3.2 Concept of memory
3.2.1 The ethical situation and three levels of memory
Memory is human life and the commemoration of the event is mainly the product of human actions, such as with the holocaust. Victims, perpetrators and bystanders would not have the same commemoration of the event because they are affected differently by the consequences of what happened. In this case, collective memory is problematic and the collective commemoration of this kind distorts, to some extent, memories. People are under an obligation to have collective memory while they are bound by different perspectives when analyzing their
67 historical background. People cannot have a memory of the past without, at the same time, mourning a certain amount of their anguish, hatred, or of love lost
Paul Ricoeur, French philosopher, has grappled with three levels of memory in the context of Europe, and the Holocaust is emphasized in post-conflict situations. On this issue, Ricoeur draws the relationship of memory to the present and the future - he does not emphasize the past. He was interested in the issue of the ethics of memory. What is proper memory and how should people proceed to it? Ricoeur (2000: 82-111) started by defining the ethical environment of memory using three levels of memory
(1) Pathological/therapeutic version of memory
At this first level, the memory is mistreated by trauma, an upset to the illness (Ricoeur 2000: 83- 96). This level is the one that is best known, it is the individual or personal level of memory associated with psychoanalysis (Homans 1989: 261). Reasoning about what constitutes for an individual an acceptable past to be commemorated, when the memory concerns traumatic things that happened in that past which people have been affected by, is critical at this level. It is true that the lack of memory is a problem even if it is an uneasy event to be remembered. Someone who has too little memory may feel weightless, unanchored and unbalanced. Yet, too much memory is also a problem that can overwhelm and paralyze the one who is remembering (Roth 2001: 106).
Too little memory comes from repression and not being able to cope with something that is extremely destructive. Abuse, violence and trauma tend to lodge in the psyche as an open wound that never fully heals and this may be true at an individual level. The psychoanalytical or therapeutic level of memory views the work of this kind of memory, as being about establishing a proper, healthy or ethical balance between the traumatic event that is remembered and the melancholia of mourning it (Todorov 1995: 13-14).
68 Mourning is the natural human response to loss, seeking to reconcile the self with the lost objects of love. Melancholia is incomplete mourning, the inability to move beyond the loss that is internalized as a despairing longing for reunification. When you are in a melancholic state, you are unable to move beyond the loss or trauma and are condemned to a form of repetition (Ricoeur 2000: 86-89). In this situation, people live in a disconnected relationship with the day- to-day realities of life, disturbing the work of remembering. At an individual level, it is necessary to move beyond an excess or a repressed memory able to lead only to repetition of the trauma due to the past event. One of the things that gives release from the melancholy and repetition of trauma, and which prompts gentler memory of a traumatic event is unlocking stories and talking about those nightmares with others; this is the approach of psychoanalysts to healing wounds in memory.
(2) Pragmatic or functional memory
The second level is the practical level of memory. It links memory to identity, through answering the vulnerable and complicated question of identity. It involves the issue of time when people look to understand their identity in comparing the present to the past (Ricoeur 2000: 97-105).
In this, memory concerns stories that come from the heart of individual identity. It is the stories about people‘s lives and their relationships, taking into account their past and present, stories that make sense of people‘s identity. The pragmatic level of memory promotes the continuity of identity through time. Identity involves the issue of similarity and difference. People define themselves through what they are, as much as by what they are not. The problem of identity definition intensifies in a situation of conflict or post-conflict where fear and an uncertain environment disfigure community. Memory is not just retroactive, it also concerns the future. To balance the space of experience and the space of expectation is the crucial concern of people.
69 (3) Ethical or political level of memory
The third level of memory is the most challenging one in the context of a post-conflict situation.
The invitation to remember does not come from the heart of people but from the political situation (Ricoeur 2000: 105-111). Memory is a dynamic phenomenon; memory cannot remain unchanged in the process of transmission. Memory changes as people transmit it from generation to generation; it also changes according to whom one tells the story, memory is subjective and situational. Memory is necessary as it opens the possibility of educating or healing through the work of narrative, testimony or storytelling as underlined by the pathological/therapeutic version of memory by Ricoeur.
Memory does not have to be an overpowering thing or coercive, forced or fixed, with a particular position. The possibility to choose what to remember would enable people to have memory at a personal level or collective identity. This is what Ricoeur means by an ethical memory. The past should be open and memorialized as a mechanism to release the future in understanding what has happened. Ethical memory is a way of going beyond the nightmare of the past in memory, not focusing the memory on the conflict, on the moment of violence, on the event. Ethical memory requires a memory that is just to the victims as well as the victors. In the political sphere, the positive orientation of memory is possible with new institutions that avoid recurrence.
Memory is fundamental to human beings, it is inescapable in human relation between the past and the future. Memory is not a form of knowledge; it is an action and is active. Memory is a necessary stay against the annihilating force of time and its remorseless erosion of historic traces;
there is a responsibility to remember. In the face of death, memory enables a continuation of action.