Guest post: Making things public through exhibitions - 'Our' Cosa Nostra, by Foteini Kopiloglou

Palermo, Sunday morning, sun was long up before Sicilians, and there I was toiling endlessly up the Corso Vittorio Emanuele in the historic centre, pushing my feet obediently onto the pedestrian area following the recognition of Arab-Norman monuments as a World Heritage Site. Walking around Palazzo Gulì again and again, I found myself standing in mute astonishment and dumbfounded disbelief (how could I not see that?) in front of a NO MAFIA MEMORIAL. I suddenly felt grateful for abandoning my normally “prudent” expedition since the holidays began, and I plunged into the challenge of investigating a socio-political exhibition, in a setting outside the traditional gallery.

The great privilege of public life

Poster image of "The Coat", presented in 2017 by the Grupo de Teatro da Nova in Lisbon.

The recent blackface episode at a school in northern Portugal and the kind of comments it attracted was another indicator of the worrying lack of (non-virtual) meeting spaces for dialogue. Many did not understand the racism criticism of an initiative aimed at celebrating cultural diversity (from "countries" such as Africa, China and Brazil) and ended up accusing the critics of racism and hate speech. The exchange of comments on the Facebook page Blackface Portugal is revealing of the incomprehension, and even of the ignorance, around this matter. But can we say that we were shocked or surprised? Is this not a reality known to us on which, no matter how much we feel like saying "they should have known better", we cannot turn our backs? We cannot, because it continues to influence the education, thinking and notions which big part of our society holds on this matter and several others. It is these notions that end up conditioning the freedom of many citizens and perpetuating all kinds of racism and, in some cases, violence.

Who’s welcome to your home and at your table?

To Lambrina and Sam, Eleni and Nikos
To good friends and good discussions

Last June, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House Press Secretary, was asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant. The request was made by the restaurant owner. 

In mid-August, the invitation to Marine Le Pen, former French presidential candidate and leader of the National Rally political party, to attend the Web Summit in Lisbon was followed by public outcry. The invitation was eventually withdrawn.

Both incidents raised questions regarding freedom of speech; whether one can fight extremist political views and address the roots of the rise of the far-right by banning or ignoring certain viewpoints; and whether by excluding some people you don’t also become like them yourself.

Discussing the decolonisation of museums in Portugal

Photo: Maria Vlachou

I love museums. I love them for what they are; I love them for what they are not, but can be; I love them for their potential. I especially love them because of the work developed by a number of colleagues around the world so that museums may adapt to new realities, remain or become relevant for people, and even reinvent themselves. I particularly love them lately because of the controversies they cause or face, pushing our thinking and practice forward.

Cultural appropriation: less gatekeepers, more critical thinkers

"La Japonaise" by Claude Monet, Museum of Fine Arts Boston (image taken from http://japaneseamericaninboston.blogspot.com)

For Nandia

My first contact with the concept of cultural appropriation happened in July 2015 because of “Kimono Wednesdays” at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA). On the occasion of the display of Claude Monet’s “La Japonaise” (a painting of the artist’s wife, surrounded by fans, wearing a blond wig and a bright red kimono), visitors were invited to put on a kimono similar to the one shown on the painting and share their photos on social media. According to the museum, this was a way of engaging with the painting. For some people, though, the activity lacked any context regarding the garment, becoming just “fun”; others criticized it for reinforcing stereotypes and exoticizing Asian Americans; for others, it was blatant racism; (read Seph Rodney’s article). 

The Museum of (my) Discoveries

Exhibition "Return - Traces of Memory", Monument odf the Discoveries, Lisbon, 2015 (Photo: Maria Vlachou)

I'm Portuguese by adoption. When I arrived in Portugal, in 1995, the only thing I knew about the history of the country had to do with the Discoveries (of sea routes and spices, taught in my country in the 7th or 8th grade). Over the years, I have been "discovering" the rest (even with regard to the Discoveries and beyond the sea routes and the spices). The story I was taught in school was, as usual, only one part.

The person we need to listen to

Grada Kilomba, The Kosmos 2 (Detail) © Esra Rotthoff, courtesy of Maxim Gorki Theatre. (image taken from the website Contemporary And)

A few weeks ago, there was an artice in the newspaper Público entitled Grada Kilomba is the artist Portugal needs to listen to. Until then, I had never heard of Grada Kilomba. Last week we had the opening of two exhibitions, apparently the first two in her homeland, although Grada Kilomba has already got an intense career abroad. A fact which is "perversely coherent", according to the Público, "as getting into the work of Grada Kilomba - in her video and sound installations, in her performances, in her rehearsed readings, in her texts - is having to deal with the violent history of colonialism and post-colonialism, a history in which Portugal is deeply ingrained, but is stubbornly pretending that it has nothing to do with it."

What if it was here?

Harvard Books created a special section on its shelves in response to a Trump spokeswoman's reference to a massacre that never happened (image taken from the Harvard Books Instagram account)

I must admit that it is with great emotion and admiration that I see American cultural organisations taking a (political) stand and criticising their President’s policies. Some rather mild in their reactions, others quite affirmative and outspoken (see here), it is nevertheless a great lesson for us all and very probably the proof that cultural organisations are anything but neutral, they are actually inevitably political.

Diplomatic silences

Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish First Minister

As the the Web Summit was coming to a close in Lisbon, a day after the results of the American elections became known, the Municipality of Lisbon placed some outdoors that read: “In the free world you can still find a city to live, invest and build your future, making brigdes [sic], not walls. We call it Lisbon”. The outdoors were classified as “anti-Trump” by the opposition, which preferred to think that this was “an abusive interpretation and that [the mayor’s] intention was not to disrespect the democratic choice of the American people, it was not a demonstration of ideological arrogance, it was not an opportunistic precipitation as a result of becoming dazzled with the international attention." In short, the opposition asked for explanations (read the article).

Justin Bieber and the fight against islamic extremism

The Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, and the Italian Prime Minister , Matteo Renzi (Photo: Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters, taken from the newspaper The Atlantic)

A recent NPR article, entitled Italy's 'CulturalAllowance' For Teens Aims To Educate, Counter Extremism is a clear demonstration of the confusion existing, at various levels and in various contexts, in relation to access to culture and to culture as a panacea for many ills of this world.

The title is not an exaggeration of the newspaper. It was the Italian Prime-Minister himself who said, when announcing this culture allowance (€500 for every 18-year-old to spend on cultural products), shortly after the Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015: "They destroy statues, we protect them. They burn books, we are the country of libraries. They envision terror, we respond with culture."

Choices

Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, 2016 (image taken from You Tube)

Having followed the heated discussion regarding the appearance of Muslim women athletes in the Olympics with full-body suits, as well as the ban of the burkini on some French beaches, I find that some facts are – deliberately or not – left out of the equation.

Guest post: Social role of museums; new migrations, new challenges, by David Fleming

Photo taken from Twitter @IcomOfficiel

Quote from our MOOC (Massive Open Online Course):

“This course has opened my eyes. Never before thought of museums as being harbingers of change in anything.”

The same person wrote later:

“Yes, my opinion has changed and I’m much more convinced that museums have a positive role to play in achieving and enhancing social cohesion. I had been stuck in my ‘sixties experience of the passive museum, storing items for the mere sake of storage. Today they are put to use to make a positive difference in the world.”

Guest post: The ethical museum, by David Fleming

Image taken from Twitter @IcomOfficiel

I would like to begin by quoting from Janet Marstine’s book entitled The Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics (2011, page xxiii):

“The traditional museum ethics discourse…is unable to meet the needs of museums and society in the twenty-first century”.

I will continue by quoting the statement on ethical behaviour that my Trustees at National Museums Liverpool (NML) discussed just last week:

NML statement on ethical considerations

In several areas of our work, as we find ourselves more and more reliant on funding from other than our own democratically-elected Government, NML’s commitment to behaving in an ethical manner at all times is leading us to consider carefully what decisions we should make.

European Culture Forum 2016

Andrej Isakovic / AFP / Getty Images

A short intervention today in the panel "Can culture help to overcome the fragmentation of society?". Read here

Can culture make it?

Paper submitted to the Annual Conference on Cultural Diplomacy, which ends today in Berlin. A compilation of older posts and some new thoughts. Read 

Are we failing?

My speech today at the NEMO Annual Conference (text and slideshare). Click here

The educational dimension

Last October, during the intermission of a performance of Brahms' “Requiem” by the Saint Louis Symphony, twenty three protesters sitting in various parts of the auditorium stood up and sang “Requiem for Mike Brown” (the black unarmed youth that was shot by a policeman in Ferguson). Some members of the audience were shocked, others applauded, the same happened with the musicians on stage. Noone interrupted the protesters, noone called the police. Maybe because what happened made sense, at that place, at that time, in that specific context. Music being an integral part of protest in Ferguson, this, acoording to one of the organizers, was an attempt to “speak to a segment of the population that has the luxury of being comfortable. You have to make a choice for just staying in your comfort zones or will you speak out for something that’s important? It’s not all right to just ignore it”. (read full article)

The recent killings of black people by police in different US cities have provoked an intense soul searching among cultural institutions in that country. In a recent joint statement from museum bloggers and other culture professionals regarding Ferguson and related events, one reads:

“The recent series of events, from Ferguson to Cleveland and New York, have created a watershed moment. Things must change. New laws and policies will help, but any movement toward greater cultural and racial understanding and communication must be supported by our country’s cultural and educational infrastructure. Museums are a part of this educational and cultural network. What should be our role(s)? (...) Where do museums fit in? Some might say that only museums with specific African American collections have a role, or perhaps only museums situated in the communities where these events have occurred. As mediators of culture, all museums should commit to identifying how they can connect to relevant contemporary issues irrespective of collection, focus, or mission. (...) As of now, only the Association of African American Museums has issued a formal statement about the larger issues related to Ferguson, Cleveland and Staten Island. We believe that the silence of other museum organizations sends a message that these issues are the concern only of African Americans and African American Museums. We know that this is not the case.”

Last August, serious controversy involved the decision of Tricycle Theatre not to host the UK Jewish Film Festival, for the first time in eight years. The reason was that the festival received support from the Israeli Embassy in London and, given the ongoing assault on Gaza at the time, the Board felt it was “inappropriate to accept financial support from any government agency involved”. They offered to provide alternative funding, but the Festival did not accept (read full article). The conflict in Gaza was also the reason why participating artists in this year’s São Paulo Bienal (later supported by the bienal curators) called on the organizers to return funding from the Israeli Conusulate. Negotiations resulted in the removal of the conusulate logo from the general sponsors and its association only to the Israeli artists that had received that specific financial support (read full report).

We may agree or disagree with the decisions taken by these organizations. But the questioning of the role of cultural institutions in today’s society, especially their educational role, must be permanent, constant. Just like Rebecca Herz, I believe that they shouldn´t act irrespective of their mission (as it is suggested in the above mentioned statement of the US museum bloggers), but any museum collection or theatre /orchestra / festival programme can have a connection to contemporary life and help shape the kind of society we need or dream of. As the work of many contemporary artists is a response to contemporary life issues, it is not unusual to find this kind of connections, and the fertile thinking associated to them, in the programming of theatres, companies or galleries (the Maria Matos Theatre, the Gulbenkian Programme Next Future or the alkantara festival are the first to come to mind, among the organizations whose programming I follow in Portugal, but there are others). Museums or orchestras presenting works that are not contempoarary are not used to linking their collections or concerts to contemporary life though or, if they do, it does not become obvious to me. Quite often I find myself thinking “What is the point of this exhibition or concert?”, “Why is this relevant?”, “How does this connect to contemporary portuguese society and its diversity?” (the inspiring work of the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment comes to mind once again...)

This brings me once again to a recurring issue on this blog: accountability and responsibility. I don´t see cultural institutions as islands, cut off from what is happening around them. I believe they should make it clear for people how what they have to say or show can be relevant to them and a way of finding meaning; they should share their vision and objectives publicly and take responsibility for fulfilling them; they should be a public forum, where people can find comfort, but also the necessary discomfort. They clearly have an educational role (in the sense of providing what the Ancient Greeks called “paideia”), one that I wouldn´t necessarily make depend on what happens (or doesn’t happen) at school or at home and one that doesn’t firstly depend on an education department, but on the director him/herself.

Two museums directors and a curator will be with us next Tuesday, 16 December, at the Gulbenkian Foundation conference “What places for education? The educational dimension of cultural institutions” (more information). Charles Esche (Director of Van Abbemuseum and one of the curators of this year’s São Paulo Bienal), David Fleming (Director of National Musems Liverpool and President of the International Federation of Human Rights Museums) and Delfim Sardo (Curator, University Professor and Essayist) will challenge us to think on our responsibilities and practices in the current social and political context.

Note: For those who cannot be in Lisbon, the session will be livestreamed from 10am Lisbon time. The link for the livestream as well as a number of papers, posts, interviews in english may be found on the conference webpage (in “Oradores” and in "+Info")

More readings :

Jean-François Chougnet, Le MuCEM ne doit pas devenir un musée pour touristes

Laura C. Mallonee, A scramble to save protest art, from Ferguson to Hong Kong

Maddy Costa, Can a relationship with theatre change people’s relationship to society?

Rebecca Herz, Should museums respond to the grand jury verdicts in Ferguson and NewYork City?

Sunny Hundal and Nock Cohen, Was the Tricycle Theatre right to ask the UK Jewish FilmFestival to ‘reconsider’ its funding?

More on this blog:

Paideia: where education and culture meet

Broken clay pots

Silent and apolitical?

Preserving for what?

“Either...or” or simply “and”?

Comfort and disturbance

Being ‘just’

Crise oblige? (ii)Programming challenges

The long distance between California and Jerusalem

Preserving for what?

Imperial War Museum

On my second year in London, back in 1994, I could see the cupola of the Imperial War Museum (IWM) from my kitchen window. It was a beautiful view of a beautiful museum. To the surprise of many people, this is my favourite museum in London.

On my way to the first Congress of Military Museology, I was thinking that I never considered the IWM, which was going to make a presentation on that day, a military museum. To me, the IWM is a people´s museum (shouldn´t they all be?). A museum of the military and the civilians, of men and women, of grown ups and children, of human beings and animals (I am thinking of some of the exhibitions I saw there). It´s much more than dates, battles, tactics, types of weapons, treaties. It´s a museum that tells the stories of people whose lives were affected by war.

Promotional postcard of the First World War Galleries at the Imperial War Museum

The IWM presentation was included in a panel that would discuss the Military Museums and the the Great War Centenary. The first speaker was Maria Fernanda Rollo, a university professor and coordinator of the project Portugal 1914. This is a web portal, with very rich contents gathered with the collaboration of various institutions and professionals with different backgrounds, as well as the general public. The aim is to promote active citizenship, committed to the protection, preservation and safeguarding of a collective heritage, as well as to raise awareness of the importance of remembrance and the preservation of historical knowledge. “This is a virtual museum, that tells stories, where one learns with affection. It´s a museum that is alive”, said Maria Fernanda Rollo.

Promotional postcard of the First World War Galleries at the Imperial War Museum

I smiled when I heard this statement. Because, implicitely, Maria Fernanda Rollo was revealing to us her perception of museums: a dead space, a space where stories are not told, a space where affection doesn´t have a place. A perception which is widely shared by many people in our society at various levels (do you remember why painter Paula Rego wished for the museum of her paintings in Cascais to be called “House of Stories” and not “museum”?).  But I also smiled while listening to my good friend Gina Koutsika making her lively and stimulating presentation on the initiatives of the IWM for the commemoration of the centenary. Gina showed us how alive a museum can (and should) be, how full of stories and feelings, how close to the communities it serves. This is not a museum in the virtual world, it´s a real one, it exists.

Promotional postcard of the First World War Galleries at the Imperial War Museum

Once the debate started, my mind travelled to another museum visit, some ten years ago, at the In Flanders Fields Museum (Ypres, Belgium). Another remarkable museum in the town that stood in the way of the German army and was totally destroyed during the war. A museum full of human stories, where the visitor may take up the identity of one of the town’s inhabitants and follow his/her story during the war. The one thing that marked me the most, and that I never encountered in another museum since, was the most simple way of showing that one object could be many stories. By exhibiting a pile of white handkerchiefs, the museum told the story of the multiple uses of that one object: it could be a sign of surrender; or a way to protect oneself from lethal gases covering one´s nose; or something to cover one´s eyes when facing the death squad.

In Flanders Fields Museum

From Ypres, my mind crossed the boarder and went to France, to the Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux and its amazing project “Léon Vivien”. Good museums can find imaginative ways of putting their collections in good use, bringing them to life and connecting them with people. Léon Vivien is a fictitious character, a soldier, whose story is told on a special Facebook page through a number of objects, followed and commented by thousands of people. Good museums can do well both in the real and virtual word.

Eventually, the issue of remembrance came up in the debate. Lieutenant-General Mário de Oliveira Cardoso was another speaker on that panel and he quoted philosopher, essayist and writer George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Remember the past, preserve historical knowledge. Yes, that´s the aim of a number of insitutions, including museums. But why? What’s the purpose? Is it being achieved? Are the stories preserved and remembered just for their own sake or rather because they can be a link to the present, to current human stories, not only our own but those of others too? Can the stories preserved and remembered help me connect to the Other, make his/her story my own?

Europe is full of military, history, first and second world war, holocaust museums. They all aim to preserve the historical past and show the importance of rememberance. “Never again” is the motto we encounter in many of them. Are these museums aware that recently, following the atrocities that took place in Gaza, the cry “Death to Jews” was heard once again in some European cities? Have they reacted? Have they taken the opportunity to put their collections in good use and to show what is the purpose of preserving the historical past and remembering? Isn´t it precisely in a moment like this that museums should intervene publicly and contribute towards clarifying and shaping public opinion? Otherwise, preserving for what?


Other texts

Los jóvenes tienen que conocer esto para saber en que país están viviendo
Interview with Ricardo Brodsky, director of Museo de la Memoria (Santiago de Chile)

Le MuCEM ne doit pas devenir un musée pour touristes
Interview with Jean-François Chougnet, director of Musée des Civilisations de l´Europe et de la Méditerranée (Marseille)

Who funds the arts and why we should care
Interview with Charles Esche, curator of São Paulo Biennial

Gay, black, disabled... can we stop talking about it?

Gay Jazz Festival, Philadelphia (Photo: Bruno Bollaert, taken from The Examiner)

Last May, Philly magazine announced that history was about to be made with the organization of the first Gay Jazz Festival in the US. The announcement intrigued me. It rather seemed to me like history was going backwards. I visited the website of the William Way LGBT (Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender) Community Center that would host the  - I quote: “groundbreaking” - event looking for more. One read: “Philadelphia has enjoyed a legacy of being a great music city. We’re also a city that affirms the lives of LGBT people. Hosting the first LGBT jazz festival in North America provides an opportunity to showcase the rich and vibrant culture of our city. (...) The festival will serve as the finale for the William Way LGBT Community Center’s annual music series and highlight the intersection between sexual orientation and gender identity within the jazz community.”

I believe that an important principle when dealing with other people, other cultures, is to first listen to the people themselves, to try and get to know and understand them better; their thoughts, their life experiences, their sensibilities, their needs and convictions. Thus, I am sure the Centre must have had a clear view on the necessity of a gay jazz festival, but still, even after consulting its website, it was not clear for why this initiative might be considered “visionary”. Why would gay jazz musicians need a gay jazz festival to present their work? Would this help raise awareness regarding gay people´s rights? Could it be because they don´t usually have a place in the jazz festivals being organized in the US and abroad? Why should a music festival aim to highlight “the intersection between sexual orientation and gender identity within the jazz community” (and how would it do it?) and not simply the artists and their music?

I am frequently asking myself more or less the same questions when it comes to disabled artists. People working with them and the associations representing them claim that they don't usually get to see their work presented in the usual festivals and the programming of cultural venues in general. It is considered of lesser quality and many times, once a venue programmes a show or an exhibition, they feel that they have filfilled their obligations towards disabled artists and no more is needed in a season. This is a reality indeed. Are we moving forward, though, and are we somehow solving the problem by organizing “special” disabled artists festivals, exhibitions, etc.?

Michelle Ryan, "Intimacy", Unlimited 2014 (photo taken from the Unlimited website)

Between 2 and 7 September another edition of the festival Unlimited took place in London, a big event, with works especially commissioned for it, which “celebrates the artistic vision and originality of disabled artists”. In a country like the UK, which, compared to others, has already taken a number of necessary steps towards respecting disabled people´s rights, what is the role of a festival like Unlimited today?

Between 13 September and 15 October the Musée de Grenoble is organizing Le Mois de l´Accessibilité. One reads on the website that the museum invites people with disabilities to discover their exhibitions and activities during the whole year, giving all necessary assistance. So, what is the purpose of this “special” month?

Considering these and other initiatives, I keep questioning myself who attends these festivals, exhibitions, activities and what happens after? Do they attract the already “converted” or they appeal to a wider audience? Do gay or disabled or black artists become more acknowledged by the sector and the public? Are they seen as the professionals they are? Are we moving towards an inclusive representation, where they are seen first and above all as artists, or rather curators and audiences still go to see something “special”, confined in a specific space and time, its “own” space and time? Do these festivals help us move towards caring more and more about the art and less and less about “the rest”?

I´ve written in the past about promoting shows which involved disabled people without giving a “warning” to the public that this would be the case. People bought their tickets, watched the show, they might or not have felt a certain discomfort and some left very pleasantly surprised with the quality of what they had seen. Wasn´t this a step towards learning that the “rest” didn´t actually make a difference? Shouldn´t our goal – the artists´, the curators´, the education and communications professionals´, the disabled people´s associations´ - be to work towards turning the difference mainstream?

When reading “Museums and Migration” (ed. Laurence Gouriévidis) this summer, I was pleased to see that this was the principle followed in some museum exhibitions in countries like Canada, Australia or the UK, countries with high levels of immigation that have seen at certain times government strategies that aimed to deal with “the tension between the recognition of a culturally diverse society and the need to articulate a national identity that projects a culturally cohesive nation” (Mary Hutchison and Andrea Witcomb, p.228). These museums moved beyond the ethnic festival, the Week of China – India – Pakistan – Nigeria – Bolivia, etc. (usually concentrating on music and food), and looked for ways to turn the migrant communities´ stories part of the main national story and to “promote positive feelings about people feeling at home across cultures and the idea that people in many parts of the world live within cultures that are already transnational, cosmopolitan and characterized by cultural hybridity” (Kylie Message, p. 60).

I believe that this is the way forward; it´s to stop drawing attention to the difference and making it part of the story. I quoted once before Morgan Freeman who considered Black History Month to be ridiculous, refusing to see his history resumed in a month, and, when asked “So, how are we gonna get rid of racism?”, he simply answered: “Stop talking about it!”. Do we still need gay, black, disabled, ethnic months-festivals-fairs-shows? Maybe we still do, I don´t deny it. But do we also have a plan for moving things forward?

More on this blog

The beginning and the ending of a b&w week in Vienna

Setting the table

Labels

Places of encounter

Other texts

People with disabilities: from poor people to heroes?

In circles

Nelly´s, Greek refugees from Asia Minor, 1925-27.

Two of my grandparents were born Ottoman subjects. My hometown, Ioannina, in the north west of Greece, had fallen to the Ottomans even before Constantinople, in 1430. Almost 500 years later, in 1913, it was liberated by the Greek Army and became part of the Greek State. Along the centuries, there had been a number of uprisings against Ottoman rule, but they were unsuccessful. They resulted in greater repression, which, in turn, fed the determination of the occupied.

My hometown had a strong multicultural background – Christian, Muslim and Jewish. I was born in 1970, too late to witness it, although its traces are found all around. My house today stands 200 metres away from either the muslim or jewish cemetary. Most muslims living on Greek territory had to abandon their homes and move to Turkey, a country they didn´t know, a place that meant nothing to them, following the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. Orthodox Christians living in Turkey were forced to move to Greece. Friends and neighbours were separated for ever and I spent my childhood dreading the Turks. The last Muslim of Ioannina died in the 2000s, while the jewish community, almost totally annihilated during the Nazi occupation of Greece in World War II, numbers today about 50 people.

The first and last time I entered my town´s Synagogue - as it is almost always closed - was in 1993, for the commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the deportation of the Ioannina Jews to Auschwitz. The person who sat next to me that day quietly cried through the whole ceremony. It was at that moment, in my early 20s, that I realized that History is much more than facts and dates in my books, as usually taught at schools and even at universities. History is the people that made it and the people that live its consequences, both public figures and, especially, anonynous individuals.

Whenever I travel, I always visit the Jewish Museums or exhibitions on the Holocaust in various cities, when there is one. I´ve seen some really good ones (Imperial War Museum, London; the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, Munich; Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam; Jewish Museum, Vienna; The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington), some not so good, in terms of museography, but nevertheless interesting because of the subject (Jewish Museum Berlin; Jewish Museum of Greece, Athens), while I really look forward to the opportunity of visiting some more, like the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town. Through these visits I go back to the History of a People proud of their origins, who respect and preserve their traditions, no matter in which part of the world they live and, most of all, despite the persecutions they have suffered since... well, always.  I feel deep respect and admiration for them and I don´t seem to have enough of listening to the story again and again, both the good and bad parts.

Quiet often in these visits we are faced with the “Never again” lesson. This is, of course, one of the purposes of telling the story, the fact that History is repeated and that we need to learn from the past. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum actually takes a step further from the “Never Again” statement. It actively invests in studying, denouncing and preventing genocide around the world. It´s that museum that helped me come to terms with my feeling small, powerless, insignificant and taught me that we can all do something to prevent genocide: learn more and share it with friends and family. It does not mention Palestine, though.

And this is an actually bigger lesson, the real lesson, for me. One that shows that the “Never Again” will happen - again and again and again - because once we are confronted with it, we start calculating. We calculate the pros and cons for us personally, who we should openly support, when we would better keep silent and neutral, when we should assume a reconciliatory position. This is exactly what many politicians and common citizens alike have been doing since the beginning of yet another Israeli assault on Gaza, one which has so far taken many – mainly civilian – lives, destroyed many homes, left terrrible marks on human beings. Like all previous assaults. When a carnage like this is taking place (even more, perpetuated by the regular army of a democratic state), the first thing we have to do (we, the West, defender of democracy and human rights) is not to discuss the origins of the conflict, the rights and wrongs of each side. The first thing to do is to clearly, inequivocally, loudly condemn the assault and demand an immediate end to the carnage. Then we may, and must, converse.

It hasn´t happened, though. Apparently, we don´t value human life equally, so all European countries in the United Nations Human Rights Council may abstain (all of them!) from the vote to open an enquiry regarding alleged violations of human rights in Gaza; apparently, some “never again” situations are justified, so our governments may continue supporting and selling arms to the Israeli government; apparently, each case is a case and everything depends, so there are some “never again” cases where we, common citizens, may reserve the right to be more “balanced” or neutral.

Apparently, we don´t learn from what History can teach us, basically, that occupying, humiliating, terrorizing a People has never kept the perpetrators in power for ever and, most of all, it has never brought peace.

Until September.