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Collective Memory of Suffering

Even if I hate, I live!

"My dear Will: You must be healed by now. On the outside, at least. I hope you're not too ugly. What a
collection of scars you have! Never forget who gave you the best of them, and be grateful, our scars
have the power to remind us the past was real." – This is an excerpt from a letter that written by the
villain of the movie The Silence of the Lambs (1988), Hannibal Lecter, wrote from his prison cell to the
FBI agent who caught captured him. The scene dissects the ambiguity of scars, which . They are
constitute the marks of a tragedy, of undesired violence that has leftleft traces on athe human body. At
the same time, such scarsthey are witnesses of athe past that otherwise might fade away.
David, a young Franciscan from Herzegovina, well-educated and exceptionally creative in his
thinking, told mentioned me about this scene during our interview, just a few days after Christmas in
2015. He is a young Franciscan from Herzegovina, well-educated and exceptionally creative in his
thinking. In his rendering, this scene looked quite different. Although hHe remembered it the scene as a
dialogue between a male and a female protagonists, but the main message—that – the scar which proves
that "the past was real"— remained the same. Later on, I was later thinkingthought how that moment of
our interview functioned as an exemplum of the memory itself, as an illustration of how cultural memes
get are transferred viain numerous incarnations, always with small mutations that are due to the
imperfection of our memory, but with the salient core. At the same time, theat duality of the scar kept
me wondering about the solidification of pain in the form of memories and reminders. “Healed from the
outside, at least,” the opening sentence of the letter, brings to light the central issue of this chapter— –
the pain that remains, preserved as a witness, even when the external wounds that caused the scars have
healed.
The scar immediately associates us withreminds us of something undesirable, something that
wouldwould, ideally, be like to have removed. David, however, pointed to the another aspect of the
painful memory, representing it as a breathing space for people. The scar's ability to witness that the
past was real is the crucial element that helps victims to reconstitute their understanding of the past. The
past which, due to the violent effects of pain, might otherwise be left beyond reach, is now gathered
around that what which is undeniable— – pain and suffering. Scars have possess an unusual duality.
They are marks of a moral disorder, a consequence of wrongdoing; however, they can also be the only
available pathways to the past. Hence, conservation of scars, preservation of the past in the formalin of
painful remained, is a way of preserving life through controlled disorder. For David, unforgiving is one
of the strategies used for that purpose:

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“By unforgiving, I want to stay in a world that I do not want to leave. The feeling is – if we forgive, a
world in which we want to say will get destroyed. And once when we get out of that world, we
practically stop remembering. When there is no memory, then there are no really those people in our life
either. And that is why unforgiving is, for me, somehow a breath for life: even if I hate, I live!”1

If scars would suddenly disappear, the occurred healing that had occurred would seem almost
equally as violent as the injury that caused the scarring, i.e., it would be destructive towards the
internalized past. As David explained that , people want to keep scars because they want to preserve the
past. In that respect, uUnforgiving in that respect, is a mnemonic act, resistance to an oblivion that might
otherwise come with time. Remembering pain means living life. At the same time, it is undeniable one
cannot negate the fact that, while scars as are tokens of the past's veracity, they can also become narrow
tunnels that allow just for limited insights. Scars do not speak just about the past they but are more
likeakin to indices, verbs that require subjects. In an attempt to preserve the actuality of athe past act,
people at the same timesimultaneously modify their attitudes towards the present. Human action is thus
never uni-directional but is, rather, a swinging movementan oscillation between action and reflection.
According to David:

“As Hegel said, philosophy is always late; she is Minerva's own that goes out in the dusk. (…) In the
same way, out life is late after our words, and that delay will last throughout the whole history. The
same way that thought is faster than an act, an act is faster than the reconsideration of that act. We will
always stay behind what we did (…) Our attitude of life will permanently be in memory . (….)”2

Memory for him is the main primary source of motivation, both positive and negative. It
conditions future acts by framing them as reactions: " When you want to do something, you first go to
the drawer of your memory. You see a person, [but] a priori, you look where did you see that person last
time, did that person had hurt you or helped you. Thus, everything is conditioned by memory, and then
at a current moment we act based on memory."3 Memory which motivates is, for David, also the main
source of evil and sin. He statedsaid that people, for that reason, "have to struggle with memory" and
remain permanently vigilant that it does not deviate in a wrong direction. The same memory of pain that
enables biological survival of an individual also has thea potential to limit the scope of free action. He
mentioned the calcification of painful memories around specific significant moments as if the pain has
the power to produce a personal era that goes inruns parallel with to the socially shared time:

“The whole life is… Maybe that's stupid, but the whole life is a confrontation with one moment. (….)
everyone of us has a moment in history, it is Archimedean central point. In reality, people sometimes
focus both present and future only on that moment, and look everything from that standpoint. That
moment becomes the central element of life . (….) Hence, one moment overshadows the whole life.
And then, in some sense, we people turn around that moment, and we will always turn, but it [that

1 “David (Roman Catholic Church),” (December 29, 2015).


2 ibid.
3 ibid.

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moment] permanently remains in the past. I know form experience few people who are burdened with
one part of their lives, and simply, everything begins from that moment. [It is] like the birth of Jesus,
they somehow count both their better and worse periods of life from that moment. And they measure
every situation against it. That moment is, either the source of complexes or motivations . (….) Our past
will always be the source of motivations to solve something or the source of complexes. People are
somehow more prone to complexes than positive sides.”4

David's interview was constituted almost a compendium of questions related to the memory and
pain, . He often emphasizinged the restorative attitudes towards the past. Scars of memory are, in that
respect, a personal memento, a souvenir, a diary entry. Although the content of such memoriesy is
unpleasant, weighing on the present moment, it is at the same time an instinct towards truth, a symbol
that proves that the past was real. Painful memory is, therefore, is a legacy.
But that is not its only characteristics. In David's presentation, painful moments have a
gravitational energy that pulls the present backward, and s. Some of them can even have sufficient power
to become a reference point for all subsequent events. They motivate actions, but, at the same time, they
frame actions as permanent reactions. Deeds that are influenced by athe memory of the past suffering
can easily become a mirror image of that suffering, a new act of violence which comes out acts as a pre-
emptive strike. Therefore, the memory of pain is not just a legacy, but also a pathology; it is both a
source of life ("breath for life"), and a narrowing framework; it is a space of action between getting and
losing.
Speaking aboutWith respect to the theological stance towards memory, Davidhe referred to the
famous passage from the synoptic Gospels which which states that those who want to save their lives
will lose them, and those who lose their lives will save them.5 Losing painful memories, which , often
means "losing life" for those who haved suffered them, is at the same time a (painful) way of
rediscovering new life. David's exposé also hinted to at a difference between two types of keeping athe
memory alive. On the one hand, there is an inability to forget a tragic memory that comes as an undesired
consequence of a traumatic event: I remember even though I would like to forget. On the other hand,
there is a desired attempt to preserve memory alive by keeping it not only outside of natural oblivion but
also beyond forgiveness: I don’t want to forget, even thoughif I otherwise my memories might tend to
fade with time. The second type, which is at the same timesimultaneously a "gasp of life" and a potential
source of limitations and new struggles, thus requires permanent vigilance. The scar is not just an
ordinary symbol that showsdemonstrating that the past was real, but also an ambiguous symbol that can
make people thinkcommunicating that suffered pain is the only real past.
Although David's story of the scar beganstarts with an individual situation, but it is equally
applicable to awithin the context of collective memory. However, while he did connects the individual
suffering with the notion of forgiveness, he noticed noted that there could not be anno analog action on

4 ibid.
5 Luke 17:33.

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the collective level was possible. Forgiving, that which helps an individual to deal with the inner
emotional pain, is therefore, is not replicable on a community level: “Nobody, not even a prime minister,
can state, in the name of the people, 'We forgive you'. There is no collective forgiveness, but there is
collective memory.”6 RecognizingNotifying this important difference, David did not delvego more
deeplyer into an analysis of what constitutes the similarity and difference between the two. In this
chapter, I will goproceed in that direction, asking what are the characteristics of the collective memory
of pain, what are its contextual variables in the cases of Bosna and Herzegovina, and what would be the
uniquely religious perspectives ofn that form of memoryies.

From Individual to Collective Suffering

In the chapter on forgiveness, I mentioned the story of Mirza. 's story who, ponderingHis
pondering upon the question "why are they are killing, expelling us?" resulted only in could only come
up with the answer "because we are Muslims," what and this answer initially motivated him to affiliate
himself with the idea of revengeful jihad until heprior to experiencinged a life-changing event and
becomingame a peacemaker.7 Mirza explained to himselfrationalized his personal suffering as an
instance of a collective suffering, and thewhose appropriate reaction to him was also the collective
response of a violent jihad. His story is by no means isolated. Josip, for instance, subsumed the suffering
of various individuals during the Yugoslav period as a suffering of the Croatian people— – as if there
were no Croats in the Yugoslav leadership and as if all crimes were motivated by the collective
component of identity:

“"Wwe can say that Yugoslavia remained indebted to Croats and that those who wanted Yugoslavia for
70 years should apologize to Croats for a million or two of Croats who went to the diaspora, for Croats
who did not have their state, who were constantly persecuted and, finally, for Bleiburg.”"8

The stories are illustrative of a background mechanism that allows for a reframing of different,
temporarily and geographically detached sufferings, into a single framework of a common pain. In other
words, wrongdoing is understood not as a random and individualized, but rather as systematic and
directed towards a community.
What differentiates the collective memory of suffering and pain from the individual suffering is
its transferable character, including to those individuals who were not in any way directly affected by it.
When we hear about a person being murdered in a city, we might empathize with the family of that

6 ibid.
7 “Mirza (Islamic Community),” (November 24, 2016).
8 “Josip (Roman Catholic Church),” (September 29, 2015). He mentioned this in the context of the question related to the

"purificaiton of memory." He expressed his suspicion towards the concept because there is, according to him, too much
politicking involved. In his view, not all groups are equally guilty. For him, Croats are too much often accused and should not
keep be asked to continue apologizing for historical tragedies while the others do not acknowledge the suffering of the
Craotian people.

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individual, but their pain can hardly be "our" pain unless we construct some broader framework which
aims to explain its nature in collective terms. If the murdered person is a person of color in the context
of the aApartheid, that individual’s pain will suddenly become just an additional piece in the broader
mosaic of collective oppression against the members of the community. The collective memory of
suffering is therefore always constructed as a memory of some form of systematic oppression of a
community in which individual suffering is an example ofexemplifies a broader suffering.
Another difference between the individual and collective memoriesy of suffering is the way
manner in which how theseit can be restructured. As we saw in the previous chapter, iIn the case of an
individual painful memory, as we saw in the previous chapter, a personal decision to forgive can have a
significant effects on the way how the original hurtful act is remembered. However, when then thate
same event becomes a part of athe collective memory, the original actors do not have so muchas great
an effect on the ways of in which it is remembereding anymore. It is not just the victims who remember
the event; eEven if the victims publicly profess that they havetheir forgiveness of the perpetrators and
wanted to move on, it is not just victims who remember ; it is also the group that can keepmaintains
those memories with high emotional commitment. (It can, of course, be also be the other way around,
that the collectivity imposes 'reconciliation' on the victims, as we saw in the previous chapter.). Once
wWhen a particular individual suffering becomes a collective suffering, the decision and stance of the
original victims become marginal. In theat process of transformingation of individual trauma to
collective trauma, suffering, and pain, so to sayspeak, become socialized. That is whyFor this reason,
the typical figure of a suffering individual after the war is transmuted intois the figure of a martyr, and
martyrs are never just individuals, but, rather, exemplary individuals.

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