Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T14:18:56.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Narrating atrocity: Genocide memorials, dark tourism, and the politics of memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2019

Sarah Kenyon Lischer Open the ORCID record for Sarah Kenyon Lischer [Opens in a new window]
Sarah Kenyon Lischer*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics and International Affairs, Wake Forest University
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

After a genocide, leaders compete to fill the postwar power vacuum and establish their preferred story of the past. Memorialisation, including through building memorials, provides a cornerstone of political power. The dominant public narrative determines the plotline; it labels victims and perpetrators, interprets history, assigns meaning to suffering, and sets the post-atrocity political agenda. Therefore, ownership of the past, in terms of the public account, is deeply contested. Although many factors affect the emergence of a dominant atrocity narrative, this article highlights the role of international interactions with genocide memorials, particularly how Western visitors, funders, and consultants influence the government's narrative. Western consumption of memorials often reinforces aspects of dark tourism that dehumanise victims and discourage adequate context for the uninformed visitor. Funding and consultation provided by Western states and organisations – while offering distinct benefits – tends to encourage a homogenised atrocity narrative, which reflects the values of the global human rights regime and existing standards of memorial design rather than privileging the local particularities of the atrocity experience. As shown in the cases of Rwanda, Cambodia, and Bosnia, Western involvement in public memory projects often strengthens the power of government narratives, which control the present by controlling the past.

Keywords

GenocidePublic MemoryDark TourismAtrocity NarrativeMemorialMemorialisationRwandaCambodiaBosniaSrebrenica
Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 45 , Special Issue 5: Special Issue on Populism , December 2019 , pp. 805 - 827
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Interview with the author, Kigali, Rwanda, 24 April 2009.

2 Eastmond, Marita, ‘Stories as lived experience: Narratives in forced migration research’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 20:2 (2007), p. 251CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Misztal, Barbara, ‘Memory experience: the forms and functions of memory’, in Watson, Sheila (ed.), Museums and Their Communities (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 381Google Scholar.

4 I rely on the definition of narrative proposed by Lewis P. Hinchman and Sandra K. Hinchman: ‘discourses with a clear sequential order that connect events in a meaningful way for a definite audience, and thus offer insights about the world and/or people's experiences of it’. See Hinchman, Lewis P. and Hinchman, Sandra K. (eds), Memory, Identity, Community: The Idea of Narrative in the Human Sciences (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), p. xvGoogle Scholar.

5 I use the term ‘memorial’ to refer both to museums and sites that commemorate atrocity. See Paul Williams for a detailed discussion of the distinctions between monuments, memorials, and museums. Williams, Paul, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities (Oxford: Berg, 2007)Google Scholar, pp. 8, 20ff.

6 By Western, I refer to Europe, United States, Canada, Australia, and Western-dominated international organisations and NGOs; those are the states and groups that control most international funding and generate the most tourists. The international human rights regime is supported by liberal Western norms about individual rights and the international economy is dominated by Western institutions and practices of capitalism. This delineation allows for comparison in the case of Cambodia, which has received much funding and consultation from Asian sources.

7 Winter, Jay, ‘Notes on the memory boom: War, remembrance and the uses of the past’, in Bell, Duncan (ed.), Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Reflections on the Relationship Between Past and Present (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 68Google Scholar.

8 Lisle, Debbie, Holidays in the Danger Zone (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016), p. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 On consuming distant suffering, see Sontag, Susan, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Picador, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Sharpley, Richard, ‘Shedding light on dark tourism: an introduction’, in Sharpley, Richard and Stone, Phillip (eds), The Darker Side of Travel (Bristol: Channel View Publications, 2009), p. 8Google Scholar.

11 Seaton, A. V., ‘Guided by the dark: From thanatopsis to thanatourism’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2:4 (1996), p. 240CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Lisle, Debbie, ‘Defending voyeurism: Dark tourism and the problem of global security’, in Burns, Peter M. and Novelli, Marina (eds), Tourism and Politics: Global Frameworks and Local Realities (New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 333Google Scholar.

13 Lisle, ‘Defending voyeurism’, p. 340, emphasis in original.

14 Lisle, Holidays in the Danger Zone, pp. 6–7.

15 Ibid., pp. 11–17.

16 Keck, Margaret E. and Sikkink, Kathryn, ‘Transnational advocacy networks in international and regional politics’, International Social Science Journal, 51 (1999), pp. 89–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sikkink, Kathryn, Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 David, Lea, ‘Against standardization of memory’, Human Rights Quarterly, 39 (2017), p. 298CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 On narrative dominance in Rwanda, see Thomson, Susan, Whispering Truth to Power (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013), pp. 107–26Google Scholar.

19 Hutchison, Emma, Affective Communities in World Politics: Collective Emotions after Trauma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), p. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Ibid., pp. 3–4.

21 Ibid., ‘Introduction’.

22 Comment books from the archives of the Documentation Center of Cambodia. Chea Sophon comment translated from Khmer by Hourn Sen, November 2012.

23 Winter, ‘Notes on the memory boom’, p. 56.

24 Maurice Halbwachs describes collective memory as ‘knowledge about the past [that] is shared, mutually acknowledged, and reinforced by collectivities’. Quoted in Brehm, Hollie Nyseth and Fox, Nicole, ‘Narrating genocide: Time, memory, and blame’, Sociological Forum, 32:1 (March 2017), p. 117Google Scholar. See also Misztal, ‘Memory experience’, pp. 382–3.

25 Roudometof, Victor, ‘Collective memory and cultural politics: an introduction’, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 35:1 (summer 2007), pp. 2–3Google Scholar.

26 Hutchinson, Affective Communities in World Politics, p. 121.

27 Edkins, Jenny, Trauma and the Memory of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Viejo-Rose, Dacia, ‘Memorial functions: Intent, impact and the right to remember’, Memory Studies, 4:4 (2011), p. 473CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Williams, Memorial Museums, p. 77.

30 Schaller, Dominik J., ‘From the Editors: Genocide tourism – educational value or voyeurism’, Journal of Genocide Research, 9:4 (December 2007), pp. 513–15Google Scholar.

31 Linfield, Susie, The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Lisle, Debbie, ‘The surprising detritus of leisure: Encountering the late photography of war’, Society and Space, 29:5 (2011), pp. 873–90Google Scholar.

33 Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, p. 71.

34 Linfield, The Cruel Radiance, p. xv.

35 Lisle, Holidays in the Danger Zone, p. 18.

36 Farida Shaheed, ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights on Memorialization Processes’, United Nations Human Rights Council (23 January 2014).

37 David, ‘Against standardization of memory’, p. 309.

38 Ibid., p. 315.

39 Sion, Brigitte, ‘Conflicting sites of memory in post-genocide Cambodia’, Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 2:1 (spring 2011), p. 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Marschall, Sabine, ‘“Personal memory tourism” and a wider exploration of the tourism-memory nexus’, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 10:4 (2012), p. 326CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Katia Hetter, ‘Dark tourism bears witness to tragedy’, CNN (24 April 2012), available at: {http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/24/travel/memorial-tourism/index.html?hpt=hp_c3}.

42 Sharpley and Stone (eds), The Darker Side of Travel; Lennon, John and Foley, Malcolm, Dark Tourism (London: Thomson, 2007)Google Scholar; Seaton, ‘Guided by the dark’, pp. 234–44.

43 Seaton, ‘Guided by the dark’, p. 240.

44 Quoted in Hetter, ‘Dark tourism bears witness to tragedy’.

45 Cohen, Stanley, States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering (Malden, MA: Polity, 2001)Google Scholar; Hesford, Wendy S., ‘Documenting violations: Rhetorical witnessing and the spectacle of distant suffering’, Biography, 27:1 (2004), pp. 104–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others.

46 Lisle, Holidays in the Danger Zone, pp. 27–8, 194.

47 Ibid., pp. 192–3.

48 Since my visit in 2009, the Rwandan government has strictly enforced a ban on photography at memorial sites. Dark Tourism website, available at: {http://www.dark-tourism.com/index.php/15-countries/individual-chapters/525-murambi-genocide-memorial-rwanda}.

49 Author's observation, Tuol Sleng memorial, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 6 November 2012.

50 Seaton, ‘Guided by the dark’, pp. 243–4.

51 Williams, Memorial Museums, p. 142.

52 Seaton, ‘Guided by the dark’, p. 240.

53 As recorded on the audio guide for Choeung Ek memorial, accessed 6 November 2012.

54 Comment books from the archives of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, accessed November 2012.

55 Interview with the author, Phnom Penh, 18 November 2012.

56 Harriet Fitch Little, ‘Forty years after genocide Cambodia finds complicated truth hard to bear’, The Guardian (16 April 2015).

57 Author's interview with Helen Jessup, Director of the Friends of Khmer Culture, 28 September 2012.

58 Seth Mydans, ‘11 years, $300 million and 3 convictions: Was the Khmer Rouge tribunal worth it?’, The New York Times (10 April 2017).

59 Author's observation, Extraordinary Chamber of the Courts of Cambodia, November 2012.

60 Hughes, Rachel, ‘Memory and sovereignty in post-1979 Cambodia: Choeung Ek and local genocide memorials’, in Cook, Susan E. (ed.), Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda: New Perspectives (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2006), p. 269Google Scholar.

61 Sion, ‘Conflicting sites of memory in post-genocide Cambodia’, p. 1.

62 More than eighty smaller memorials are scattered across Cambodia.

63 Author's observation, Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, Cambodia, 6 November 2012.

64 Author's observation, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, 6 November 2012.

65 Author's observation, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, 16 November 2012.

66 Author's observation, Choeung Ek, 6 November 2012.

67 Hughes, ‘Memory and sovereignty in post-1979 Cambodia’, p. 263.

68 Louis Bickford, Transforming a Legacy of Genocide: Pedagogy and Tourism at the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek (International Center for Transitional Justice, February 2009), p. 9.

69 For example, Wat Baseth Traey Troeng in Kandal province; Wat Chapuh Ka-Ek in Kandal province; a memorial and monastery in Siem Reap (October to November 2012).

70 Interviews with the author, Wat Champuh Ka-Ek in Kandal province, 10 November 2012.

71 Author's interview with the achar at the wat Baseth Traey Troeng in Kandal province, 9 November 2012).

72 Interview with the author, Siem Reap, Cambodia, 31 October 2012.

73 Author's interview with Hourn Sen, Wat Champuh Ka-Ek, Kandal province, 10 November 2012.

74 Williams, Memorial Museums, p. 112.

75 Author's observation, Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, 6 November 2012.

76 Most respondents were American and European. Bickford, Transforming a Legacy of Genocide, p. 15.

77 Sion, ‘Conflicting sites of memory in post-genocide Cambodia’, p. 8.

78 Ibid., p. 7.

79 Author's observation, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, November 2012.

80 Isaac, Rami K. and Çakmak, Erdinç, ‘Understanding the motivations and emotions of visitors at Tuol Sleng Genocide Prison Museum (S-21) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’, International Journal of Tourism Cities, 2:3 (2016), p. 242CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 Bickford, Transforming a Legacy of Genocide, p. 8.

82 Chandler, David, Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 4–6Google Scholar.

83 See blog at: {http://www.dark-tourism.com/index.php/15-countries/individual-chapters/525-murambi-genocide-memorial-rwanda}.

84 Brehm, Hollie Nyseth and Fox, Nicole, ‘Narrating genocide: Time, memory, and blame’, Sociological Forum, 32:1 (March 2017), p. 131Google Scholar.

85 Ibid., p. 122.

86 Thomson, Susan, Whispering Truth to Power (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013), p. 7Google Scholar.

87 Susan Thomson repeatedly cites the fear and anxiety expressed by Rwandans who secretly share their life stories. For example, see ibid., p. 128.

88 For example, the shop at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC offers five books on Cambodia, nine on Bosnia, and 25 on Rwanda, plus four DVDs. Author's observation, 14 March 2013.

89 Human Rights Watch, ‘Leave None to Tell the Story’ (March 1999), available at: {https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno15-8-03.htm}.

90 Burnet, Jennie E., ‘Whose genocide? Whose truth?’, in Hinton, Alexander Laban and O'Neill, Kevin Lewis (eds), Genocide: Truth, Memory, and Representation (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009), p. 87Google Scholar.

91 Burnet, ‘Whose genocide?’, p. 97.

92 Interview with the author, Kigali, Rwanda, April 2009.

93 The Ntarama memorial has evolved over the years and no longer permits photography. The various changes demonstrate the fluidity of the narrative and the individualised experience of each visitor.

94 Harvard University's ‘Through a Glass Darkly: Rwandan Genocide Memorials 1994–Present’ project offers an enormous trove of documents and over seven thousand images, with a particular focus on unofficial and informal memorials. Jens Meierhenrich, principal investigator. See {http://maps.cga.harvard.edu/rwanda/home.html}.

95 Author's interview with Michel, the director of the NGO ‘Christian Movement for Evangelism, Counseling, and Reconciliation’, Kigali, April 2009.

96 Susan E. Cook, ‘The politics of preservation in Rwanda’, in Cook (ed.), Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda, p. 288.

97 Cook, ‘The politics of preservation in Rwanda’, p. 290.

98 Auchter, Jessica, The Politics of Haunting and Memory in International Relations (New York: Routledge, 2014), p. 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

99 Burnet, ‘Whose genocide?’, pp. 98–9.

100 Jens Meierhenrich, principal investigator for ‘Through a Glass Darkly’, project at Harvard University. Available at: {http://maps.cga.harvard.edu/rwanda/murambi.html}.

101 Ibreck, Rachel, ‘The politics of mourning: Survivor contributions to memorials in post-genocide Rwanda’, Memory Studies, 3:4 (2010), pp. 335–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 Vidal quoted in ibid., p. 337.

103 ‘Through a Glass Darkly’, available at: {http://maps.cga.harvard.edu/rwanda/ntarama.html}.

104 Auchter, The Politics of Haunting and Memory in International Relations, p. 76.

105 Linfield, The Cruel Radiance, p. 50.

106 Author's observation, Gisozi genocide memorial, Kigali, Rwanda, April 2009.

107 Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, p. 61.

108 Much of this work occurred in partnership with the British organisation Aegis Trust. See{https://www.aegistrust.org/}.

109 Lyons, Robert and Strauss, Scott, Intimate Enemy: Images and Voices of the Rwandan Genocide (New York: Zone Books, 2006), p. 15Google Scholar.

110 Ibid., pp. 15–16.

111 Interestingly, the guide's description of Ntarama church has remained the same for years, despite changes at the memorial. The bones and ‘detrius’ described were removed from the church floor more than a decade ago. Rwanda Gorilla Tours, available at: {http://www.rwandagorillatour.com/rwandan-culture-genocide-memorial-sites.html} accessed 28 June 2011 and 28 March 2018.

112 The blog also noted that in 2011 a museum part of the site was opened. Like the Kigali memorial, the British organisation Aegis Trust assisted with the updated Murambi plans. See {http://www.dark-tourism.com/index.php/15-countries/individual-chapters/525-murambi-genocide-memorial-rwanda} accessed 7 June 2017.

113 The Belgian government ($1,060,000); the Swedish government ($400,000), and the Clinton Wasserman Foundation ($250,000). See Williams, Memorial Museums, pp. 110–11.

114 On the positive aspects, see Sikkink, Evidence for Hope.

115 Williams, Memorial Museums, p. 110.

116 Aegis Trust website, quotes found at: {https://www.aegistrust.org/what-we-do/activities/kigali-genocide-memorial/} and {https://www.aegistrust.org/what-we-do/activities/social-enterprise/}.

117 Williams, Memorial Museums, p. 111.

118 I spoke with foreign researchers who found themselves or their local assistants detained by government forces. I was warned to safeguard my notes extremely carefully and some of my interlocutors spoke only on the condition that I put away my pen and notebook.

119 Author's observation, 7 June 2012.

120 Clinton had earlier reaped scorn for his ‘apology’ to Rwandans for US inaction during the genocide; the visit was so short that the pilot of Air Force One didn't even turn off the engine at the Kigali airport.

121 Article II of the ‘Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide’ defines genocide as the attempt to destroy ‘in whole or in part an national, ethnical, religious, or racial group’. Treaty available at: {https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%2078/volume-78-i-1021-english.pdf}. For a discussion of the legal arguments about whether Srebrenica should be defined as a genocide, see Mulaj, Klejda, ‘Genocide and the ending of war: Meaning, remembrance and denial in Srebrenica, Bosnia’, Crime, Law and Social Change; Dordrecht, 68:1–2 (September 2017), pp. 133–5Google Scholar.

122 Ibid., p. 136.

123 Pollack, Craig Evan, ‘Intentions of burial: Mourning, politics, and memorials following the massacre at Srebrenica’, Death Studies, 27:2 (2 March 2003), pp. 133–4Google ScholarPubMed.

124 Author's observation, Potoçari memorial, June 2012.

125 ICMP (International Commission on Missing Persons), ‘ICMP: The Facts Surrounding Srebrenica Are Not Disputable’, ICMP Press Release (August 2018), available at: {https://www.icmp.int/press-releases/icmp-the-facts-surrounding-srebrenica-are-not-disputable/}.

126 Author's observation, Potoçari memorial, June 2012.

127 See the official memorial website for updated construction plans for the Dutch batalion museum, available at: {http://www.potocarimc.org/index.php/component/k2/item/115-nastavak-projekta-izgradnje-ii-faze-memorijalnog-centra}.

128 The United States donated US $1 million.

129 Mulaj, ‘Genocide and the ending of war’, p. 137.

130 Ibid., pp. 138–9.

131 Maja Zivanovic, ‘Euro MPs criticise Serbia for Srebrenica genocide denial’, Balkan Insight (28 November 2018), available at: {http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/serbia-warned-about-srebrenica-genocide-denial-11-29-2018/}.

132 Toby Porter, ‘The partiality of humanitarian assistance – Kosovo in comparative perspective’, The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance (17 June 2000), available at: {https://sites.tufts.edu/jha/archives/150}.

133 Williams, Memorial Museums, p. 111.

134 Marschall, ‘“Personal memory tourism”’, p. 332.

135 Andreas, Peter, Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevo (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

136 Lisle, Holidays in the Danger Zone, p. 196.

137 Jessee, Erin, ‘The danger of a single story: Iconic stories in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide’, Memory Studies, 10:2 (2017), p. 145CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

138 Hutchinson, Affective Communities in World Politics, p. 112.