How Can We Remember a Recent and Divisive Past?



What's New at the Coalition District Six Museum Regional Coordinator for African Sites of Conscience Network Watch our New Video Stay in Touch on Facebook Follow Us on Twitter New Resources New Publication Features Sites of Conscience Map of Memorial Sites Coalition Classes Memory Issues in the News Bahrain Tears Down Monument as Protesters Seethe Death in Dhaka Pearl Harbor Visitors Now Get Japan and US Views The Memory Industry Separated By War, Reunited by the Web: Photo Project Links Holocaust Survivors Local César Chávez Touchpoints Recognized New Institutional Members Children/Youth as Peacebuilders (Canada) Fundação Aristides de Sousa Mendes (Portugal) Mu.MA - Galata Museo del Mare (Italy) Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center (Bosnia and Herzegovina) Thank You Renewing Members Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner State Monument (USA) Duke Human Rights Center (USA) Le Bois du Cazier (Belgium) Memorial Paine (Chile) Nonviolence International Southeast Asia (Thailand) Join Us Be part of the worldwide movement of organizations and individuals dedicated to helping historic sites inspire social consciousness and action. Become a member today. About Us The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is a worldwide network of places of memory dedicated to remembering past struggles for justice and addressing their contemporary legacies. More about us.				May 2011 The Missing, Memory and Sites of Conscience workshop in Sarajevo. Photos courtesy ICMP. Dear Friends, International Coalition of Sites of Conscience events over the past several weeks, from the Remembering Guantánamo symposium in New York to The Missing, Memory and Sites of Conscience conference in Sarajevo, have served as vivid reminders that when approached through an inclusive, consultative process, memorialization can be a powerful force in uniting communities across difference. Without this approach - embraced by Sites of Conscience around the world - memorials have the potential to exacerbate divisions, particularly in countries still recovering from conflict. Last week, I had the opportunity to join four Sites of Conscience leaders and over 100 victims group representatives for the International Commission on Missing Persons' (ICMP) The Missing, Memory and Sites of Conscience conference in Sarajevo. Participants came from different national and religious backgrounds in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Croatia. ICMP invited the Coalition to share our members' experiences in developing memorialization projects, particularly initiatives launched and realized by victims and survivor groups and those developed in response to armed conflict, disappearances, and displacement. Representatives from District Six Museum (South Africa), Healing Through Remembering (United Kingdom - Northern Ireland), Memoria Abierta (Argentina), and Villa Grimaldi Peace Park (Chile) shared their knowledge with conference participants. Although the work is in its initial stages, there was an inspiring level of commitment to, as one participant said, “prepare our children for the future,” one where the power of the past might lead to healing and reconciliation. We look forward to sharing further updates with you in the months ahead as the Coalition continues to support memorialization efforts in the Balkans region and beyond. - Executive Director Elizabeth Silkes Around the world, the International Coalition and Sites of Conscience continue to connect past to present, memory to action: The Coalition is at the Gwangju Asia Forum in Gwangju, South Korea this week. We'll discuss how a global network of Sites of Conscience supports the development of new initiatives, especially in areas that remain hostile to human rights initiatives. More Russia has recently taken steps to explore how its Stalinist past is officially remembered. The Gulag Museum at Perm-36, a founding member of the Coalition, has taken a leadership role in suggesting that historic sites and history museums are a crucial place to openly discuss the nation’s difficult history. More. Since 2008, the Coalition's Project Support Fund has supported 60 vibrant, engaging public programs at Sites of Conscience around the world. This quarter, we awarded grants to Charlotte, North Carolina's Levine Museum of the New South and Thailand's Nonviolence International Southeast Asia. More about their innovative projects. On April 28-29 in New York City, the Coalition and partners from Columbia University hosted over 100 historians, artists, archivists, activists, and others to discuss and debate building a public memory around the US naval station at Guantánamo Bay. We explored the site’s long history and why that history matters today more than ever. Listen to remarks from former South Africa Supreme Court Justice Albie Sachs and Open Society Foundations President Aryeh Neier. Share Sites of Conscience news with a friend.