Thread by @LMcAtackney

Not going to directly reference the latest commemoration controversy but rather the underlying issues that are frequently sidelined in these cyclical discussions.

Firstly, commemoration is always a political act. What event, who organizes, attends, how it’s framed. Political.

Second, to mark an event worthy of commemoration it must have some contemporary relevance.

Commemoration is never just about remembering what happened in the past; it always interplays with the politics of the present.

Third, the selections that make up the commemoration direct how it is to be understood - solemn, celebratory, sustaining, contradicting - those choices frame the event. They indicate how the intended audience is to receive it. Agreement to be involved is also tacit acceptance.

Fourth, no two commemorations are the same. They are individually shaped not just by the factors in the control of the organizers but also outside their control including timing and external reception. Individual decisions have to be made on their appropriateness.

Fifth, all commemorative events assume narrative hospitality - by inviting attendance you are presuming that the invitee buys into your framing and representation of the event being commemorated. This by necessity places an implicit burden on the invitee to assent to it.

Sixth, In all commemorative events political aspects can be found but they are especially notable in places where the past is still loaded and unresolved. In such events the burdens are even more notable when taking into account the symbolic importance of the organizers/invitees.

Moving on to the wider issues of what commemoration does; it can have personal resonances but in marking an event worthy of memory it implicitly sustains its. In doing this with contested events - ie partition - it has very limited possibilities to act as ‘reconciliation’.

With contested histories we are usually lacking in shared narratives, experiences or memories across society so by their very nature marking them - no matter how neutral it is claimed - they do not assist in reconciling those divisions.

In NI we have very little in the way of agreed timelines, ideas of how history involves cause and effect, or even a sense of narrative. Effectively there is no shared history - be that in scholarly literature or popular understandings - so it cannot be commemorated as shared.

Without that bedrock of having an understanding that the past has multiple interpretations and legacies, that not everyone agrees on what happened and it’s repercussions, marking selective events cannot be a reconciliatory act. Claiming that they are does not make it true.

So tying back to my initial point - faux outrage that declining to attend commemorations of contested events - that claim by their very existence they are reconciling - is not the problem. The problem is claiming that commemoration = reconciliation, when often it is the opposite.

Many of us study commemoration and the politics of the past. We have analyzed such events over many years. The denial of the political, claims of ‘reconciliation’ in the name of ‘shared histories’ w’out critical reflection are problematic. Also see @jevershed01 @PoliScIrish