Civic memory
Fourth , memory can be democratic in the sense of it being driven by grassroots or civic memory work . This connects to Robert Putnam ’ s notion that social capital ( fostered through civic associations ) is what fundamentally “ makes democracy work ”. ( Putnam , 1993 ). Putnam and others in this tradition argue that civil society helps people to articulate their interests and demands to government and therefore shapes what the state does . Moreover , civil society fosters “ habits of the heart ” – skills and public spiritedness in the citizenry that are indispensable for the public good ( Tocqueville , 1954 ). This argument was initially put forward simplistically to mean that civic engagement is automatically good for democracy . As I have argued with respect to Germany , civil society groups have fundamentally influenced the memorial landscape and the institutions governing memory , though it was not always for the benefit of democracy , as right-wing and populist grassroots work has been just as influential ( Wüstenberg , 2017 ). Yet what is
interesting is that the idea that civic memory equals democratic memory is a strongly-held belief among many memory activists themselves – and crucial to their identity . This was central to the efforts of the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina ( Image 5 ) ( Iturriaga , 2019 ; Jelin , 2021 ) long before they were globally recognised as pioneers in the struggle for democracy and against forgetting . Today in the United States , we see a vibrant cast of civil society activists working to de-commemorate Confederate and colonial symbols ( and often replace them with statues that recall traditions of resistance , anti-racism and democratisation ) ( Gensburger and Wüstenberg , 2023 ), even as the majority opinion in many ( Southern ) states and legislatures uphold such anti-democratic legacies . At the same time , civil society actors that seek to protect these legacies , such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy , are also numerous and strong ( Levi and Probulus , 2023 ). In other words , a lively mnemonic civil society is not by itself a driver of democracy .
5 . Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo at the ESMA transfer ceremony on October 3 , 2007 . Picture : Mónica Hasenberg , CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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Observing Memories Issue 7