Memory’s Remains: The Role of Memorials in the Transitional Justice and Peace Process in Post- Genocide Rwanda
Start Date
11-1-2012 9:30 AM
End Date
11-1-2012 11:00 AM
Description
Though the study of memory has experienced a global boom, there is still a missing link between transitional justice and peace and conflict studies that point to the following central question: (how) can remembrance of a violent past contribute to a societal peace in an ethnically divided society?
After the genocide in 1994 the Rwandan government has launched a nation-building campaign that builds – theoretically - on a uniting and reconciling construction of memory, which should finally lead to societal healing trough truth and justice. Memorials play a vital role in transporting this assumed reconciling memory. Since 2002 several memorials such as the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre or the Murambi Memorial Centre have been built that construct specific narratives of violence, peace, victimhood and guilt.
This paper aims at critically analyzing these lieux de mémoire in Rwanda against the following questions: how do memorials shape the narrative of violence, trauma, justice and peace and how do they interact with the ongoing transitional justice and peace process? How is the past remembered and how are forms of memory framed in this process? Can these forms of remembrance help to reconcile a divided society? Against the backdrop of several theoretical concepts such as les lieux de mémoire (Nora), the collective memory (Halbwachs) and questions of recognition and denial of precarious lives (Butler) the paper tries to answer these questions by examining the diverse forms of remembrance and their role within the transitional justice and peace process in Rwanda.
Drawing on field research the paper concludes that in the case of Rwanda the specific way in which memory is constructed through memorials and other mnemonic practices runs counter the objectives of a transitional justice process. Rather than bringing the parties of the conflict together they foster resentment, mistrust and a culture of victimhood in which both parties draw on their suffering during war and genocide in order to secure their collective memories.
Memory’s Remains: The Role of Memorials in the Transitional Justice and Peace Process in Post- Genocide Rwanda
Though the study of memory has experienced a global boom, there is still a missing link between transitional justice and peace and conflict studies that point to the following central question: (how) can remembrance of a violent past contribute to a societal peace in an ethnically divided society?
After the genocide in 1994 the Rwandan government has launched a nation-building campaign that builds – theoretically - on a uniting and reconciling construction of memory, which should finally lead to societal healing trough truth and justice. Memorials play a vital role in transporting this assumed reconciling memory. Since 2002 several memorials such as the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre or the Murambi Memorial Centre have been built that construct specific narratives of violence, peace, victimhood and guilt.
This paper aims at critically analyzing these lieux de mémoire in Rwanda against the following questions: how do memorials shape the narrative of violence, trauma, justice and peace and how do they interact with the ongoing transitional justice and peace process? How is the past remembered and how are forms of memory framed in this process? Can these forms of remembrance help to reconcile a divided society? Against the backdrop of several theoretical concepts such as les lieux de mémoire (Nora), the collective memory (Halbwachs) and questions of recognition and denial of precarious lives (Butler) the paper tries to answer these questions by examining the diverse forms of remembrance and their role within the transitional justice and peace process in Rwanda.
Drawing on field research the paper concludes that in the case of Rwanda the specific way in which memory is constructed through memorials and other mnemonic practices runs counter the objectives of a transitional justice process. Rather than bringing the parties of the conflict together they foster resentment, mistrust and a culture of victimhood in which both parties draw on their suffering during war and genocide in order to secure their collective memories.