Memory refers to a mental process where information is encoded, stored, and retrieved for use (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968). The process of memory is not, contrary to what many believe, like a tape recorder that accurately records events. Instead, our recollection of events is pliable and subject to a number of influences (Loftus, 1979). For instance Buckley-Zistel (2006) discussed how the recollection of the past of horrific events such as the 1990's genocide in Rwanda is influenced by variables such as the roles of the people during the event or their current living situation. Connerton (2008) attempted to disentangle the notions that remembering is usually considered a virtue and forgetting is necessarily a failing of a person or people. He noted that forgetting is not necessarily a unitary phenomena and that forgetting might have a purpose. Even though Rwandans claim that remembering the genocide is important to avoiding reoccurrences in the future, their recall of the events appeared tainted when interviewed later (Buckley-Zistel, 2006). The current paper describes how the people's recollections of the events that occurred in Rwanda in the 1990's correspond to Connerton's (2008) seven types of forgetting. Connerton (2008) describes repressive erasure as not so much a form of forgetting as it is an attempt to ignore or overlook past events. This is accomplished by actively removing reminders of a past event from one's immediate view. Connerton gives examples of how totalitarian regimes have actively tried to remove remnants of prior rulers or governments; however, it can take less physical forms such as simply not presenting the full story or editing or leaving out certain details of an event as in an art gallery that only displays Western art or school history books that only concentrate on certain ethnic groups. Thus, such events are not forgotten as much as they are repressed in those cognizant of them or never taught to others. Buckley-Zistel (2006) reports the results from interviews that indicate that much information is repressed in public recollections such as the atrocities directed against the Hutu in favor of recalling the Tutsi experiences. The manner in which the war and genocide is publically depicted along ethnic lines in such a manner that the experiences of the Hutu are overlooked or...
Moreover, the current government actively represses all references to different ethnicities in favor of "Rwandaness" (Buckley-Zistel, 2006). The events are not forgotten; instead they are just not recalled.
Reading about something from the books and then coming to see something or having an experience that makes a person feel as though they have lived during this period, shows that historical and collective memories are related. For Maurice Halbwach the two memories related by him experiencing the environmental conditions when he visited Algeria and when he visited the banker's family. The two scenarios reminded him of events in the
War is always a collective historical event that survives in official government records and propaganda as well as mass media images and academic and popular writing. Of course, not all individual experiences can be captured by the collective memory, national consciousness and official interpretations of events, and in some cases governments and established elites attempt to censor and repress collective memory. With Hiroshima and Nagasaki, collective denial, cover ups and
Social Media and Law Enforcement Social Media Issues in law Enforcement Social media and law enforcement: Boon or bane? Social media is a fact of everyday modern life. For law enforcement personnel, it has created new opportunities to share resources with the public, including as 'tweeting' information about a possible suspect or releasing safety information to the public about terrorist incidents or natural disasters. At first, in the Internet age, police departments were
War against Iraq War has had a tremendous effect on me and my family as a result of the war which occurred with Iraq. The taxes imposed by the government by way of increased taxation were creating difficulties for my family. My father being the only full-time employed member of the family, the increased taxation was creating financial difficulties for us to bear the costs of running the family. There
Antiaffirmative action Proposition 209 in 1996 had a similarly divisive effect on the state's population. (Heikkila & Pizarro, 2002, p. 8) The propositions do not welcome immigration, a commonplace occurrence on the official and unofficial level in California but attempt to force such immigrants to assimilate and follow the letter of the law in order to get ahead, and as for 209 sometimes that might not even be enough. (Clark,
Leisure May Be the Death of Europe Economics Time to Kill In his article, Time to Kill - Europe and the Politics of Leisure, Steven Muller examines the efforts of Europe to reconstitute itself in the aftermath of the Cold War. By analyzing such factors as economics, politics, social functions, labor and unemployment, the author concludes that, in contrast to the prevailing sense of optimism, Western Europe is in fact facing a period
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