A book whose publication is timely

The book in question here, La concurrence mémorielle, is thus published at exactly the right time. It shows that intellectuals also want to take part in the debate, by re-contextualising it first of all and then reminding us – very opportunely – that ‘history must not be the slave of contemporary politics, nor must it be written under the dictates of competing memories’ (1). And finally in offering several pathways to lead out of the crisis which is developing between history and memory.

In Belgium, as in France, many historians are concerned about these so-called memorial Acts becoming more widespread, and even disapprove of it. Pierre Nora, who presides over the Liberté pour l'Histoire association (‘Liberty for History’), even sharply criticises this purely French legislative sport which opens the path to ‘every form of a questioning of historical and academic research by the memorial demands of particular groups because the associations are even authorised by the new act (Boyer Act) to file civil suits’ (2). ‘Need we be reminded,’ he concludes, ‘that it is history which must be protected first of all, because it is that which brings people together when memory divides?’

Certain protective barriers have been erected against simplistic readings of the past. The appeal of the historians of the Public Use of History Vigilance Committee is one such dyke. It is addressed as much to the legislator as to the media. ‘We have had enough of being constantly summonsed to draw up balance sheets of the ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ aspects of history,’ we can read within it. ‘These discourses take into account neither the complexity of historical processes, nor the real role of the actors or the power issues of the time [...]. The mission of historians is to develop [...] and transmit rigorous knowledge of the past.’

It is moreover within the same spirit that Georges Bensoussan (3) situates himself straightaway in the preface to the book La concurrence mémorielle.  For him, memory is deceptive and is not subject to the concerns of the historian. ‘The image we make of the past is not the past,’ he adds. ‘Not even what remains of  it, but only a trace which changes day to day, a reconstruction which is not the fruit of chance but links together small islets of memory lingering on amongst a general forgetting.’

The two mainsprings behind the work, Jérôme Jamin and Geoffrey Grandjean, together think over these questions at the University of Liège’s Department of Political Science, where the former is a lecturer and the latter a FNRS Research Fellow. Jérôme Jamin’s research looks into populism, nationalism and the extreme right in Europe and the United States, whilst Geoffrey Grandjean is for his part devoting his doctoral thesis to the consequences of genocide knowledge on the forms of political socialisation.

‘We have a very clear feeling,’ they explain, ‘that memorial competition is the starting point – and not the resolution – of many of the problems in society. Notably in school. […] The media telescoping around questions of memories can have disastrous effects on the young. We moreover think that memorial competition has become a relevant concept today since there has been media hyperinflation of this theme.’

Jérôme Jamin and Geoffrey Grandjean believe that this concept which they have forged will open up multidisciplinary perspectives in analysing the widespread use made of memory for political ends. Contrary to history-knowledge, expressed by a historian according to scientific methods, (collective) memory deals with the sharing of common historical experiences. It is a reconstruction  of part of the past, chosen in an arbitrary manner. It only exists through the outcome which is assigned to it – for example constructing a collective identity – and it is necessarily plural. In each society there are as many collective memories as there are groups and communities.

(1)    Extract from the appeal « Liberté  pour l’histoire » (Blois, October 2008), signed by over a thousand European historians. This appeal is headed by historians of uncontested authority such as Pierre Vidal-Naquet and Jean-Pierre Vernant.
(2)    Le Monde, 28 December 2011. Pierre Nora is the author of in particular « Présent, nation, mémoire », published by Gallimard
(3)    Historian, Editor of the Shoah Memorial.