Awkward memories and the role of silence: a commentary on Frank Van Vree's concept of "absent memories".

Assmann, Aleida

It is usually taken for granted that memory studies is a branch of research that focuses on the why and how and when of remembering. However, further insights reveal that remembering must be complemented by forgetting. It is now generally agreed that our knowledge of remembering stays incomplete if we are not able to study the dynamics of remembering against forgetting, of remembering intertwined with forgetting and, indeed, sometimes as well, of remembering as a form of forgetting. With the introduction of his notion of "absent memories" Frank Van Vree has shown, however, that this is not enough. Forgetting is an umbrella term that is in need of further differentiation. Van Vree offers us another vantage point, which makes it possible to address topics that had so far been largely overlooked in memory studies. The author attributes this blind spot to the dominance of two sweeping theories that blocked the access to these phenomena. On the one hand, the theory focusing on political hegemony of memory suggests that the memory of a society can be brought under the will and control of power by forms of state censorship; the trauma theory of memory, on the other hand, contends that memory breaks down altogether or is radically deformed under the pressure of devastating events. The term "absent memory" points to something else: to the presence of memories that are unspeakable, to the ban on communication of what is available as shared knowledge, to a stifling silence that is reinforced and perpetuated by strong social taboos.

Van Vree thus takes us from politics of memory and the dynamics of individual memory into the complex and largely implicit realm of the social as the important third dimension within which the dynamics of memory evolve and are played out. Silence is indeed an important additional concept for memory studies, situated in the vague space between remembering and forgetting, forms of knowing and not knowing. The Israeli psychotherapist Dan Bar-On made an important contribution to this topic in the 1990s when he spoke about Holocaust testimonies being confronted with "a double wall of silence." (1) The first wall of silence refers to the self-imposed restriction of the victim who for various reasons does not choose to speak about his or her experiences. The second wall of silence refers to the attitude of a society that does not want to listen. Before a wider communication about shocking, painful and embarrassing experiences becomes possible, both walls have to come down.

As his most conspicuous example, van Vree refers to recent discussions of sexual child abuse. This turned out to be a transnational memory event, developing an energy that transcended European borders. The tide hit Germany in 2010. Throughout that year, we witnessed the fall of the second wall of silence as charges were brought against the institution of private schools and the Catholic Church and were publicly discussed in the media. Charges had been voiced by the victims before, however the information had not been passed on but hushed up in order to protect the officials and the respective institution. Those responsible reacted invariably by trivializing, postponing or ignoring the charges. They were confident that by turning a blind eye, this shameful problem could be made to automatically disappear. Such complicit forgetting is reinforced by the pressure of social taboos; it involves three forms of silence which mutually reinforce each other:

1. A symptomatic silence on the part of the traumatized victims

2. A defensive silence on the part of the perpetrators and

3. Acomplicit silence on the part of society.

When these three forms of silence reinforce each other, crimes can remain concealed for a long time. Nothing will really change as long as the victims are the only ones ready to break their silence and to claim their rights. It is the collective will of society alone which can change the situation and turn the tables. Only then will the voice of the witnesses be heard and, by gaining the support of the public media, be acknowledged as a "testimony." In a similar way a change of values connected with the introduction of a new political notion of human rights in the 1980s had created a new sensibility for the suffering of the victims of such traumatic histories of violence as the Holocaust, slavery, colonialism and dictatorships. After this global change of orientation, the response of the population was gradually transformed from a protection shield for the perpetrators to a sounding board for the victims.

The important theoretical concept that is re-introduced by Van Vree's paper is that of the "frame." I say "re-introduced" because it is not an entirely new tool in this field. Maurice Halbwachs, who is today recognized as one of the the pioneers of memory studies, published a book about the "Social Frames of Memory" (Les cadres sociaux de la Memoire) already in 1925. As a sociologist, he emphasized the role of society in the construction of individual memories. This concept however, has remained something of an absent memory in memory studies itself. It was accessible, it was referred to frequently, but it was seldom taken up and developed as a practical tool to come to grips with new problems. The introduction of the term silence into memory studies brings these frames back to our attention.

Silence is imposed by a society on its members to dispose of awkward and embarrassing truths that are part of common knowledge but are not circulated or addressed because they undermine the consensus of a given frame and threaten to destabilize institutions. In the context of social communication, silence can serve different functions. If connected to tact and the rules of politeness it can be a means of strengthening the ties between individuals, whilst promoting social coherence. If connected to strong social taboos, however, the tacit imposition to de-thematize certain topics met with a willing acceptance to ban such topics from conversation blocks the circulation of knowledge, and is thus a repressive syndrome that paralyzes social consciousness.

It is an important insight that Van Vree's article presents, namely, that oppressive silences have their expiration dates. As they are backed up by social frames, these frames can suddenly break up with the change of values, losing their normative power and guiding orientation. Another important point is the social co-production of memories. A social memory does not arise automatically from spoken or printed information. It always takes two: a voice that is speaking and an ear that is listening, heeding and responding in one way or another. Without this dimension of reception and a living response in the presence we may have stores filled with information and digital archives replete with data within almost everybody's reach, but not a communal, social or cultural memory.

Aleida Assmann

University of Konstanz Germany

Notes

(1) Bar-On, Dan. Die Last des Schweigens. Gesprache mit Kindern von Nazi-Tatern. Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 1993.