MMM Program

Historical Memory, a field that has developed in tandem with transitional justice and is deeply related to it, is the idea that efforts to collectively remember past human rights abuse and atrocity can contribute to a more democratic, peaceful, and just future. These efforts include public memorials, monuments, and museums about past human rights abuse, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide (or the social movements that sought to confront these evils), among many others. They consist of physical spaces that are places of mourning, and in some cases healing, for victims and survivors.

Public memorials are an important component of a holistic transitional justice approach. They confront the legacies of atrocity by drawing on representations of the past to teach lessons about democratic citizenship and human rights. Memoralization and memorials have become tools of human rights education in the broadest sense of the word-combining public art, civic space, and the power of memory to help build better societies in the future. In these civic spaces an ongoing dialogue and discussion on past trauma can be achieved, and diverse opinions, interests, and perspectives can be discussed. The obligation to memorialize past atrocity is also an emerging norm under international law.

The ICTJ'S Memory, Memorials and Museums (MMM) program is particularly interested in strengthening the potential of public memorials to contribute to justice by expanding democratic space and prompting constructive civic dialogue about the past. This approach focuses on the communicative and educative power of public memorials; to borrow from John Dewey, it is deeply committed to experiential learning for an informed citizenry. Drawing on recent efforts in post-authoritarian or post-conflict settings, as well as examples such as Holocaust memorialization, the program examines how memorials can be valuable components of a comprehensive transitional justice approach by helping to create a healthy and democratic dialogue about the past; promote healing and reconciliation; and strengthen historical memory about past atrocities. The Center engages in discussions with human rights organizations, victims' groups, artists and designers, and government agencies, providing advice on memorial design, consultation, and commissioning processes.

The Power of Memorials

Beginning in 2002 the ICTJ and the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience joined to develop a multimedia presentation highlighting international experiences of memory and memorialization. "The Power of Memorials: Human Rights, Justice, and the Struggle for Memory" examines how memorials may be used as significant resources in societies emerging from periods of violence and repression. A visual tour of memorials around the world, the presentation explores how memorials may serve as a prism through which we can examine the past and present and prepare for the future. "The Power of Memorials" endeavors to enrich the concept of memorials, examine their potential, and discuss how that potential can be achieved through the arts, monuments, or other means.

The presentation has been turned into a workshop for practitioners and presented to interested groups in Sierra Leone, victims' groups in Chile, a city planning committee in South Africa, and the truth commission in Peru, among others. In 2005 Project Director Louis Bickford took the workshop to Bosnia, where he gave a lecture at the Center for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies at the University of Sarajevo; to Serbia and Montenegro, where he worked with the Humanitarian Law Center and the ICTJ Documents and Confronting the Past Affinity Group to consider memorialization issues; and to Kosovo, where he worked with the Kosovar Research and Documentation Institute and the UN mission.

The Memorials Database

The center has been developing a Memorials, Monuments, and Museums (MMM) database-a diverse collection of records, documents, and data that provide essential and valuable information on some 50 public memorials, monuments, and museums around the world. Its aim is to give students, academics, journalists, historians, and site-design professionals an easy-access portal to site information. From the database comparative evaluation can be made, past experience examined, and lessons learned and implemented for future projects and studies. The goal of the coming year is to make it fully accessible on the ICTJ Web site. The Center strongly encourages interested persons to contact us for additional information, such as academic and news articles, primary documents (mandates, legislation, conference reports, and governmental documents) and information about original architects and designers. The MMM database will be kept active and regularly updated.

Currently some of the MMM program's most comprehensive work is taking place in Cambodia, where genocide tourism is a significant element of the national economic development plan. In 2007 The MMM program initiated a pilot project in which a visitor survey of the Choeung Ek killing fields and Tuol Sleng prison was undertaken. Findings from these surveys were presented as recommendations to policy-makers in Cambodia. The program continues to work directly with the Documentation Center of Cambodia to formulate a strategy for genocide tourism that takes into account human rights principles. It is the program's intention to evaluate the various projects in Anlong Veng, the former final stronghold of the Khmer Rouge--and to potentially become deeply involved in these projects by writing recommendations to their creators, doing joint fundraising, and helping to plan and establish the museum(s).

In collaboration with the Ford Foundation's Santiago, Chile, office, the MMM program is currently developing a rigorous analysis of the field of "historical memory" and its relationship to transitional justice, human rights, and democratization by assessing best practices and lessons learned from Latin America's Southern Cone. Aimed at measuring the impact of the field of historical memory in this region in the past decades, the project is examining several questions: How have things changed? Has discussion of the past enhanced human rights? Has it strengthened democracy? Has it decreased impunity? Has it improved people's lives? The emphasis of these inquiries is on the practice of historical memory.

 

(Updated May 2008)