In her article “Maroons: Blackgirlhood in Plain Sight,” African-American Studies professor Leconté J. Dill introduces memory not as an individual possession, but as an intergenerational action. Dill situates her arguments about Black girls’ contemporary maroonage within her discipline, ethnography, but she also and equally emphasizes her personal identity as a descendant of enslaved people and people who participated in the Great Migration (Dill 264). Her memory of her own history, she explains, informs her academic work by situtating her scholarship within a “lineage” of “commitment to creating safer spaces for [her]self and [her] communities” (264). Dill “remember[s]” her personal background not only through her personal research, but also by incessantly questioning the elders and ancestors in her family (263). Her conversations with them frame her memories as a collective rather than individual act, reaching beyond her personal experience to inform her understanding of maroonage.
In his article “Monuments to the Unthinkable,” Clint Smith expands on Dill’s introduction of memory as a praxis shared across a community. However, Smith focuses on memory within national communities rather than family. He introduces the concept of memory through what he terms “public memory,” or rather, “how people, communities, and nations should account for the crimes of their past” (Smith 24). He then explores various forms through which those groups can engage in their “account[ing],” arguing that each form leads to a different version of memory. For example, Germany’s large public memorials to the Holocaust, like the Jewish Museum and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, assert the Holocaust’s clear presence within Germany’s national identity. However, by proclaiming the Holocaust so clearly and with such a public focus, these memorials risk celebrating German recognition of the Holocaust rather than actually recognizing the Holocaust itself (34). In contrast, Stolpersteins center the narratives of individuals murdered during the Holocaust, focusing on personal stories rather than broadly visible performance (27). By exploring the different resonances that these different iterations of memory introduce, Smith demonstrates that a community’s chosen form of action influences the nature of the memory they preserve (23). He therefore warns Americans to memorialize their own historical atrocities with care (41).
Next Sections: Works from Chris Hedges, Ariel Dorfman, and Marsha Gessen resonate with Smith’s warning by exploring the actions necessitated by memory, building upon Dill and Smith’s discussion of memory as an action in and of itself.
Ariel Dorfman’s 1991 play Death and the Maiden explores one example of action that memory can necessitate: retributive justice. The play’s protagonist, Paulina Salas, feels mentally tormented by her memories of her physical confinement, rape and torture under Chile’s military dictatorship. Based on those memories, Paulina recognizes Roberto Miranda as her torturer and demands a confession and mock trial for his crimes (Dorfman, Death and the Maiden). Paulina’s effort to adjudicate Roberto’s crimes demonstrates memory’s centrality in efforts towards restorative justice. After all, Paulina would not be able to seek a confession from or punish Roberto without her vivid memory of his voice. Her memory creates her need for restorative justice but also offers her the opportunity to address the wrongs she experienced.
Chris Hedges offers revolution as another action sourced in memory in the introduction to his book Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt. Revolutions, Hedges explains, begin with “ideology” dedicated to a “vision of a better world” (Hedges, Introduction). However, they also stem from “expectations”—or rather, memories—of social and economic quality of life that are unobtainable under contemporary political structures (Hedges). For example, Hedges warns, Americans’ memory of and expectation for post-World War II prosperity create ideal circumstances for revolt.
Hedges does not, however, view revolutions and the memories that inspire those revolutions as inherently negative. Instead, he asserts that revolutionaries “express a fundamental truth about societies in decay,” giving voice to oppressed individuals’ sense that their government is failing them (Hedges). Without these revolutionaries—and, by extension, without the memories inspiring them—societies are “doomed” to injustice (Hedges).
Memory’s impact is not always as positive as Hedges suggests. For example, in their article “In the Shadow of the Holocaust,” Marsha Gessen explains that a singular presentation of national memory can prevent holistic engagement with current events. Gessen asserts that Germany’s “memory culture,” as reflected via its extensive memorialization, makes the Holocaust a focal point throughout the nation (Gessen). However, Germany’s memorialization also presents the Holocaust as a singular, irreplicable event instead of recognizing that it “remains possible” today (Gessen). This lack of recognition becomes apparent in Germany’s failure to recognize parallels between the Holocaust and current Israeli actions in Gaza. For example, Germany refuses to employ language associated with Nazi actions to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza, even when those terms—for example, ghetto liquidation—would be exceedingly apt. Because it clings to its memory of the Holocaust as irreplicable, Gessen contends, Germany is now allowing and even perpetuating genocide against Gazans (Gessen).
