Realms of Memory

Remembering Partition in the Punjab Part 2

In part 2 of my conversation with De Montfort University historian Pippa Virdee we’ll look closer at whether the violence of partition could have been avoided.  We’ll consider how the difficulty of labeling the violence complicates efforts to remember what happened.  We’ll learn how much of this violence targeted women who were doubly victimized both during and after partition.  We’ll discuss whether the rise of populist nationalist leaders like Narendra Modi represents a failure to learn from partition.  Lastly we’ll think about whether the recent creation of massive digital archives devoted to the memory of survivors gives us a better understanding of partition.  

Remembering Partition in the Punjab Part 1

The partition of British India in 1947 displaced over 14 million people and claimed the lives of another 1 million.  Some of the worst violence occurred in the Punjab.  Pippa Virdee, historian at De Montfort University in the UK and author of From the Ashes of 1947: Reimagining Punjab, explains how it took decades to include the experiences of those who suffered most from the story of partition—women, Dalits (untouchables), refugees.  She points out how the once pluralistic region of the Punjab has become an increasing communalized and divided space.  Lastly, she notes how despite tensions and unrest in the years and months leading up to partition, British authorities and their Indian and Pakistani counterparts, failed to anticipate the chaos and bloodshed that would follow the end of British India. 

Remembering Partition in the Punjab

The partition of British India is a story of extreme communal violence, mass rape, honor killings, abduction, and forced migration.  It is a story where the same individuals, depending on which side of the border they found themselves, could be both victims or perpetrators.  Dr. Pippa Virdee, author of From the Ashes of 1947: Reimagining the Punjab, discusses the challenge of memorializing partition on the August 1st episode of Realms of Memory.  

Memory Activism in Germany

Nottingham Trent University historian Jenny Wüstenberg, author of Civil Society and Memory in Postwar Germany, argues that Germany experienced a dramatic transformation of its memorial culture during the 1980s.  It was in the course of this decade that Germany pivoted from commemorating the German victims of World War II to the victims of Nazi crimes and terror during the years from 1933 to 1945.  By focusing on the role of Germans as perpetrators and the suffering experienced by the victims of the Nazi regime, this negative memory culture deepens democracy by connecting the past to the present and reinforcing the importance of tolerance, respect for difference and equal rights.  

Memory Activism in Germany

German memory culture underwent a dramatic transformation in decades after World War II.  In the immediate aftermath of the war the memories of veterans, Germans expelled from their ancestral homes in Central and Eastern Europe, and the victims of allied bombings dominated the remembrance of the Nazi era.  By the 1980s the focus had almost completely shifted to the perpetrators of the Holocaust and the diverse groups victimized by the Nazi regime.  To understand this change tune in to the July 4th episode of Realms of Memory.  Listen to a conversation with Nottingham Trent University Professor Jenny Wüstenberg and a discussion of her book, Civil Society and Memory in Postwar Germany.

Turkish and Kurdish Memories of the Armenian Genocide

The beginnings of many nations are marred by traumatic memories.  This is certainly true for Turkey.  The modern Republic of Turkey began with the dispossession and even eradication of many of the ethnic and religious minorities who had lived for centuries within the borders of the Ottoman Empire.  The Armenian genocide is one of the most prominent examples.  In Violence and Genocide in Kurdish Memory:  Exploring the Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide through Life Stories, author Eren Yetkin argues that from the time of the genocide, which took place between 1915 and 1918, the government of Turkey has chosen to deny rather than confront the past.  While Kurds acknowledge their participation in the genocide they explain it in terms of an instrumentalization thesis in which they were manipulated by Turkish authorities and Kurdish elites.  For Kurds, remembering the Armenian Genocide helps them to talk about their own long history of victimization.  

Turkish and Kurdish Memories of the Armenian Genocide

The  Armenian genocide would not have been possible without the active participation of local populations.  Kurds, who often coexisted in the same towns and cities with Armenians, undoubtedly played a part in the genocide.  Eren Yetkin, a sociologist at Koblenz University in Germany, explores the memories of the Armenian genocide in Turkey.  Author of Violence and Genocide in Kurdish Memory:  Exploring the Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide through Life Stories, Yetkin is particularly interested in how Turkey’s Kurdish community remembers this past.  For more, listen to the June 6th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.  

War Memorialization in the Philippines

After fleecing billions of dollars from the Philippines, torturing and murdering thousands during the period of martial law, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was removed from power through a popular uprising in 1986.  How was it possible that his son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was elected as president in 2022?  Dr. John Lee Candelaria, from Hiroshima University, argues that a long history of memorializing heros and forgetting the victims of the nation’s past, has much to do with the reality of the Philippines present.  From the influence exerted by American authorities during their half century of rule in the Philippines to the dependence on Japanese aid in the present, larger political forces have played a major role in shaping the parameters of official memory in the Philippines.

War Memorialization in the Philippines

How can we understand the nostalgia for the Marcos past that inspired many Filipinos to vote for Ferdinand Marcos Jr.? How was a possible to forget the billions of dollars stolen from the state or the thousands of Filipinos who were tortured or murdered during the period of martial law?  Dr. John Lee Candelaria, from Hiroshima University, argues that memories of past wars in the Philippines offer important insights into the psyche of todays voters.  For more, listen to the May 9th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.  

Memory Activism in Israel-Palestine

Just as Israeli-Palestinian relations reached a new low in the early 2000s, memory activists in Israel embraced a strategy of confronting the past to resolve the crisis in the present.  Dr. Yifat Gutman, author of Memory Activism: Reimagining the Past for the Future in Israel-Palestine, discusses how memory activists tackled the taboo subject of 1948.  Through tours of ruined and abandoned Palestinian villages and testimonies of their former residents, memory activists tried to promote awareness of the Nakba, or the destruction in Arabic as Palestinians refer to 1948. The hope was that awareness would lead to public recognition and ultimately responsibility for the past.