Colonial Culture in France since the Revolution

31. The Meanders of Colonial Memory

31 The Meanders of Colonial Memory nicolas Bancel and Pascal Blanchard in her postabolition analysis of the memorial process of slavery in the “former colonies,” Myriam Cottias describes a “politics of forgetting.”1 Can the same description be applied to colonial history? The expression “politics of forgetting” suggests a conscious will to cover up; in the case of colonial history, forgetting appears to be more of a complex and multifaceted process—about which the successive heads of state were fully aware, for it was this forgetting that upheld the myth of the republic’s “civilizing mission” overseas—than a “plot” or even a “policy.” However, more than fifty years after the defeat at dien Bien Phu and the beginning of the conflict in algeria, in the face of the intense climate in France concerning history and the colonial legacy, forgetting has clearly reached its limits. We have turned a page: “colonial memory” has inserted itself into every part of French society. The intense upsurge of memories about colonization since the early years of the twentieth century afford us an opportunity to inquire into this thing we call “colonial memory.” The current maelstrom is punctuated by the now almost daily testimonies relating to “colonial memories” provided by different groups—by associations of repatriated persons, the Harkis, “descendents of colonial settlers,” various (the harkis or “descendents of settlers”) memorial committees, organizations, political parties, etc.—and also by those in the memory business, namely, the state and local collectives—with their attempts to legislate the interpretation of colonization in the schools and in lieux de mémoire (memory sites)—and finally by historians , who passionately debate the borders between history and memory, and the “rules” of the profession. to better understand the situation, it is worth reflecting on what is at stake in the resurfacing of this colonial past. Why has this past, which was until recently all but invisible, become so ubiquitous? today, “colonial memory” has been instrumentalized by very diverse groups, who, on the one hand, consider it a “means of recognizing” the past and, on the other, seek to exhume the past, seeing in it a potential danger for the republic generally and the unity of the social body specifically. The present situation thus invites us to develop a working epistemology of historic memory through “colonial memory.”2 History, memory: where is the border between these two terms?3 For historians, history is constructed on verifiable and objective sources, both in399 400 | Bancel and Blanchard dispensable to the construction of a “historic fact.”4 For its part, memory is an individual or collective reconstruction of the past, which is not reliant on scientific methodologies, but instead favors the creation of myths and legends born from the affective relationships that individuals and groups have with the past. Memory can be a valuable resource for historians, who, while remaining methodologically cautious, seek to understand various mentalities. epistemologically speaking , the borders are clear. But is this really the case in the historian’s work? is the historian not, too, like every other social agent, the product of lived experience, of ideological leanings, and of actions that far exceed the simple academic frame? is s/he not, also, bound to institutional logic, to making choices based upon implicit academic prejudices?5 and, deeper still, does not the historian have a relationship with the genealogical dimension of history, with history’s entry into the academic institution in the second half of the nineteenth century, the aim of which was to preserve the memory—which is to say the collective identity—of a nation? is the historian not then, in a sense, the guarantor of a univocal “national narrative ” that itself gives meaning to the collective? The controversy surrounding colonial history is evidence of the shifting borders that today’s historians face between history and memory. Though we must remain vigilant in preserving the methodological principles that differentiate the discipline of history from memorial narratives, it is not, however, absurd to inquire into the limits and constraints—institutional, ideological, political—of the practice of writing history. and, perhaps, the present shifting of borders offer an opportune moment for the discipline to free itself, by, in a manner of speaking , “taking the high road” from these polemical convulsions (including at the very heart of the group of “colonial historians,” where debates between different “cliques” have become all too commonplace). Perhaps this is the moment for the historian to come out from behind an epistemology founded on the...