Between the right to memory and present-day challenges: What may the cityscapes tell us?

Resumo

Major events, important historic and contemporary figures are vital for the creation of national identity, and thus often become immortalised in public spaces in the form of monuments – places of memory. But what happens when these places are reminders of a corrupt memory, a past that many would rather forget? Should they be removed, as if the people and the events they commemorate never existed, never took place, or should they be kept as sites of conscience, present-day reminders of a painful past? What may be their new role in the cityscape? And, ultimately, who has the right to be remembered, and who has the right to be forgotten within a city’s network? Do the monuments themselves have any rights? The purpose of this paper is to present the author’s perspective on the right to memory (perceived as a two-faced, Janus right: the right to remember and be remembered, and to forget and be forgotten) in the context of recent changes to the cityscapes all around the world, motivated by the second wave of decommunization and decolonisation. In the first part of the paper the author introduces the concept of places of memory, showing how monuments become carriers of collective memories within the city. The second part of the paper is devoted to the author’s proposed understanding of the right to memory, which he uses to provide an understanding for conflicts emerging in a city when various groups are lobbying for the right to be remembered at the same time (while some individuals would rather be forgotten). In the third part of the paper the author uses his idea of the right to memory to critically analyse four recent case studies, two regarding decommunization (Hungary and Poland) and two regarding decolonisation (South Africa and the 2020 BLM protests’ “monument rage”). Ultimately, the fourth part of the paper is devoted to the question of potential rights of monuments themselves – with the author pondering whether certain monuments should be allowed to persevere as (properly explained) reminders of the painful past in the future.