Dr. Oliver Schmidtke, University of Victoria, in an 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.
Dr. Oliver Schmidtke notes that memory politics and democracy are conceptually linked in three ways. First, in order for societies to move towards democracy and to overcome the trauma associated with authoritarian rule they need to provide a voice to the victims of those regimes. Creating a space where this healing can take place is the only way forward to achieving reconciliation. Secondly, memory provides a new political narrative for a political community, a way to describe the values and practices endorsed by the community. The past is an essential element to do this as it shows what needs to be learned to avoid repeating the same mistakes and what is necessary to do to supersede the painful past. Thirdly, memory politics and democracy are directly linked through storytelling. Schmidtke stresses that opening up a space to a multiplicity of actors, to grassroots civil societies actively engaged in addressing the past, is constitutive of mature democracies. Schmidtke also notes that in the contemporary political environment there is a new claim for power from the authoritarian right. In this respect, we can observe a systematic use of a particular historical narrative to justify their power. Similarly, there is a renewed struggle about what constitutes our democracies, and the narratives, practices and norms we can rely on. In this sense, there is a fight over the legitimate way of interpreting the past and what we learn from it.
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.
We are also supporting the outreach activities of the European Community Studies Association in Canada (ECSA-C).
Focus on : European Studies, Transatlantic Studies, Global Studies, Issues of Democracy, Populism, Memory Politics, Migration.
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