Abstract
In nation-building processes, the construction of a common past and references to a shared founding moment have played a well-documented role in fostering notions of a collective political actor. While notions of unreflective national collective memories no longer hold in an age of a postheroic “politics of regret”, the preferred subject of collective memories nevertheless often remains the nation, both in academic literature and in public debates. In this paper, my aim is to establish the role of collective memory in self-proclaimed “postnational” approaches—specifically in the context of European integration—and to assess in how far these approaches can claim to go beyond notions of memory handed down to us from earlier accounts of nation-building processes. I start by laying out two different approaches to a postnational collective memory as they emerge from the literature. The first approach aims at overcoming national subjectivities by focusing on a specific content: a shared, albeit negative, legacy for all Europeans. The Holocaust plays a particularly prominent role in this discourse. The second approach sees and seeks commonalities not so much on the level of memory content but rather on the level of specific memory practices (a “European ethics of memory”). While it is not aimed at dismantling the nation as a political subject per se, it also creates a European self-understanding that makes the symbolic borders of Europe look more porous: potentially everyone can employ these memory practices. However, as I will show, this approach knows its own attempts to define a postnational “essence”, most notably by tying the ethics of memory to a specifically European cultural repertoire.
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Notes
See for example Le Gloannec (2006) or Todorov (2008). Le Gloannec (2006, p. 268) claims that “if Europe defines itself as empty in substance and as open to the world” and if “Europe is the world and Europeanness the blueprint for the world”, discourses about a European identity will run into a dead end (p. 268).
See for example Follesdal and Hix (2006).
While Eder uses this language to describe one particular option, he does not necessarily endorse it.
See for example Hackmann (2009).
See for example Huyssen (2003, p. 17), who states that “ever more fragmented memory politics…question whether forms of collective consensual memory are even still possible today, and, if not, whether and in what form social and cultural cohesion can be guaranteed without them.”
Müller borrows the term from Markell (2000).
Beck and Grande (2007, pp. 228–229) interestingly express a similar view: “(A) minimum store of norms…(cannot)…be traced back to a ‘common origin’ or to a shared Western culture. These values must be derived instead from the conscious break with the national ‘container’ conception of history and from the self-critical commemoration of the Holocaust…and colonialism. (…) The experience of absolute negativity…alone can establish substantive norms.” (emphasis added)
Müller himself, however, has also hinted at the fact that efforts of ‘Europeanization’ are part of this discourse and that “European self-depreciation and Eurocentrism“ can easily turn into each other (Müller 2007a, p. 106).
See also ibid., p. 134.
See for example Strath (2010).
For an analysis of this debate, see Challand (2009).
“Resolution on a political solution to the Armenian question,” 1987 (Doc. A2-0033/87)
“European Parliament resolution on the opening of negotiations with Turkey”, 2005 (P6_TA(2005)0350)
“On Turkey’s progress towards accession”, 2006 (2118(INI), Committee on Foreign Affairs
Nor was there a consensus around the 2006 bill within the EU; on the contrary, the bill generated arguably more resistance than support. EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn, for example, warned the French parliament that this law would strain the relationship with Turkey considerably. However, a new bill passed both houses of the French parliament in January 2012 and caused severe diplomatic tensions between the two countries. Eventually, after several French lawmakers submitted appeals to the French Constitutional Council, the bill was rejected on the grounds that it infringes on the freedom of expression. It remains to be seen whether the French attempts to pass a law punishing the denial of the Armenian genocide will ultimately aid or obstruct the efforts of those fighting for a more open discussion about the past within Turkey.
German Parliament Drucksache 15/5689 (my translation).
Dr. Rainer Stinner (Free Democrats - FDP), Plenarprotokoll 15/172: 16130 (my translation, emphasis added).
Dietmar Nietan (Social Democrats -SPD) Plenarprotokoll 15/172: 16134 (my translation).
Fritz Kuhn (Green Party–Buendnis 90/Die Grünen) Plenarprotokoll 15/172, 16131 (my translation).
German Parliament Drucksache 15/5689 (my translation).
One could think here of the case of Spain, which faced comparatively little outside pressure to engage with its fascist past. An exception is the recommendation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to internationally condemn the Franco regime (2006). This certainly put some pressure on the Spanish government, but at the same time, Spain was presented as a prime example of a successful transition from dictatorship by the Committee of Ministers (see Hammerstein and Hofmann 2009, pp. 194–196), despite the broad acknowledgement that much is left to be done. However, it would certainly be misleading to imply that there are no “internal” divisions—i.e., among members states—with regard to real or perceived memory practices. See on the division between East and West (Kovàcs 2006).
See also Levy and Sznaider (2007, p. 174). While Levy and Sznaider’s notion of “cosmopolitan memory” is often criticized for neglecting political aspects, in this essay they explicitly argue that the cosmopolitan tendencies in European memory politics can potentially “denigrate the particularism of others” by “falling back into established patterns of ‘othering’.”
See Müller (2007a, p. 107) for a similar claim.
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Nienass, B. Postnational Relations to the Past: A “European Ethics of Memory”?. Int J Polit Cult Soc 26, 41–55 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-013-9137-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-013-9137-8