Controlling for Consensus: Commemorating Apartheid in South Africa

Teeger, Chana; Vinitzky‐Seroussi, Vered

doi:10.1525/si.2007.30.1.57

Cited by 49 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Instead of encompassing all of human history, this museum only recounted the ordeals of apartheid from 1948, and instead of extending out into the entire world, this museum only dealt with life in and around Johannesburg during that period (Bonner 2004). Although such a narrowing of focus might still serve national interests in "controlling consensus" (Teeger and Vinitzky-Seroussi 2007), this new site, the Apartheid Museum, showed the importance of localizing the nation and the power of grounding a national narrative of unity in the specificity of identity and difference in a particular place.…”

Section: National Heritagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, South Africa's new public pedagogy has been criticized for creating an artificial uniformity in which difference, disagreement, and debate are buried under scripted narratives and framed imagery for creating consensus (Teeger and Vinitzky-Seroussi 2007). New national narratives, drawing on powerful images of non-racial rainbowism or African Renaissance, have been deployed in a variety of ways to create a sense of social cohesion.…”

Section: Th E Expanding Classroommentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unity in Diversity: Religion Education and Public Pedagogy in South Africa

Chidester

2008

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On 12 September 2003, Minister of Education, Kader Asmal, presented to Parliament South Africa's new national policy on religion and education. Breaking with the confessional religious instruction of the past, the policy established a new educational agenda for teaching and learning about religion, religions, and religious diversity in South African schools. Although this policy was the focus of many years of educational debate and religious controversy, it was also part of broader post-apartheid efforts in nation building. Th e policy was based on an inclusive definition of citizenship; it enacted the state's commitment to constitutional values, respect for cultural diversity, and transformational promise of moving a divided society towards national unity. In this broader context, I want to link South Africa's national policy for religion and education with post-apartheid initiatives in cultural heritage. As public pedagogy, state-driven and market-driven heritage projects have created an expanding classroom for "celebrating diversity and building national unity." Heritage projects have been criticized for manufacturing uniformity and privileging the extraordinary. In working out a curriculum for religion education in schools, these criticisms also need to be addressed. Th is article proposes that fruitful exchanges in theory and pedagogical practice can emerge at the intersection of religion education, heritage studies, and the history of religions.

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Section: National Heritagementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Th E Expanding Classroommentioning

confidence: 99%

Unity in Diversity: Religion Education and Public Pedagogy in South Africa

Chidester

2008

Numen

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“…This, for example, is what happened in Germany with opening of the Stasi files and the GDR truth commissions (Misztal 2003b;Beattie 2011), and in the Czech Republic with temporarily disqualifying former agents or informants of the secret police from serving in the high-ranking government posts (Misztal 2003b). However, societies can also enforce forgetting of some conflictual elements of the past and moving on, as, for example, happened in South Africa with the truth and reconciliation commissions (Teeger and Vinitzky-Seroussi 2007).…”

Section: Trauma and Difficult Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, in a society (1) with a conflictual political culture, (2) where a difficult past is still construed as politically relevant, and (3) divided stakeholders have access to diverse resources, as in Israeli commemorations of the assassinated Prime Minister and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the commemorations of a difficult past will be fragmented -Rabin was commemorated in different places at different times, and each of these separate commemorations targeted specific and disparate audiences (Vinitzky-Seroussi 2002). Finally, commemorations of a difficult past can also be enforced from-above, as it happened with the commemorations of the apartheid in South Africa, where the content and form of apartheid presentations in the first South African apartheid museum were strictly controlled (Teeger and Vinitzky-Seroussi 2007).…”

Section: Trauma and Difficult Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Changes and the Generational Differences in the Formation of Collective Memories (Dissertation, 2012)

Juroš¹

2016

Preprint

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The present study found that the textbook and newspaper presentations, primarily shaped by the 1990s nation-building elites, mainly portrayed Yugoslavia in negative political, economic and ethnic terms. However, findings from 72 in-depth interviews with the two young Croatian generations suggested that the influence of the dominant negative re-evaluations was limited, particularly among the vocationally educated individuals who were least exposed to the institutionalized presentations of the Yugoslav past. In contrast, the young Croats, independently of their differences, generally dominantly evaluated Yugoslavia in positive social terms, which was a perspective obtained from their parents and older people recounting their good lives in Yugoslavia. This perspective was appropriated not only because its sources were emotionally available and credible, but also because the social lens on Yugoslavia helped the young Croats make sense of their lives in the social insecurities of the contemporary Croatian society.ix Therefore, the present study showed how different beliefs on the Yugoslav past, available from different sources, were appropriated and used by the young Croats. I also proposedInteractional Model of Collective Memories Formation, which elaborated how the influences on the beliefs of the past were formed at the macro, micro and the level of social interaction. Finally, this study also illuminated how active actors reinterpreted the presentations of the past, thus demonstrating how individuals can use culture in diverse and adept ways. They wore their hair long, discovered LSD and pot They sang about peace, with Tito they were non-aligned On national basis, they were not divided It was easy to talk philosophy in a student mess, To be a penniless artist and a musician in-between In a place where things were working out all-right, where the state functioned It was easy to be a student in the 1970s My folks -they easily found their first job Nobody hit the unemployment office with a degree in their hands The living was good in that party system Nobody talked about Goli otok, you just changed the subject The students with their hair long got a degree and got a job, got their paycheck regularly You even could get an apartment from the United Work It was easy then to have big plans To make your own nest, to be relaxed, no tensions there To have your spot in the company reserved, in the selfmanagement committee as well You stayed until you retired -all your life at the same desk Everything didn't seem as a bluff, a cheap trick in those days Nobody went hungry They were happy in their little apartment Secure job and a retirement fund It was an easy decision to have us Nothing is the same anymore, there is no secure path There is no direct flight to the stars, to the better tomorrow Black-and- (born 1989-91), was born after the break-up, but it spent its formative years in democratizing post-Yugoslav period.Both these generations were hardly able to form mature meaningful evaluations of the past. 4Rather, for th...

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“…This is often a result of the fact that while certain groups find commemorating certain people or events to be unacceptable or uncomfortable for a variety of reasons, keeping totally silent on these issues is increasingly being perceived as illegitimate within the broader society. Moreover, agents of memory are often aware of potential criticism that may be raised against them if they fail to mention certain elements of the past and thus preemptively respond to these potential criticisms by incorporating difficult aspects of the past in ways that minimize their impact (Teeger and Vinitzky-Seroussi 2007). Such covert silences are not easily identifiable and thus not easily critiqued as they are covered and hidden by much mnemonic talk.…”

Section: Covert Silence In the Domain Of Forgettingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking the Unspoken: Silence in Collective Memory and Forgetting

2010

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Collective memory quite naturally brings to mind notions of mnemonic speech and representation. In this article, however, we propose that collective silences be thought of as a rich and promising arena through which to understand how groups deal with their collective pasts. In so doing, we explore two types of silence: overt silence and covert silence, and suggest that each may be used to enhance either memory or forgetting. We illustrate our conceptual scheme using data on the commemoration of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.The concept of collective silence quite naturally brings to mind notions of forgetting and amnesia. Collective memory is generally understood to entail the narration and representation of the past, while collective forgetting is antithetically thought to be a silencing and muting of the past. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that when nations, collectives or individuals wish to ensure that certain events, eras, people and experiences are remembered, they quite naturally turn to words and images. What can be heard, seen and touched has become the cornerstone of memory. As a result, absence and silence have often resulted in protest by groups who have shared the assumption that recollection is impossible without talk and representation (see for example Zolberg 1998; Scott 1996; Young 1993; Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz 1991). While no one can guarantee the mnemonic maintenance and survival of issues that have received textual and narrative representation because memory is unstable, changing and unpredictable (Zelizer 1995), commemoration seems to amount -at least in its beginning stages -to words, narratives and much talk. In other words, speech, narrative and text seem to be perceived as necessary -if not sufficient -for ensuring collective memory.Scholars of collective memory have focused much attention on such representations of the past and have paid attention to both the form and content of these representations. In terms of form, they have examined formal and informal rituals, historical museums, central and peripheral monuments, history books, school curricula and much more. In terms of content, scholars have paid attention to the words, texts and narratives that have filled the above-mentioned forms. In addition, scholars of collective memory have quite naturally taken note of what is missing and not talked about in representations of the past. In this way, theyWe gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of Simone Ispa-Landa, Graziella Silva, the

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Controlling for Consensus: Commemorating Apartheid in South Africa

Cited by 49 publications

References 41 publications

Unity in Diversity: Religion Education and Public Pedagogy in South Africa

Unity in Diversity: Religion Education and Public Pedagogy in South Africa

Social Changes and the Generational Differences in the Formation of Collective Memories (Dissertation, 2012)

Unpacking the Unspoken: Silence in Collective Memory and Forgetting

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