Remembering victims

Why should we remember the victims of Arab slave trade? Why should we remember the victims of the crusades? Remembering is “a moral duty.”⁸²³ Barbara Misztal notes that;

remembering “is a duty to keep alive the memory of suffering by the persistent pursuit of an ethical response,” ⁸²⁴of the painful history.

For the History of slave trade in East Africa, we owe a debt to the African victims. And the tiniest way of paying our debt is to tell and retell what happened to them during centuries.⁸²⁵ The most elementary compensation that we may offer to them is to give them a voice that was denied

820 Nicholas J. Owen, Human Rights, Human Wrongs, The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 2001, Oxford University Press, 2002, p.291.

821 Peace Building Initiative, Memorialization, Historiography and History, Ibid.

822 Ibid.

823 Barbara A. Misztal, Theory of Social Remembering, Open University Press, Philadelphia, USA , 2003, p.146.

824 Ibid.

825 Richard H. Bell, Understanding African Philosophy, Routledge, NY, 2002, p.105.

to them.⁸²⁶ It is a human duty to commemorate in remembering because, “Memory should be openly transmitted, and not kept secret. Families are bound together by memory, and people should study their roots. A nation cut off from its collective memory is lost.” ⁸²⁷ That is why

“tragedy, suffering, victory and achievement should all be publicly commemorated.”⁸²⁸

For example in remembering, the “memory of slavery is not only related to the victims, those who suffered the effects of imprisonment, deportation, punishments, and forced labour, but also to those who were left behind and to those who ordered the capture of slaves and participated in the slave trade.”⁸²⁹ In societies that have experienced such violence, an important aspect of transitional justice is the acknowledgement and remembrance of the past.⁸³⁰ This acknowledgement must include all past violent events such as “the history of Christian-Muslim interactions includes both confrontational and divisive episodes”⁸³¹, also the epoch of Arab slave traders, and the Crusades.

The lesson to learn from history is that; Encounters of Christians and Muslims have been varied and diverse, shaped by the political and economic contexts of the times and places in which they happened. From interlocking pasts, it can be chosen to draw out a story of conflict, suspicion and distrust; or it can be discerned opportunities of mutual trust, understanding and co-operation. ⁸³²

As human being confront the difficulty of selecting the manner of using memories and

Since memory is a powerful force which can easily be manipulated, Ideology and negative memories of the other inherited from the past can be evoked to sow the seeds of suspicion or to justify conflict in the present, thus generating yet more negative memories which can lock Christians and Muslims into future cycles of

826 Paul Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred Religion: Religion, Narrative and Imagination, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1995, p.290.

827 Memory as ideology,< http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/memory.tp.html>, 08th August 2013.

828 Ibid.

829 Anna Lucia Araujo, Political use of memories of slavery in the Republic of Benin, <http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Slavery/articles/araujo.html>, 08th July 2013.

830 Transnational Justice, Remembering the past, together, <http://tj.facinghistory.org/reading/remembering-past- together>, 24th July 2013.

831 Reconciliation,< http://www.guild-of-st-raphael.org.uk/topics-reconciliation.htm>, 3rd February 2013.

832 Ibid.

confrontation. This destructive logic needs to be broken for reconciliation to grow.⁸³³

Professor Gerrie ter Haar affirms that reconciling memories is an important program to end conflict, prevent new hatred, and open up a future of peace.⁸³⁴ To succeed in such reconciliation, there is a need for creating a history of memory as Carla De Ycaza, suggests that “after a mass atrocity, for addressing trauma of victims it is necessary to create a history of memory.”⁸³⁵ The French sociologist Alfred Grosser says that “the transmission of memory often serves to preserve knowledge of past sufferings.”⁸³⁶ He adds that “the memory and acknowledgment of others‟

suffering also constitutes an element of peace. The main goal or task of remembering is perhaps also the obligation to transform past suffering into creative action.”⁸³⁷

For Guillermo Kerber, the right of knowing is not only the individual right which has all victims to know what happened as right to the truth. The right to know is also a collective right which takes origin in history for avoiding future violations to be reproduced. For him, the knowledge by people of the history of their oppression belongs to their heritage, and as such, it must be preserved.⁸³⁸

Paul Ricoeur noted that the duty of memory is a duty of not forgetting.⁸³⁹ Ana Lucia Araujo, professor of history at Howard University in Washington, concurs by saying that the duty of memory is one of the requirements for reconciliation. Past events are very often repressed, but they emerge into consciousness and become part of the present in order to achieve forgiveness

833 Ibid.

834 Gerrie ter Haar (ed), Ibid, p. 148

835 Carla De ycaza, Performative functions of Genocide trials in Rwanda: Reconciliation through restorative justice, <www.ajol.info/index.php/ajcr/article/download/6331/51201>, 21st September 2013, quoted Levy and Sznaider 2002, for an in-deph discussion of creating cosmopolitan historical memory.

836 Alfred Grosser, Remembering, duty of, <http://www.crimesofwar.org/a-z-guide/remembering-duty-of/>, 08th August 2013.

837 Ibid.

838 Guillermo Kerber, Article :Ethique, justice restauratrice et droits des victims, in Arnaud Martin, La mémoire et le pardon, Ed. L‟Harmattan 2009, p.195.

839 Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, <http://books.google.rw/books?isbn=02262713466>, 23rd September 2013.

and reconciliation.⁸⁴⁰ But it also must be noted that: “an improper management of collective memory could lead to the resurgence of conflict or even to a cycle of revenge where past wounds justify present violence.”⁸⁴¹The art of remembering is not an exercise in looking backwards but an effort to transfigure past pains in order to construct a vital new society. Geiko Muller Fahrenholz underlines also a negative side of remembering when memories are used to maintain and to solidify stereotypes of the enemy: that way of remembering helps to prolong captivity, and to make forgiveness and reconciliation even more difficult.⁸⁴²Both scholars Araujo and Muller Fahrenholz are insisting on the careful positive management of collective memory for avoiding controversies. This because there is today “a globalization of memory”⁸⁴³ which is becoming a phenomenon for leading active spread of legitimate post conflict practices and mechanisms for the management of the past.

The Past of history events are transmitted to the world “through writings and memories of individuals. In this sense, we understand history through collective memory. If we think of memory as a particular, socially reconstructed version of the past, then it becomes possible for memory to function as an ideological ground for the present.”⁸⁴⁴ This allows people to apprehend

“the present through the collective memory of the past.”⁸⁴⁵ It is easy to forget when memory is not “kept alive by its retelling and reinterpretation so that it remains relevant to the current age.”⁸⁴⁶

840 Ana Lucia Araujo, Public memory of slavery: victims and perpetrators in the South Atlantic, p.69, <http://books.google.rw/books?isbn=1604977140>, 23rd September 2013.

841 Mémoire des conflits, conflits de mémoires : une approche psychosociale et philosophique du rôle de la mémoire collective dans les processus de réconciliation intergroupe,

<http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0539018407082593>, 03rd February 2013.

842 Gieko Muller-Fahrenholz, The art of forgiveness, WCC Publications, Geneva, 1997,p.38.

843 Elsa Abou Assi, Collective memory and management, <onlinelibrary.wiley.com › ... › Vol 61 Issue 202>, 13rd November 2015.

844 Shi‟ite adentity formation: Martyrdrom through collective memory,< http://uo-martyrs.weebly.com/shia-islam.html>, 02nd August 2013.

845 Ibid.

846 Ibid.

It is well known that “memories are not distinct from us, they are an integral part of us, of our knowledge, of who and what we are. They define and shape us; they are not intellectual abstractions but are a living part of us, shaping our consciousness and our personalities.”⁸⁴⁷

Professor Stanley Klein, writes that “memories of past actions go toward constituting personal identity.”⁸⁴⁸The impact of intense violence touches the psychology, identity, spirituality, the ability to regulate the internal emotional state, and the way of understanding the world.⁸⁴⁹Memories “shape our understanding of the world surrounding us.”⁸⁵⁰Lesli Ross noticed:

“forgetfulness leads to exile while remembrance is a secret of redemption.”⁸⁵¹

Remembrance is a fundamental function of human being which needs attentiveness in taking into account all aspects of tragedy, suffering, victory and achievement in history because as it was said previously, violent conflicts can had consequences on personal identity and can had ramifications on further generations. If remembering history is concerning next generations, its duty will not be “only having a deep concern for the past but also in transmitting the meaning of the past events to them.”⁸⁵²

For not forgetting, it will not be difficult to Christians and Muslims to remember and to retell their stories because religion is “a cultural system that is heavily reliant on the use of symbols, remembering and retelling stories and the association of physical places and with supernatural people and or events. These symbols, stories, and places reinforce a sense of identity and belonging for the people of the earth.”⁸⁵³

847 History as Memory, <http://quran.al-shia.org/en/qur%27anic-knowledge/history-as-memory.htm>, 24th August 2016

848 Stanley B. Klein and Shaun Nichols, Memory and the sense of personal identity,

<http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~snichols/Papers/MemoryandSenseofPersonalIdentity.pdf>, 08th July 2013 849 Healing, reconciliation, forgiving and violence prevention, in Journal of social and clinical psychology, vol.24, No 3, 2005, pp.297-334.

850 Arts and Humanities Research Council, <http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding-Opportunities/Research-funding/Themes/Care-for-the-Future/Documents/Care-for-the-Future-Specification.pdf>, 05 August 2014.

851 Lesli K. Ross, The importance of remembering,

<http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Jewish_Holidays/Modern_Holidays/Yom_Hashoah/Importance_of_R emembering.shtml>, 24th July 2013.

852 Barbara A. Misztal, Ibid. p.144.

853 Albert Ogle, The role of world heritage sites in reconciliation, <http://openarchive.icomos.org/56/1/77-Fdq3- 292.pdf>, 02nd October 2013.