Normative memory
Third , memory could be democratic because the kinds of narratives that it evokes help to develop values that are important for democracy , such as tolerance for difference , inclusion and taking care of the weak in society . This notion is supported by the “ community of conviction ” idea , as well as by recent work on democratic backsliding . Thus , Levitsky and Ziblatt have argued that certain norms are crucial , serving as “ guardrails of democracy ” that underpin the spirit of democracy in a way that just following the letter of the law would not be able to do ( Levitsky and Ziblatt , 2018 ). All democratic systems rely on unwritten codes of conduct – and the same is true for democratic memory . Of course , the flip side is also true : some norms are detrimental to democracy , whipping up nationalist sentiment , silencing complex and traumatic experiences and so forth . And these are usually underpinned by particular mnemonic narratives . In West Germany during the 1980s , myriad local initiatives emerged that sought to remember the Nazi past and the
Holocaust from the ground up , carefully working through continuities , exposing perpetrators and commemorating victims in a way that helped to address discrimination in the present . Eventually , this resulted in a decentralised landscape of memory , as well as influencing historical education and the institutionalisation of memory , but the cultivation of these mnemonic norms initially happened mostly against the resistance of the state and majority public opinion . Similarly , Indigenous activists and intellectuals in Australia ( like in other settler colonial states such as Canada or the United States ) have worked to publicise and commemorate the history of colonial violence , dispossession and ( cultural ) genocide for decades , while arguing that this memory is crucial to addressing continued racism and disenfranchisement . It has been a long a struggle against the Australian state and the public – a division that was again reinforced by the failed campaign for the “ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament ” in 2023 .
4 . Protest for Voice . Brisbane Community rally in support of voting Yes for The Voice at the Referendum in Australia . September 17 , 2023 . Picture : Panthus , CC0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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