Guiding Questions

• Who decides how history is remembered?

• Can memory be a form of justice — or injustice?

• What happens when a nation forgets, denies, or rewrites its past?

The Power of Collective Memory

History is not just about facts — it’s about what a society chooses to remember… and what it tries to forget.

Memory can:

• Honor victims

• Expose injustice

• Teach future generations

• Demand accountability

But memory can also be manipulated.

When stories are erased or altered, injustice continues.

Monuments, Museums, and Myths

We build monuments to celebrate — or to silence.

Examples:

• Holocaust museums that preserve memory through education

• Statues of colonizers or slaveholders that spark protest

• National holidays that ignore indigenous history

• School textbooks that omit genocide, racism, or war crimes

Justice asks: Whose stories are told? Whose are buried?

Philosophical Perspectives

Michel Foucault

Believed power controls knowledge — including history. What we “know” about the past is shaped by who holds power in the present.

Hannah Arendt

Warned that totalitarian regimes rewrite history to erase guilt. Memory is political — and dangerous.

W.E.B. Du Bois

Argued that historical amnesia is a form of injustice: “The past is not dead; it is not even past.”

A Thought Experiment

Imagine a country where an atrocity occurred 50 years ago.

• The government says: “It’s time to move on.”

• Survivors say: “You’ve never even admitted what happened.”

• Young people are never taught about it in school.

Is that peace — or erasure?

Who benefits from forgetting?

Justice Through Memory Can Include

• Truth commissions (e.g. South Africa’s post-apartheid hearings)

• Public memorials and art created by survivors

• Reparations tied to historical harm

• Curriculum reform in education

• Protection of oral histories, archives, and witness testimony

Remembering Is a Form of Resistance

Forgetfulness is often comfortable — for the powerful.

But memory is power for the oppressed.

By remembering what was denied, buried, or lied about,

we keep justice alive — even when courts fail.

Reflect and Discuss

• Who decides what is taught as “history”?

• Can a country heal without telling the truth about its past?

• What memories are missing from your community’s public story?

Suggested Readings

• James Baldwin – The Fire Next Time

• Toni Morrison – Beloved (literature as memory)

• Desmond Tutu – No Future Without Forgiveness

• Michel-Rolph Trouillot – Silencing the Past

• Bryan Stevenson – The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration