Politics of memory:

Conceptions and perceptions on 'the past and 'history'

By Dilshan BOANGE

The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of one of the highly political novels of Czech born author Milan Kundera which presents amongst a host of themes and issues deals with the ideal of memory and politics and what can be treated as 'the past' and 'history.' In the discussion, this article will build on theoretical ground developed through academia and intend to provide a deeper unraveling of the consciousness in the writings of this celebrated author whose work is claimed as reflective of modernism and postmodernism.

Milan Kundera

Kundera is originally a Czech writer who was made the victim of much communist persecution for becoming critical of the communist regime after he became disillusioned with the soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and went to live in exile in France since 1975.

Kundera though at first had been pro-communist had become an opponent of communism and its hypocrisy and voiced concern in his writings against the atrocities perpetrated by communists. Many a notable newness in narrative form can be found in Kundera's novels, some of the more known ones being-The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Immortality, Joke.

Amongst his non-fiction is a trilogy -The Art of the novel, Testaments Betrayed and The Curtain that is very educative of the history of the genre of the novel and its development as a literary art form in Europe and is also implicitly instructive of how the craft of novel writing can be developed in terms of both content and narrative form.

Contemporary writers in Sri Lanka would certainly find inspirational the free flowing style of storytelling that Kundera's writings present, and may be of interest to those who focus on developing knowledge on modernist and postmodernist writing.

The idea of 'alternative' streams of knowledge narration through art and literature which is at times a hotly debated topic can be found to certain extents in Kunderian writings, which is not 'mainstream' in the traditional sense when it comes to 'storytelling' through fiction.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera is not a work of fiction in the traditional sense. A significant portion of the text carries a biographical component that blends with fictional characters and events whilst switching to events from the like of the author. The edition discussed in this article is an English translation by Aaron Asher form the French (version) of Kundera's. In his novel, Kundera appears to distinguish 'history' from the 'past' as conceptions that differ in their politics. To this frame of discussion topics such as 'personal memory' and 'official memory' could be brought in.

History, history writing and commemoration

Prof. Nira Wickramasinghe formerly of the Colombo Varsity's department of History speaks of the politics of history writing, in relation to what could be considered in the main stream history writing in Sri Lanka, in her essay "New History and The Annales school" published on Introduction to social theory (1994).

"In the choice of events the historian writes about and ignores, in the style in which s/he chooses to write, in the public he/she chooses to address his/her writing to, there is an implicit or explicit understanding of the working of society".

Kundera presents a character named Mirek, who is subject to political persecution in communist Czech Republic. Mirek's story shows a man who struggles against the oppressive regime he is trapped in. But Kundera doesn't appear to sanctify him or his enterprise as uncorrupted by strains of politics. And the idea of historicity plays a potent role in political enterprise be it party based or of a more individual personal approach.

"Mirek rewrote history just like the Communist Party, like all political parties, like peoples, like mankind. They shout that they want to shape a better future, but it's not true". (p.30)

The statement which the writer seems to present in the above extrac suggests the Aristotelian saying-'Man by nature is political animal'. And the (re)writing of history is seen as a highly deliberate political act on the part of not only institutions but man in general. Elizabeth Jelin, a professor in the graduate school of the faculty of law at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Senior Researcher at Argentina's National Council of Scientific Research, discusses in her scholarly articles -"What memories are we talking about?" and "Political struggles for memory." how historians are selective in what they chose to tell, represent and write about. Citing the words of Heinrich Himmler on the Nazi's "Final solution," Jelin discusses how state policy may choose to leave out events in written history. And according to Jelin Himmler had declared that the "Final solution" was to be-

…[A] "glorious page in our history that has never been written and that never will be."

The historian it appears is an actor in political schema, and therefore History is a political product. Jelin states in relation to this matter, with special significance being laid on history that consolidates main stream history writing, as being vital in the construction of the nation-state identity.

In this process of construction of the master narrative of modern nation-states, professional historians have a central role. Official master narratives are written by professional historians whose link to power is crucial to their task.

Along this line of discussion Jelin speaks of how 'National History' is produced by means of 'official memory'. This discussion line also includes commemorations, and how they play a ritualistic role in the construction of National History and become a premise where human psychology and institutional machinery go in to form 'official memory.'

Jelin also brings into discussion how 'heroes' are established and through a process of selection how 'heroism' comes into being. This would of course involve a consequent programme of 'silencing the other.'

"Like all narratives, these national stories are selective. Establishing a group of heroes require obscuring the actions of others. Emphasizing certain characteristics as indicators of heroism involves silencing others…"

Commemorative processes would include dates that mark sites of official memory as said earlier. Along this line of thought The Book of Laughter and Forgetting offers a perspective on the Soviet invasion of Bohemia in Eastern Europe, and how a date marks a memory that is significant in the country's history. The date and event(s) in question relate a rebellion by the youth in Kundera's country of origin that was quelled by the soviet regime through military might. Yet it remains silent for the ignominy it represents is one that is preferred forgotten. Kundera narrates it thus-

On August 21, 1968, she sent an army of half a million men to Bohemia. Soon about one hundred and twenty thousand Czechs had left the country,…[a]nd because not even the shadow of a bad memory should distract the country from its restored idyll, both the Prague Spring and the arrival of the Russian tanks, that stain on a beautiful history, had to be reduced to nothing. That is why today in Bohemia the August 21 anniversary goes by silently and the names of those who rose up against their own youth are carefully erased from the country's memory, like mistakes in a schoolchild's homework. (P.19)

Returning once again to the topic of official memory and historicizing, Forgetting is a process discussed by Kundera as a means by which state-politics finds a means to further its objectives over the people. The act of 'Forgetting' can also be induced by agents of 'official memory,' who write and rewrite history. Citing a number of events in the global spectrum of politics the Czech born writer in a tone of somewhat cynicism and being resigned shows the reader how hard hitting political incidents can be employed as distractions.

The assassination of Allende quickly covered over the memory of the Russian invasion of Bohemia, the bloody massacre in Bangladesh caused Allende to be forgotten, the din of war in the Sinai Desert drowned out the groans of Bangladesh, the massacres in Cambodia caused the Sinai to be forgotten, and so on, and on and on, until everyone has completely forgotten everything. (P.9-10)

The ideas expressed by Kundera seem to place conflict as perceived by people in the context of a media culture. And the news of war and conflict can never take speedy flight and alert different quarters of the globe and then draw attention to it unless the machinery of mass media take an active hand. Present day and mass media and journalism take a central role in the construction of memory when it comes to war situations. Kundera also speaks very emphatically of the role media and media culture plays in contemporary society in his novel Immortality where he presents a theorem titled 'Imagology'.

And just as the media and its controllers have the power to theatre bring awareness on tragedies of one theatre of conflict it may soon be made 'forgotten' when a more sensational news item comes along to draw the public's attention to a new focus point.

"The past" and " history"

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting seems to posit 'the past' and 'History' as conceptions that have their own sets of politics in the spheres of human existence. Jelin is of the view that the past comes into being when activated by a person which would then make it a part of his present.

"The past that is remembered and forgotten is activated in a present and in relation to future expectations".

This idea of 'future expectations' being linked to what 'substance' the past may have as its purpose in our consciousness which Jelin speaks of may not have much ground with what Kundera presents in his outlook(s) on what makes 'the past' valuable to man.

The future is only an indifferent void no one cares about, but the past is filled with life, and its countenance is irritating, repellent, wounding, to the point that we want to destroy or repaint it. We want to be masters of the future only for the power to change the past. We fight for access to the labs where we can retouch photos and rewrite biographies and history. (P.30-31)

In his outlook presented on 'the past' in relation to 'the future,' Kundera appears to suggest that 'the future' has no real worth by itself, rather that it is a space over which mastery is sought in order to give 'the past' a new meaning, and to fashion the past according to what one would want it to mean. Therefore, one could infer that Kundera believes that the true worth of human existence lies in the past and that its value is colossal to the point that 'the future' has its purpose in serving man's desires in relation to 'the past.' The past it seems in Kundera's conception is a space that is sought after to be controlled from whereever possible, be it the present, or 'the future' which is a 'present to be.' And if such notions were to find a linkage with Jelin's conceptions of 'future expectations,' one could reasonably argue that 'the future expectations' would also be defined in the thoughts expressed by Kundera in relation to its prospects and potentials as a space by which 'the past' may be 'controlled.'