Dr. George Soroka, Harvard University, in an interview on memory politics. This interview is part of the interview series " Expert Voices on Memory Politics" realized with the financial support of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Kanada and Erasmus+ Program of the European Union. The interviews were recorded during the October 2022 conference "Addressing the Past - Shaping the Future".
Dr. George Soroka explains how memory politics manifests itself in different ways in liberal democracies. While memory should be pluralistic and be discussed in a civilized fashion, all too often, memory is used for illiberal projects, such as promoting populist ideals in society. Of particular interest for Dr. Soroka is the rise of memory laws and how ‘prescriptive’ memory laws are used as a means of competing in the political process against opponents on the ideological spectrum. In contrast, ‘proscriptive’ memory laws are usually used by the political left to avoid the rise of societal taboos as it relates to a nation’s past. As such, Dr. Soroka argues that we must ask ourselves ‘whose democracy are we talking about’? Do the memory laws reflect a democracy that is inclusive and pluralistic, allowing multiple narratives to be heard? Or, is one narrative privileged over others, where it is no longer about the memory of the victims of the state, but about glorifying the state or the nation?
EUCAnet (Europe Canada Network) is a hub for experts primarily located in Canada that work on European and Canadian current issues from a transatlantic perspective. These experts offer commentary and expertise and are available for media interviews and public talks. We are a public outreach platform – that makes scholarly knowledge available and meaningful to the public in times when the need for evidence based knowledge and public debate is crucial. Our goal is to foster the Canada Europe Transatlantic Dialogue with the aim of supporting the process of informing public policy making.
Focus on : European Studies, Transatlantic Studies, Global Studies, Issues of Democracy, Populism, Memory Politics, Migration.
Official Site: http://www.eucanet.org
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