furthermore, the protection of historical monuments can stand in the way. The law seems therefore to point toward the compromise solution: preserve the statue along with some explanatory sign that marks the rejection of racism.

An Obligation to Remove? Under American law, a private individual cannot be under an obligation to remove a racist symbol from their property. The First Amendment, as applied by the Supreme Court, prohibits the government from discriminating between points of view. The government cannot ban the expression of any opinion, including a racist opinion. Everyone is therefore free to install a statue of Hitler in their garden or to fly the Confederate flag above their house. Things are quite different when speech is not attributed to a private individual but to the government. Public authorities could not operate properly if their expression was subject to neutrality. As the Supreme Court explained, the acceptance of the Statue of Liberty offered by France in 1884 in no way obliged the United States to reserve a place to install a “Statue of Autocracy” that might have been offered by the Germanic Empire or Imperial Russia.2 The government must be able to express its political preferences. It is under no obligation to declare, like Donald Trump in the face of the clash in Charlottesville between racists and anti-racists, that “there were good people on both sides.” The government cannot prohibit the American Nazi Party from demonstrating with swastikas and uniforms,3 but it is not required to display Confederate flags on municipal poles to satisfy an association.4 But does it have the right to do so if it wishes to? In other words, is the government prohibited from expressing a racist point of view? In the United States, the most widely recognized limit to government speech is religion. Under the First Amendment to the Constitution, the government is pro-

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hibited from “establishing” a religion. The government violates this ban if it installs a monument that appears to support a particular faith.5 Similarly, in France, article 28 of the law of 9 December 1905 on the separation of church and state, prohibits, “in the future, to erect or affix any religious sign or emblem on public monuments or in any public location.” According to the “Council of State,” the French supreme administrative Court, the installation of a nativity scene in a public place violates this provision if it tends to “express the recognition of a cult or mark a religious preference.”6 In the same vein, the Court ordered the removal of a large cross that hung over a statue of the Pope in a French town.7 In the United States, a number of authors attempt to identify another limit to government speech. According to their view, the government is prohibited from expressing hate speech, arguing that it would run contrary to the principle of equality guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.8 This argument is based on the consequences that the government’s hate speech tends to provoke. The endorsement of such a message by the government inflicts psychological harm on members of the targeted group and encourages private acts of discrimination. The Fourteenth Amendment states, “No State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The official assertion of white supremacy, for example, even if it is not accompanied by discriminatory laws, can be seen as a denial of equal protection of laws, in violation of the Constitution. This reasoning can easily be transposed to French law. According to the First article of the Constitution, “France . . . ensures equality before the law of all citizens without distinction of origin, race or religion. She respects all beliefs.” A municipality that installs a statue of Charles Martel—a medieval military leader especially famous for his victory against Arab Muslim troops in Poitiers in 732—with the inscription “Throw Islam out of France” does not respect all beliefs and therefore violates the Constitution. In the United States, further support to an obligation to remove Confederate monuments might be found in the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, a provision that bans slavery and that has been interpreted as demanding the abolition of “all badges and incidents of slavery.”9 One could argue that a statue singing the praise of slavery and of those who fought for it constitutes such a badge of slavery.10

The Difficulty to Remove One can thus defend the view that a legal obligation to remove racist statues exists. But its implementation raises two difficulties. The first is hermeneuti-

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cal: How does one interpret a statue to identify the message it communicates? The second is legal: Is it possible to turn to a judge to obtain an injunction to remove a statue? The example of Charles Martel illustrates the difficulty that the interpretation of a statue can raise. This historical figure played an important role in the history of France in the Middle Ages. His victory in Poitiers in 732 is an episode in the history of France and Europe. Any representation of Charles Martel, such as his statue among other historical figures in the Palace of Versailles, cannot be considered to imply systematically an Islamophobic message as in the imaginary example given above. In practice, identifying the message communicated by a statue or another symbol will often be a difficult task. The interpretation of the Confederate flag, for example, is not unanimous. For many people, it symbolizes the struggle for slavery, and therefore the approval of racism. For others, it seems, it is a symbol of the southern United States, reminiscent of a war waged for the respect of states’ sovereignty, not around slavery.11 To interpret a concrete display of the flag or a particular statue, a judge should consider all the elements of the context. He or she should thus examine the figure represented and the location of the statue. The moment of its installation also plays a role: “The ‘message’ conveyed by a monument may change over time,” noted the Supreme Court.12 A different interpretation can spread in society. The Statue of Liberty was first seen as a representation of Franco-American friendship. It was only later that it was perceived as a symbol of welcoming immigrants to a land of freedom.13 Moreover, the passage of years can help to “neutralize” a monument: as it becomes part of the landscape, its initial message is lost, or greatly weakened.14 Furthermore, an inscription on the base of a statue can determine the message it conveys. For several decades, the Liberty Monument in New Orleans carried a plaque celebrating the victory of supporters of “white supremacy.”15 So, under certain circumstances, a statue may clearly communicate a racist message. In such a case, a legal difficulty may arise. To refer a claim to a judge, an applicant must demonstrate “standing,” that is to say, they must establish that the statue inflicts a harm. However, American courts have often dismissed such complaints for a lack of standing.16 They have ruled that the applicant did not establish that the mere presence of the statue inflicted a sufficient harm deserving redress. Neither the possible incitement to private discrimination nor the possible psychological harm seemed sufficiently certain to the courts that have studied the question. The removal of a statue will therefore more likely result from the initiative of the government—possibly giving in to political pressures—than from the legal action of an individual. After the Charlottesville incidents, a number of municipalities considered such an approach. Some encountered a particular difficulty.

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A Prohibition to Remove? A racist statue is still a statue, which can exist for many years and benefit from the protection of historic monuments. In France, the protection of historical monuments, and more generally that of “public works” (ouvrage public, a legal category designating real property assigned to the general interest) can thwart the destruction of a statue. In the United States, several southern states have adopted, recently or long ago, laws to protect Confederate statues in the name of historical heritage.17 In Virginia, for example, a 1950 law prohibited “to disturb or interfere with any monuments or memorials” for any war or conflict. “For purpose of this section,” the law continued, “‘disturb or interfere with’ includes removal of, damaging or defacing monuments or memorials, or, in the case of the War Between the States, the placement of Union markings or monuments on previously designated Confederate memorials or the placement of Confederate markings or monuments on previously designated Union memorials.”18 This law prevented the municipality of Charlottesville from removing a statue of General Robert E. Lee. On several occasions, a judge has barred the city from carrying out its de-commemoration decision.19 When, following the violent clashes in the summer of 2017, the city covered the statue with a tarp, the same judge ordered to remove it. “I don’t think I can infer that a historical preservation statute was intended to be racist,” he stated.20 In 2020, however, the new Democratic majority in Virginia amended the law to allow the removal, or at least the relocation and recontextualization, of Confederate monuments. The new law now provides that, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, general or special, a locality may remove, relocate, contextualize, or cover any such monument or memorial on the locality’s public property, not including a monument or memorial located in a publicly owned cemetery, regardless of when the monument or memorial was erected.”21 This tension between the ban on governmental hate speech and the protection of historic monuments is the core of the issue. It translates in legal terms to an apparent conflict between a rejection of racism and the recognition of history. The problem disappears when it is put in legal terms. Condemning past racism does not mean denying it existed; on the contrary, such a condemnation presupposes its existence. If the Constitution prohibits supporting racism or appearing to support it by leaving monuments to its glory intact, the protection of historic monuments cannot exclude any intervention on statues that carry a racist connotation. The preservation of works of the past, however, excludes them from being purely and simply destroyed. They should be kept in museums, in “memento parks” or cemeteries as in certain postcommunist societies,22 or be surrounded with explanatory panels. The idea is to

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remember rather than celebrate. This solution is therefore not only the one that wisdom suggests. It is also the one required by law. Thomas Hochmann is Professor of public law at the University of Paris Nanterre (Centre de Théorie et Analyse du Droit). Starting in 2020, he is supported by the Institut Universitaire de France to conduct a five-year research project on government speech in comparative law. His research focuses mainly on human rights, constitutional law, and legal theory. He has written or coedited several books, including L’extension du délit de négationnisme (LGDJ, 2019, with P. Kasparian); Un classique méconnu: Hans Kelsen (Mare et Martin, 2019, with X. Magnon and R. Ponsard); L’effet horizontal des droits fondamentaux (Pedone, 2018, with J. Reinhardt); Le négationnisme face aux limites de la liberté d’expression (Pedone, 2013); and, in English, Genocide Denials and the Law (Oxford University Press, 2011, with L. Hennebel).

Notes 1. See Sanford Levinson, Written in Stone (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018). 2. Supreme Court of the United States, Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460, Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, No. 07–665. Argued 12 November 2008. Decided 25 February 2009. https://supreme.justia.com/ cases/federal/us/555/460/. 3. US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Collin v. Smith, 578 F.2d 1197 (7th Cir. 1978) Argued 14 April 1978. Decided 22 May 1978, https://law.justia.com/cases/ federal/appellate-courts/F2/578/1197/448646/. 4. United States Court of Appeal for the Fourth Circuit, Sons of Confederate Veterans v. City of Lexington, VA, No. 12–1832 (4th Cir. 2013), https://law.justia.com/cases/fed eral/appellate-courts/ca4/12-1832/12-1832-2013-07-05.html. 5. The new majority in the Supreme Court tends to call this approach into question. See Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, American Legion v. American Humanist Association et al., No. 17–1717. Argued 27 February 2019. Decided 20 June 2019, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-1717_4f14.pdf. 6. Conseil d’Etat, 9 November 2016, Commune de Melun and Conseil d’Etat, 9 November 2016, Fédération de la libre pensée de Vendée, Actualité juridique Droit administratif, 2016, 2375. 7. Conseil d’Etat, 25 October 2017, Fédération morbihannaise de la libre pensée, Actualité juridique Droit administratif, 2017, 452. 8. See Helen Norton, “The Equal Protection Implications of Government’s Hateful Speech,” William & Mary Law Review 54, no. 1 (2011): 159–209; Norton, The Government’s Speech and the Constitution (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 93–126; Michael Dorf, “Same-Sex Marriage, Second-Class Citizenship, and Law’s Social Meanings,” Virginia Law Review 97, no. 6 (2011): 1267–346; James Forman, “Driving

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9.

10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21.

22.

Dixie Down: Removing the Confederate Flag from Southern State Capitols,” Yale Law Journal 101, no. 2 (1991): 505–26. United States Supreme Court, The Civil Rights Cases, vol. 109, U.S. 3 (1883), 20, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/109/3/#:~:text=%20percent22No%20pe rcent20State%20percent20shall%20percent20make%20percent20or,equal%20per cent20protection%20percent20of%20percent20the%20percent20laws.%20percent22. Alexander Tsesis, “Confederate Monuments as Badges of Slavery,” Kentucky Law Journal 108, no. 4 (2019–20): 695–712. For a rejection of this second interpretation, see the following column published after the violence in Charlottesville: Tyler Coates, “It’s No Longer about Southern Heritage. In Fact, It Never Was,” Esquire, 12 August 2017. Pleasant Grove v. Summum, 477. Pleasant Grove v. Summum. United States Supreme Court, Van Orden v. Perry, 545/677 (2005), Breyer conc., 702–3, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/545/677/ Levinson, Written in Stone, 40. See United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 31 March 2017, Carlos Moore v. Governor Dewey Phillip Bryant, no. 16–60616; Dorf, “Same-Sex Marriage,” 1280–81. Mannirmal Jawa, “The Right to (Begin to) Right a Wrong,” First Amendment Law Review (blog), 9 March 2020. Virginia Law, Memorials for War Veterans, § 15.2–1812, Code of Virginia, https:// law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title15.2/chapter18/section15.2-1812/#:~:text=A%20per cent20locality%20percent20may%20percent2C%20percent20within%20perce nt20the,1775%20percent2D1783)%20percent2C%20percent20War%20percent20of. Full documents from this case are available at http://statues.law.virginia.edu/litigation/ payne-v-charlottesville. Shannon Van Sant, “Judge Blocks Removal of Confederate Statue That Sparked Charlottesville Protest,” NPR Delaware Public Media, 14 September 2019. “Chapter 1100: An Act to amend and reenact §§ 15.2–1812, 15.2–1812.1, and 18.2– 137  of the Code of Virginia and to repeal Chapter 119 of the Acts of Assembly of 1890, relating to war memorials for veterans,” S 183, approved 10 April 2020. Virginia’s Legislative Information System, https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe ?201+ful+CHAP1100&201+ful+CHAP1100. Benjamin Forest and Juliet Johnson, “Confederate Monuments and the Problem of Forgetting,” Cultural Geographies in Practice 26, no. 1 (2019): 130.

Bibliography Coates, Tyler. “It’s No Longer about Southern Heritage. In Fact, It Never Was.” Esquire Magazine, 12 August 2017. Dorf, Michael. “Same-Sex Marriage, Second-Class Citizenship, and Law’s Social Meanings.” Virginia Law Review 9, no. 6 (2011): 1267–346. Forest, Benjamin, and Juliet Johnson. “Confederate Monuments and the Problem of Forgetting.” Cultural Geographies in Practice 26, no. 1 (2019): 127–31. Forman, James. “Driving Dixie Down: Removing the Confederate Flag from Southern State Capitols.” Yale Law Journal 101, no. 2 (1991): 505–26.

326 • Thomas Hochmann Jawa, Mannirmal. “The Right to (Begin to) Right a Wrong.” First Amendment Law Review (blog), 9 March 2020. www.firstamendmentlawreview.org. Levinson, Sanford. Written in Stone. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. Norton, Helen. “The Equal Protection Implications of Government’s Hateful Speech.” William & Mary Law Review 54, no. 1 (2011): 159–209. ———. The Government’s Speech and the Constitution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Tsesis, Alexander. “Confederate Monuments as Badges of Slavery.” Kentucky Law Journal 108, no. 4 (2019–20): 695–712. Van Sant, Shannon. “Judge Blocks Removal of Confederate Statue That Sparked Charlottesville Protest.” NPR Delaware Public Media, 14 September 2019. https://www.delaware public.org/post/judge-blocks-removal-confederate-statue-sparked-charlottesville-protest.

Chapter 33

HUMAN RIGHTS AND TOPPLED STATUES Can the European Convention on Human Rights Provide Solutions to De-Commemoration Disputes? Tom Lewis

8 The toppling of a statue erected in 1895 of the seventeenth-century slave trader and philanthropist Edward Colston into Bristol Harbor during the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020—and subsequent acquittal by a jury of four protestors charged with its criminal damage—has ignited a furious debate about the memorialization of figures from Britain’s past. This, in turn, has raised profound questions about national identity, collective memory and myth, and historical sense and sensibility. In the wake of the Colston downfall, it was reported that a “reckoning” had occurred, entailing, in the subsequent eight months, the removal or planned removal of over seventy other such monuments.1 As well as memorials of slavers, those of colonialists such as Cecil Rhodes and of “national heroes” such as Francis Drake, Horatio Nelson, and Winston Churchill, among many others, have been subjected to calls for removal.2 In their turn, these calls for “decolonization of public space” have themselves been the subject of a backlash by, among others, the UK’s (then) Prime Minster Boris Johnson, who commented: “We cannot now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations. They had different perspectives, different understandings of right and wrong. But those statues teach us about our past, with all its faults. To tear them down would be to

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lie about our history, and impoverish the education of generations to come.”3 Subsequently the (then) Local Government Minister Robert Jenrick proposed changes to planning legislation to give greater protection to monuments, criticizing their removal “at the hands of the flash mob, or by decree of a ‘cultural committee’ of town hall militants and woke worthies.”4 Meanwhile, in the criminal law sphere, the maximum penalty for damage to a memorial, irrespective of the value of that damage, was increased from 3 months to 10 years imprisonment by virtue of section 50 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. The UK has thus found itself caught in the kind of polarized controversy perhaps more commonly associated in the public imagination with disputes over statues of Confederate generals in the United States. Britain’s supposed self-perception as a beacon of moderation, liberty, and democracy with its unambiguous heroes representing valiant opposition to foreign despots and aggressors from Phillip II and Napoleon to Hitler and Göring has been seriously compromised. The controversy raises deep and difficult questions about identity, history, and the national “mythscape.”5 In this chapter, I suggest that one possible lodestone to aid navigation through this complex and contested landscape might be found in the law of human rights—in particular, in the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950 (ECHR).

A Human Rights Issue? On the face of it, international human rights law may certainly contribute to the potential resolution of such disputes. Of particular relevance is Article 15(a) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1966 (ICESCR), which provides that “States Parties recognize the right of everyone . . . to take part in cultural life.”6 This includes the right of all persons to access, participate in, enjoy, and contribute to culture, and in particular cultural heritage, which encompasses both history and memory.7 The former UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Farida Shaheed, points out that “people’s access to pluralistic memory [i]s a human right.”8 She states that “from a human rights perspective,” resolutions of disputes over memorializations require a “debate on past events and actions,”9 and that, as “part of the symbolic-cultural landscape, memorials impact on people’s perspectives and understanding of past events but equally of contemporary issues. Hence, they must be critically assessed. This is particularly important when people, including children, live under [their] shadow.”10 Shaheed’s successor as Special Rapporteur, Karima Bennoune, has emphasized that human rights, especially cultural rights, “must be understood as requiring the enjoyment of adequate public spaces by all, without discrimination.” She urges that

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the “question of public space be recognised as a human rights issue, and that a human rights approach which centres on cultural rights should be taken to decision-making in these areas.”11 The monolithic and unquestioning valorization of figures from Britain’s colonial past such as Edward Colston undoubtedly raises human rights issues along the lines envisaged by the UN Special Rapporteurs. However, the implementation and enforcement of these international human rights norms notoriously lacks teeth.12 In particular, within the context of the UK, the ICESCR is not a part of UK law nor is it enforceable in UK courts or binding on public authorities. This is because of the UK’s dualist constitutional system whereby international treaties do not form part of domestic law unless enacted by Parliament.13 As such, the cultural rights contained in Article 15 of the ICESCR, while relevant to the issues under consideration, have very little domestic legal weight that might be brought to bear in the kind of memorialization disputes outlined above. In the UK, a more fruitful body of law to help navigate such disputes may be found in the case law of Europe’s leading human rights court, the European Court of Human Rights (the Court or ECtHR). This judicial body deals with applications from complainants alleging violations of the ECtHR from the Council of Europe’s forty-seven member states. Its judgments are binding on the state concerned. What’s more, from a UK perspective, most Convention rights have been incorporated into UK domestic law by Parliament via the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA). Under the HRA the judgments of the ECtHR must be “take[n] into account” by UK courts, and legislation must, as far as possible, be interpreted in line with the ECtHR. Furthermore, section 6 makes it unlawful for a “public authority” to act in a way that is “incompatible with a Convention right.” As such the human rights principles enunciated by the Court have far greater legal bite in the UK than other international human rights instruments.

History, Dignity, and Identity How might the ECtHR and HRA help navigate the current disputes over statues of controversial historical figures like Edward Colston? An answer to this question requires a consideration of the ECtHR’s case law on Article 8, the right to respect for private life, and Article 10, the right to freedom of expression. Most ECtHR rights are not absolute. Rather, they require a balance to be struck between one person’s human right as set against the rights of others, or the broader interests of society as a whole. Thus, while Article 8 paragraph 1 protects the right to respect for a private life, its second paragraph provides that a person’s privacy may be interfered with, as long as

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that interference is “in accordance with law”; pursues one of the specific aims listed; and is “necessary in a democratic society”—in other words, is proportionate to the aim pursued.14 This final criterion can be summed up by the maxim, “You shouldn’t use a sledgehammer to crack a nut where a nutcracker will do.”15 Now, the aims listed in paragraph 2 include the “rights and freedoms of others,” and it may be that one person’s human right to privacy conflicts with, and requires balancing against, another person’s human right—for example, freedom of expression. Similarly, by way of a mirror image, the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 includes a second paragraph allowing for restrictions on similar grounds to Article 8, including protecting the “rights of others.” We can see this balancing operating in cases involving press intrusions into the private lives of individuals. Here the ECtHR has adopted an approach that sets each right, neither of which has priority, in the scales against the other, and applies criteria dependent on the specific context in order to decide which right has greater weight.16 In relation to freedom of expression, the Court has given higher levels of protection—allocated more weight in the scales—to expression that contributes to public debate, this being linked to the important role free speech plays in democratic societies. It has stressed that it is vital that proper debates take place over a nation’s past, especially on controversial issues, stating that “every country must make [efforts to] debate its own history openly and dispassionately,”17 and that “it is an integral part of freedom of expression to seek historical truth.”18 Also relevant to the present discussion, the Court has accepted that visual symbols can constitute protected “expression,” especially when they embody “multiple meanings” where “utmost care” must be observed in applying restrictions.19 Certainly statues and memorials could fall within the ambit of protection afforded by Article 10 since they “impart information and ideas,” to use the terminology of the Article itself. How then might the interplay of the rights contained in Articles 10 and 8 be relevant to de-commemoration disputes? It is to this question we now turn by examining the Court’s judgment in the 2015 case of Doğu Perinçek v Switzerland, which concerned speeches made by a Turkish politician in Switzerland that included statements that “allegations of an ‘Armenian genocide’” in 1915 were an “international lie” and that the Armenians had been “instruments” of the “imperialist powers.”20 Perinçek was convicted under Swiss hate speech laws and subsequently took his case to the ECtHR, claiming a violation of his Article 10 right to freedom of expression. All parties in the case agreed his conviction did constitute an interference with his Article 10 rights. The real question was whether this interference could be justified as pursuing one of the aims listed in paragraph 2 of Article 10. In a significant move, the Court found that the use of denigrating words about the suffering of an ethnic group’s historical forbears—because of their

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impact on dignity and identity—was capable of “engaging” the Article 8 rights of present-day members of the group. As we saw above, the Article 8 right is itself contained within the limitations clause of Article 10 paragraph 2. As the Court put it in a significant passage: the “rights of others” [under Article 10(2)] . . . were the rights of Armenians to respect for their and their ancestor’s dignity including their right to respect for their identity constructed around the understanding that their community had suffered genocide. In the light of the case-law in which the Court has accepted that both ethnic identity and reputation of ancestors may engage Article 8 . . . under its “private life” heading . . . the Court agrees that these were rights protected under that Article.21

On the precise facts of the case, the majority of the Court found that Perinçek’s right to freedom of expression outweighed Armenians’ right to dignity and identity linked to their historical victimization. This conclusion was based on factors such as the fact that very few Armenians lived in Switzerland, that the events were a century ago, and that the statements in question did not call for hatred, violence, or intolerance and contributed to the kind of “historical debate” that is assiduously guarded by the Court. However, the very fact that the words Perinçek used were found by the Court to engage the Article 8 rights of modern-day Armenians due to their insinuations about their forbears is of significance when considering the kind of memorialization disputes with which we are now concerned.

The ECtHR and Statues A statue like that of Colston constituted an immutable public representation of a man responsible for the enslavement and brutalization of hundreds of thousands of African people. Anyone of African Caribbean descent passing by such a statue would surely be impacted in terms of their dignity and identity to at least as great an extent as any Armenians hearing the speeches of Doğu Perinçek. Indeed, it is arguable that any human passing by such a statue might be similarly impacted, whatever their ethnicity. It is strongly arguable, therefore, that such a memorial engages rights under Article 8. Statues are, arguably, a form of symbolic expression. As such there is a free speech interest, under Article 10, attached to them in that they impart information and ideas to the public. Therefore, it is possible to see such cases as requiring a balance to be struck. Like all symbols, statues might be said to embody multiple meanings. But the only ostensible message this kind of memorial conveys is decidedly one-dimensional: a glorifying and unnuanced commemoration of a particular historical figure. This expression hardly con-

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stitutes part of a historical debate of the sort that is highly valued by the Court as a necessary element of democratic society. The value of this expression is likely to be held quite low when balanced against the insult to dignity and identity engendered. Moreover, as established in the Court’s case law, and required by the HRA itself, “public authorities”—which include local councils and government ministers—have a positive obligation to ensure that the human rights of all people are afforded protection, an obligation that arguably extends to public space and the facilitation of public debate about such contentious historical figures.

Conclusion It is strongly arguable that a “human rights approach” might help in the de-commemoration disputes currently besetting the UK. Such an approach would entail an acknowledgment that undiluted public glorifications of some historical figures, embodied in everlasting metal or stone, may engage the Article 8 rights of those using public space. And this right may need to be balanced against the free-speech interest in imparting information about the historical roles played by such figures. In the stark case of a slave-trader like Colston, a proportionate and balanced approach might be to require removal to a museum where deep historical context may be provided. Indeed, after its fall the Colston statue was fished out of Bristol Harbor and rehoused in a Bristol museum—BLM graffiti, dents, and all—along with artifacts from the protest that saw it fall.22 In contrast to what the Prime Minster claimed, such an approach would not be to “lie about our history.” Rather it would introduce essential nuance into what has hitherto been a one-sided telling of the story. In less stark cases— perhaps in some of those mentioned in the introduction to this chapter—it might require a balancing in the form of the provision of historical context at the site itself—the so-called retain and explain strategy, whereby both or multiple sides of the story are recounted so as to ensure that public space is inclusive and representative of all. In this way, a balanced “human rights approach” could perhaps facilitate a fuller, more contextualized and honest portrayal of this nation’s fascinating, complex, and multilayered history. Tom Lewis is Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Rights and Justice at Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom. Tom took a first degree in Modern History at the University of Oxford before going on to qualify and practice as a solicitor, prior to entering

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academia in 1997. He has written extensively on human rights and constitutional law with a particular emphasis on freedom of expression and freedom of religion and belief. His recent publications include “What to Do with the Buried Giant? Collective Historical Memory and Identity in the Freedom of Expression Case Law of the European Court on Human Rights,” in Personal Identity at the European Court of Human Rights, ed. Jill Marshall (Routledge, 2022); “Blanket Bans, Subsidiarity and the Procedural Turn of the European Court of Human Rights,” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 68, no. 3 (2019): 611–38; and “Empathy and Human Rights: The Case of Religious Dress,” Human Rights Law Review 18, no. 1 (2018): 61–87, (all coauthored with Professor Peter Cumper, University of Leicester).

Notes 1. Aamna Mohdin and Rhi Storer, “The Reckoning: The Toppling of Monuments to Slavery in the UK,” The Guardian, 29 January 2021. 2. Archie Bland, “After Colston, Figures Such as Drake and Peel Could Be Next,” The Guardian, 10 June 2020. 3. Boris Johnson, Tweet (@BorisJohnson), Twitter, 12 June 2020, https://twitter.com/ borisjohnson/status/1271388182538526721?lang=en. 4. Robert Jenrick, “We Will Save Our History from Woke Militants,” The Sunday Telegraph, 21 January 2021. 5. Duncan S. A. Bell, “Mythscapes: Memory, Mythology, and National Identity,” British Journal of Sociology 54, no.1 (Dec. 2003): 63–81. 6. See also “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Article 27, 1948, The United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights. 7. Farida Shaheed, “The Right of Access to and Enjoyment of Cultural Heritage,” Report of the Independent Expert in the Field of Cultural Rights, United Nations General Assembly, UNGA A/HRC/17/38, 21 March 2011. See also “Right of Everyone to Take Part in Cultural Life of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,” paragraphs 38, 48–49, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 21, E/C12/GC/21, 21 December 2009; and Pok Yin S. Chow “Culture as Collective Memories: An Emerging Concept in International Law and Discourse on Cultural Rights,” Human Rights Law Review 14, no. 4 (Oct. 2014): 611–46. 8. Farida Shaheed, “Memorialization Processes,” paragraph 61, Report of the Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights, United Nations General Assembly, UNGA A/HRC/25/49, 23 January 2014. 9. Shaheed, “Memorialization Processes,” paragraph 20; Hanne Hagtvedt Vik, “History, Memory and Memorialization Processes—Reports 2013–2014 (A/68/269, 2013 and A/HRC/25/49, 2014),” in Negotiating Cultural Rights: Issues at Stake, Challenges and Recommendations, ed. Lucky Belder and Helle Porsdam (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2017), 133–60. 10. Shaheed, “Memorialization Processes,” paragraph 64.

334 • Tom Lewis 11. Karima Bennoune, “The Importance of Public Spaces for the Exercise of Cultural Rights,” paragraph 1, Report of the Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights, United Nations General Assembly, UNGA A/HRC/74/255, 30 July 2019. 12. For an overview of the implementation and enforcement mechanisms, see Rhona K. Smith, International Human Rights Law, 9th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 144–68. 13. Lord Mance, “International Law in the UK Supreme Court,” Speech at King’s College, London, 13 February 2017. 14. Article 8 states: (1) Everyone has the right to respect for a private and family life, his home and his correspondence. (2) There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. 15. Eva Brems and Laurens Lavrysen, “‘Don’t Use a Sledgehammer to Crack a Nut’: Less Restrictive Means in the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights,” Human Rights Law Review 15, no. 1 (Jan. 2015): 139–268. 16. Von Hannover v Germany No. 2, paragraph 106, Application no. 40660/08 and 60641/08, The European Court of Human Rights, 7 February 2012. In such delicate balancing acts, the Court outlines that as long as the criteria set by the Court are followed, it will require “strong reasons” to substitute its view for that of the domestic courts. 17. Lehideux and Isorni v France, paragraph 55, Application no. 55/1997/839/1045, The European Court of Human Rights, 23 September 1998, which concerned convictions for the publication of an article exonerating Marshall Pétain for his actions as leader of the 1940s Vichy Regime. 18. Giniewski v France, paragraph 51, Application no. 64016/00, The European Court of Human Rights, 31 July 2006, which concerned convictions for the publication of an article criticizing the Catholic church’s role in the rise of National Socialism. 19. Vajnai v Hungary, paragraph 52–53, Application no. 33629/06, The European Court of Human Rights, 8 July 2008, which concerned a ban on the display of the red five-pointed star. 20. Perinçek v Switzerland, paragraph 13–16, Application no. 27510/08, The European Court of Human Rights, 15 October 2015. 21. Perinçek v Switzerland, paragraph 227. 22. Geraldine Kendall Adams, “Colston Statue to Go on Display a Year after It Was Torn Down,” Museums Journal, 1 June 2021.

Bibliography Adams, Geraldine Kendall. “Colston Statue to Go on Display a Year after It Was Torn Down.” Museums Journal, 1 June 2021. https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/ news/2021/06/colston-statue-to-go-on-display-a-year-after-it-was-torn-down/. ———. “Exhibition of Toppled Colston Statue Planned When Bristol Museums Reopen.” Museums Journal, 12 June 2020. https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/ news/2020/06/12062020-bristol-museums-colston-statue-display/.

Human Rights and Toppled Statues • 335 Bell, Duncan S. A. “Mythscapes: Memory, Mythology, and National Identity.” British Journal of Sociology 54, no.1 (Dec. 2003): 63–81. Bennoune, Karima. “The Importance of Public Spaces for the Exercise of Cultural Rights.” Report of the Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights. Paragraph 1. United Nations General Assembly. UNGA A/HRC/74/255. 30 July 2019. Bland, Archie. “After Colston, Figures Such as Drake and Peel Could Be Next.” The Guardian, 10 June 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/10/aftercolston-figures-such-as-drake-and-peel-could-be-next. Brems, Eva, and Laurens Lavrysen. “‘Don’t Use a Sledgehammer to Crack a Nut’: Less Restrictive Means in the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights.” Human Rights Law Review 15, no. 1 (Jan. 2015): 139–268. Chow, Pok Yin S. “Culture as Collective Memories: An Emerging Concept in International Law and Discourse on Cultural Rights.” Human Rights Law Review 14, no. 4 (Oct. 2014): 611–46. Giniewski v France. Paragraph 51. Application no. 64016/00. The European Court of Human Rights. 31 July 2006. Jenrick, Robert. “We Will Save Our History from Woke Militants.” The Sunday Telegraph, 21 January 2021. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/16/will-save-britains-statueswoke-militants-want-censor-past/. Lehideux and Isorni v France. Paragraph 55. Application no. 55/1997/839/1045. The European Court of Human Rights. 23 September 1998. Mance, Lord. “International Law in the UK Supreme Court.” Speech at King’s College, London. 13 February 2017, https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/speech-170213.pdf. Mohdin, Aamna, and Rhi Storer. “The Reckoning: The Toppling of Monuments to Slavery in the UK.” The Guardian, 29 January 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/ jan/29/the-reckoning-the-toppling-of-monuments-to-slavery-in-the-uk. Perinçek v Switzerland. Paragraph 13–16. Application no. 27510/08. The European Court of Human Rights. 15 October 2015. “Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021: Criminal Damage to Memorials cl. 46.” Bill 268, 58/1. UK Parliament. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-01/ 0268/200268.pdf. “Right of Everyone to Take Part in Cultural Life of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.” Paragraphs 38, 48–49. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. General Comment 21, E/C12/GC/21. 21 December 2009. Shaheed, Farida. “Memorialization Processes.” Paragraph 61. Report of the Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights. United Nations General Assembly. UNGA A/HRC/25/49. 23 January 2014. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/ Session25/Documents/A_HRC_25_49_ENG.DOC. ———. “The Right of Access to and Enjoyment of Cultural Heritage.” Report of the Independent Expert in the Field of Cultural Rights. United Nations General Assembly. UNGA A/HRC/17/38. 21 March 2011. https://www.right-docs.org/doc/a-hrc-17-38/. Smith, Rhona K. International Human Rights Law. 9th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Vajnai v Hungary. Paragraph 52–53. Application no. 33629/06. The European Court of Human Rights. 8 July 2008. Vik, Hanne Hagtvedt. “History, Memory and Memorialization Processes—Reports 2013– 2014 (A/68/269, 2013 and A/HRC/25/49, 2014).” In Negotiating Cultural Rights: Issues at Stake, Challenges and Recommendations, edited by Lucky Belder and Helle Porsdam, 133–60. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2017. Von Hannover v Germany No. 2. Paragraph 106. Application no. 40660/08 and 60641/08. The European Court of Human Rights. 7 February 2012.

Chapter 34

RE-COMMEMORATION What Other Stories Can We Tell? Observing Ordinary People Engaging with Monuments in Public Space Alison Atkinson-Phillips

8 The call to destroy or remove memorials that glorify colonial and racist legacies is a new phase in contemporary “memorial mania.”1 However, despite the (sometimes extreme) passions de-commemoration gives rise to, academic critics and public commentators alike often argue that “ordinary” people do not care about memorials. While the focus is often on the controversy surrounding the potential and actual destruction of statues of the long-dead, less attention has been paid to potential for new memorials to transform public spaces. If, as the editors of this volume argue, we can only understand the removal of existing memorials by thinking through what might be possible instead, this chapter offers an opportunity to pay attention to the living people whose stories have been told in public spaces that were already free from the remembrance of the criminal dead. I address some of the methodological challenges of understanding what “ordinary” people really do think about memorials, and I ask: What are the experiences that turn everyday people into memory activists? And what is it that they value about public acknowledgement through commemoration? Nonetheless, this chapter comes with a warning: neither de-commemoration nor re-commemoration can by itself challenge the ingrained structures of racism and inequality. Calls for the destruction or removal of monuments usually focus on bronze statues that specifically represent one individual—and in almost every case,

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that individual has been a powerful white man. Although the terms of the debate have shifted since 2015 and #RhodesMustFall, debates about monuments are not new. Since the 1960s the domination of public spaces by male statuary has been debated and attempts made toward diversity. A recurring debate is whether the adoption of bronze statuary is useful for those who seek to challenge the status quo.2 Writing about South African post-apartheid statues, Sabine Marschall suggested that in postcolonial contexts, adopting the art-language of the colonizer provides those who have suffered under colonial systems an opportunity to “write back.”3 While this reading recognizes the agency of those who choose to adopt this approach, there are also limitations to approaches that uncritically adopt figurative bronze statuary as their preferred form. In August 2019 Australian artists Gillie and Marc Schattner launched Statues for Equality with a mass unveiling of ten statues of women in New York. While the couple have said their project aims to achieve gender parity in terms of numbers of statues depicting men and women,4 it continues the tradition of portraying influential individuals. One of the lessons of the last few years is how quickly a person of influence can become a person of shame when new information about their behavior comes to light. More importantly, unless broader issues of structural inequality are addressed, working class people and people of color will always be less likely to be seen as “influential,” and the women chosen to be celebrated in bronze will reflect, rather than dismantle, social injustice. In the meantime, a continuing problem is that every monument that does seek to celebrate a woman or a person representing a marginalized group will be over-subscribed with meaning. This played out recently in controversy over the public sculpture to honor Mary Wollstonecraft, sometimes thought of as the mother of modern feminism. Rather than a traditional figurative monument, the organizing committee selected Maggi Hambling’s A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft, which was installed in December 2020. Hambling’s sculpture references the traditional bronze in its use of a square plinth, but on top of it stands a ribbon of shining metal, out of which emerges a naked female body. The artist has said this figure represents the spirit of “everywoman.”5 Very little of the ensuing commentary has focused on the aesthetic value of the artwork, or whether the artist had fulfilled her own vision.6 Instead, criticism centered around two key issues: the use of a naked female form; and the huge statistical imbalance between male and female statues. Many critics argued for Wollstonecraft to be represented in the same way as powerful historical men. As has become standard practice, Mark Brown, a journalist for The Guardian, sought to understand the “polarizing” artwork by conducting short interviews with people who happened to be in the park (where the sculpture is located) on a particular day, as well as speaking to local business owners.7

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But as the Twitter storm surrounding the sculpture amply demonstrated, monuments and memorials have a life beyond the physical public spaces they occupy. This points to the deep methodological challenge when it comes to understanding public views of monuments and memorials. One of the biggest challenges is that most visitors to memorials or monuments are accidental visitors—the fact that Brown can quote a “reader in art” as one of his sources may be an incredibly lucky coincidence or a carefully staged meeting. In my own research, while observing people interacting with public artworks and memorials in Australia, I have experienced such rare moments. I spent only a few hours observing the Tree of Hope memorial for forced adoptions in the Hobart botanical gardens, and during that time a member of the memorial advisory committee brought their family to see it. However, it is impossible to plan for such serendipity—and not always possible to gain anything, in research terms, when it happens. What I came to understand through months of both productive and unproductive loitering/research is that the meaning of a memorial does not rest only in the relationship between one viewer and the object itself but in the ways the memorial—through the memorial participant’s response to it—enters the public circulation of meaning.8 An example of how this might work, and how difficult it is to “see” it at work, is Der Rufer (The Caller), a public sculpture by Gerhard Marcks in Perth, Western Australia (WA). Like the everywoman of A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft, The Caller is an anonymous figure rather than a realistic representation of a historical figure. Since 1983 he has stood on a plinth on a pedestrian walkway outside the Art Gallery of WA, his hands cupped to his face as if calling out.9 Conducting observational research, the main thing I noticed was how studiously people moving through the city avoided looking at the sculpture, while expertly managing not to walk into it. Indeed, Der Rufer seemed to me a prime example of how public statues can be hidden in public view. Nonetheless, on digging a little deeper I discovered that the plaque added in 1997, dedicating the sculpture to “victims and survivors of torture,” came on behalf of those very survivors for whom The Caller offered an important emotional connection.10 We cannot know, by simple observation or by quick vox-pops, what difference a monument makes. Sometimes this is only revealed slowly, over time. At other times it becomes obvious in a moment of crisis. An alternative approach is to understand the reasons why ordinary people get involved in the creation of monuments and memorials. As an oral historian, I have focused on listening to artists and memory activists involved in commemorative projects, including those whose personal experiences of loss and trauma have been commemorated in public spaces. Not all memory activists are acting in response to their own experiences. The creation of public artworks in public space requires a level of public consen-

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Figure 34.1. Der Rufer by Gerhard Marcks in Perth, Western Australia, 13 March 2013. The sculpture was dedicated to victims and survivors of torture at the request of ASeTTS (The Association for Services to Torture and Trauma Survivors) in recognition of the emotional connections many of their clients felt to the statue. Image by Alison Atkinson-Phillips.

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sus that is heavily weighted in favor of stories that represent the dominant culture, and successful projects are usually the result of strong collaborations. What draws people to be part of such collaborations is usually an injustice to which they feel a personal connection, although the reason for that sense of connection is not always immediately visible to an outsider. The collaborators become part of a “community of memory,” which I have described elsewhere as a community formed by shared memory work, “through public practices including the circulation of shared texts, public art, activism, public history, heritage practices and in everyday conversations.”11 Some of the most moving public art to come out of such communities of memory seeks to take difficult histories and place them in plain sight.12 By difficult histories I mean histories that are often hard to talk about because they involve acts of injustice and violence, sometimes perpetrated by individuals and institutions that have traditionally been admired. Memory activists who have themselves experienced such injustice often talk of the need to make their experiences public. Public artworks are not the only form of publicity valuable to them, but they are a cultural form recognized as belonging to power. When the ex-residents of the Colebrook Home for Aboriginal Children first considered an appropriate form of remembrance, they began with a plaque that included a formal statement of acknowledgment.13 After years of fundraising, they followed this up with Grieving Mother, a bronze statue that acknowledges the experience of Aboriginal mothers whose children were taken from them. Like the example of Der Rufer above, bronze figurative statues do not need to represent a single person, and they can be a powerful way for a previously marginalized group to see their experience represented in public. The role of artists as memory activists should not be underestimated. Contemporary artists are often very aware of the historical traditions they engage with when they begin to produce public sculpture. There are examples around the world of artist-initiated public art that seeks to expand not just the range but the type of historical narratives that are encountered in public space. A recent example of this is the I Am Queen Mary collaboration between La Vaughn Belle and Jeanette Ehlers, which uses the figure of Mary Thomas (also known as Queen Mary), a leader in the 1878 St Croix labor revolt, to engage in conversations about colonial and neo-colonial power, which is currently crowd-sourcing funds for a final permanent sculpture (a contemporary form of the “public subscription” method of the nineteenth century). On their website https://www.iamqueenmary.com/history, the pair offer a narrative of the development of their ideas to this final form. Beyond public sculptures, other forms of artwork are also driven by a desire for visibility. One of the most powerful and accessible public art forms is the mural. If one of the benefits of mural art is that it is cheap and acces-

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sible, another is its ability to tell stories in narrative form. Artist and activist Judith Baca is perhaps best known for her involvement in the Great Wall of Los Angeles, also called The History of California, which begins with an indigenous creation story and incorporates the stories of many marginalized communities. Writing in the 1990s, Baca offered a powerful critique of public art “in the service of dominance,” arguing for an approach that is integrated into public life, and which would have “a function within the community and even provide a venue for their voices.”14 Another aim of public commemorations is to reclaim a physical place of pain. The Lamp for Mary by Mikala Dwyer (with text by Michael Taussig) was installed in 2010 and builds on an older 1990s community art project that sought to take a place of pain and transform it. A leader of the original project, Lisa-Mare Syron, was very clear that the project was an antimemorial,15 and that the aim was to reclaim rather than to remember.16 The location, originally known as Floods Lane, had its name changed to Mary’s Place as an act of reclamation after a brutal rape attack of a lesbian woman. Although Mary’s name and involvement was a crucial part of both projects, the original Mary’s Place Project was instigated by the wider LGBTQ community of Sydney. Mary’s individual experience acted as a catalyst or rallying point around which an extended community formed. Another member of the original group, Nicole Asquith, described an elderly woman who lived nearby getting down from her walker to help paint the laneway, as an act of solidarity.17 When the original laneway mural was destroyed, community outcry convinced the City of Sydney to replace it. The current artwork, a hot pink lamp, shines disco lights across the narrow laneway and sends a clear message to the LGBTQ community of Surry Hills and inner Sydney that their lives and experiences are important. In response to the #BlackLivesMatter protests in June 2020, and more specifically the toppling of a slave trader in Bristol, a number of municipalities in the UK have undertaken a review of local monuments.18 It is possible to argue that such reviews should be carried out regularly anyway so that our public spaces can reflect changing community values. Instead, they have become divisive, with much negative commentary in certain sections of the British media and the Save Our Statues group forming as a rallying point for those who see any changes to the existing public statuary as an assault on conflated ideas of history and national heritage. What I am arguing for is more history, represented in as many different ways as possible. Oral histories can offer a way of understanding the values and traditions ordinary people value, beyond the sound bites of a quick voxpop or a survey. Some of the short case studies in this chapter demonstrate how public spaces can be transformed when communities of memory form, based on deep listening to difficult history. Perhaps such an approach can also

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be used to understand points of shared celebration that move beyond heroic individuals. Alison Atkinson-Philips is Lecturer in Public History at Newcastle University (UK) and a member of the NU Oral History Collective. Her research interests include how difficult pasts are dealt with in the present, public art, and place-based memory work. She is author of Survivor Memorials: Remembering Trauma and Loss in Contemporary Australia (University of Western Australia Publishing, 2019).

Notes 1. Erika Doss, Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012). 2. For example, this point was made by Chilla Bullbeck, a feminist academic who had completed survey research into Australia’s monuments back in 1991. See Chilla Bullbeck, “Australian History Set in Concrete? The Influence of the New Histories on Australian Memorial Construction,” Journal of Australian Studies 15, no. 28 (1991): 3–16. 3. Sabine Marschall, “Setting Up a Dialogue: Monuments as a Means of ‘Writing Back,’” Historia 48, no. 1 (2003): 318. 4. Charlotte Lam, “Why This Australian Couple Want More Statues of Women in our Cities,” SBS News, 28 August 2019. 5. Alexandra Topping, “‘Insulting to Her’: Mary Wollstonecraft Sculpture Sparks Backlash,” The Guardian, 10 November 2020. 6. The approach Hambling used is similar to her sculpture A Conversation with Oscar Wilde in terms of its avoidance of a realist portrayal of the historic figure it is named after. 7. In his article, Mark Brown quotes people on both “sides” of the debate, some of whom love the sculpture and some who dislike it. “Mary Wollstonecraft Statue Becomes One of 2020’s Most Polarising Artworks,” The Guardian, 25 December 2020. 8. For further reading, see James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). 9. There is another version of this sculpture in Berlin, Germany, installed in 1989. Tradition has it that the words he is calling are “peace, peace.” 10. Alison Atkinson-Phillips, Survivor Memorials: Remembering Trauma and Loss in Contemporary Australia (Perth: University of Western Australia Publishing, 2019), 13–24. 11. Alison Atkinson-Phillips, “Re-remembering Australia: Public Memorials Sharing Difficult Knowledge,” Coolabah 24–25 (2018): 80. 12. See Erica Lehrer and Cynthia E. Milton, “Witnesses to Witnessing,” in Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places, ed. Erica Lehrer, Cynthia E. Milton, and Monica Eileen Patterson, 1–19 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). 13. Atkinson-Phillips, Survivor Memorials, 157–84. 14. Judith F. Baca, “Whose Monument Where? Public Art in a Many-Cultured Society,” in Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology, ed. Jennifer A. González, C. Ondine

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15. 16. 17. 18.

Chavoya, Chon Noriega, and Terecita Romo, 304–9 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2019). Sue-Anne Ware, “Anti-Memorials and the Art of Forgetting: Critical Reflections on a Memorial Design Practice,” Public History Review 15, no. 1 (2008): 61–76. Lisa-Mare Syron, personal interview, 2013. Syron, personal interview, 2013. Robert Wright and Mure Dickie, “UK Municipal Leaders Reassess Statues Linked to Slave Trade,” The Guardian, 9 June 2020.

Bibliography Atkinson-Phillips, Alison. “Re-remembering Australia: Public Memorials Sharing Difficult Knowledge.” Coolabah 24–25 (2018): 76–93. ———. Survivor Memorials: Remembering Trauma and Loss in Contemporary Australia. Perth: University of Western Australia Publishing, 2019. Baca, Judith F. “Whose Monument Where? Public Art in a Many-Cultured Society.” In Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology, edited by Jennifer A. González, C. Ondine Chavoya, Chon Noriega, and Terezita Romo, 304–9. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. Brown, Mark. “Mary Wollstonecraft Statue Becomes One of 2020’s Most Polarising Artworks.” The Guardian, 25 December 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/ dec/25/london-mary-wollstonecraft-statue-one-of-2020s-most-polarising-artworks. Bullbeck, Chilla. “Australian History Set in Concrete? The Influence of the New Histories on Australian Memorial Construction.” Journal of Australian Studies 15, no. 28 (1991): 3–16. Doss, Erika. Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Lam, Charlotte. “Why This Australian Couple Want More Statues of Women in our Cities.” SBS News, 28 August 2019. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/why-this-australian-couplewant-more-statues-of-women-in-our-cities. Lehrer, Erica, and Cynthia E. Milton. “Witnesses to Witnessing.” In Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places, edited by Erica Lehrer, Cynthia E. Milton, and Monica Eileen Patterson, 1–19. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Marschall, Sabine. “Setting Up a Dialogue: Monuments as a Means of ‘Writing Back.’” Historia 48, no. 1 (2003): 309–25. Topping, Alexandra. “‘Insulting to Her’: Mary Wollstonecraft Sculpture Sparks Backlash.” The Guardian, 10 November 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/10/ insulting-to-her-mary-wollstonecraft-sculpture-sparks-backlash. Ware, Sue-Anne. “Anti-Memorials and the Art of Forgetting: Critical Reflections on a Memorial Design Practice.” Public History Review 15, no. 1 (2008): 61–76. https://search.infor mit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.987154628048113. Wright, Robert, and Mure Dickie. “UK Municipal Leaders Reassess Statues Linked to Slave Trade.” The Guardian, 9 June 2020. https://www.ft.com/content/bd44ed58-adcd4934-bec4-8edf7fc0e4c2. Young, James E. The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

Chapter 35

WHO CARES ABOUT OLD STATUES AND STREET NAMES? Resisting Change and the Protracted Decommunization of Public Space in Poland Ewa Ochman

8 The toppled statues of Marx and Lenin, powerful symbols of the fall of communist rule, echoed the removal of tsarist monuments during the Bolshevik revolution seventy years earlier. The removal of monuments and the renaming of streets and public spaces are prominent practices used by political regimes to indicate a change in power relations and new ideological positions. The end of Soviet control of Eastern Europe, thus, was physically manifested in the decommunization of public space, that is, in the renaming of streets and removal of monuments commemorating histories and ideologies of the communist era. A much-debated question is, however, how far this revision has actually been embraced in postcommunist societies and how far it has been resisted.1 There is also uncertainty as to the exact factors that conditioned this process and that contributed to its contested nature. This chapter will seek to provide further understanding of this problem. I will consider the case of Poland, one of the leaders of the postcommunist transition and the country of the Solidarity movement, which played a major role in the fall of communism in the region. The protracted nature of the decommunization of public space in Poland is usually explained in terms of an antagonistic use of historical narratives for the purpose of dele-

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gitimizing political opponents. Here, however, I will argue that it is ordinary citizens’ attitudes to de-commemoration that warrants our closer attention.2 It is ordinary citizens’ resistance to the remaking of their everyday space that has been one of the overlooked factors shaping the nature of Poland’s decommunization of public space.

De-Commemoration as a Tool of Decommunization In Poland, communist monuments were being dismantled even before the end of 1989. In Warsaw, the first to be toppled was the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, Bolshevik leader and head of the first Soviet secret police organization. This monument had been erected in one of the most prestigious squares of the capital, fittingly renamed Dzerzhinsky Square in 1951, at the height of the Stalinist era in Poland. Thirty-eight years later when the statue was carefully lifted up by a crane, it broke into three pieces. Bloody Felix turned out to have been cast out of concrete and only coated with bronze. That evening the national news broadcast to the country a report from the site, ending the piece with a picture of huge crowds, some standing on the empty pedestal, cheering and bursting out into singing the national anthem.3 Other monuments followed down this path. Hundreds of monuments and plaques were removed by 1993. This period saw also the renaming of public spaces, with most changes occurring immediately after the fall of communism.4 Overall, most frequently replaced were the street names that commemorated communist leaders or expressed gratitude to the Red Army for the contentious liberation of Poland during World War II. This revision served to indicate the regaining of full sovereignty, with the new post-Soviet identity being inscribed on the landscape. The change was implemented by local authorities; what happens to monuments, street names, and commemorative plaques rests with them rather than with the national government. However, the general enthusiasm for toppling statues—so visible in Dzerzhinsky Square in 1989—and the willingness to accept street renaming, especially by those directly affected by the change, evaporated within the first few years of the fall of communism. Tellingly, nearly three decades later, around 560 monuments and over 1,300 street names that celebrate the toppled regime’s version of national history still stood, despite various de-commemorative initiatives launched by political leaders, memory institutions, and grassroot organizations.5 The situation only changed as result of legislation introduced in 2016 by the nationalconservative Law and Justice party that made decommunization mandatory; but even this legislation was contested. There are a number of reasons behind this protracted de-commemoration, which I will now probe.

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Figure 35.1. The monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky, Warsaw, 1977. Photographed by Grażyna Rutkowska. Courtesy of the National Digital Archive, Poland. Used with permission.

The Pros and Cons of De-Commemoration The transition to democratic politics had been negotiated with Polish communists in 1989, making difficult any comprehensive reckoning with the postwar communist past. The former communist party refashioned itself as a Western social democratic party—the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD)— that favored a free market economy, constitutional law, and liberal social policies. It won the parliamentary elections in 1993 and 2001 and was well represented in local councils. Although the left supported Poland’s reorientation toward the West, it simultaneously tried to preserve the commemorative heritage of the previous regime and consistently voted against any decommemorative resolutions put forward by supporters of decommunization in local councils. Interestingly, the left did not make any serious attempts to

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shape public discourse on the postwar past and rarely defended the communist (or socialist) heritage on ideological grounds. It frequently used ordinary citizens’ resistance to the renaming as justification for opposing the decommunization of public space. It was argued that the authorities’ energy (and finances) should be channeled toward economic growth and improving the standard of living of ordinary people rather than symbolic remaking. Secondly, it was argued that Poland needed good relations with Russia and accordingly should refrain from demolishing Red Army monuments. After all, these monuments commemorated the rank-and-file soldiers who had lost their lives fighting against Nazi Germany and did not spread any specific ideology. Besides, the so-called Monuments to the Brotherhood in Arms often depicted Polish soldiers from the Polish Army sponsored by the Soviet Union. These soldiers had fought alongside Red Army conscripts against the German occupier. Should they be honored through monuments and street names or conveniently forgotten? All these historical complexities common to east European countries that found themselves under two occupations, Nazi and Soviet, during World War II made a wide-ranging de-commemoration that much more difficult. This was especially the case during the earlier years of the transition when the number of war veterans from the Soviet-sponsored Polish army was still relatively high. Moreover, the post-Soviet de-commemoration was just one element in a much broader process of dealing with the legacies of the communist dictatorship. Views on the decommunization of public space were shaped by attitudes adopted in the face of a number of transitional issues: To what extent should the former communist regime functionaries and secret service agents be punished? What kind of transitional justice mechanisms should be implemented? In Poland, it was difficult to work out a common approach to these issues. The parties that themselves originated from the Solidarity opposition movement disagreed on how the communist past should be dealt with. Along with those advocating radical measures to punish the former communist establishment were those that opted for a more forgiving approach and promoted societal reconciliation. Accordingly, the hardliners wanted to impose mandatory and wide-ranging decommunization on local communities while others opposed this as too radical a form of state intervention in commemorative space and preferred a more consensual approach. They argued that street renaming and the removal of monuments need to be negotiated through public debate rather than forced from above by decree. Ordinary citizens’ support for their old street names could not be just left out of consideration.6 Decision-making procedures with respect to de-commemoration should reflect Poland’s transition to democracy and no one political group should ideologically monopolize public space. Also, it was argued, there were a number of questions that needed to be addressed when the decommunization procedures were

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adopted. Who should be given the power to decide which names and monuments must go—historical expert commissions, politicians, victim organizations, or local residents? What kind of mechanisms should be put in place to involve local communities in the process? These issues particularly resonated when local communities clashed with advocates of decommunization over the present-day meanings constructed around monuments, as was the case with the Monument to the Brotherhood in Arms in Warsaw. For the majority of Warsaw’s residents, the monument was simply an orientation point in the topography of the city, an integral part of its built environment, and a location in daily life.7 They did not associate the monument with the glorification of Stalinist crimes and therefore wanted it to remain.

De-Commemoration Politics The extent to which the political parties in Poland—at national and local levels—responded to or were shaped by attitudes held by their electoral base to decommunization is another aspect of de-commemoration worth probing. A national opinion poll conducted in 2018 shows that Poles were divided on the issue, with 43 percent of respondents supporting the renaming of streets that “symbolize” communism and 44 percent stating they were against it.8 The poll also indicates that these views strongly correlate with political orientation: the renaming was supported by 63 percent of respondents identifying with the right, whereas for those with left-wing views the figure was only 21 percent. Respondents with centrist political views were more divided in their opinion, with those opposed to renaming (46 percent) outweighing the supporters (36 percent).9 This polarization is not surprising considering that the poll was conducted during a time of intense political conflict surrounding the implementation of the decommunization legislation, which was widely reported by the media. What warrants further investigation, though, is whether those opposing the decommunization were just automatically hostile to any policies proposed by the Polish nationalist conservatives (the Law and Justice party).10 Did they try to defend a more nuanced evaluation of the socialist past, or, rather, were they reluctant to let go of the past, which can be explained by habitual practices and an anxiety about change?

Ordinary People’s (Dis)Interest in De-Commemoration Central to these questions is how the declarations of rejection of or support for decommunization correspond to the actual decisions taken by ordinary people when they are directly affected by the renaming. And how much

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attention ordinary people actually pay to street names. As for the latter, research conducted in other post-Soviet countries shows that “street names often become empty signifiers to many urban residents who use them as spatial identifiers on a daily basis but may not know, or care, who or what has been commemorated in a street name.”11 Results from Polish consultations and surveys support these findings. For example, 65 percent of respondents said it did not matter to them who a street was named after (it mattered to 30 percent of respondents) in a major survey conducted by Poland’s Public Opinion Research Centre in 2007, and 40 percent of respondents declared that street names commemorating the communist regime had never existed in their localities.12 And yet such street names did exist across Poland before 1989 and many continued to survive the initial renaming of the early 1990s. As for the issue of declared support for decommunization versus actual practice, the implementation of the 2016 legislation sheds further light on ordinary people’s attitudes. The law obliged local authorities to rename public spaces (streets, bridges, squares), buildings, and objects that commemorated people, organizations, events, or dates “symbolizing repressive, authoritarian and the non-sovereign system of power in Poland in the years 1944–1989.”13 In 2017 the law was amended to also include the removal of monuments. If local authorities did not make the required changes, a voivode—a regional representative of the national government—was mandated to issue administrative decisions that implemented the law. The response from local authorities with respect to both monuments and street names varied; some fully implemented the law, some resisted and appealed to the administrative courts, and others turned to ingenious ways of implementing the law. For example, they found “replacement” names. One of the best-known examples of this strategy is the replacing of Jan Krasicki (a prominent member of the People’s Guard, a communist underground armed organization active during World War II) with Ignacy Krasicki (Poland’s leading Enlightenment poet). After such a renaming, Krasicki Street would remain Krasicki Street, allowing residents and businesses of the affected streets to keep the old address. Local authorities knew renaming was unpopular with residents and tried to minimalize its impact. They dissociated themselves from the legislation by pointing out its mandatory character and its provenience “from above,” and they organized consultations to find out the residents’ views on possible replacements for street names.14 The results from consultations conducted by the city of Katowice, for example, are a good illustration of the resistance local authorities faced.15 First of all, most respondents rejected any changes. Some were angry about the perceived arbitrariness of the choice of names to be changed or the very premises of the decommunization law. But, as might be expected, one of the most frequently raised issues was the costs renaming entails. As one resident explained, “For

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us, this change is nothing but trouble and additional expenses”; and another observed, “The money that is needed to pay for the whims of the current government can be spent more sensibly.” Moreover, what is confirmed by these comments is how little the commemorative dimension of street names matters to many residents; as one person explained, “The street name hasn’t bothered me for forty years and it doesn’t bother me now.” The names matter as far as they help spatial orientation and contribute to a sense of continuity and stability in peoples’ lives. The feeling of loss of the certain familiarity of everyday living space caused by the renaming was especially felt by older residents: “I’ve spent most of my life at Szenwald Street, and I will die at Prusa Street.”16 The renaming was seen as action that both disrupts people’s everyday lives and invades their personal space. There was also anxiety over the “replacement” names, with people wondering whether they would cause problems in everyday life. Many residents favored short names that were easy to spell and easy to remember. They also preferred names connected to their local history or neutral names, for example, reflecting the natural topography of the location of the street or its physical attributes. However, these were not necessarily names favored by those who championed decommunization and had preference for commemorative names. After all, decommunization was not only about removing names but also inscribing historical narratives favored by the decision-makers into public space. This problem is well illustrated with a renaming in one Polish city: People’s Guard Street became The 11th Operational Group of the National Armed Forces Street, despite residents’ petition to change the street name to Stadion Street.17 The city council eventually renamed the street again, agreeing that the new name was too long; this time it became The National Armed Forces Street. But residents in other places have been less fortunate. And it is these breaches of societal trust in the context of renaming that are now having attention drawn to them by those who opposed the mandated decommunization from the start. It is concern about the decision-making procedures surrounding de-commemoration that now seems to be the most momentous in terms of Poland’s democratic future. As we have seen, the process of the decommunization of public space in Poland has been shaped by the country’s historical legacies, the nature of the regime change, and the trajectory of democratic transition, including divergent approaches to transitional justice. What stands out, though, is the extent to which the attitudes of ordinary citizens to the remaking of their everyday space have been implicated in this process. Ordinary citizens were brought into the de-commemoration process in various ways: they needed to be educated about the communist past or disciplined if they refused to embrace the renaming. Their opinions were employed as justification for enforcing

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Figure 35.2. Demolition of the Monument of Gratitude to the Soviet Army, Szczecin, 20 November 2017. Photographed by Kapitel. Wikipedia Commons. Public domain.

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legislative control over the commemorative landscape and also for blocking the change. The issue of effective consultation on street renaming was used as evidence of the waning of democratic standards in Poland. Overall then, what stands out is how much the response of elite actors to ordinary citizens’ attitudes to de-commemoration can tell us about the nature of postcommunist transition in the region. Ewa Ochman is Senior Lecturer in East European Studies and a member of the Centre for the Cultural History of War and the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester. Her research interests are mainly focused on the twentieth-century history of central and eastern Europe and deal broadly with state sponsored history, remembrance of war, decommunization of public space, population displacement, borderlands, and ethnic minorities. She is the author of Post-Communist Poland: Contested Pasts and Future Identities (Routledge, 2013) and has published articles in Memory Studies, History and Memory, Nationalities Papers, East European Politics and Societies, Contemporary European History, and Cold War History.

Notes 1. For an excellent summary of arguments on this issue see Duncan Light and Craig Young, “The Politics of Toponymic Continuity: The Limits of Change and the Ongoing Lives of Street Names,” in The Political Life of Urban Streetscapes: Naming, Politics, and Place, eds. Reuben Rose-Redwood, Derek Alderman, and Maoz Azaryahu, 185–201 (London: Routledge, 2017). 2. See on this point also Danielle Drozdzewski, “Using History in the Streetscape to Affirm Geopolitics of Memory,” Political Geography 42 (2014): 77. 3. Dziennik TV, “Ostatnie Wydanie,” 17 November 1989, video, 9:01–10:00. 4. Marcin Kula, Nośniki Pamięci Historycznej (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo DiG, 2002), 127. 5. Sejm Rzeczyposplitej Polskiej, “Zapis Przebiegu Posiedzenia: Komisji Administracji i Spraw Wewnętrznych (Nr 134) i Komisji Samorządu Terytorialnego i Polityki Regionalnej (Nr 180),” 13 December 2017, 16. 6. Ewa Ochman, Post-Communist Poland: Contested Pasts and Future Identities (London: Routledge, 2013), 76–81. 7. Ewa Ochman, “Spaces of Nationhood and Contested War Monuments in Poland: The Warsaw Monument to the Brotherhood in Arms,” in The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History After 1945, ed. Berber Bevernage and Nico Wouters (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2018), 485–88. 8. Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej (CBOS), “Stosunek do Dekomunizacji Nazw Ulic,” KB/18 (2018): 2. 9. CBOS, “Stosunek do Dekomunizacji.” 10. I am grateful to Antony Kalashnikov for this observation.

Who Cares about Old Statues and Street Names? • 353 11. Reuben Rose-Redwood, Derek Alderman, and Maoz Azaryahu, “The Urban Streetscape as Political Cosmos,” in Political Life of Urban Streetscapes, ed. Rose-Redwood, Alderman, and Azaryahu, 8. 12. CBOS, “Opinia Społeczna o Nazwach Ulic,” KB/38 (2007): 2–3. 13. Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, “Law of 1 April 2016 on Prohibiting Propagation of Communism or Other Totalitarian Regime Through Names of Buildings, Objects, and Public Service Devices,” 2016, item 744. 14. See, for example, Urząd Miasta Stołecznego Warszawa, “Ogłoszenie o Konsultacjach Zmian Nazw Wybranych Ulic, June 2017.” 15. Urząd Miasta Katowice, “Raport z Konsultacji Społecznych, October 11, 2017.” 16. Urząd Miasta Katowice, “Raport z Konsultacji Społecznych,” 5–10. 17. Urząd Miasta Płock, “Protokół Nr XXXV/2017 z Obrad Sesji Rady Miasta Płock,” 58–68.

Bibliography Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej (CBOS). “Opinia społeczna o nazwach ulic.” KB/38 (2007): 1–5. https://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2007/K_038_07.PDF. ———. “Stosunek do Dekomunizacji Nazw Ulic.” KB/18 (2018): 1–5. https://www.cbos.pl/ SPISKOM.POL/2018/K_018_18.PDF. Drozdzewski, Danielle. “Using History in the Streetscape to Affirm Geopolitics of Memory.” Political Geography 42 (2014): 66–78. Dziennik TV. “Ostatnie Wydanie,” 17 November 1989, video, 9:01–10:00. Accessed 15 July 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=597&v=s3dmGyizD1E& feature=emb_logo. Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej. “Law of 1 April 2016 on Prohibiting Propagation of Communism or Other Totalitarian Regime through Names of Buildings, Objects, and Public Service Devices.” 2016, item 744. Kula, Marcin. Nośniki Pamięci Historycznej. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo DiG, 2002. Light, Duncan, and Craig Young. “The Politics of Toponymic Continuity: The Limits of Change and the Ongoing Lives of Street Names.” In The Political Life of Urban Streetscapes: Naming, Politics, and Place, edited by Reuben Rose-Redwood, Derek Alderman, and Maoz Azaryahu, 185–201. London: Routledge, 2017. Ochman, Ewa. Post-Communist Poland: Contested Pasts and Future Identities. London: Routledge, 2013. ———. “Spaces of Nationhood and Contested War Monuments in Poland: The Warsaw Monument to the Brotherhood in Arms.” In The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History after 1945, edited by Berber Bevernage and Nico Wouters, 477–93. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2018. Rose-Redwood, Reuben, Derek Alderman, and Maoz Azaryahu. “The Urban Streetscape as Political Cosmos.” In Political Life of Urban Streetscapes, edited by Rose-Redwood, Alderman, and Azaryahu, 1–24. Sejm Rzeczyposplitej Polskiej. “Zapis Przebiegu Posiedzenia: Komisji Administracji i Spraw Wewnętrznych (Nr 134) i Komisji Samorządu Terytorialnego i Polityki Regionalnej (Nr 180).” 13 December 2017. http://www.sejm.gov.pl/sejm8.nsf/biuletyn.xsp?documen tId=F31612F02113055AC12581FD004C8FD7.

354 • Ewa Ochman Urząd Miasta Katowice. “Raport z Konsultacji Społecznych, October 11, 2017.” Accessed 15 July 2021. https://www.katowice.eu/Konsultacje/Shared%20Documents/Raport%20 ko%C5%84cowy%20dekomunizacja%20ok.pdf Urząd Miasta Płock. “Protokół Nr XXXV/2017 z Obrad Sesji Rady Miasta Płock.” Accessed 15 July 2021. http://dane.plock.eu/bip//dane/protokoly/vii/p_35.pdf. Urząd Miasta Stołecznego Warszawa. “Ogłoszenie o Konsultacjach Zmian Nazw Wybranych Ulic, June 2017.” Accessed 15 July 2021. http://konsultacje.um.warszawa.pl/konsultacja/ konsultacje-zmian-nazw-wybranych-ulic.

Chapter 36

KEEPING THE PAST FROM FREEZING Augmented Reality and Memories in the Public Space Mykola Makhortykh and Anna Menyhért

8 The push to bring down monuments tied to colonialism and slavery in the summer of 2020 highlights the complex interplay between memory and power relations in the public space. While far from being the first instance of radical reassessment of the role of troubled memories in the public space, the massive scale of this process and its extensive media coverage resulted in an unprecedented transnational debate about the interpretations of the past and the monuments that reinforce these interpretations. However, this debate has mostly remained within the conceptual binary of removing versus maintaining certain monuments. Neither the question of what (if anything) should replace the empty pedestals nor alternative solutions have as yet been discussed extensively. This latest wave of monument wars,1 however, can offer more than just another occasion to remove monuments that serve as remnants of past oppression and indicators of present discrimination. It highlights that a reinterpretation of the role of monuments as a means of representing, transmitting, and processing traumatic memories has become necessary. Recent technological advancements in the field of augmented reality (AR) enable new possibilities for challenging the traditional function of monuments as a form of static remembrance that is used to maintain memory hegemonies.2 Specifically, these advancements allow construction of AR-based monuments—that is, physical monuments accompanied with virtual features that are accessible via a digital device (e.g., a smartphone) that can enable new forms of interactions with the past in the public space.3

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Unlike physical monuments made of steel or stone, AR-based monuments are easier to change and supplement with a larger volume of contextual information available to the visitors. Together with the possibility of integrating different AR forms of the same monument (both in terms of visual appearance and commemorative function behind it), which can be chosen by individual visitors, these features can facilitate bottom-up dynamic interactions with the past in public space. Such interactions can be further amplified by the use of recommender systems taking into consideration history of visitor engagement with AR-based sites to facilitate discovery of new information and novel perspectives on the past. Not only can such a significant shift from static to dynamic remembrance democratize the relationship to the past by preventing the formation of new hegemonic relationships with what we remember; it can also help process traumas associated with past/present injustices by “thawing the frozen currents” of silence and keeping them from “refreezing” by maintaining the space for dialogue.4

Freezing the Past: Monuments as a Form of Static Memory Monuments are one of the most common and potent forms of engagement with memory in the public space. Similar to toponyms, such as street names or city names, monuments embed specific interpretations of the past into the public space and highlight what a particular society/regime views as worth remembering.5 While everyday interactions with symbolic elements of the public memoryscape, such as monuments or memorials, can be less intense compared to toponyms that can be argued to be more “functional” elements (i.e., the ones individuals interact with on a daily basis in order to navigate urban space), the combination of a physical representation of the past via a particular artistic form and a verbal reference to it enabled by monuments also provides a higher interpretative value compared to toponyms. For these reasons, monuments play a key role in the process of constructing symbolic landscapes of power, where they serve as spatial coordinates of identity.6 By fixing in stone how a certain community interprets the past, monuments define important milestones that happened in the past and influence practices of identity-formation that happen in the present. The mnemonic functions of monuments also have an influence on the future of the community to which the monuments belong by determining the ideals that are worth striving for and projecting history-informed expectations and hopes into the future.7 The importance of monuments as physical embodiments of identities and memories translate into their close relationship with political and social control.8 Like other elements of public spaces, monuments are often constructed

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by societal elites who use them to reinforce their symbolic control over the society and maintain hegemonic power relationships in relation to both the present and the past. Consequently, monuments almost always deal not only with remembrance but also with forgetting, because by promoting certain narratives of the past they at the same time silence other narratives.9 To fulfill their role as hegemonic identity/memory markers, monuments must be stable. By offering fixed interpretations of past triumphs and tragedies, monuments serve as a static form of memory that reinforces a particular narrative that thrives within the society when the monument is established. However, narratives tend to change faster than monuments, and when this happens, the monument turns from a form of remembering to a form of conserving an interpretation that is no longer applicable in the current state of the society in which it exists. And then the question arises: What should happen with the monument?

Unfreezing the Past: Removing Monuments and Counter-Monuments The most obvious way of dealing with monuments that are no longer wanted or needed by the community is to remove them. Just as the installation of monuments is not only about the addition of artistic work to public space but also about power relationships within a given society, the removal of monuments is an act of exercising power that is indicative of ongoing societal changes. In some cases, such as the removal of Confederate monuments in the United States after the Charlottesville attack,10 these changes are of an evolutionary nature and reflect the results of a long-term struggle against discrimination. In other cases, as in the case of Communist-era monuments removed after the fall of the Soviet bloc, it is a consequence of a sudden rupture with the past caused by regime change and accompanied by the removal of its symbols from the public space.11 The process of removing monuments symbolizing injustice and discrimination from public space is important for unfreezing the static representation of the past and, thus, can serve as a first step of dealing with trauma and coming to terms with the past. However, how can the process of countering discrimination and healing in the context of public space be made sustainable? Often, the answer to this question presumes the construction of new monuments devoted to episodes of the past that are viewed as more glorious or to a different individual or social group, in particular the ones that have been silenced or subjected to discrimination.12 While both approaches challenge historical injustice, they eventually result in the same reliance on static interpretations of the past that can potentially lead to the formation of new

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memory hegemonies and that would undermine the perspective of making the public space more open and polyvocal. The inability of going beyond the cycle of (re)constructing static monuments also raises questions about the sustainability of this approach toward unfreezing the past as well as its ability to make historical representation more inclusive. The changing standards of how inclusivity is understood additionally complicates this process. One alternative is the construction of counter-monuments, which is particularly viable in cases where the society is not capable of radically shifting power relationships in the context of the past (e.g., when authorities keep control over the public commemoration of the contested past, thus limiting the possibilities of individual citizens to influence it). In these cases, even if certain social groups do not agree with the erection or maintenance of specific monuments due to their messages, there is hardly a possibility to remove these monuments due to state policies. Under these conditions, informal practices of alternative commemoration can enable the formation of countermonuments, namely more self-conscious memorial forms that critically revisit the core premises of official commemoration.13 One example of such a counter-monument is the Living Memorial in Budapest (see figure 36.2). In June 2014, in the framework of the Memorial Year on the seventieth anniversary of the Holocaust, the Hungarian government erected the Monument to the Victims of the German Occupation (figure 36.1). This monument conveys a victim narrative by representing Hungary as the victim of the German occupation and blaming Nazi Germany for the death of the 565,000 Hungarian Jews who perished between 1941–45.14 To communicate this message, the monument uses Archangel Gabriel as a symbol of Hungary and contrasts it with the imperial eagle, which stands as the symbol of the conquering power of the Nazis. To counter this state-enforced interpretation of the past, a group of protesters assembled a counter-monument intended to commemorate not state victimhood but actual victims who were deported as a consequence of collaboration between Nazi and Hungarian institutions. As opposed to the official monument, the Living Memorial is a compilation of stones, photos, texts, and pieces of clothing telling the stories of individual victims and remembering them in their human vulnerability. Volunteer tour guides explain the relationship of the two monuments to tourists to draw attention to the existence of parallel versions of traumatic memory and different ways of engagement with it. The possibility of a dialogue facilitated by counter-monuments is amplified by the fact that both monuments and counter-monuments coexist in the same public space. However, a counter-monument approach to tackling the contested past is also subject to some limitations. While counter-

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Figure 36.1. The Monument to the Victims of the German Occupation, October 2014. Photo by Anna Menyhért.

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Figure 36.2. The Living Memorial, October 2014. Photo by Anna Menyhért.

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monuments are certainly capable of unfreezing the past for some time, their capability of keeping it from freezing again can be questioned for several reasons. One of them is the power imbalance between official monuments and counter-monuments exemplified both in their varying degrees of visibility and the unequal ability to resist destruction (especially, in the case of nondemocratic countries, where authorities are not concerned about potential reputational losses caused by stomping on informal civic practices). Another one is the need for contextual knowledge related to what different monuments stand for that is required for understanding the dialogue between them.

Keeping the Past Unfrozen: Augmented Reality Monuments One possible solution for keeping the past from refreezing in the public space is related to the development of experience simulation technologies, such as AR and virtual reality (VR). In the last two decades, the use of AR as a means of enhancing individual and collective interactions with the past has attracted increasing attention from academic and heritage institutions. Being a form of mixed reality, AR combines real world objects with computer-generated data to blend virtual elements into physical items.15 Unlike VR, which creates replicas of real-world objects existing solely in the virtual space, AR enhances real world objects instead of replacing them.16 Originally utilized as a means of enriching user experience of visiting heritage sites,17 AR for a long time had a particularly prominent presence in the context of augmenting archeological sites, such as Erbil citadel in Iraq or Syracuse theater in Greece.18 Such enhancement usually takes the form of 3D images of objects ranging from statues to houses, which can be viewed using a smartphone. Often, these objects are destroyed or missing from the actual site, and the use of AR helps visitors better understand the site’s history. Additionally, it was recently deployed for augmenting monuments, as in the case of the Shaw & 54 regiment memorial in Boston, where AR is utilized to provide contextual information about the monument and make the experience more immersive.19 Similar uses of AR are observed in the case of the 9/11 monument designed by Brian August, which reproduces the silhouette of the World Trade Center and supplements it with the possibility of retelling memories about the event.20 However, AR-based monuments can do more than just provide additional educational information or a novel mnemonic experience. Instead of reinforcing a single interpretation of the monument, AR-based monuments can actually merge different perspectives on the past and offer choices to the individuals interacting with them, as in the case of the Movers & Shakers, an artist/activist group started in 2017 with the aim of using AR technology

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to inform the public about Black and Brown communities and challenge hegemonic narratives of the past.21 To do so, Movers & Shakers creates digital monuments of non-white personalities (e.g., Serena Williams or Colin Kaepernick) and then attaches them to urban locations where they can be viewed using a smartphone. There are also other similar projects. Sweet Chariot is a project initiated by Marisa Williamson.22 It uses AR to showcase the history of freedom struggles of Philadelphia’s Black population. To do so, it attaches videos of artistic performances with a narrator’s commentary to specific locations in Philadelphia, which together create a walking tour map that informs the audience about historical Black personalities. Similarly, the Pedestal Project utilizes AR to put statues of civil right activists (e.g., John Lewis or Chelsea Miller) on the vacant pedestals left after the removal of Confederate statues.23 In all these cases, the use of AR allows artists and activists not only to overcome the inertia associated with the static nature of memorials as a memory form but to revisit the way individuals engage with memories in the public space. By attaching several AR versions of the monument to the same site, it is possible to provide individuals with an option to choose whether to see a memorial to war heroes or a memorial to war victims. Such uses of AR can allow society to go beyond a single hegemonic interpretation embedded in the public space, to diversify it, and to give citizens more control over what past they engage with. Such a shift toward active and, potentially, more personalized interaction with the augmented past can also stimulate individual willingness to engage with historical traumas and complex historical matters. Following the same logic as the one used by Google or Amazon algorithms to facilitate discovery of information or products based on users’ earlier interactions with the respective systems,24 it is possible to motivate individuals to uncover different facets of the past by recommending new details about the monument, or new perspectives on it, based on individuals’ earlier interactions with augmented sites. This individualized experience can enable new and nonhegemonic ways of engaging with memories and also make memorialization more sustainable by delegating the establishment of the augmented elements and forms of the monument to nongovernmental organizations as well as civic society, thus making it less subject to changes in the local power relations.

Conclusions The possibility of constructing AR-based monuments and, in theory, personalizing interactions with them offers an opportunity to revisit the relationship between memory and the public space. Specifically, it offers an alternative

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for treating monuments as just a means of reinforcing/challenging existing memory hegemonies or constructing new hegemonies. Instead, the shift toward monumental “hardware,”25 in the literal sense of the word, allows us to go beyond the cycle of (re)constructing static memories in the public space and consider possibilities for using monuments for not only unfreezing past traumas but also keeping them from freezing again. Naturally, there are still many questions about the practical implementation of the AR-based monuments. In addition to the technical and financial complexities associated with implementation and maintenance of AR-based representations of the past, there are also many normative aspects to be clarified. For instance, what interpretations shall be enabled in the selection of AR forms and descriptions associated with individual sites? How should the process of deciding what information to include or exclude look like? What about possibilities of undermining the integrity of AR monuments using adversarial attacks? Answering these questions will require time and effort, but the possibility of using technology to make the ways our societies interact with the past more inclusive and less hierarchical in the long term makes it worthwhile. Mykola Makhortykh is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern, where he studies interactions between digital technologies and information behavior. Before moving to Bern, Mykola defended his PhD dissertation at the University of Amsterdam on the relationship between digital platforms and war remembrance and investigated effects of algorithmic biases on digital news consumption as a postdoctoral researcher in data science. His other interests include cybersecurity and AI, digital war remembrance, and critical algorithmic studies, and his recent publications deal with digital forms of war (counter)memory (Visual Communication) and the use of user-generated content for Holocaust remembrance (Holocaust Studies). Anna Menyhért is a Professor of Trauma Studies at the Budapest University of Jewish Studies. Between 2016–18 she was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Research Fellow at the University of Amsterdam. Previously she led the Trauma and Gender in Literature and Culture Research Group at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. She is the author of the monograph Women’s Literary Tradition and Twentieth-Century Hungarian Women Writers (Brill, 2020). She is currently working on a book project entitled Trauma in the Digital Age. Starting in September 2020, she has been a Research Fellow at the Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies in Vienna. Her research for this chapter was supported by the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies and the Foundation pour le Memoire de la Shoah.

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Notes 1. Kirk Savage, Monument Wars: Washington, DC, the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). 2. Katharyne Mitchell, “Monuments, Memorials, and the Politics of Memory,” Urban Geography 24, no. 5 (2003): 446. 3. Zakiah Noh, Sunar Shahrizal Mohd, and Zhigeng Pan, “A Review on Augmented Reality for Virtual Heritage System,” in Proceedings of International Conference on Technologies for E-Learning and Digital Entertainment, 50–61 (Berlin: Springer, 2009). 4. Anna Menyhért and Mykola Makhortykh, “From Individual Trauma to Frozen Currents: Conceptualising Digital Trauma Studies,” Digital Icons 18, no. 18 (2017): 4. 5. Sara McDowell and Máire Braniff, Commemoration as Conflict (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 18. 6. Brian Osborne, “Landscapes, Memory, Monuments, and Commemoration: Putting Identity in Its Place,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 33, no. 3 (2001): 39–77. 7. Osborne, “Landscapes, Memory, Monuments.” 8. Natalia Krzyżanowska, “The Discourse of Counter-Monuments: Semiotics of Material Commemoration in Contemporary Urban Spaces,” Social Semiotics 26, no. 5 (2015): 467–70. 9. Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège De France, 1975–1976 (New York: Picador, 1997), 67. 10. Travis Boyce, “After #Charlottesville: Interrogating Our Racist Past in the Trump Era,” Radical Teacher 111 (2018): 49–56. 11. Laura Mulvey, “Reflections on Disgraced Monuments,” in Architecture and Revolution: Contemporary Perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Neil Leach, 219–28 (London: Routledge, 1999). 12. Sanford Levinson, Written in Stone Public Monuments in Changing Societies (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018), 13; Elizabeth Rankin, “Creating/Curating Cultural Capital: Monuments and Museums for Post-Apartheid South Africa,” Humanities 2, no. 1 (2013): 72–98. 13. James Young, “The Counter-Monument: Memory against Itself in Germany Today,” Critical Inquiry 18, no. 2 (1992): 267–96. 14. See, for example, Henriett Kovács and Ursula Mindler-Steiner, “Hungary and the Distortion of Holocaust History: The Hungarian Holocaust Memorial Year 2014,” Politics in Central Europe 11, no. 2 (2015): 49–72; and Éva Kovács, “The Hungarian-Holocaust Memorial Year 2014 Some Remarks,” S:IMON Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation 4, no. 1 (2017): 109–21. 15. Noh, Mohd, and Pan, “A Review on Augmented Reality,” 51. 16. Fabian Fritz, Ana Susperregui, and Maria Teresa Linaza, “Enhancing Cultural Tourism Experiences with Augmented Reality Technologies,” in Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (New York: ACM, 2005), 2. 17. Noh, Mohd, and Pan, “A Review on Augmented Reality.” 18. Iraq: Rozhen Kama Mohammed-Amin, Richard M. Levy, and Jeffrey Edwin Boyd, “Mobile Augmented Reality for Interpretation of Archaeological Sites,” in Proceedings of the Second International ACM Workshop on Personalized Access to Cultural Heritage, 11–14 (New York: ACM, 2012). Greece: Filippo Stanco et al., “Augmented Perception of the Past: The Case of the Telamon from the Greek Theater of Syracuse,” in International Workshop on Multimedia for Cultural Heritage, 126–35 (Berlin: Springer, 2011).

Keeping the Past from Freezing • 365 19. Nicolas Robbe, “When Monuments Come to Life Thanks to Augmented Reality,” Hoverlay, 14 October 2019. 20. Mark Skwarek, “Augmented Reality Activism,” in Augmented Reality Art: From an Emerging Technology to a Novel Creative Medium, ed. Vladimir Geroimenko (Cham: Springer, 2014), 19–20. 21. Movers & Shakers, https://www.moversandshakersnyc.com; Pallabi Munsi, “Rewriting Black and Brown History, with a Little Help from Augmented Reality,” OZY, 28 November 2020. 22. Sweet Chariot, https://www.sweetchariotml.com. 23. The Pedestal Project, https://thepedestalproject.com. 24. Francesco Ricci, Rokach Lior, and Bracha Shapira, “Recommender Systems: Introduction and Challenge,” in Recommender Systems Handbook, ed. Francesco Ricci, Rokach Lior, and Bracha Shapira, 1–34 (New York: Springer, 2015). 25. Alexander Etkind, “Post-Soviet Hauntology: Cultural Memory of the Soviet Terror,” Constellations 16, no. 1 (2009): 194.

Bibliography Boyce, Travis. “After #Charlottesville: Interrogating Our Racist Past in the Trump Era.” Radical Teacher 111 (2018): 49–56. https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2018.478. Etkind, Alexander. “Post-Soviet Hauntology: Cultural Memory of the Soviet Terror.” Constellations 16, no. 1 (2009): 182–200. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8675.2009.00527.x. Foucault, Michel. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège De France, 1975–1976. New York: Picador, 1997. Fritz, Fabian, Ana Susperregui, and Maria Teresa Linaza. “Enhancing Cultural Tourism Experiences with Augmented Reality Technologies.” In Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, 1–6. New York: ACM, 2005. Kovács, Éva. “The Hungarian-Holocaust Memorial Year 2014 Some Remarks.” S:IMON Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation 4, no. 1 (2017): 109–21. Kovács, Henriett, and Ursula Mindler-Steiner. “Hungary and the Distortion of Holocaust History: The Hungarian Holocaust Memorial Year 2014.” Politics in Central Europe 11, no. 2 (2015): 49–72. https://doi.org/10.1515/pce-2015-0010. Krzyżanowska, Natalia. “The Discourse of Counter-Monuments: Semiotics of Material Commemoration in Contemporary Urban Spaces.” Social Semiotics 26, no. 5 (2015): 465–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2015.1096132. Levinson, Sanford. Written in Stone Public Monuments in Changing Societies. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. McDowell, Sara, and Máire Braniff. Commemoration as Conflict. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Menyhért, Anna, and Mykola Makhortykh. “From Individual Trauma to Frozen Currents: Conceptualising Digital Trauma Studies.” Digital Icons 18, no. 18 (2017): 1–8. Mitchell, Katharyne. “Monuments, Memorials, and the Politics of Memory.” Urban Geography 24, no. 5 (2003): 442–59. https://doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.24.5.442. Mohammed-Amin, Kama Rozhen, Richard M. Levy, and Jeffrey Edwin Boyd. “Mobile Augmented Reality for Interpretation of Archaeological Sites.” In Proceedings of the Second

366 • Mykola Makhortykh and Anna Menyhért International ACM Workshop on Personalized Access to Cultural Heritage, 11–14. New York: ACM, 2012. Mulvey, Laura. “Reflections on Disgraced Monuments.” In Architecture and Revolution: Contemporary Perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Neil Leach, 219–28. London: Routledge, 1999. Munsi, Pallabi. “Rewriting Black and Brown History, with a Little Help from Augmented Reality.” OZY, 28 November 2020. Accessed 5 February 2023. https://www.ozy.com/thenew-and-the-next/rewriting-black-and-brown-history-with-a-little-help-from-augmentedreality/404192/. Noh, Zakiah, Sunar Shahrizal Mohd, and Zhigeng Pan. “A Review on Augmented Reality for Virtual Heritage System.” In Proceedings of International Conference on Technologies for E-Learning and Digital Entertainment, 50–61. Berlin: Springer, 2009. Osborne, Brian. “Landscapes, Memory, Monuments, and Commemoration: Putting Identity in Its Place.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 33, no. 3 (2001): 39–77. Rankin, Elizabeth. “Creating/Curating Cultural Capital: Monuments and Museums for Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Humanities 2, no. 1 (2013): 72–98. https://doi.org/10.3390/ h2010072. Ricci, Francesco, Rokach Lior, and Bracha Shapira. “Recommender Systems: Introduction and Challenge.” In Recommender Systems Handbook, edited by Francesco Ricci, Rokach Lior, and Bracha Shapira, 1–34. New York: Springer, 2015. Robbe, Nicolas. “When Monuments Come to Life Thanks to Augmented Reality.” Hoverlay, 14 October 2019. https://www.hoverlay.com/when-monuments-come-to-life-tha nks-to-augmented-reality/. Savage, Kirk. Monument Wars: Washington, DC, the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. Skwarek, Mark. “Augmented Reality Activism.” In Augmented Reality Art: From an Emerging Technology to a Novel Creative Medium, edited by Vladimir Geroimenko, 1–30. Cham: Springer, 2014. Stanco, Filippo, et al. “Augmented Perception of the Past: The Case of the Telamon from the Greek Theater of Syracuse.” In International Workshop on Multimedia for Cultural Heritage, 126–35. Berlin: Springer, 2011. Young, James. “The Counter-Monument: Memory against Itself in Germany Today.” Critical Inquiry 18, no. 2 (1992): 267–96.

Chapter 37

DE-COMMEMORATING WHITE SUPREMACY THROUGH THE ACT OF VOTING Lorena Chambers

8 If the outcome of the November 2020 election was a sigh of relief for many US voters, the siege of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, declared an entirely different, if not altogether disturbing, new act to de-commemorate the votes of the majority of Americans. As legislators gathered to certify the Presidential election, intruders brandished the Confederate flag in the halls of Congress, and the violent imagery was broadcast live across the globe, shocking observers worldwide. This attack by white supremacists was a quest to disrupt, through legislative duress under the threat of violence, the electoral vote count in order to overturn President-elect Biden’s election. It also symbolized another step to further entrench white supremacy by de-commemorating the vote of a racially and ethnically diverse American electorate by enacting a spate of voter-suppression state statutes. That same day, the state of Georgia, once the heartland of the Confederacy and for generations the cultural and political keeper of its memory, had completed the final count for its run-off elections held the day before. It was clear that two new Democratic Senators from Georgia, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, would soon be sworn in, creating an evenly divided US Senate chamber. For any tied legislative vote based on party lines, Vice President Kamala Harris would be the tie-breaking vote, effectively giving the Democratic Party control of the chamber and thus unifying power in the legislative branch of the United States government.

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The meaning behind these wins is immense. The Georgia run-off elections had resulted in two historic firsts: the election of a Black senator and a Jewish senator from this former Confederate state. Achieving the highest federal office of their state, Senators Warnock and Ossoff overcame a legacy of political exclusion based on overt political violence and pervasive structural racism. In a year in which structures of white supremacy and monumental symbols of a slaveholding past had been called into question, an unprecedented number of new—and perhaps unexpected—voters had decided the outcomes of the two races. Analyses of the 2016 and 2020 general elections show that voters of color delivered the margin of victory in both 2020 races. In 2020, turnout among Democratic-leaning groups grew exponentially. Asian voters increased 84 percent, the percentage for Hispanic voters grew by 64 percent, and African American voter numbers improved 16 percent.1 After the historic November general election, civic activists descended upon Georgia to mobilize again the record-breaking number of voters of color. In the process, the insistent and ever-so-urgent civic action of communities of color transformed the act of voting into a symbol of commemoration. These elections were historic. By joining in a common cause to rebuke the US South’s long history of voter suppression, this winning segment of voters created a new historical memory. The record number of citizens fulfilling a civic duty while repudiating white supremacist rhetoric and violent acts against individuals of color was a moment that marked a crucial change in the state’s history. It was remembrance in the making. Each vote symbolized not only untapped civic power but also an understanding in communities of color that the most reliable mechanism to enact social change was to participate in the electoral process. An additional way to view this is through the lens of memory. By stepping out and voting in high numbers in a special election, Georgia voters of color honored John Lewis’s legacy, memorializing his lifelong struggle to secure the rights of voters of color. Georgians of color not only conducted a civic duty on 3 November 2020 and again on 5 January 2021 but also participated in commemorating the long struggle to upend voter disenfranchisement among voters of color. In this instance, the creation of a marker for future remembrance took the form of a collective act: a historically disenfranchised community, shaped by the memory of racism and loss, turning out to vote and insist on their rights as citizens. Social movements where minority communities are the agents of change are to be remembered with symbols that assist in memorializing historic occasions. Because remembrance is not static, nor always requires a physical structure, it need only to alter the course of history to become memorialized within a community. And with the historic vote that ushered in a change in the balance of power in the US government, there is backlash.

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Suppressive legal statutes, rather than physical structures, are the emerging symbols of white supremacy, and unexpected voting levels among communities of color de-commemorates systemic racism.

The Commemorative Power of Voting Creates Fear The significance of the current US Senate make-up and how it came to be is not in dispute by respected legal experts, each state’s certification process, or even the US Congress—except to a growing number of Republicans who falsely insist on discredited voter fraud claims. The fear of minority votes and resulting political access may have motivated violence on the part of those who attacked the Capitol, but a less overtly violent application of political power quickly took hold in Republican-led legislatures across the United States. These state legislative bodies chose instead, under the guise of “voter integrity,” to legalize the disenfranchisement of whole segments of voters by making voting more difficult. Within two months of Georgia’s election results, voter-suppression bills appeared in forty-seven states across the United States. As many as 361 new bills limiting mail-in, early, absentee, and election-day voting were introduced, winding their way through America’s statehouses.2 Inevitably, these draconian efforts affect mostly voters of color and the working poor who often have little work flexibility. Georgia raced to be first in the nation with redesigned voting laws to prevent further expansion of minority political power. On 25 March 2021 Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp swiftly signed S.B. 202 into law, severely limiting access to voting mechanisms that had been put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and which had expanded the options for voting.3 The expedited law, rushed through with little debate, included criminalizing giving water or food to citizens who wait in line to vote, thereby disproportionately affecting communities of color whose neighborhoods were stripped of voting locations, resulting in inordinately long lines and waiting times compared to predominantly white neighborhoods.4 In keeping with Georgia’s history, this consolidation of power through suppressive voting laws was not only a matter of legislative action but of state violence as well: on the day of the signing, Georgia State Police officers arrested Park Cannon, a Black member of the Georgia House of Representatives, in the Capitol Building in which she serves for repeatedly knocking on the Governor’s office door in an attempt to witness the signing of the rushed legislation.5 Inside the office, six white men stood as the Governor signed the voter suppression bill into law. Hanging behind them was an oil painting of Callaway Plantation, an estate whose riches were obtained through the labor and ownership of enslaved Black people until Emancipation.6 As Governor

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Kemp signed the bill behind closed doors, police dragged Representative Cannon away from the office door and roughly escorted her out of the public building in handcuffs. Stark was the interplay between commemorating a romanticized slave-holding white past, a public building dedicated to democracy, and the use of state violence in attempting to mute an elected Black woman who would question comfortable assumptions of white supremacy and political dominance. The sudden activity to emulate Georgia in writing, passing, and enacting suppressive voter laws is an attempt by almost entirely white Republican legislatures in other states to deny the right to vote and in the process to dishonor, de-commemorate, and ignore the outcome of the historic 2020 and 2021 elections. Like the physical statues of former Confederates soldiers, these pieces of legislation are monuments to white supremacy. These laws send an equivalent message as the statues of cavalry leader Nathanial Bedford Forrest, who later became the first leader of the Ku Klux Klan and led armed raids against free Black communities in the American South to prevent them from voting after Emancipation.7 As historian David Blight demonstrates in his masterwork Race and Reunion, the memory of nineteenth-century Black representation at the statehouse and in Congress triggered a white backlash and fueled the expansion of Confederate monuments in the early twentieth century. Likewise, voter-suppression legal statutes are efforts to de-commemorate the historic vote of the 2020 and 2021 elections by communities of color. Instead of the physical statues of the past, in 2021 we have legal statutes on the books. Modern white supremacists are not so overt and must couch the hundreds of introduced anti-voter bills as supposedly neutral responses to an invented crisis of “voter integrity.” The adamance with which they pursue baseless claims of voter fraud demonstrates the sheer panic among white conservatives as they view their electoral future potentially fade. It is a moment of white fragility framing the effort to de-commemorate the historic Georgia election results. These voter-suppression laws are new symbolic monuments to white supremacy and continue the long history of incessant voter disenfranchisement as a marker of US electoral politics.8 As the editors of this current collection remind us, the evocation of the past is framed by interests and meanings in the present. The newfound power of an expanded electorate and their resulting vote—in and of itself a form of commemoration as it changes the persistence of racialized rhetoric and violence—have stoked cries about voter fraud among white conservatives. Similarly, accusations of voter fraud against African American men in the 1890s led to triumphalist calls to erect grand monuments that justified the passage of racist State constitutions severely limiting voter access for Black men. Today, in the ultimate attempt to strip power from voters of color, white elected officials are legalizing voting restrictions yet again. In this iteration,

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they also disguise white supremacy as palatable, wrapping their legislative maneuvering in a banal cry of fraudulent voting.

History of Voter Disenfranchisement The cry for voting integrity is not new. It harkens back to post-Reconstruction collusions after newly emancipated African Americans elected Black representatives to Congress and state offices, threatening the power structure in the South. Soon thereafter emerged distinct commemorations to white supremacy. Between 1903 and 1920, for example, the process of erecting hundreds of monuments and historical markers extolling the grandeur of Confederate soldiers was at its peak.9 The newly built environment of quick and easy statues in town centers, schools, and popular parks reminded its citizenry of the South’s “Lost Cause,” cloaking the slaveholders’ rebellion in an air of gentility and honor even as Southern legislators were adopting laws that effectively stripped African Americans of their access to voting.10 Locating imposing Confederate monuments at entrances to courthouses (where voting took place in person), or on adjacent public spaces, created a gauntlet of officially installed symbols representing white supremacy that Black would-be voters faced each time they attempted to vote. Creating a built environment that emphatically centered white supremacy was one approach to immobilize Black voters. Other tactics also decreased fair access to the polls. Local officials implemented poll taxes, literacy tests, and “grandfather clauses” (which based eligibility on whether one’s grandparent had the right to vote) in order to suppress the growing number of Black voters in the South and Mexican American voters in the Southwest.11 The wholesale marginalization of voters of color became commonplace, normalized, and socially acceptable in the US South and Southwest. Unrest or action against this voter suppression by citizens of color were often met with unwarranted arrests, beatings, murders, and lynchings; state-tolerated mob violence against Black, Asian, and Mexican American men, women, and children was emblematic of living in the United States through the first six decades of the twentieth century.12 But activism around voting rights nevertheless continued in myriad ways, culminating in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Written to protect access to the ballot box in states with histories of disenfranchisement, the federal bill continued to be reauthorized until 2013, when the Supreme Court, in Shelby County v. Holder, annulled portions of the legislation because the data was over forty years old, claiming it to be no longer relevant.13 Further cementing the Shelby decision, the Voting Rights Act was not reauthorized in 2019 when the Republican-controlled US Senate refused to

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reinstate federal oversight of election law at the state level.14 Aware that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s victory in the 2018 gubernatorial election had come on the heels of his office purging the voter files of mostly voters of color (over issues such as change-of-address or not having voted in consecutive elections), other Republican politicians did not want federal limitations on such efforts.15 White conservatives were emboldened by the failure to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act and the Court’s characterization of race-conscious voting laws as no longer needed in a modern America. The stunning losses in 2021 have led Republicans to redouble attempts to dismantle the protections and legacy of the Voting Acts Right of 1965. In today’s battles over voting restrictions, suppressive statutes are reincarnated symbols of white supremacy. Only this time the memorials of racist legacies are not statues of Confederate Generals on stone horses in grand public spaces or cheap metal statues of lowly soldiers lending authority to county governments and intimidating local communities. Instead, the legacies are represented by legal statutes passed by mostly white legislatures intent on continuing to restrict Black, Brown, and Asian citizens’ access to voting. And now more than ever, voters of color must engage in civic participation to dismantle the metaphorical scaffolding currently threatening the institution of democracy in the United States. The de-commemorative nature of minority voting power can be seen both in dismantling racist laws and systems but also in removing the physical manifestations of those systems. The 2021 political victory in Virginia of a multiracial voting coalition has resulted in a jurisdiction so changed that the state Supreme Court ruled that the governmental speech of the Jim Crow era, concretized by statues of Confederate generals, no longer reflected the Commonwealth’s policies and values.16 Within a week, Democratic Governor Northam ensured the removal of the colossal statue of Confederate commander Robert E. Lee from Richmond’s Monument Avenue. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified the structural inequities embedded in socioeconomic systems and awakened new forces on both sides of the US two-party political system. With Democratic power in the Federal Government hamstrung in early 2021 without the ability to use the Voting Rights Act, Republican-majority legislatures are rushing to undo the power balance brought about by the historic 2021 elections.

Voting as Resistance and De-Commemoration Fighting suppressive methods and tactics is the natural reaction to attempts at erasing historic voting results. The act of voting is at the heart of memori-

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alizing empowerment in the face of white supremacy rooted in daily practice as well as in national memory. As such, the real monument to this movement will likely not be a statue or a site of remembrance but increased political power through voting. Currently, House Resolution 1, titled “For the People Act of 2021,” calls for electoral reform standardizing rules and regulations in all fifty states and 67 percent of national likely voters support HR 1, including 56 percent of Republicans, 68 percent of independents, and 77 percent of Democrats.17 It sat on the floor of the Senate after having passed in the US House of Representatives. Did it pass? Even with Vice President Harris in wait to cast a tie-breaking vote, the resolution did not pass. Transforming today’s society requires answering the violent memories of the past by eliminating the bricks and mortar of the metaphorical wall of US racism. Creating powerful new remembrances is best embodied by the words of the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis: “Freedom is not a state; it is an act.”18 Less than a year after Congressman Lewis’ death, a multiracial coalition of elected leaders and nonprofit organizations raised a new bronze sculpture and pedestal that stands fourteen-feet high to commemorate the late hero’s lifelong work advocating for voting rights.19 To enact change through social justice, the late Congressman understood how white supremacy continually seeks to strangle notions of freedom through voter disenfranchisement. Framing voting as an act of de-commemorating white supremacy is how we not only demonstrate the changed community values reflected in physical monuments but also how we dismantle systemic racism in the United States and strengthen the legacy of resilience. Dr. Lorena Chambers studies the live performances of Mexican and Mexican American entertainers that emerged in late nineteenth-century popular culture as a by-product of the cultural diplomacy between the United States and Mexico. A scholar of cultural, gender, and Latinx history, Dr. Chambers is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Michigan in the Departments of History and American Culture, where she is writing a manuscript based on her dissertation: “From Statecraft to Stagecraft: The Politics of Peddling ‘Mexicanidad’ in U.S. Culture, 1886–1906.” Her second book project, premised on oral histories, primary sources, and her professional work experience, chronicles the history of Latinx voter outreach at the Democratic National Committee and the larger Democratic establishment from 2000 through the 2020 presidential election. Dr. Chambers has the distinction of being the only Latina (and one of only two women) to have produced presidential campaign advertisements. She earned her doctoral and

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master’s degrees from the Department of History at the University of Michigan, and the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) conferred Dr. Chambers’ bachelor’s degree.

Notes 1. Update based on the state voter rolls analyzed by data analysts, 23 March 2021, “National 2020 Historic General Election Early & Absentee Vote Report,” TargetEarly. 2. Amy Gardner, Kate Rabinowitz, and Harry Stevens, “How GOP-Backed Voting Measures Could Create Hurdles for Tens of Millions of Voters,” Washington Post, 11 March 2021; Ari Berman, “361 Voter Suppression Bills Have Already Been Introduced This Year,” Mother Jones, 1 April 2021; Janie Boschma, Fredreka Schouten, and Priya Krishnakumar, “Lawmakers in 47 States Have Introduced Bills That Would Make It Harder to Vote,” CNN, 3 April 2021. 3. Drew DeSilver, “Mail-in Voting Became Much More Common in 2020 Primaries as COVID-19 Spread,” Pew Research Center, 13 October 2020. 4. “Statement on Voting Rights,” Mexican American Civil Rights Institute (MACRI), 29 March 2021. 5. Jaclyn Diaz, “Georgia Lawmaker Arrested as Governor Signs Law Overhauling Elections,” National Public Radio, 26 March 2021. 6. Natasha Chen and Theresa Waldrop, “Black Voter Says a Painting at Georgia Governor’s Voter Bill Signing Shows the Plantation Where Her Family Worked for Generations,” CNN, 28 March 2021; Jamil Smith, “Voter Suppression Is Violence,” Rolling Stone Magazine, 29 March 2021. 7. David Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan (Durham: Duke University Press, 1987), 8. 8. Brandi Blessett, “Disenfranchisement: Historical Underpinnings and Contemporary Manifestations,” Public Administration Quarterly 39, no. 1 (2015): 3–50. 9. See Adam H. Domby, The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory (Charlotte: University of Virginia, 2020). 10. David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001). 11. Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (New York: Anchor Books, 2008), 121–22. 12. Monica Muñoz Martinez, The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018). 13. Carol Anderson, One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018). 14. Anderson, One Person, No Vote. 15. Angela Caputo, Geoff Hing, and Johnny Kauffman, “After the Purge: How a Massive Voter Purge in Georgia Affected the 2018 Election,” American Public Media Reports, 29 October 2019. 16. Supreme Court of Virginia, Taylor v. Northam, Record No. 210113 (Goodwyn), 2 September 2021.

De-Commemorating White Supremacy through the Act of Voting • 375 17. Data for Progress poll as cited in Alexandra Hutzler, “As GOP Opposes H.R. 1, Poll Finds Majority of Republicans Support Election Reform Bill,” Newsweek, 25 February 2021. 18. John Lewis, Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2012). 19. Ernie Suggs, “John Lewis Statue Rises in Vine City’s New Park,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 7 July 2021.

Bibliography Anderson, Carol. One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018. Berman, Ari. “361 Voter Suppression Bills Have Already Been Introduced This Year.” Mother Jones, 1 April 2021. Blackmon, Douglas A. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. New York: Anchor Books, 2008. Blessett, Brandi. “Disenfranchisement: Historical Underpinnings and Contemporary Manifestations.” Public Administration Quarterly 39, no. 1 (2015): 3–50. Blight, David W. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001. Boschma, Janie, Fredreka Schouten, and Priya Krishnakumar. “Lawmakers in 47 States Have Introduced Bills That Would Make It Harder to Vote.” CNN, 3 April 2021. Caputo, Angela, Geoff Hing, and Johnny Kauffman. “After the Purge: How a Massive Voter Purge in Georgia Affected the 2018 Election.” American Public Media Reports, 29 October 2019. Chalmers, David. Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan. Durham: Duke University Press, 1987. Chen, Natasha, and Theresa Waldrop. “Black Voter Says a Painting at Georgia Governor’s Voter Bill Signing Shows the Plantation Where Her Family Worked for Generations.” CNN, 28 March 2021. DeSilver, Drew. “Mail-In Voting Became Much More Common in 2020 Primaries as COVID-19 Spread.” Pew Research Center, 13 October 2020. https://www.pewresearch .org/fact-tank/2020/10/13/mail-in-voting-became-much-more-common-in-2020-primari es-as-covid-19-spread/. Diaz, Jaclyn. “Georgia Lawmaker Arrested as Governor Signs Law Overhauling Elections.” National Public Radio, 26 March 2021. Domby, Adam H. The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory. Charlotte: University of Virginia, 2020. Gardner, Amy, Kate Rabinowitz, and Harry Stevens. “How GOP-Backed Voting Measures Could Create Hurdles for Tens of Millions of Voters.” Washington Post, 11 March 2021. Hutzler, Alexandra. “As GOP Opposes H.R. 1, Poll Finds Majority of Republicans Support Election Reform Bill.” Newsweek, 25 February 2021. Lewis, John. Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America. New York: Hachette Book Group, 2012. Martinez, Monica Muñoz. The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.

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INDEX

ab-commemoration, 15, 312 Aboriginal, 162–66, 340 affairs, 130–32 people, 162–66, 340 abject, vi, 65, 106–10 Abya Yala, 193, 196, 198–99 Addario, Frank, 127 African American culture, 289 people, 240, 293–94 voters, 13, 368, 370–71 writers, 223, 232, 238 African National Congress (ANC), 67, 69 Andersen, Casper, 70 Alaska, 58, 63–64 Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada, 125 Algeria, 4, 19–25 Algiers. See under Algeria algorithms, 2, 362–363 Alison Lapper Pregnant (by Marc Quinn), 291 Allen, Kimberly, 243 Alternative für Deutschland, 211 Amo, Anton Wilhelm, 210, 216–18 Amri, Anis, 212, 219 Ammunition Hill, Jerusalem, 172 Anderson, Rick, 129 Anglican Church, Canada, 125 Ang See, Teresa, 264 anniversary(ies), 38–39, 41, 47–48, 52, 74, 77, 83, 136, 150, 152–53, 157, 192, 262, 284, 289, 302, 358 anonymization, 49 antisemitic, 10, 214, 217 apartheid, 5, 67–9, 71, 115, 232, 285, 337 Arcata, 60 Arendt, Hannah, 126

Asquith, Nicole, 341 Atta, Mohammed, 212, 219 augmented reality, 11, 355, 361 Australia, 8, 161–67, 338 Baader, Andreas, 212, 219 Badenoch, Kemi, 234 Baden Powell, Robert, 230, 232 Baclaran Redemptorist Church, 264–265 bandeirantes, 181–82 Barcelona, 8, 190, 192, 194, 196–97, 267 Basilica, 85, 88, 90 Batna, 23 Batawat, 60 Bears Lodge, 71 Béchar, 21 Belain D‘Esnambuc, Pierre, 234 Belarus, 73, 77 Belgium, 7, 150–51, 153, 231 Belkacem, Krim, 23 Belle Fourche River, 71 Belle, La Vaughn, 114, 117–19, 340 Benedictine Order, 85, 87, 89 Benin Bronzes, 234 Ben Gurion, David, 172 Bennett, Camille, 244 Ben Shemen Forest, 173 Berklavs, Eduards, 40 Berlin, 4, 8, 146, 185, 210–212, 214–18, 261, 281, 302 Christmas market attack, 219 philharmonic Orchestra, 145 postkolonial, 216 wall, 164 Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), 212 Bettawa, 21 biculturalism, 100, 102

378 • Index Biden, Joe, 367 Bin Laden, Osama, 212 Binnie, Ian, 128 BIPOC, 143, 209, 256, 310–12, 337 Liberation (Canada), 128 Birmingham, 218, 231 Black Consciousness, Day of, 184 Black Lives Matter, 2, 7–8, 68–69, 143–44, 161, 164, 210–12, 215, 217, 221, 251, 256, 327, 332, 341 BLM. See under Black Lives Matter Bloody Sunday, 300, 304 Bnei Brak, 174 Boersema, Jacob, 68 Bogotá, 202, 207, 312 Bolsonaro, Jair, 183–84, 186 Bouakouir, Salah, 23 Boudiaf, Mohamed, 23 Bouteflika, Abdelaziz, 23 Branco, Castelo, 184 Brașov, 28 Brazil, 8, 182–87, 232 Brexit, 298 Bristol, 1, 10, 37, 230, 233, 327, 332, 341 British Empire, 109, 115, 230–233 British Expedition and Punitive Raid on Abyssinia (Ethiopia), 234 British Museum, 234 Brown, Belmore, 58 Bucharest, 30, 33–34 Buenos Aires, 185 burial, 85–86, 90, 275 re-, 85, 272 sites, 8, 66, 87, 170, 172, 275 un-, 85, 88 California, 60, 235, 241, 374 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 127 Canales, Fausto, 85 Cannon, Park, 369–70 Cape Town, South Africa, 5, 6, 65, 67, 114–16, 120, 219 Colony, 66, 116 University of, 65, 70 Capitol, 240–41, 303, 367, 369 Caracas, 201 Carmarthen, 233 Castro, Fidel, 206 Catholic inculturation, 252 Caupolican, 138

Censorship, 256, 320 Central Pomerania, 48, 54 César, Moreira, 184 Chamberlain, Joseph, 230 Charles I, 298, 301–302 statue of (by Hubert Le Sueur), 301–302 Charleston, South Carolina, 287, 289–90, 293, 294 Church massacre, 240–41 Charlottesville, 244, 319, 322–323, 357 Churchill, Winston, 230, 232–33, 298, 303, 327 Chavez, Hugo, 203, 206 Cheney, Liz, 59 Chile, 6, 11, 134–38, 140–41 chlordecone, 225 citizenship, 68, 128–29, 171, 196 civil society, 4, 7, 12, 14, 22, 24, 82, 86, 89, 156, 216, 221, 276 Civil war American, 240, 244, 293, 298, 309 Sapnish, 83, 85–86, 89, 91 Cluj-Napoca, 30, 33 Colbert, 319 Colebrook Home for Aboriginal Children, 340 Colomb-Béchar, 21 Colombia, 8, 201–08, 324 colonialism, 6, 8–9, 22, 68–69, 97, 114– 115, 117, 120, 148, 161–162, 165, 167, 171, 191, 199, 222, 230–231, 233–234, 281, 283–285, 310, 355 anti-, 225 coloniality, 2, 124, 190–91, 193–95, 197 colonial, 4–6, 8–10, 19–25, 56–57, 60–62, 66–69, 95, 97–100, 114–17, 119, 124–29, 134–35, 140, 144–46, 161–67, 181–82, 190–197, 211, 218, 221–23, 225–28, 234–35, 251–256, 280–85, 329, 336–37, 340 Columbus, Christopher, 8, 190–92, 195, 196–197, 284 Colonel Géryville, 21 colonization. See under colonialism Colston, Edward, 327, 331 comfort women, 9, 253, 261–67 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), 38, 74, 78 Concepción, 135–38, 140 Condé-Smendou, 21

Index • 379 Confederacy, 13, 238, 241, 244, 316, 368 Confederate flag, 320, 322, 367 monuments, 13, 205, 238–244, 291, 319, 323, 328, 357, 362, 370–72 past, 290–91, 294 state, 368 Cook, James, 8, 97–101, 161–67 Cooper, Anna Julia, 233 Copenhagen, Denmark, 6, 114–15, 117, 120 Cornwallis, Edward, 128 counter-memory, 176, 190, 197, 271, 274 activism, 193, 195, 197 countermemory. See under counter-memory Counter-monuments, 357, 361 Couturier, Léo, 153–54, 156 COVID, 13, 140, 153, 184, 227, 300, 369, 372. Covid-19. See under COVID Cromwell, Oliver, 298, 302 Crypt, 83, 85–86, 88 Cullinan Diamond, 246 culture wars, 298, 302–303 Daliyat al-Karmel, 173 Danish West Indies (US Virgin Islands), 117, 119 Dan, Michael, 129 da Silva, Benedita, 186 da Silva, Bezerra, 183 Davis, Jefferson, 238, 240 de Anchieta, José, 186 decoloniality, 191, 195, 197 decolonization, 8, 68–69, 114–16, 120, 217, 223, 251, 253–255, 327 de-colonization. See under decolonization decommunization, 11, 28, 73–74, 78–79, 81, 108, 344–50, 352 Deep South, 240 Defund the Police Protests, 128 Delgrès, Louis, 223 democracy, 2, 5, 12, 14, 27, 65, 69, 81, 84, 88, 115, 184, 187, 204, 328, 347, 372 Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), 346 democratic memory, 88–89, 91. Denali, 58 Densmore, Frank, 58 Desecration, 67, 170–74 Devils Tower, 59

Dickey, William, 58 dictatorship, 9, 27, 134–35, 137, 141, 183–84, 187, 196, 254, 256 digital, 12, 102, 218, 239, 244, 273, 347, 356, 363 Doddington Park, 234 domicide, 127 dos Palmares, Zumbi, 184 Dowden, Oliver, 234 dual heritage, 102, 137, 139 memory regime, 40 names, 95, 97–102 Dubois, W. E. B., 244 Duparc, Germaine, 7 Duterte, Rodrigo, 9, 255–58, 263–64, 266 Dwyer, Mikala, 341 Dzerzhinsky, Felix, 345–46 Eak-Tai, Ahn, 144–47 Ehlers, Jeanette, 114, 117–18, 120, 340 El Amparo, 201–02, 205–206 El Bayadh, 21 El Hammam, Ain, 20 elites, 5, 81, 135–37, 139–40, 227, 230–31, 253–54, 256, 290, 352, 357 enslavement, 331 Enzi, Mike, 59 Equal Justice Initiative, 239 Equestrian, 280–84, 301 erasure, 57, 62, 71, 161, 166–67, 252–53, 289 e Silva, Costa, 183 eugenics, 232 Euromaidan Revolution, 6, 79–81, 106 European Convention on Human Rights, 327–28 European Court of Human Rights, 333 European Union, 79, 298 Everard, Sarah, 303 everyday life, 24, 67, 270, 350 space, 345, 350 exhumation, 85–91, 315 Falange, 84–85 Farber, Bernie M., 141 FARC, 201–205 fascism, 80, 84, 90, 302 Filipino, 9, 251–56, 262, 264–65, 267

380 • Index Finland Station, 76–77 flowers4lolas campaign, 265 Floyd, George, 1, 181, 190, 210–12, 215–17, 230, 233, 244, 319 FLN (National Liberation Front), 22, 35 Fort-de-France, 8, 221–23, 227–28 For the People Act of 2021, 273 Fort Humboldt, 60–61 Fort Royal. See under Fort-de-France Fourth Plinth (Trafalgar Square), 301, 303 France, 19, 21, 57, 81, 147, 221, 222–23, 225–26, 235, 276, 319–24 Franco, Francisco, 83–91, 193, 196 Franco, Marielle, 7, 185–86 Freedom monument (Riga), 38–40, 42 Freire, Paulo, 186 French Guiana, 223 French Revolution, 2, 147, 222 Gan Meir (Tel Aviv), 174 Gato, Borba, 8, 181–82 Gaza, 172 genocide, 39, 80, 129, 165, 285, 311, 324, 330–31 cultural, 125 Indigenous, 62, 183 George IV, 298, 301 Georgia, 244, 367–373 Germain, Jean, 151–54, 156 German South West Africa, 280–81, 284 Germany, 46, 48–49, 54, 150, 154, 156, 210–11, 214–216, 280–83, 285, 302, 347 Gil, Gilberto, 186 Gladstone Hall, 233 Gladstone, William, 230, 232, 234 Glinka, Michail, 211–12, 214, 216–27 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 38–39, 78 Gordon, Charles, 298–304 Göring, Heinrich, 284, 328 Göring, Hermann, 284 Goudi’ni’, 60 Goulart, João, 183 government speech, 320–21, 324 Grant, Bernie, 233 Grant, Stan, 164 Grant, Ulysses, 143 grave, 66, 85–86, 90–91, 125, 152, 172, 202, 270–76, 315

Great Britain, 8, 162, 230–35, 297–98 Greenwood, 315 Grotewohl, Otto, 214 Guadeloupe, 222, 228–29 Guerra, Júlio, 181 guerrilla, 8, 201–204 Hadj, Messali, 23 Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada), 128 Hambling, Maggie, 337 Harewood House, 234 Harper, Stephen, 125 Harvard University, 70 Havelock, Henry, 302 healing, 62, 124–27, 315, 358 Helsinki-86 (Human Rights Defense Group), 39–41 Henson, Maria Rosa (Nana Rosa), 266 heritage, 8, 48, 54, 67, 69, 95–96, 98–99, 101–102, 126, 136, 151, 170, 176, 182, 204, 214–16, 218, 225, 237, 238–39, 241–44, 252, 254–56, 258, 264, 285, 300, 304, 316, 323, 328, 340–41, 346–47, 361 heroism, 162, 165, 256 Herzl, Theodor, 172 Hispanic, 205 Day, 191–93 voters, 380 hispanidad, 192, 197 Hobart (Australia), 338 Holocaust, 8, 62, 108, 170–74, 215, 358, 363 Holodomor, 80 Hørlyk, Lucie, 118 Houses of Parliament (London), 298–299, 304 Human Rights Act 1998, 329, 332 Humboldt Bay, 60–61 Hussein, Saddam, 4–5, 164 Hyde Park (Sydney), 162–64, 166–67 iconoclasm, 9, 67, 70, 77, 254, 300 imperialism, 8, 230–32, 234–35, 282 anti-, 204 cultural, 61 independence, 4, 19, 22–25, 38–40, 42, 45, 67, 79, 135–39, 144, 193, 207, 221–22, 226, 228, 281, 283

Index • 381 Indigenous people, 4, 6, 8, 20, 57–62, 97, 99, 124–29, 138, 140, 162–67, 181–83, 192–93, 252, 255–56, 281–84, 310 instrumentalization Iran, 9, 11, 270–72, 274–76 Iranian revolution, 272, 276 Irving Dodge, Richard, 59 Īvāns, Dainis, 40 Iveton, Fernand, 24–25 Japan, 9, 236, 251–52, 254–55, 261–66 Japanese Occupation, 144–48, 253, 255, 261–66 Jenner, Edward, 300 Jenrick, Robert, 302–304, 328 Johnson, Boris, 233, 327 Jones, Alfred, 234 Jouwichguri’, 60 Kabylia, 20 Kaisa para sa Kaunlaran, 264 Kasbah, 20 Katowice, 349 Kemp, Brian, 369–70, 372 Kenyatta, Jomo, 233 Key, Francis Scott, 143, 148 Kharkiv, 80 Kim Hak Sun, 262 King Leopold the Second, 10 Kingston, Ontario (Canada), 128 kitsch, 106, 108–11 Knudsen, Timm, 71 Konotop, 49–50 Korea, 7, 110, 143–160, 262–263, 266 Koszalin, 47 Ku Klux Klan, 309, 370 Kurle, Adolf, 281 Kuya, Dorothy, 233 Kyiv, 73, 79 Lakota, 59 Langevin, Hector-Louis, 128 Law and Justice party, 345, 348 Latin america, 141, 190, 193 Latvian National Independence Movement (LNNK), 39–40 Latvian Women’s National League, 41 Lautaro, 137–40

Lee, Robert E., 1–2, 323, 372 Lenin, 4, 6, 30, 37–42, 73–82, 107, 109–10, 344 Leningrad, 78 Leninopad (“Leninfall”), 79 Lever, William, 234 Lewis, John, 362, 369, 373 LGBTQ+, 12, 68, 254, 341 LILA Pilipina, 263–64 Liverpool, 230, 233–35 Livingstone, Ken, 302 logic of elimination, 161–62, 164, 166–67, 206 London, 297–304 López, Leopoldo, 201, 205–06 Louverture, Toussaint, 223, 292 Lula, 183 MacDonald, John A., 127–29 Macquarie, Governor Lachlan, 8, 161, 163–64, 166 Martinique, 8, 221–228 Madrid, 8, 84, 88, 190, 193–97 Mad River, 60 Maidan. See under Euromaidan revolution Manchester Museum, 234 Manila, 253, 255, 261–62, 264, 266–67 Māori, 6, 95–101 Mapuche, 135, 137–38, 140 Marcks, Gerhard, 338–39 Martel, Charles, 321–22 martyr, 22–24, 33, 83, 85, 107, 185, 270–72, 300 massacre, 7, 60, 151–52, 155, 162–63, 167, 201, 240, 272–75, 281–83, 285, 309–10, 313–15 mass grave(s). See under grave mass violence. See under violence Mato Tipila, 59 Maxwele, Chumani, 65, 68 Maylam, Paul, 67 McLachlin, Beverley, 126 Meier, Silvio, 216 Meinhof, Ulrike, 212 memory law, 84, 90 memory-work, 37, 102, 109–10, 310–13, 315, 340, 342 methodology, 46, 240 Michelet, Jules, 21

382 • Index Migration, 98, 191, 193, 196, 228, 276 Mi’kmaq people (Canada), 128 Mingorrubio cemetery, 89 mnemonic, 4, 38, 39–42, 56, 95, 107, 124, 129, 140–41, 170–74, 176, 211, 217–18, 262–63, 266, 356, 362 Mohawk Institute, 126 Montgomery, Alabama, 240, 312 Montreal, 128 Morrison, Toni, 223 Moscow, 4, 30, 40, 73, 77–78, 82 Motta, Zezé, 186 Mount McKinley, 58 Moran, Ry, 126 Mount of Olives (Jerusalem), 172 Msezane, Sethembile, 114–117, 119–20 NAACP, 238 namescape(s), 10, 28–30, 33–34, 309–311, 313, 315–16 Namibia, 9, 280–85 Napier, Robert, 230, 232 Napier, Charles, 300, 302 Napoleon, 153, 222, 328 nationalism, 66, 145–46, 148, 298, 302–303 nationalist, 12, 23–24, 30, 39, 79–81, 107–08, 144, 203, 212, 223–24, 228, 244, 254, 302, 348 national anthem, 7, 143–49, 345 National Leaders’ Memorial Park (Mount Herzl), 172 National Park Service, 59 Necropolitics, 90–91 Nelson, Horatio, 302 Nelson’s Column (London), 298–300, 302 Nelson’s Pillar (Dublin), 302 Nevatim, 172 Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, 128 Newman, Carey, 126 New York, 337 New Zealand, 6, 95–98, 100–102 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell), 301–302 Niterói, 184 Nkrumah, Kwame, 233 No-Japan Movement, 146–147 Nonprofit, 238–41, 243–44, 373 Nora, Pierre, 147, 187 Nostalgia, 27, 88, 289, 291, 294 Nostalgics

OAS (Organization of the Secret Army), 23 Organization of American States, 186 Obama, Barrack, 58 Odesa, 109–110 oral history, 60, 183, 187, 272, 289, 342 Oran, 21, 24–25 ordinary citizens, 345, 347, 350, 352 people, 11, 337–38, 341, 347–49 Orwell, George, 301–302 Ossoff, Jon, 367–68 Ottawa, 128 Oxford University, 66, 70, 234 Pan-African Conference, 232 Pan-Africanism, 226, 233 Patriotism, 145, 147–48, 204 perestroika, 38–40, 78 Perth (Australia), 166, 338–339 Phillip, Captain Arthur, 162–163 Philippines, 9, 11, 251, 253–55, 262, 264–66 Picton, Thomas, 233 Pitt Rivers Museum, 234 plagiarism, 146–47 Plains Indians (Canada), 127 Poland, 11–12, 45–46, 60, 66, 139, 344–50, 353 politics of surrogation, 310–311, 315 Polo, Carmen, 88 Poole, 230 Popular Front of Latvia, 40 portable monuments, 263, 266–67 Porto Alegre, 184 post-apartheid, 5, 67–68, 71, 115, 285, 338 “Power of Hope” monument, 174 power relations, 139, 192, 255, 343, 355, 362 Primo de Rivera, José Antonio, 84, 86, 90 prison, 126, 255, 272–76, 285, 293 prisoners, 9, 90, 152, 271–76, 282–83 procedural justice, 311 pro-Japanese, 145–47 protest, 6, 41, 69, 79–80, 115–16, 134, 136, 139, 141, 145, 165, 170–72, 174, 176, 182, 190, 205, 235, 251, 254, 256, 300, 303, 312, 319, 332 proselytization, 52 public space, 3–4, 10–13, 19–20, 22, 68, 74, 82, 109, 134, 167, 227, 239, 242,

Index • 383 267, 271, 273–74, 280, 283–84, 327, 329, 332, 336, 338, 340, 344–45, 347, 350, 355–58, 361–63 Putin, Vladimir, 5, 73, 78–79, 81 Rabin, Yitzhak, 172 race, 68, 115, 130, 191, 211, 216–17, 228, 234, 256, 310–11, 321, 370, 372 racism, 2, 9, 12–13, 68–69, 137, 139–40, 143, 148, 171, 186, 190–93, 211, 214, 230–34, 284, 310–11, 319–20, 322–23, 337, 363–69, 374 anti-, 1, 12, 212 Rakowitz, Michael, 301 Rajoy, 87 Ramat Gan, 174 re-commemoration, 8, 15, 34, 68, 100–102, 245, 348 reconciliation, 6, 62, 69, 87, 89, 115, 125, 128, 156, 204, 239, 312–15 reconstruction, 22, 238, 244, 271 Recovered Territories, 46, 48, 52 Rees-Mogg, Jacob, 298–300, 302–304 Red Army, 345, 347 Redskins, 217 reparation(s), 60, 66, 97, 137, 193, 202, 227, 233, 262, 266 representation(s), 1, 3, 68, 74, 77, 79, 96, 109, 116, 126, 136, 138, 187, 194, 204, 206–07, 210, 255, 315, 322, 331, 338, 356–58, 370 repressive forgetting, 363 Republican, 84–86, 90, 369–73 re-signification, 97–98 residential schools (Canada), 125–28 revolt, 21, 115, 117 Chilean, 134, 136–37, 141, 341 revolution, 2–4, 22–23, 27, 30–31, 33–34, 74, 77, 79, 107, 136, 147, 201–204, 206, 222–224, 270–72, 275–276, 292, 304, 344 Rhodes, Cecil John, 1, 5, 65–71, 114–17, 119–120, 232–34, 327, 337 Rhodesia, 66–67 Ribeirão Preto, 185 Richmond, 1, 372 Riga, 4, 37–42 Riggs, Thomas, 58 Rio de Janeiro, 182, 184–85 Roces, Jonas, 262–64, 266

Romania, 4, 27–34 Rousseff, Dilma, 183 Roussi Césaire, Suzanne, 222 Roxas Boulevard (Manila), 253, 262–63, 267 Russia, 5, 40, 73–75, 77–81, 108, 148, 214, 320, 347 Russian Orthodox Church, 78 Sánchez, Pedro, 87–89 São Paulo, 8, 181–83, 185, 187 Sahara, 20 Saint-Leu, 21 Saint Petersburg, 75–78 Santos, Juan Manuel, 202 Schattner, Gillie and Marc, .337 Schoelcher, Victor, 222, 225–27 Schwartz, Barry, 96, 101 Seaforth, 233 Seitz, Theodore, 281 Selma, 240 Shelby County v. Holder, 371 Sheldon, Charles, 58 Sidi Fredj, 21 Sidi Ferruch, 21 Siemczyno, 52–53 Silva, Marina, 186 slavery, 8–10, 119, 128, 143–44, 144, 182, 184, 186–87, 222, 225–26, 230–35, 244, 253, 261–62, 266, 284, 287, 289–94, 302, 321–22, 355 Smendou, 21 Smolny Institute, 75 social Darwinism, 232 socialist, 27–34, 37–39, 80, 84–87, 151, 302, 347–48 social justice, 215, 373 social media, 1–2, 66, 69, 136, 185, 194, 211, 215, 243, 274, 283 sound, 143–45, 147–48, 152, 244, 341 South Africa, 1, 5, 65–69, 114–17, 232, 234, 280, 285 Southeast Asia, 251 Southern “Lost Cause,” 238, 240, 371 Southern Poverty Law Center, 8, 238–39 South Korea. See under Korea Soviet Union. See under USSR Spain, 5, 11, 57, 83–91, 136–37, 191–93, 196–97, 235, 251, 253–54 Spanish empire, 191, 206

384 • Index Spontin, 151–56 Stah el Ouali, 21 Stalin City, 27 Stalingrad, 30 Staouali, 21 Statue of Liberty, 320, 322 Suez Canal, 232 surrogate, 10, 311–13, 315 surveillance, 181, 274 Sydney, 8, 162–64, 166, 261, 341 Syron, Lisa-Mare, 341

United States, 9–11, 56, 58, 68–70, 117, 129, 143, 148, 161, 205, 210, 217, 232, 239–40, 245, 251, 253–54, 309, 319–23, 328, 357, 367, 369, 371–73 United States Capitol, 240, 303, 367, 369 University of Glasgow, 233, 267 Unesco, 186, 254, 258 Uribe, Álvaro, 204 USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), 31, 37–38, 42, 46, 73–74, 78–79, 81–82, 107, 148, 347

Taniana, 58 Teillet, Jean, 127 Te Kauwae-a-Māui, 98–101 temporality, 12, 47, 129, 270 Thomas, Mary (Queen Mary), 114, 117, 340 Timișoara, 30, 33–34 Tirofijo, 8, 201–207 Tlemcen, 23 toppling, 2, 11–12, 37, 73, 106, 164, 176, 221, 280–82, 327, 341, 345 Toronto, 128, 261 Trafalgar Square (Barbados), 302 Trafalgar Square (London), 10, 297– 304 transitional justice, 62, 312, 347, 350 trauma, 267, 312, 315, 338–39, 357 Treaty of Waitangi, 101 Trujillo, 88 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 6, 125, 182–84, 312 Truth Commission. See under Truth and Reconciliation Commission Tulay Foundation, 262, 264 Tulsa, 309–11, 313–15 race massacre, 310 Tuluwat, 60–62 Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, 98–101 Tychowo, 52

Valley of the Fallen, Madrid, 5, 83–87, 91 Venezuela, 8, 201–06 Vesey, Denmark, 10, 287–94 victim(s), 9–10, 21, 27, 34, 39, 86–87, 126–128, 146, 151–52, 154–55, 163, 174, 202, 204–05, 207, 215, 255, 272, 274, 282, 284, 312, 315, 338–39, 348, 358–59, 362 Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Villas Bôas, Eduardo, 184 violence, 10, 13, 20, 25, 57, 60, 69, 100, 118, 139–40, 133, 150, 154, 161–63, 165, 182–84, 194, 202, 204, 207, 216, 230, 261, 263, 265–66, 272, 274–76, 283, 285, 287, 290, 294, 309, 312, 315, 331, 340, 367–71 virtual reality, 24, 355, 361 von François, Curt, 282–284 von Weizsäcker, Richard, 150 voting as resistance, 372 voter disenfranchisement, 368–69, 371, 373 Voting Rights Act of 1965, 240, 371–72

Ukraine, 5–6, 73–75, 77–81, 106–10 U’mista Cultural Centre, 125 Unisonance, 144 United Daughters of the Confederacy, 13, 238, 241, 244 United Kingdom, 161, 233–34, 297–304, 332

Walgate, Marion, 66 Wallinger, Mark (Ecce Homo), 303 war memorials, 45, 46, 48–49, 52, 54, 302–303 Warnock, Raphael, 367–68 War of National Liberation (Algeria), 22–24 Warsaw, 45, 185, 345–346, 370 Warsaw Ghetto Square monument, 165 Washington D.C., 238, 245 Washington, Georges, 245 Westminster (London), 298–299, 303–304 Whitehall (London), 233, 303–304 white power, 68

Index • 385 white supremacy, 10, 11, 12, 67–68, 143, 239, 241–42, 244, 285, 311, 321–22, 367–73 Wigi. See under Humboldt Bay William IV, 298, 300–301 Williams, Henry Sylvester, 232 Windhoek, 280–284 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 128 Witness Blanket, The, 126 Wiyot, 60 woke, 3, 298, 300, 302–03 Wolfe, Patrick, 161 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 337–38 World War I, 45–46, 151

World War II, 27, 46, 78–79, 107–08, 110, 150–51, 255, 261–62, 266, 298, 302–03, 345, 347, 349 Wyoming, 59 Yad Vashem, 173 Yale University, 70, 176 Yanukovych, Viktor, 79 Yitzhak Rabin’s memorial in Tel Aviv, 172 Yvoir, 151, 153 Zapatero, Rodríguez, 84 Zimbabwe, 5, 67, 116, 235 Żydowo, 49