The Attack

I read Yasmina Khandra´s The Attack a few year ago. It´s the story of an Arab doctor, Amin Jaafari, living and working in Tel Aviv. After a suicide attack rocks the city, Jaafari is called to identify his wife Sihem’s body, one of the victims of the attack. Little later, he’s confronted with the information that Sihem herself was the suicide bomber.

Khandra takes us with his beautiful, sensitive, incisive writing through the different stages in Jaafari’s emotional state and to his journey in search of answers: from the pain of losing his wife, to the incredulity when faced with the information that the woman he loved had committed such a crime, to the confusion and anger when realizing, little by little, that he was unaware of a number of his wife’s actions, thoughts and feelings, to the determination to find an explanation that could help him make sense and the return to a reality he had long left behind.

I loved Yasmina Khandra´s book because it shows that friendship, tolerance, understanding and coexistance are possible, they are one reality. And with this reality as a starting point, he slowly  takes us, following Jaafari’s quest, into that other reality, which exists right next to the first one, compromising it, questioning it, every single day: that of millions of Palestinians in the occupied territories or in exile; that of daily humiliation, dispair, hopelessness, pain, abuse, death, revolt; that of an arbitrary rule that bears terrorist suicide bombers, who are venerated as heroes and martyrs.

Khandra makes us question the first reality. Is it the product of convenient silences; of ignorance? Is it fake; fragile; unable to survive if the silence is broken? Or rather the result of strength and determination, of the informed and thus conscious wish for peace?

The director of The Attack, Ziad Doueri.

The film The Attack, by Ziad Doueri, opened this year´s Judaica – Festival of Cinema and Culture in Lisbon. I went to see it knowing that rarely or never are films as good as the books. The rule was more than confirmed.

What stroke me the most was how superficially Doueri dealt with the story. He was not able to give any depth to the characters, their feelings and views, and more than once I was left thinking that I was watching a soap opera. Furthermore, he decided to ignore Yasmina Khandra´s narrative when describing Jaafari’s quest into the territories and basically presented the Palestinian´s as nothing more than a big mafia. I got up as soon as the film ended, also puzzled about the ending that was totally different from that of the book. Just before I left the room, I was able to hear the film director explaining to the audience that the ending of the book was not convenient to him, so he chose a different one. Why didn´t he write the story he wanted instead of ruining Khandra’s?

A scene from the film The Attack.

Some days later I watched an interview with Doueri and I realized that there is probably more to it. Talking about his growing up in Beirut, about his liberal parents, about the Arabs’ taboos with regards to Israel, about how stupid ramadan is, I realized that Doueri, wishing to be progressive and open-minded and liberal, built his own version of The Attack with the intention to challenge the Arab point of view. To challenge by ignoring it, turning it into a caricature. Once again, why didn´t he write his own story instead of taking advantage of Khandra´s best-seller?

Coexistance, reconcilliation, the building of a common future is no easy thing. This is what Khandra tells us. This is what I feel when I have to talk to my son about the Greek-Turkish past and present. This was what tortured my mind when reading Jean Hatzfeld’s The Antelope's Strategy, Living in Rwanda after the Genocide. It might require some silences, but as a result of knowledge and understanding and not of ignorance. It requires strength, the ability to forgive without forgetting. It requires open-mindedness, the capacity to listen and weigh the arguments of the other side. It’s not easy; it’s very difficult and it’s complex. One needs to start by recognizing precisely that; and respecting it.

Being "just"

It´s curious that the first thing I read about the protests in Venezuela was not a piece of news in some newspaper, but pianist Gabriela Montero’s open letter to Gustavo Dudamel. In this letter she was saying:

“But I cannot remain silent any longer. Yesterday, while tens of thousands of peaceful protesters marched all over Venezuela to express their frustration, pain and desperation at the total civic,moral, physical, economic and human break down of Venezuela, and while the government armed militias, National Guard AND police attacked, killed, injured, imprisoned and disappeared many innocent victims, Gustavo and Christian Vazquez led the orchestra in a concert celebrating Youth Day and the 39 years of the birth of EL Sistema. They played a CONCERT while their people were being massacred.”

This is what made me look for news to see what was happening in that country. A few days later, another Venezuelan musician, Carlos Izcaray, en ex- El Sistema student, was making an online appeal:

“Through this medium I’d like to call on all of you to unite, with instruments in hand, to repudiate and strongly manifest against the rampant violence and human rights violations that are currently being perpetrated by the Venezuelan government on its own citizenry. Lets render our tribute of support to those who have exposed and given their lives whilst defending our Liberty. This basic right of all free people has now been unequivocally sequestered by a despotic and tyrannical Government, one that wishes to lead through fear, intimidation, and violence.”

These two musicians have chosen to live outside Venezuela, probably both for professional and political reasons. Gustavo Dudamel also lives and works abroad, but he maintains his ties with El Sistema and through it – or because of it – with his country’s government. So I read Mantero´s and Izcaray’s passionate declarations considering that the position from which they expressed their views need not be as diplomatic as Dudamel’s, who has to consider, apart from his own views, the context in which El Sistema is operating and its dependance on the Venezuelan government. I must confess, though, that I was not prepared for his disappointingly “diplomatic” statement to the LA Times:

“I'm a musician. If I were a politician, I would act as a politician for my own interest. But I'm an artist, and an artist should act for everybody.”

Dudamel expects (and accepts) politicians to act for their own interest? And artists for ‘everybody’? How are they acting for everybody? Who’s everybody? Are politicians who act for themeselves included?

A few days later, another controversy erupted, this time in New York, when artists, activists, professors and students associated to Occupy Museums, GULF Labor and other groups staged a protest at the Guggenheim Museum about labour conditions on Saadiyat Island in the United Arab Emirates, where Guggenheim is building its franchise. Two things stood out for me while I was following the development of this story. First of all, the fact that the Guggenheim did not bury its head in the sand, remaining silent and hoping for all this to go away. Unlike what is common practice here among politicians and cultural institutions alike, who behave as if they were  untouchable and immune to citizens’ criticism, Guggenheim director, Richard Armstrong, issued his own statements, made the institution’s position clear, did not shy away from any question (more readings at the end of this post). Cultural institutions do not (shoud not) stand somewhere above all common citizens, pretending to operate in a comfortable and protective vacuum, free of social responsibilities.

The other thing that stood out for me in this controversy was to find out that architect Zaha Hadid – who designed one of the stadiums in Qatar – feels that  “it’s not my duty as an architect to look at it [“it” being the deaths of hundreds of immigrant workers at the construction site]... I cannot do anything about it because I have no power to do anything about it.” (read here)

My mind flew to Ukraine. My friend and colleague Ihor Poshyvailo was writing on this blog last December: “ (...) ICOM Ukraine and a number of Ukrainian museums were issuing public statements condemning unexpected crackdown on peaceful protesters and the pulling out of an association pact with the EU. The Directors Council of Lviv Museums coordinated protest statements of a number of Lviv museums. One of the oldest ethnographic museums in East-Central Europe – the Museum of Ethnography and Crafts in Lviv – displayed a banner on its balcony saying "We support the demands of Euromaidan". In Kyiv a dozen museums made their public statements, including the Museum of Kyiv History which is run by the City Hall and depends upon the Mayor of Kyiv, whose headquarters were taken by the protesters. Pavlo Tychyna Memorial Museum (located closely to Maidan) opened its doors to protesters and proposed them tea, rest and cultural programs. (...)”.

We’ll probably never know the names of the people who took these decisions and acted in those moments. People who are not “just a musician” or “just an architect”, people who are not “just public servants”, but who first and above all are citizens. They were citizens of an authoritarian state, risking their jobs, their personal safety, maybe their lives, maybe public funding if things went the other way - but probably not Hadid’s fees. They were “anonymous” citizens who felt they had the power and the responsibility to do something. And they did it. They did what they could.

Dudamel somehow seemed to be contradicting himself when he stated to the LA Times "(...) we are creating in Sistema not only musicians but better citizens”. If that’s what El Sistema does, then those young citizens should probably be shown by their elders that, when the moment comes, they should not hide behind “I am just a musician” statements.

More on this blog

Silent and apolitical?

The long distance between California and Jerusalem

More readings:

Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel: 'An artist should act for everybody', The Guardian, 21 Feb 2014

Sistema in the crossfire, by Jonathan Andrew Govias

Guggenheim Responds to Saturday’s G.U.L.F. Protest Action, Hyperallergic, 24 Feb 2014

G.U.L.F. Responds to Guggenheim, Calls on Museum toOpen Its Doors to Free Public Assembly, Hyperallergic, 24 Feb 2014

Guggenheim Responds: Guards Paid Competitively, GuggAbu Dhabi Not Under Construction, No Public Forum, Hyperallergic, 25 Feb 2014

The ultimate measure

Bill De Blasio's inauguration (photo taken from the portal Hyperallergic)

Bill de Blasio is New York´s 109^th Mayor. He’s married to poet and activist Chirlane McCray. His inauguration was on January 1. Two days before that, the New York Times (NYT) published the article A new mayor brings hope for a populist arts revival. I was curious. The newspaper referred that the new mayor has got a populist brand and that, considering his cultural and artistic preferences, one may expect him to get interested in a part of the city´s cultural life that is quite different from the one that attracted his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg. The NYT actually referred that the new mayor was never seen at the Lincoln Center and that his family rarely visits the city’s big art museums. On the contrary, there are usually seen in small neighborhood museums and galleries. Chirlane McCray frequents reading sessions, was member of the jury of a number of poetry competitions and arranged for the poem of a young poet to be read on her husband’s inauguration day. De Blasio’s transition committee (that is, the people who will help him form his team) includes experts from the Public Theater, the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as the director of Studio Museum in Harlem.

A few days later, Hyperallergic published an article by Mostafa Heddaya entitled De Blasio and the mythology of a new arts populism. Heddaya comments on the NYT’s considerations, but concludes that the cultural interest of the new mayor and his wife are of little relevance, just like the ones of his predecessor. Heddaya, together with other commentators he quotes in his article, is more concerned about how the new administration will support the arts, in a constructive and fair way, and whether they will manage to attract donors in order to compensate for the support given by Bloomberg to a number of cultural institutions in the city, by investing his own millions.

Problems with funding and permanent problems because of the lack of constructive and fair cultural policies. New York doesn’t seem to be facing a different situation than that of a number of other cities. Nevertheless, and apart from this discussion, I was left thinking about two other things: the fact that the new mayor’s cultural preferences are considered “populist” by the NYT (is there some other meaning to the word that I am not aware of?); but, mostly, the fact that these preferences and habits are an issue, discussed publicly, in newspapers and blogs. I know little or nothing about the cultural habits of the men and women who govern us. Rarely is this an issue among us, before or after elections. And rarely did I see them at the places I used to work or go to, except when their presence was required by protocol. (There are some bright exceptions; few. It´s the case of those politicians who also didn’t ask for an invitation to come and watch a performance; they paid the ticket).

I was once again left with this in mind, I was left thinking if it matters what books our politicians read, which plays they see, what music they listen to, what were their favourite films in 2013. Another event in the US reminded me of this issue.

Photo: Witness Against Torture (taken from Flickr)

On January 11, the day of the 12th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo, Witness Against Torture activists did a protest at the National Museum of American History in Washington (see here). Using the characteristic orange jumpsuits and black hoods, they assumed detention poses near the museum entrance. Others delivered a speech, asking President Obama to free the remaining 155 prisoners and close the camp. Later, they moved to the exhibition “The price of freedom: Americans at war”, they assumed the same detention poses and exhibited signs saying “Are these the price of freedom?” or “Civil liberty?”.

I saw in the choice of venue a more favourable symbolism for the museum than the one the organizers actually aimed to assign. “We came here today because we want to see Guantanamo relegated to a museum”, they wrote in a press release. But they also said: “(...) we want it to be shuttered and condemned, but also understood as an example of where fear, hatred and violence can take us.”

It was in Tzvetan Todorov’s book “La peur des barbares: Au-delà du choc des civilisations” that I first read about the Torture Memo, a document prepared by the  legal office of the American Ministry of Justice, which was used to present a “new definition” of what constitutes torture and to defend the legitimacy of acts committed by the american government. A language that was very well elaborated by someone who knows how to use (or abuse?) words. A shocking public document which was used to justify inhuman, humiliating and shameful acts (this is why I thought that the choice of National Museum of American History had a more profound meaning than seeing Guantanamo ‘relegated’ to a museum”).

I was once again left thinking: what kind of books do they read, what kind of plays do they see, what kind of music do they listen to, what are the favourite films of those politicians, lawyers, security agents, economists and others who, taking advantage of and nurturing our fears, find justifications for barbarity and wish to turn us into their accomplices. From torturing prisoners who have never been formally accused, to promoting referenda on fundamental rights, cutting already miserable pensions, increasing the number of students by class and reducing the number of teachers and subjects, putting at risk the good functioning of cultural institutions and compromising access to them, human rights are being violated every day, ‘for a good cause’, in our ‘civilized’ countries.

Distribution of food and clothes, Portugal, Christmas 2013 (Photo: Bruno Simões Castanheira for the Projecto Troika)

Martin Luther King said that “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” So maybe it does not really matter what are the cultural habits and preferences of those who govern us and of those who support them. Books, theatre, music do not have super-powers. What matters is that a man has got strength and consciousness, so that he’s able to use what he encounterd in them against his own, always underlying, barbarity.

Guest post: "Museums in Ukraine: Learning to be with the people", by Ihor Poshyvailo (Ukraine)

My friend and colleague Ihor Poshyvailo´s museum, the Ivan Honchar Museum in Kyiv, published the following post on Facebook on 30 November: “Ivan Honchar Museum supports the national protests against the government policy and police crimes against the student protesters, and encourages people to join the current people movement for the democracy. Do not be indifferent - come to the Maidan! We can only win being together!". I was deeply impressed with such a bold statement by a national museum and asked Ihor to share with us his thoughts on the role museums can play in their societies at historic moments, such as the ones currently going on in Ukraine. I have no words to thank Ihor for this beautiful text. mv

Photo: Bohdan Posyvailo

On December the 1st, my American colleague and friend Linda Norris published the post If I ran a museum in Kyiv right now in her blog The Uncataloged Museum. It was a prompt response of this museum expert, well-known in Ukraine, to the riot police night attack on the peaceful protesters, mostly students, in Kyiv. A wave of demonstrations and civil unrest began in late November due to a massive public outpouring for closer European integration in Kyiv and was named ‘Euromaidan’. It was claimed by Guy Verhofstadt, Member of the European Parliament, former Prime Minister of Belgium, to be the biggest pro-European demonstration in the history of EU. Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary at the United States Department, underscored that Euromaidan is symbol of the power of civil society: “It is about justice, civil rights and the people’s demands to have a government that listens to them, that represents their interests and that respects them.”

In her post, Linda puts herself in a Ukrainian museum director’s shoes and offers a program of action in three museum spheres: representing community values and ethics, serving the community, and collecting. In particular, she would make a public statement, take a look at the ethical practices and transparency of her own museum, throw open the museum doors and invite the public in for free.  Keeping the museum open early and late, she would have cups of hot tea ready, provide a warm place for reflection and contemplation, and find a space in the gallery for people to write or draw about their hopes and fears; encourage participants to think about Ukraine as a nation, about beauty, truth and complicated histories. Even more – she would permit and even encourage the staff to take part in the protests if they so desired. If Linda was the director of a history museum, she would be out collecting lots of potential exhibits for the future, starting from Tweets and Facebook postings, oral histories, flags, banners and hand-made signs and photographs to metal barriers,  face-masked helmets and police uniforms, and even home-made antidotes for tear gas.

Photo: Bohdan Posyvailo

Indeed, a simple, effective, and seemingly common reaction for a typical American or Western Museum. A museum which is 'about', 'for' and 'with' people. Such was the topic for discussion proposed by my another great colleague and friend Maria Vlachou at the European Museum Advisors Conference in Lisbon last year (here). Serving the community is especially important for modern museums, which are becoming active agents of communication, operating not only explicitly at the level of objects of history, science, culture, education or entertainment, but also at an implicit level, approaching spheres of power, ideology, values​​, and identity.

But for me, in the context of recent events in Kyiv, the combination of words ‘museum with people’ gains a new, special meaning. This seems quite a clear, even banal, phrase. But is it common for Ukraine and other post-Soviet nations? Do our museums want, can and know how to be with people today? Especially in a period of social uprisings and political tensions, in unusual situations, which require from a museum an open and honest look into the eyes of its current and potential visitors, of the communities it represents.

It happened historically that most museums in Ukraine are state-run and, therefore, they depend ideologically, economically and administratively on the government. So, how should they behave in a deep conflict between government and society? I hope for many museums the answer is theoretically obvious – same as for army and riot police soldiers who took the oath “to serve their people”. Do Ukrainian museums remain indifferent observers of the breath taking and internationally covered events at Independence Square? How can they be responsive and inclusive to the needs of the society and communities they represent and serve?

Photo: Bohdan Poshyvailo

Ironically, at the moment the President of Ukraine Yanukovych was visiting the Museum of Qin Terra-cotta Warriors in China and writing a review in the book of honourable guests, ICOM Ukraine and a number of Ukrainian museums were issuing public statements condemning unexpected crackdown on peaceful protesters and the pulling out of an association pact with the EU. The Directors Council of Lviv Museums coordinated protest statements of a number of Lviv museums. One of the oldest ethnographic museums in East-Central Europe – the Museum of Ethnography and Crafts in Lviv – displayed a banner on its balcony saying "We support the demands of Euromaidan". In Kyiv a dozen museums made their public statements, including the Museum of Kyiv History which is run by the City Hall and depends upon the Mayor of Kyiv, whose headquarters were taken by the protesters. Pavlo Tychyna Memorial Museum (located closely to Maidan) opened its doors to protesters and proposed them tea, rest and cultural programs. The Historical Museum-Preserve "Tustan" in the Lviv Region asked people on facebook to bake honey-cakes, "Knights of Goodness", write a message of support and send them to the freezing activists. The Ivan Honchar Museum, which glorifies the eternal traditional virtues of the Ukrainian people – freedom, faith, honour, democracy and humanism, shifted its educational programs to Euromaidan. It launched a series of flash mobs (such as the installation and decoration of the main Ukrainian traditional symbol of Christmas – Didukh ("the spirit of ancestors") - at the foot of the monument of Independence) and organized folk celebrations, dancing and singing at the epicentre of the protest area.   

Virtually all museums in Ukraine are government run and funded. Of course, there is a worry regarding possible repercussions. We know about the director of the famous Territory of Terror Museum in Lviv, who was summoned for questioning at the Investigation Department of the prosecutor's office as "a witness" to events at Euromaidan. We heard the story of a Kyiv metro driver who was fired just for telling his passengers how to find the shortest way out of the blocked central stations and join the protesters. We heard about dismissed commanders of the riot police forces in some regions, whose soldiers refused going to Kyiv and attack the protesters.

Photo: Bohdan Poshyvailo

Of course the Tahrir Square syndrome is still vivid in the memories of many museum professionals, but I think the Ukrainian Euromaidan is a great chance for many museums to test their ability to be with the people. I saw this need in twinkling eyes of peaceful protesters in the past three weeks.  And I drew the conclusion that in order to be with people our museums should not necessarily do extraordinary things, the should firstly listen carefully to the pulse rate of their nation and open their doors to frozen hearts.

Ihor Poshyvailo is an Ethnologist with a PhD from the Institute of Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences(1998). He is the Deputy Director of the National Center of Folk Culture “Ivan Honchar Museum” (Kyiv). Co-moderator and co-organizer of international museum management seminars (since 2005). Participant in the International Visitor Program (USA, 2004), Global Youth Exchange Program (Japan, 2004) and The World Master’s Festival in Arts and Culture (Korea, 2007). Curator of international art projects, including the traveling exhibition “Smithsonian Folklife Festival: Culture Of, By, and For People” (2011), “Interpreting Cultural Heritage” (2011), “Home to Home: Landscapes of Memory” (2011-2012). He was a Fulbright Scholar at the Smithsonian Center of Folklife and Cultural Heritage (2009-2010) and a Summer International Fellow at the Kennedy Center (2011-2013). Ihor wrote another post for this blog in 2012, entitled Reinventing and making museums matter.

Guest post: "Building memories", by Ricardo Brodsky (Chile)

Ricardo Brodsky, Director of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago de Chile opened the Museums Association conference in Liverpool on 11 November. The photo posted by the museum on Facebook made me feel sorry for not having been able to listen to his speech. But I got in touch with Ricardo and he was kind enough to send me his text and to authorize the publication on this blog. Here we present an edited, shorter, version, but there is a link in the end for those wishing to read the whole speech. mv

This is our September 11, the starting point of the story to which I will refer and which inspired the Museum of Memory and Human Rights (MMHR) in Chile.

1. Memory

Memory is not a nostalgic exercise about the past. Memory is our identity, what we are. We could say that memory inhabits us in such a way that it defines our ideas about the present, our values and our perception of the future.

In his text La Muralla y los Libros (The Wall and the Books), Jorge Luis Borges talks about Emperor Shih Huang Ti, who built that Chinese Wall and instructed, at the same time, that all books prior to him be burned. With the Wall he intended to protect his country from external enemies and he burned the books because his opponents turned to them when it came to praising their ancestors. We witnessed this during the Pinochet years, when the country’s institutions were destroyed, people disappeared, books were burned and the people linked to the popular culture and history were banned because, in a way, it all represented an epic which had to be abolished.

I use the word “abolish” and not the word “oblivion” on purpose. The kind of memory we are talking about is not equivalent to the storage capacity of a hard drive disk in a computer where everything is registered with no hierarchy. The opposite to memory is not oblivion but abolishment, elimination. Memory works with exemplary events, with what allows us to reap lessons, give a sense to the experience lived. Memory is, therefore, a higher step beyond trauma and the feelings of despair, loneliness and depression that memory can cause. Memory is what allows life to continue, for hope to come back, for us to get back on our feet again. With a narration about our past and a bet on our future.

2. Connections

At the MMHR we work with material that is extremely complex and sensitive: truth, justice, victimization, memory, reconciliation, repairing. These are all ideas that question us permanently and force us, over and over again, to go over the concepts that are the basis of our work. It is impossible, though, to understand our institution if we do not understand the process from which it originated, as well as the social and political needs that were meant to be met.

On September 11, 1973 began one of Chile’s most traumatic political experiences. The armed forces, headed by a military junta of commanders in chief, staged an armed uprising against Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government, installing a cruel dictatorship which lasted 17 years, suppressing legal rights and committing grievous human rights violations, resulting in the death and disappearance of more than three thousand people and the political arrest and torture of around forty thousand more, plus exiling almost a million Chileans.

Seventeen years later, following the opposition’s victory in a plebiscite held in 1988 to prolong the Pinochet government, a complex and difficult transition to democracy began, which included facing the thorny debts left by the dictatorship, not only in the social and political sphere, but especially in the area of our society’s moral recomposition, that is to say, the sphere of truth, justice and human rights. The democratic government’s human rights policies have centered around four basic pillars or demands: Truth, Justice, Reparation and Memory.

3. Truth

Once democracy was recovered, the first effort in human rights policies in Chile was the quest to establish the truth about the most serious human rights violations committed during the Pinochet dictatorship. Two Commission were established, involving people with high credentials, which affirmed that the human rights violations committed by state agents were massive, systematic and had been approved at the highest level of government at the time. This affirmation, supported by the existence of proof and irrefutable testimonies, allowed the country to know the truth about the existence of more than 3.000 detained-disappeared and executed and also allowed a very relevant second step to take place, which was the opening of the possibility to establish reparation policies for the victims and their families. In 2003, a second commission, set up to investigate the cases of people who suffered political imprisonment and torture, recognized 38.254 victims of torture.

Museum of Memory and Human Rights, Santiago, Chile (Photo: MMDH) 

4. Justice

The struggle for justice in the transition process has been the most difficult and polemic aspect. Since the end of the military regime and until 1998, judicial investigation made, as a general rule, scant progress and it was normal for the courts to apply an amnesty decree law passed by the military dictatorship. In 1998, in the wake of Pinochet’s arrest in London, ordered by Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón, new conditions began to be generated which have produced, slowly but gradually, some progress in judicial investigations, which have allowed for the identification of those directly responsible for human rights violations. Today there are 1,426 active cases, of which 1,402 deal with disappearance or killing. However, only 66 agents are serving prison sentences, among them key figures in the DINA (National Intelligence Department) and CNI (National Intelligence Agency); 173 agents have been sentenced but are not in jail, for various reasons, and there are also 528 agents whose prosecution has been completed, but have still not received a definite sentence.

5. Building memory

In this context, the government of Michelle Bachelet created in 2010 the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, as a project of moral or symbolic reparation to victims of the dictatorship and as an educationial project, in order for the new generations to understand the value of respect for human rights.

Museum of Memory and Human Rights

The Museum of Memory and Human Rights, where Chilean society symbolically fulfills its duty of memory, looks directly at its past and responds to the right of memory for victims of the dictatorship. Its origin can be found in the recommendations of the report of truth of 1991 and in the 2004 statement by UNESCO that the archives of various human rights organizations in Chile are part of the world’s memory.  In addition to this, there is a demand by the organizations of relatives and victims of human rights abuses. It holds the largest collection of documents, photographs, objects, testimonies and films about the dictatorship in the country and exhibits them to the public, trying to produce empathy with the victims and the revival of values and lessons from the experiences of human rights abuses. The victims groups are actively involved in its life and they feel included.

The MMHR’s mission is to “make known the systematic violations of human rights on behalf of the Chilean State between 1973 and 1990, so that by ethically reflecting on memory, solidarity and the importance of human rights, the national will is strengthened, in order to prevent actions which affect human dignity from ever being repeated again”.

Museum of Memory and Human Rights, Santiago, Chile (Photo: MMDH)

What is the place for this museum in Chile’s society today?

Pierre Nora has said that the Places of Memory are constructions that seek to “stop time, block the work of oblivion, fix a state of things, immortalize death, materialize what is immaterial in order to lock up the maximum number of senses in the minimum number of signs”. In that sense, the MMHR has the mission to recover and preserve the tracks of that traumatic past, give testimony of the sufferings, so that public knowledge about what happened may break into the circle of silence and impunity and emphasize the need to prevent something like that from happening again. In other words, the Museum of Memory, as an expression of a public policy of reparation, is the State’s main gesture of moral reparation to the dictatorship’s victims: this is where the history or the biography of each one of the victims is found or built and where their dignity, that was snatched away from them, is given back to them. The MMHR has turned into a reference point for our country and our region, similar projects being constructed in Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia.

Having said that, I must also say that it is a project located in a land of controversies. Every museum that deals with traumatic stories is aware of the tension between history and memory, between the explanation of the events organized chronologically and the subjective experience of memories backed up by a testimony. The museums of memory have, precisely, the challenge of conjugating that tension, so the testimonies may be exemplary and representative, transcending the mere personal experience or that of the groups directly affected. Only by solving that tension in a positive manner can the message be universal and link the demands of truth and justice with a broader democratic imaginary.

According to some, the Museum of Memory and Human Rights’ museography coincides with what Pierre Nora calls the memory’s transformation into history, that is, “it completely relies in what is most precise in the track, what is most natural in the remains, what is most concrete in the recording, the most visible in the image”. Certainly, visitors face the tracks of the past, the faces of the disappeared, the La Moneda bombing, the testimonies of those who were tortured, the anguish of the families. They are forced to live an experience of apprehension, of compassion, empathy and emotion. But they also find the documents, the legal files, the bands and decrees that lead to an experience of confrontation, of analysis, of comparison, of visualizing the context in which violence took place. The museum, in this sense, proposes a tale, a narration able to convey sense, starting from a feeling of empathy with the victims.

The founding of the MMHR generated a wide controversy in the country from day one. These are precisely the topics of this conference. How do we deal with sensitive and controversial issues in an institution which must present a story that is still alive in Chilean society, since many of its main actors are still holding public posts and the Chilean families are still watching or suffering the consequences of that period?

The critical attitudes toward the Museum of Memory either deny the existence of the violations of human rights or justify them, invoking the need to fight an alleged war against a threat represented by marxist parties. There is lighter criticism from other groups, accusing the museum of distorting history by showing only one aspect of the dictatorial period (human rights violations) and fragmenting time, thus, not allowing people to visualize the causes of the military dictatorship. In brief, the critics point to the museum’s partiality when it includes only one vision of the period, that of the victims. This would mean that the narration is not as objective as it should be and, most of all, it would not allow us to know why the political crisis of 1973 took place, culminating in a coup d’état and in human rights violations.

Installation by Alfredo Jaar at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights (Photo: Cristóbal palma for the newspaper El País)

For us, the issue is summarized by stating that the Museum´s mission is to promote public awareness about the seriousness of the human rights violations during the Pinochet period, and that awareness does not have a political or electoral purpose but a moral one, that is, to transform the respect for human rights into a categorical imperative in our coexistence, whatever the context in which it takes place.

The museum cannot pretend to establish a univocal reading of the past. On the contrary, its perspective is to open multiple reading possibilities. It is important to emphasize that the MMHR is perceived as a living museum, open to the reinterpretation of experience and, therefore, provides an important space for contemporary art. Proof of this is the presence of artwork in the permanent exhibition, such as Jorge Tacla’s poem written by Victor Jara in prison and Alfredo Jaar’s work “The geometry of conscience”, that suggests that dialoguing is a tribute to the victims.

Read the whole speech here.

Ricardo Brodsky Baudet is the Director of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile since May 2011. He developed a project at the Museum of Memory as a space for reflection and extensive public education, giving more importance to the collection and the permanent exhibition and giving a prominent position to the visual arts and various cultural events related with memory and human rights. He was the first Secretary General of Federation of Students under the dictatorship. Executive Secretary of the Foundation "Chile 21" in 1992 , the Foundation "Proyectamérica" in 2006, and founding director of the "Foundation for Visual Arts Santiago"; organizer of the first Triennial of Chile (2009). He was a consultant for cultural policy of the National Council for Culture and Arts, Chile (2004-2007). He has held positions in government from 1993 to 2010. Head of the Division of interdepartmental coordination of the Ministry General Secretariat of the Presidency (2007 -2010), Chilean Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg (2000-2004).

Guest post: "Art under siege", by Chaymaa Ramzy El Dessouky (Egypt)

There is a special type of Alexandrian woman: one that is determined, opinionated, confident, full of energy, ideas and dreams and has got an amazing working capacity. Chaymaa Ramzy is that type of Alexandrian. Given all these characteristics, she´s not a person who will step back when encountering difficulties or facing controversy. Among the various projects she´s involved in, one that has really captured her heart is Marsam 301, a project based in Bethlehem, Palestine, involving people from various arab countries and one whose headquarters she´s not able to set her eyes on. For the time being... mv

Street events (Photo: Marsam 301)

“I don't remember when exactly I read my first comic book, but I do remember exactly how liberated and subversive I felt as a result.”

― Edward W. Said, Palestine

How do we define ‘siege’? Is it a physical siege, or rather a psychological one? Are we able as simple people to overcome its boundaries? Is a siege a boundary? Or it is just a limitation to some lands and spaces that we should continuously dream to fly high over?

Questions that may have different answers, which each one of us can interpret according to his or her own situation, place or style of living.

Palestine: The people, the territory, the country and the Holy Land. The experience that everyone is looking forward to. Some of us can and many can’t. One can dream of the beauty of its alleys, the kindness of its people and enjoy the non-ending stories of its houses and streets.

When Monther Jawabreh, a prominent visual artist from Bethlehem, first started thinking about founding a new cultural space, “Marsam 301” (Studio 301), he did not think about promoting art in its traditional spaces, but in different ones, where one can be touched by a story, listen to a local dialect, hear life loudly in spaces like houses, schools, hospitals and maybe prisons.

Marsam 301 is an independent cultural space, located in the city of Bethlehem, Palestine. A place that stresses the empowerment of the Palestinian visual artist and the promotion of the Palestinian visual art in the Arab region and probably in the world! A vision shared with other artists, cultural managers and supporters from Palestine and other neighbour Arab countries.

The name “301” derives from the checkpoint Kabr Rahil (Rahil’s Tomb), which is located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. An Israeli checkpoint known as ‘Barrier 300’ (Stand/Stop for inspection) prevents the crossing of the Palestinians to and from Jerusalem.  Marsam 301 is 2 kilometers away from the checkpoint, right in the center of the city of Bethlehem. So Marsam 301 took this name in order to be the second barrier that will force the Palestinians to Stand/ Stop to see art. 301 is also the number of the building.

Marsam 301, the space (Photo: Marsam 301)

“Raiding houses, kidnapping people, bombing cafés” might sound dangerous! But when you hear it from the Marsam 301 team you understand their mission and eagerness to raid houses with Art, to kidnap people and keep them long in art galleries and to bomb all the cafés of the alley with colors. A vision that is derived from their social surrounding and their daily dialect, to transform the current social and political siege into a sense of happiness and appreciation of the arts.  A vision that would liberate minds and would raise awareness about a true relationship that should exist between the artist and his community.

Marsam 301´s three main programmes include at this stage the promotion of the Palestinian visual art and the capacity building of young Palestinian artists. Another important programme aims to bring arts to the streets and to the non-traditional spaces, even to create art in its non- traditional forms. Finally, an artistic residency hosts other artists who are willing to live the Palestinian art exchange experience, whether from the Arab region or from any part of the world.

Through these three programmes, Marsam 301 team wishes to play an important role in the Palestinian art scene by linking a large number of young emerging artists with other prominent and well based ones. Also, to build a new relationship between these two types of artists that might benefit at this stage from sharing experiences and debating certain topics. An idea that has been confirmed and appreciated by Tamam Al Akhal, a prominent Palestinian visual artist, during the team´s last meeting in Amman, Jordan. Al Akhal strongly shares Marsam 301´s vision and goals.

The team met recently in Amman, Jordan. (Photo: Marsam 301)

This extraordinary experience which, in my opinion (being proudly one of its founders, together with Iman Bachir from Lebanon and Ahed Izhiman from Palestine), will contribute to the Palestinian art scene greatly, with a rich impact on the people and the community. It will allow for access to the arts at any place and at any time. By providing an insight into the arts that reflect the reality of the country and expressing people’s views, opinions and emotions to the outer. An experience that places the artists in the heart of the society.

Marsam 301 will continue with its strategy to help develop the Palestinian community, hoping that, one day, people will draw their own freedom and will never stand or feel under siege!

To contact Marsam 301 please write to marsam301(at)gmail.com or visit us on Facebook.

Chaymaa Ramzy El Dessouky is the Program Officer at the Anna Lindh Foundation (ALF) in Alexandria, Egypt; an International Fellow of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Washington DC; founding member of Marsam 301 in Bethlehem, Palestine. Born in Alexandria, she graduated from the Faculty of Commerce - Alexandria University with a Bachelor degree in Business Administration and Strategic Marketing. With her experience as a trainer, she provides strategic support to civil society organizations and emerging bodies in the Arab region, helping them to create strategies that enhance their capacity in marketing, advertising and strategic planning. She brings people together using her networking skills and wide circle of contacts within the Euromed region. Through her fellowship at the Kennedy Center, she wishes to focus on developing a marketing plan that will help engage the press and incorporate social media platforms to empower local events in Egypt. Chaymaa organizes the Alexandria ‘s Annual Intercultural Festival “Farah El Bahr” with the Anna Lindh Foundation. She is also involved in creating the strategic plan for Marsam 301 in Bethlehem, Palestine, being part of a regional team of people from different Arab countries.

Contacts:
Chaymaa.ramzy(at)gmail.com
Chaymaa.ramzy(at)bibalex.org

The new year

I am on my way back from Washington, on the plane from Paris to Lisbon. I am in the middle seat, so I ask the young man sitting in the corridor seat to let me pass. I don´t take a proper look at him; a dark man, he could be Portuguese.

I start reading my book. Some time later, I feel that the man next to me is a bit nervous. I look at his hands: he´s got a cap, his mobile and a few rolled pages of a text in english. I try to, discreetly, have a better look at him. He´s not Portuguese, he´s of Arab origin. I look again at his hands. His mobile is on and he keeps checking it. The text in the rolled pages is scientific, I can´t understand which area exactly.

The air hostesses pass and offer drinks. He refuses. “Ramadan”, I think to myself. He keeps checking his phone and he makes me nervous too. I look at him again, his eyes are closed and his lips are moving. Is he praying? I am getting even more nervous. I am trying to tell myself that he looks like a perfectly normal man, but there´s another inner voice telling me “Don´t they all look normal?”.

I place my book on the table in front of me, it´s by an Arab author (am I trying to send a message?). Many thoughts are passing through my mind. One of them is to get up and go tell the cabin crew that I have a nervous Arab sitting next to me and that his mobile is on... I´m forcing myself to stay where I am, feeling ridiculous. And then he says:

-          What are you reading?

-          It´s a Moroccan writer.

-          I thought so.

-          Are you Moroccan too?

-          Yes, I am.

He aks if he can have a look. He picks my book up and reads the summary. We then start discussing politics. Religion too. He asks me about Greece, we talk extensively about Egypt and then about Morocco too. He´s on his way to Portugal for a conference on applied mathematics. I´m enjoying the conversation, he has a calm voice and he seems to be a sweet man, but I can´t stop feeling nervous. Whenever there´s a moment of silence, he checks his mobile. “Don´t they all look normal?”, the inner voice insists.

As soon as we land in Lisbon, he tells me: “Do you know that the chances of a plane crashing are much smaller than of two trains colliding?”. He´s not nervous, I am not nervous. I feel relieved. And I feel ashamed.

____________________

There are two entrances to the exhibition of the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, one with the sign “Prejudiced”, the other “Not prejudiced”. Those who try to enter through the second door, find it closed, they can´t open it. The incident on the plane kept haunting my thoughts. I did feel ashamed. If the man next to me didn´t look Arab, I would have felt different about his nervousness.

Organizations and people working in the fields of racism and discrimination keep reminding us that we are not born racists, we become. And after we become, it seems that we really have to fight hard, consciously and with determination, to avoid discriminating others. After discussing the incident on the plane with some people, I realised how difficult this fight is. Because, in order to fight, we first need to be conscious of our discriminating actions, we need to be aware of our own attitudes. Quite often we are not. We never think of ourselves as racists and a number of excuses are good enough for us to justify our thoughts and actions: the need to be safe, the need to protect the people we love and our communities, the need to preserve our culture and traditions, the need to defend our territory, the need to guarantee our survival... So, if necessary and ‘just in case’, the Other might have to pay the price for it. And “that´s OK, it´s understandable, we´re good people caring for our own”...

This ‘just in case’ has served as an excuse for many simple people in their everyday decisions, as well as for major political decisions. Post-9/11 America inevitably comes to mind. But even there - as I realized by reading Leila Ahmed´s insightful book A Quiet Revolution – The Veil´s Resurgence, from the Middle East to America -, in the middle of the destruction, the pain, the fear, the anger, the violence, people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds were able to take a good look at themselves and to be solidarious to others, determined to preserve their multicultural communities, to maintain ans protect their relatinionships with friends and neighbours, to continue being and feeling human. It´s such a thin line between the civilized and the barbarian; it requires such an effort to be the former and not the latter.

September is more of a ‘new year’ to me than January; it comes from school times. It is the moment where I look ahead and think “Now what?” or “What next?”. At this precise moment, having the ‘new year’ ahead of me, my head is full of questions. I think again of my time at the Kennedy Center, there where Egyptians talk with Israelis; Pakistanis and Indians exchange jokes about their countries; a Serb, a Croat and a Bosnian take photos together; a Greek and a Turk enjoy a meal together. Is this some kind of a ‘safe’ or ‘civilized’ environment? Would it be different if the context was different? Are there places where people are civilized and other places where those same people turn into barbarians? Can culture really play a role in keeping us civilized or are its ‘effects’ easily neutralized by other forces and factors? Can it help create some common ground, where people can co-exist in good terms, not simply tolerating each other, but getting to know each other better; willing to talk, to understand, to accept? Wasn't it Fouad Laroui´s book that helped start a conversation on that plane, that helped control the fear? My ‘new year’ resolutions lie somewhere among all these questions.

Read also
Can Culture make it?