US President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987, calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. Source: National Archives and Records Administration | Public domain
A commemoration should be not only a moment for remembering the past and paying tribute to the victims, but also a moment to reflect upon the commemoration itself – its achievements, its failures, and its evolution.
In a long-term perspective, the concept of“ memory” is a recent evolution. It is likely part of a deeper phenomenon and an element of a new“ regime of historicity”. This is a shift in the perception of time and the relationships between past, present, and future. Many historians and philosophers, i. e. François Hartog, suggest that the major change lies in the importance given to the present, the immediate satisfaction of needs, the inability to think about a remote future, and the trend to interpret the past through the lens of the present. This is what can be defined as“ presentism” as opposed to a perception of time focusing on the future, which prevailed in the aftermath of the French Revolution until the 1970’ s, when most political actions were either positively or adversely influenced by the idea of Progress, a dynamic movement towards a better world.
For my own purpose, this new“ presentism” regime of historicity includes the rather recent idea that contemporary societies could and should act upon the past. Repairing history has become a fundamental motto of our generations. Remembrance as a social activity is no longer a practice limited to a minority of activist groups like victims or veterans’ associations as it still was the case before the“ memory boom”. Today, the concept is implemented in public policies at a local, national, European, and international level. Its implementation involves a various range of stakeholders: international institutions and NGOs, central states and administrations, regional and
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