Memory Laws: Criminalizing Historical Narratives

Memory Laws: Criminalizing Historical Narratives

by Ido Dembin, a blog writer for RightsViews and a M.A. student in Human Rights Studies at Columbia University On the weekend of October 27 and 28, Columbia University Seminars hosted a two-day conference on Historical Narratives and Memory Laws. The conference was scheduled as part of a University Seminar titled “History, Redress and Reconciliation,” chaired by Elazar Barkan, director of Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights. The seminar’s self-proclaimed objective is to "forge a more structured exchange among scholars and practitioners who engage a set of issues that are yet to self-identify as an academic field, and is addressed in different disciplinary spaces.” The content-heavy weekend proved to serve that objective. Memory laws embody state-approved understandings of historical events, with the criminalization of historical narratives becoming more commonplace. The conference dealt with issues of memory legislation in countries from East Europe to Africa, where governments and parliaments have been tackling the problem of historical narrative, memory and redress over the last...
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