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Kjetil Grødum, dr. grads stipendiat ved Stiftelsen Arkivet, har fått antatt sin artikkel "The instrumental Values of Storytelling about Past Conflicts" i det anerkjente kambodsjanske tidskriftet - Magazine Searching for the Truth. Dette er en stor anerkjennelse av Arkivets arbeid.
Artikkelen kan du lese nedenfor.
The Instrumental Values of Storytelling about Past Conflicts
Kjetil Grødum
Can we learn from history? It is tempting to answer no to this question. When we study the ongoing conflicts around the world from a broad un-analytical perspective, the answer will be no. It seems that the same mistakes are made over and over again. If we re-phrase the question to be, can we learn from stories of the past, I am more tempted to answer yes.
In this chapter I am looking into efforts made in Norway and Cambodia to relate stories of the two countries’ past conflicts to their present-day challenges. The stories are told as part of an experienced narrative linking past, present and future, and the stories are narrated in this way to serve certain instrumental purposes. By presenting two very different cases, I will argue that when we speak about the instrumental value of storytelling about the past, we must study this in relation to the social, cultural or political variables related to the society in which the storytelling takes place.
After highlighting different instrumental functions related to how storytelling about past conflicts can serve in different contexts, I very briefly present the contour of some theoretical perspectives contributing to the understanding of how stories of the past can also serve an orientative function for potential future choices of action that may be in accordance with the normative instrumental purpose of the storytelling.
We start in Norway and one particular effort made to relate stories from the German occupation years during World War II to present-day challenges.
From “House of Horror” to “House of Peace”
Stiftelsen Arkivet is an institution working with information, documentation, education, research and culture related to a common goal of securing the foundation of lasting peace and democracy. The institution is based in a building which served as the headquarters of the German secret police (Gestapo) in the southern part of Norway during World War II, with the basement functioning as a detention and interrogation centre.
Before the Gestapo occupied the building, it was a regional archive. The building was known as “Arkivet”. After the war the building returned to its original function as a regional archive until a group of people with a vision of turning the place into a “peace house” took over the building in 1999.
The prison cells and torture chambers from 1942-45 have been reconstructed and the events that took place in the basement are illustrated by installations and human-size mannequins. Each year about 7,000 school children take a guided tour in the reconstructed prison and torture cells. The stories are told for a purpose. The tour is narrated to serve an instrumental purpose: shaping attitudes, values, reflection and awareness related to the stories of what happened at “Arkivet”.
Stiftelsen Arkivet is involved in an exchange program with Robben Island Museum in South Africa. One of the storytellers from Stiftelsen Arkivet spends one year working at Robben Island Museum, while one of the storytellers from Robben Island spends one year working at Stiftelsen Arkivet. Vusumzi Mcongo from Robben Island Museum is working at Stiftelsen Arkivet in 2006/2007.
Mcongo was held at Robben Island for 12 years during the Apartheid. After Apartheid ended he went back to the former prison, working as a guide at the Museum. This takes strength and a strong belief in the importance of telling the stories of the crimes and sufferings he went through. Mcongo believes we can learn from history, and he wants to be part of securing that something like Apartheid would never happen again.
When he addresses the school children and students taking part in the guided tours in the basement of Stiftelsen Arkivet, he talks about the similarities between what he went through as a prisoner at Robben Island and what the prisoners went through at Arkivet.
And when he talks about his struggle during the Apartheid years in South Africa and his fight for freedom and human dignity, he draws parallels to the everyday life of the school children in Norway, the meaning and value of their freedom, and the responsibility that goes along this freedom. “This is not something you can take for granted”, he says. “Democracy is only going to work if you take responsibility for the common wealth, tolerate each other, welcome diversity, and if you protect and use your freedom of expression these people suffered to secure.” He says this standing in the middle of one of the prison cells at Stiftelsen Arkivet. In the dim light coming through a small window up by the roof, you see human sized dolls, bloody and beaten. It smells like a basement, cold and raw, and when the school children stand in the little room, shoulder to shoulder, you can feel the claustrophobic atmosphere. All the sensations – the sound of the heavy iron doors and the voice of the storyteller – are part of the storytelling.
Many of the storytellers at Stiftelsen Arkivet have a close personal relationship to the stories they tell. Some have been captured and tortured at Arkivet themselves. Like Mcongo, these men did not turn their back to the brutal memories of the past. Instead, they went back to the place that was known as the “house of horror” to reconstruct the events, and every day they tell the stories of what happened at Arkivet and how we are obliged to learn from this to prevent it from happening again. Today the place is known as Stiftelsen Arkivet centre for historical reflection and peace building. By the tremendous efforts of the storytellers, the house is transformed from being known as the “house of horror” to a “house of peace”.
Instrumental Values of Storytelling
Why do they do this? When I ask them, I get the same answer; they tell the stories to prevent it from happening again. They believe in the power of historical reflection and they believe in the constructive functions of storytelling. “We can forgive, but we must never forget” is a common saying among the storytellers at Stiftelsen Arkivet. They want to keep the memories alive, but they don’t remain in the past, and that is a fascinating thing about the storytelling they are involved in. “When we say one thing about the past, we must say two things about the present and future”, they say.
In its simplest form, this is the definition of the concept historical consciousness. Historical consciousness is something more than just historical knowledge. Knowledge of historical facts and beliefs that something did actually happen as represented is probably an important part of the formation of historical consciousness, but historical consciousness is about something more. As realised in the narrative constructions and storytelling at Stiftelsen Arkivet, historical consciousness is the consciousness of how the past is related to the present, and how this consciousness creates an orientative function for the future. Put another way, historical consciousness is about the relationship between the three time dimensions: past, present and future (Rûsen, 2001).
The storytellers at Stiftelsen Arkivet constantly link the stories they tell to the present challenges that the school children are facing in their everyday life. They don’t tell one story, they open up for reflection. “Why do you think Ole Wehus became a Nazi?” they ask. Wehus was a Norwegian man from the local community. Several of the storytellers knew Wehus when he was growing up. They tell the stories of how Wehus was bullied at school, how he was excluded from the social community. They tell stories of how he told the people he tortured that “now I get my revenge” and “who is weak now?” Wehus was one of the most brutal torturers at Arkivet. At his court hearing after the war ended he explained how he felt strong and powerful belonging to the Gestapo. As a Nazi he was feared in the local community. Joining the Nazis he was finally accepted as a member of a group. Telling this, the storytellers relate the stories of Wehus to the challenges the school children face every day, like group pressure and how important it is to be tolerant towards each other.
Part of the exhibit shows the struggle made by the resistance movement to send information. When the storytellers talk about how people where brought to Arkivet for questioning and torture because they had operated a radio illegally, they relate this story to the importance of freedom of expression, and how you risked getting executed if you tried to fulfil your democratic rights to express yourself freely.
This is a special form of storytelling. Stiftelsen Arkivet uses the term storytelling, not history or memory. It is not one history or one memory that is communicated. Historical facts of what happened at Arkivet are related to stories linking past, present and future. The stories are staged and communicated like this to realize the instrumental purposes of the storytelling.
I will argue that when we speak about the instrumental value of storytelling of the past, we have to study this in relation to the social, cultural and political variables related to the society in which the storytelling takes place.
To make such an argument I want to turn to Cambodia to highlight some of the potential instrumental values of storytelling of the brutal past in relation to the upcoming tribunal.
Dealing with the Conflicting Past
Societies that have experienced a period of violence and war face huge challenges in dealing with the past atrocities, and moving on towards a future of peace and democracy. Peace is more than absence of war. How post-conflict societies deal with the brutal memories and stories of past conflict is argued to be an important determinant for the success in moving from a period of violent conflict or oppression towards peace, democracy, the rule of law, and respect for individual and collective rights. Tribunals, truth commissions, memorial sites and memorial days are examples of ways in which post-conflict societies are formally dealing with the past.
What these processes have in common is the use of narratives and storytelling representing the past, as an instrument to promote historical reflection and consciousness.
Confronting the stories of the past could be studied as being part of a process to secure transitional justice in post-conflict societies. The contemporary understanding of transitional justice has broadened to include more than just legal prosecution, reparations, preventing impunity and building rule of law (Cole, 2007:115, Kritz, 1995, Teitel, 1999). Confronting the painful legacy of the past is argued to be a necessary step towards achieving a holistic sense of justice for all citizens, to establish civil trust, to reconcile people and community, and to prevent future abuses (International Centre for Transitional Justice: http://www.ictj.org/en/tj/).
Cambodia is now facing such challenges. In 2001 the Cambodian national assembly signed a law supporting the establishment of a tribunal set to legally prosecute crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979. The tribunal, announced to start at the end of 2007, is called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Prosecution of Crimes Committed during the Period of Democratic Kampuchea (Extraordinary Chambers or ECCC). Locally the tribunal is also known by the name “Khmer Rouge Tribunal”.
To understand the potential constructive function of historical reflections related to the tribunal, we have to look at some key features of the brutal history of Cambodia and how this is related to the present challenges linking stories of past conflict to stories of how to create a peaceful and democratic future. It is necessary to understand this as part of the argument about why it is important to relate such stories to perspectives on how to build a peaceful future in Cambodia in relation to the upcoming tribunal.
Stories of the Past Conflict in Cambodia
On 17th of April 1975 the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), known to the outside world as the Khmer Rouge, was victorious after a five-year civil war. Almost at once, and without explaining their rationale, the Khmer Rouge effectively cut off the country from the outside world; forcibly emptied Cambodia’s towns and cities; abolished money, schools, private property, law, courts, and markets; forbade religious practises; and set almost everybody to work in the countryside growing food. These decisions were made by the hidden, all-powerful CPK as part of its plan to preside over a radical Marxist-Leninist revolution (Chandler, 1991, 1996, 1999, Vickery, 1999). The Khmer Rouge regime of Democratic Kampuchea (DK), led by a former schoolteacher using the pseudonym Pol Pot, was swept from power by a Vietnamese invasion in January 1979. By then, as many as 1.7 million Cambodians where killed as a result of the regime. Overall, roughly one in five Cambodians died during the regime (Vickery, 1999). The stories of this dark period in Cambodian history have been told and staged in various ways after the liberation in 1979.
Right after the invasion of Cambodia in 1979 two Vietnamese photographers discovered a building complex surrounded by tall electric fences with barbwire on top. Inside they found several bodies of people who had recently been murdered. What they had discovered was a prison and interrogation place used by the secret Khmer Rouge police, known as S-21. Today we know that more than 14,000 people where held there for interrogation and torture (Chandler, 1999). After questioning and torture, all but a handful where murdered.
It could be argued that Vietnam was immediately aware of the historical value of this place. Just a few days after it was discovered the place was shown to foreign visitors. During the next few months it was turned into a museum (Chandler, 1999). Today the museum is known as Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
Tuol Sleng is a popular tourist destination in Cambodia. In the museum you are moving around in the same rooms where people where tortured and murdered.
There are many similarities between the exhibit at Stiftelsen Arkivet, Robben Island Museum and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The narratives and stories are communicated in the same place where the events happened. The physical elements, the sensations related to the stories, are an important part of the storytelling. This could be described as experience-based storytelling.
The physical sensations, the images, smells and sounds are part of the narrative. As part of the process, the participants relate the stories told to their own life stories or identity. As suggested later, referring to social constructionist and constructivist accounts of the constructive function of narrative to social reality, this is expected to be an essential part of the foundation for achieving historical consciousness.
There are common features between the storytelling at Stiftelsen Arkivet and the storytelling at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. What is different is the narratives. Put in another way, what is different is the bigger stories giving meaning, value and direction to the stories told. The instrumental purpose of communicating the narratives is different. The situation in Cambodia is a good example to illustrate this point. To do this we have to look further at some of the key elements of the political situation within which stories of the past have been given certain instrumental purposes and why the storytelling related to the upcoming tribunal may be of fundamental value to the process of building the foundation for lasting peace and democracy in Cambodia.
Instrumental Values of Storytelling of the Past after the 1979 Liberation
A few months after the invasion in January 1979, the Vietnamese-supported Peoples Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) was established. Central figures in the new government were former Khmer Rouge officials who at different times had joined the opposing Vietnamese forces during the Khmer Rouge era. The prime minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, was himself a Khmer Rouge cadre until he joined the Vietnamese forces in 1977. After the invasion, Hun Sen was made foreign minister of the PRK.
The PRK needed to tell stories about how the Cambodian communist movement had been a legitimate revolution up until April 1975 when Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia. At the same time, they had to tell stories that would justify the invasion of Cambodia in January 1979 and the fight against the regime they had been part of building. Chandler (1999:9) writes, ”While the new government based its legitimacy on the fact that it had come to power by toppling the Khmer Rouge, it was in no position to condemn the entire movement, since so many prominent PRK figures had been Khmer Rouge themselves until they defected to Vietnam in 1977 and 1978”.
When the cold war ended in 1989, Vietnam lost much of the support it had received from the Soviet Union, and withdrew from Cambodia the same year. All the way to 1999, the Khmer Rouge continued to resist the PRK regime through guerrilla warfare.
In July 1994, the government adopted the same strategy used by Vietnam before and after the invasion: luring Khmer Rouge over to their side by offering amnesty. Higher-ranked Khmer Rouge officials who joined the government were offered amnesty, protection, wealth and higher positions in the Cambodian Armed Forces (Linton, 2004).
Youk Chhang writes about this in an article in The International Journal of Transitional Justice: “The first to accept the offer of amnesty was former Deputy Prime Minister Ieng Sary, who defected with a few thousand of his followers in August 1996. As a reward, he was pardoned and his 1979 in absentia death sentence revoked. While his defection split an already weakened Khmer Rouge movement, it also created a huge outcry from survivors of Democratic Kampuchea and forced the issue of justice for the regime’s crimes to the fore. The pursuit of political agendas during this time worked against the pursuit of justice. Both the CPP and FUNCIPEC were competing to attract Khmer Rouge defectors into their ranks and thus increase their political capital. The CPP, in particular, which held the upper hand, was reluctant to push for trials, fearing that defecting troops would join the ranks of FUNCIPEC and shift the balance of power” (Chhang, 2007:157).
Granting amnesty, power and wealth to the Khmer Rouge was said to count as national reconciliation. At the same time many people wants to know what happened (Linton, 2004). Why they live in poverty while the people who starved, tortured and killed their loved ones are protected and granted wealth and power.
The lack of knowledge sharing and involvement of the public in how to deal with the past is described as being part of the disempowerment of the Cambodian people (Vickery 1999, Chandler 1999, Hinton, 2001 and Linton 2004). This may be a major hindrance to moving on from the brutal past to construct a future of lasting peace, democracy and development.
Instrumental Values of Storytelling Related to the Khmer Rouge Tribunal
The prime minister of Cambodia Hun Sen once said that “let’s dig a hole and bury the past”. This is not necessarily a reflection of how Hun Sen thinks today, but it illustrates an important point. In Cambodia the past has been narrated, staged and communicated, or not communicated, according to what has been described as a politically useful reading of the past.
This is why I will argue that it is important that the public get to know the historical facts of what happened, so that the community can relate to a shared understanding of what happened between 1975 and 1979. Perhaps the storytelling and narrative related to the upcoming tribunal can contribute to form historical reflection and historical consciousness laying the groundwork for healing, reconciliation and lasting peace.
Robert Petit, a Canadian lawyer with experience in criminal tribunals in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Kosovo and East Timor, was elected by the UN to lead the tribunal in cooperation with the Cambodian lawyer Chea Leng. In an interview with the Toronto Star Petit said: “We are conscious that this is supposed to help people come to terms and move on from these dramatic and tragic events. Courts have a limited mandate, but they have to make a contribution on the personal, national and international level” (Toronto Star, 11 February 2007).
In an interview with Radio Free Asia, Petit described the situation as follows: “Many Cambodians have been reluctant to talk about what happened and their government has not encouraged discussion. School textbooks barely touch on the subject. Many are still confused as to why the Khmer Rouge killed so many innocent people” (Radio Free Asia, 24 January 2007). Petit was speaking about a knowledge gap which did not exist in the former tribunals he has been working with.
It has been argued that the tribunal is going to lead to Cambodians toward attaining a renewed knowledge and interest to know what actually happened between 1975 and 1979 (Linton, 2004), and this may be a important element allowing Cambodians find peace and reconcile with the past. On the other hand, some commentators are at the same time making the argument that revealing the truth about the past will lead to violent conflicts and revenge.
The ECCC is making different efforts to ensure that as many as possible are able to take part in the tribunal. Free buses are arranged to transport people to the tribunal, the hearings will be broadcast on radio and TV, and it has produced information brochures that inform people about the function of the tribunal and advising people to take part.
In addition, a number of non-government organisations (NGOs) are involved in spreading information and knowledge related to the tribunal. He NGOs are using the tribunal as a means to educate Cambodians about the relationship between the causes of the brutal past, the challenges of the present, and the values, knowledge and strategies needed to create a better future.
The Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) is one important part of this process. DC-Cam is an NGO directed by Youk Chhang, himself a survivor and witness to the brutal regime. Through the centre’s relentless work compiling historical information that will serve as legal evidence for the upcoming tribunal, Chhang and DC-Cam are said to be the most important reason why the tribunal will now finally take place (Time Magazine, 13 November 2006, Volume 168).
On DC-Cam’s homepage the centre describes its purpose: “DC-Cam has two main objectives. The first is to record and preserve the history of the Khmer Rouge regime for future generations. The second is to compile and organize information that can serve as potential evidence in a legal accounting for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. These objectives represent our promotion of memory and justice, both of which are critical foundations for the rule of law and genuine national reconciliation in Cambodia” (http://www.dccam.org/).
One particular effort made by DC-Cam to secure transitional justice in relation to the tribunal is the guided tours to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Choeung Ek Killing Fields Memorial and ECCC. The tours are conducted under the centre’s Living Documents Project. The project springs out of an initiative made by DC-Cam’s Director Youk Chhang.
Tibor Krausz from The Christian Science Monitor interviewed Ly S. Kheang, the manager of the Living Documents Project about the tours: “Most survivors living in rural communities have only isolated memories of atrocities” explained Ly, a researcher for DC-Cam who is escorting the villagers around memorial sites. “Many don’t even know what happened in neighbouring provinces”. Every month since February, DC-Cam has brought villagers to Phnom Penh in groups of 400 to 500 to show them documentaries, encourage them to share memories, and brief them about the war-crimes tribunal, which is at long last slated to start next year in UN-sponsored trials. “If the villagers can witness the enormity of the crimes,” Mr. Ly added, “they come to finally understand what happened not only to them personally but to our entire nation” (Krausz, 2006, The Christian Science Monitor, 11 December)
The Documentation Centre of Cambodia has brought more than 5,000 villagers from throughout the country to visit the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, the Choeung Ek Killing Fields Memorial, and the Extraordinary Chambers (Chhang, 2007:172). So far more than 1,300 local political leaders from different areas in Cambodia have been taking part in guided tours as part of DC-Cam’s Living Documents Project; these tours go under the name “ECCC Commune Chief Tours”.
The ECCC Commune Chief Tours are arranged for local political leaders/village leaders from all over Cambodia to learn about the tribunal and how this is related to the stories of the brutal past represented at the memorial sites. For many of the participants this is the first time they have visited these places. After visiting the memorial sites the groups end up at the ECCC where they are given a guided tour. Sitting in the same seats where the hearings are going to take place, the participants learn about the function and importance of the tribunal. Before they leave, the participants receive several hundred brochures and leaflets to distribute to the people living in their villages (Dacil Q. Keo, Report from the tour given 1st of February, 2007).
On the 19th of December 2006 DC-Cam arranged a similar tour for a group of more than 300 high school students. This was the first school fieldtrip held in Cambodia since the genocide. For most of the 343 students, who were between 17 and 20 years old, this was the first time they visited any of these places. DC-Cam’s report from the tour states: “The tour provides students an out-of-classroom setting that is both stimulating and engaging. It puts them face to face with the horrors of their parents’ and their country’s past. It also introduces them to legal justice on international standards and encourages them to think about their country’s past, present and future…Kim Tearith is one of many Cambodian youths who have doubts believing in the full scope of genocide. At age 19, Tearith said that after coming to the genocide museum, he now believe the stories his grandparents told him” (Dacil Q. Keo, Report on the Student Tour December 19, 2006).
As part of the Living Documents tours, storytelling of the brutal past is given an instrumental value, contributing to the processes of social healing, empowerment, reconciliation, and establishing a culture of lasting peace and democracy in Cambodia.
How can we theoretically understand the Living Documents tours in Cambodia and the guided tours at Stiftelsen Arkivet as contributing to the instrumental purpose of the storytelling?
Narrative, Identity and Orientative Functions of Storytelling
The power of historical symbols, myths and other forms of historical storytelling to direct and motivate social action is well documented. War lords and terrorist organizations know very well the instrumental potential of historical narratives. The question then is: does history hold a similar constructive potential? The storytellers at Stiftelsen Arkivet believe strongly in this. Mcongo realized this even before he was released from Robben Island Prison.
Answering questions of how this process happens, how the construction process takes place when the past is related to the present, and how this may create an orientative function for future choices of action, is an important area to research. If we can learn more about this relationship, it opens up great potentials for educators, peace builders, mediators and others working to promote attitudes and awareness of social and cultural reality.
I believe this is a task that has to be solved by interdisciplinary research. In my perspective, the theoretical accounts that come closest to describing this relationship today lie within social constructionist and constructivist accounts of the constructive function of narrative to social reality. I will just point very briefly to some key elements of such perspectives to the understanding of how historical representations and storytelling may serve instrumental purposes as realized at Stiftelsen Arkivet in Norway and in storytelling efforts made in Cambodia linking past, present and future. I will focus in particular on the contributions made by Kenneth J. Gergen highlighting the constructive function of narrative to social reality.
In his book Reality and Relations, Gergen (1997) argues that all that is meaningful grows out of relations. Gergen and other social constructionist writers make an important contribution to the understanding of how the stories and narratives the participants encounter at the guided tours could make the foundation for future choices of action that are in accordance with the normative goals of the tours. The starting point to understand this is the study of narrative.
In Straub (2005:99) Gergen writes, ”Today, the study of narrative concatenates throughout the humanities and the social sciences, and the problem raised by such analyses for our conception of history, along with the historical consciousness of the individual, are profound. Further, there are now many distinct and well-articulated orientations toward narrative; realist, phenomenological, psychodynamic, cognitive, textual, and rhetorical among them. Each raises different implications for our understanding of history, identity, and the place of historical consciousness in contemporary society.”
Gergen (1997, 2000) argues that narrative accounts are a form of social action. They make social phenomena visible, and they will typically create expectations of future phenomena (Gergen, 1997:190). We use stories to identify ourselves in relation to ourselves and in relation to others (Gergen, 1997:189). In many ways, we give meaning to our lives and social relations by constructing stories from our experiences and encounters (Gergen 1977, 2000). In this sense, all understanding has to be, in one way or another, related to stories or linguistic constructions to become meaningful.
Gergen (1997, 1998, 1999, 2000) draws on writers such as MacIntyre (1981), Mink (1969) and Sarbin (1986) when he argues that an understanding of human action cannot be based on other than a narrative foundation. To understand an action is to place it within the time dimensions of past, present and future. This seems to be a natural ability for human consciousness. When we try to make sense of the things we encounter in life, we put them in a narrative framework. We formulate a story where the different events in our life are systematically related and are made understandable as being part of a sequence or process that unfolds (Gergen, 1997:191). We construct meaning by constructing narratives. Other writers like de Waele & Harrè (1976), Kohli (1981), and Cohler (1982) write about this.
To understand the constructive function of narrative to social reality is an important part of explaining how narratives linking past, present and future may serve an orientative function for future choices of action for the individual taking part in the guided tours. This is closely related to the concept of historical consciousness. Joern Ruesen (2001:3) writes, “Historical consciousness moves from the present to the past to return to the present satisfied with experience to disclose the future as a vantage point of action. At the same time it can extend from the past into the future, if one takes the fascination with the past as a departure point stretching from the present into the future. In both cases historical consciousness articulates an experience of temporal differentiation between then and now while at the same time bridging this divide referring the one to the other (....). The technical term for this structure is narrative.”
Historical Consciousness and Identity
How we interpret the past is influenced by our understanding of our own time and the problems we are facing in our everyday life (Bøe, 2002:30). This is an important factor to consider when we are speaking about the instrumental value of reaching the normative goals of the storytelling of guided tours like the one at Stiftelsen Arkivet in Norway and the Living Documents tours in Cambodia.
Each person taking part in the tour brings their own complex flux of narratives and stories. I will argue that when we talk about historical consciousness we have to relate this to the concept of identity. Perhaps the main function of historical consciousness is to form and sustain identity (Bøe, 2002:36).
When the person taking part in the tour relates the stories of the past to her/his own life, to her consciousness of how her life is influenced by the past and how the future is depending on this relationship, this is much related to the understanding of identity formation. Narrative and identity are closely related. Gergen (in Straub 2005:110) writes, “Not only does narrative play a central role in structuring reality and relationship, but to an important degree, the very conception of self as and individual agent is lodged with narrative action.”
Wittgenstein once said that “the limits of our narrative traditions make the limit of our identity”. The narrative constructions giving meaning and direction to our lives could be studied as an essential part of a person’s identity (Brockmeier & Carbough, 2001). Our identity is a result of life stories, where our experiences, thoughts, meanings and attitudes are given value as being part of narratives. Creating a narrative could be of fundamental importance when giving life a form of meaning and direction. In this sense, narrative constructions create, sustain, interrupt or transform value traditions, and we change, adopt, interrupt, formulate and challenge the narratives we use to make sense of our lives in relation to bigger and smaller narratives and stories we encounter on our way (Gergen, 1997). This point is an important contribution to the understanding of how the stories of the past may serve an orientative function for social action.
Joern Rousen (1994) writes about how the development of historical consciousness leads to a strengthened narrative competence. Narrative competence is about the ability to make connections between past and present in such a way that the past serves an orientative function as a guide or reference for the individual to deal with her/his own life (Bøe, 2001:41). Rusen (1994) argues how this competence is achieved by confronting or experiencing stories of the past, and through the process of historical reflection and identification, the individual gains a perspective allowing her to see how her life is part of history or part of a narrative with a past that influences her present life and future. In this sense the past may serve an orientative function for future choices of action.
This is in many ways the process expected to take place at the guided tours at Stiftelsen Arkivet in Norway and the Living Documents tours in Cambodia. The normative goals of the storytelling are different and the cultural and historical circumstances are different. What they do have in common is the way the past is related to the present and the future as part of the storytelling, and that it is staged and narrated like this to serve certain instrumental purposes.
In Norway, at Stiftelsen Arkivet, the instrumental normative purpose of the storytelling may be to shape attitudes and awareness that will make the school children conscious of how they are responsible for sustaining the freedom that the people who where tortured at “Arkivet” suffered to secure, and how the democratic freedom of expression represents a responsibility to act. Another purpose may be to promote awareness of how the social mechanism explaining how somebody was able to torture another person could be identified in another form in the school children’s everyday life, in bullying, group violence or racism.
In Cambodia the instrumental normative purpose of the storytelling is different. It may be related to securing the foundation for building a common ground for establishing a culture of lasting peace and democracy, to promote social healing and reconciliation with past atrocities, or to make the people taking part in the tour conscious of how the present challenges may be linked to the brutal past, and how dealing with the past and learning from past mistakes may prevent it from happening again.
Perhaps in 20 years’ time, the instrumental normative purpose of storytelling about Cambodia’s past conflicts will be the same as the one at Stiftelsen Arkivet today.
Kjetil Grødum is on the staff of Stiftelsen Arkivet, a center for historical reflection and peacebuilding in Norway.
Ten Years of Independently Searching for the Truth: 1997-2007
Youk CHHANG, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)