DOCSLIB.ORG

Closing the Books Or Keeping Them Open?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Closing the Books Or Keeping Them Open? 66 Closing the Books or Keeping them Open? Contributions to the Bonn Conference on Adult Education and Development (BoCAED) “Remember for the Future” Vanya Ivanova / Matthias Klingenberg (eds.) International Perspectives in Adult Education Sponsored by International Perspectives in Adult Education – IPE 66 The reports, studies and materials published in this series aim to further the develop- ment of theory and practice in the work of the Volkshochschulen (VHS) as it relates to international aspects of adult education – and vice versa. We hope that by provid- ing access to information and a channel for communication, the series will serve to increase knowledge, deepen insights and improve cooperation in adult education at an international level. Published by: Institut für Internationale Zusammenarbeit des Deutschen Volkshochschul-Verbandes (dvv international) Editor: Vanya Ivanova / Matthias Klingenberg Editorial Assistant: Gisela Waschek Production: in puncto druck + medien gmbh, Bonn Opinions expressed in papers published under the names of individual authors do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher and editors. This publication, or parts of it, may be reproduced provided the source is duly cited. The publisher asks to be furnished with copies of any such reproductions. Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at <http://dnb.ddb.de> ISBN Nummer: 978-3-942 755-03-0 © 2011 dvv international dvv international Obere Wilhelmstraße 32 · 53225 Bonn Federal Republic of Germany Tel.: +49/228-97569-0 · Fax: +49/228-97569-55 [email protected] · www.dvv-international.de Our publications are printed on 100% chlorine-free bleached recycled paper. Contents Vanya Ivanova / Matthias Klingenberg Introduction . 3 | Remembering or Forgetting? | Tyrone Savage Closing the Books or Keeping them Open . 7 Jan Robert Schulz Who Fears to Speak of Easter Week . .17 Mike Abrams When the Past Stands in Front of the Present so We Can’t See the Future . 29 | Youth and Adult Education Practices in Processing History | Lisa Freigang / Sascha Rex “What’s that Got to Do with me?” – Political and Historical Youth Education on 20 Years of Peaceful Revolution in Germany. 45 Vanya Ivanova / Violeta Stoycheva Collecting Oral Evidence and Creating Active Citizens . 53 Tatyana Spogar Achieving Reconciliation through Dialogue, Collaboration and Exchange. 67 Alisher Sabirov Oral History and How Youth and Adults Learn from the Past . 75 Contents | 1 | Insights for Sustainable Peace | Helen Rottmann Coming to Terms with the Armed Conflict in Colombia at a Local Level . 87 Nélida Céspedes Rossel Education and Armed Conflict – Never Again! . 99 Kathy Bond-Stewart / Lucia Manychi / Petros Ngingi Community Publishing for Conflict Trans formation and Peace-building – a Zimbabwean Experience . 113 Darko Gavrilovic How to Transform the Post-war Society through Reconciliation: Yugoslavia and Serbo-Croat Relations . 125 Emir Avdagi´c / Britta Schweighöfer Poto˘cari Memorial Site – a Place of Reconciliation? . 137 Emina Bužinkić Educating Croatian Youths on Dealing with the Past: The Method of Experiential Learning in Building Sustainable Peace . 151 List of Authors . 159 2 | Contents Introduction “Don’t struggle with people, with men. Struggle with the goals and conditions that make men fight each other.” Maha Ghosananda This compendium of articles is meant to complement the discussion during the Bonn Conference on Adult Education and Development (BoCAED) on 12th and 13th of December 2011. The call for articles was spread with the support of all the partners of the conference – Academy for Conflict Transformation (Bonn, Germany), the Alliance of Historical Dialogue and Accountability (AHDA), Colum- bia University (New York, USA), and the European Adult Education Association (EAEA). Scholars, educators and practitioners working in the fields of memory studies, peace and conflict studies, and Youth and Adult Education were invited to contribute for the discussion on issues concerning recent violent past and its implications in the present. More and more Youth and Adult Education providers are involved in reconcilia- tion and dealing with past activities, the role of non-formal education in this field his increased in recent years. Actors are involved in broad variety of approaches and contexts, such as nation and identity building, democratization processes, pro- cessing memories, biographical work, eye-witnesses work, getting into terms with the past, how to handle blame and/or denial, etc. This demands a high professional capacity and responsibility from these organizations and the experts working in the field, both on the theoretical and practical level. The compendium and the con- ference itself would like to systematize the experiences made and lessons learned, bridge the existing gap between theory and practice and offer tools on how to deal successfully with these issues. In the volume you will find thirteen articles coming from different parts of the world and covering various topics: Youth and Adult Education methods in dealing with the past, teaching shared memory and violent past, oral history, museums and memorials as educational sites and providers of public education, dealing with the past as a method for peace-building and reconstruction of civil society after violent conflicts and war, achieving reconciliation through dialogue, collaboration and exchange. Introduction | 3 This compendium wants to stimulate an open discourse about the relation of Youth and Adult Education, processing the past and development work. All the articles contained here reflect the options of the authors. Our wish was to bring as many as possible multiperspective approaches for both the publication and confer- ence, aiming at a synergy effect and richer exchange. Nevertheless we are aware that this attempt is a small step toward systematising the experiences gathered and lessons learned, bridging the existing gap between theory and practice and offer tools how to deal with these issues. The editors sincerely hope that the compendium and the related conference will be of interest to professionals, academics, educators, policy makers and the general public alike. Vanya Ivanova and Matthias Klingenberg dvv international 4 | Introduction | Remembering or Forgetting? | Tyrone Savage Closing the Books or Keeping them Open “Closing the books or keeping them open”. It is a dilemma typically found in post- conflict situations in which heinous crimes have been perpetrated. The worst of crimes: those that denigrate the very meaning of what it is to be human and which have been designated “serious” violations and abuses of human rights. And as the brutal chatter of the Kalashnikovs goes quiet, the walls cease their shuddering, and peace descends, it may seem preferable, in the words of the Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, “to dig a hole and bury the past.”1 The general mood may be one of wanting to forget and of focusing on the urgent need to rebuild schools, bridges, streets, hospitals – the list of needs is usually overwhelming – and put aside memories of the worst of times and the worst of crimes committed in them. Yet for many of those who have suffered gross violation, the war still rages on inside of them – vivid in its detail, brutal in its continuing impact, undeniable in its demand for some sort of recognition, or reckoning, and heartrending in its ques- tions. Who, precisely, is responsible for the atrocious act that tore through my life? How did my loved one die? Where are their remains? How can I let the past now rest? Do I even want to? Societies that neglect or refuse to acknowledge this struggle, to listen to survivors’ questions, their stories, and to respond sympathetically, do so at their peril. One commentator on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda talks of how easily victims become killers.2 And poet Maya Angelou writes, “History despite its wrench- ing pain cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again”. 3 To attempt to close the books on an episode of systemic violence without having tack- led the violations committed is to leave trauma unaddressed, grievance unresolved, animosities intact and highly charged, volatile patterns of conflict unaltered – and the likelihood of a resurgence of conflict, in some form or other, extremely high. 1 Quoted in Youk Chhang, “The thief of history” in International Journal of Transitional Justice. Vol.1, 2007, p.163. 2 Mamdani, M. (2001) When victims become killers: Colonialism, nativism, and genocide in Rwanda. London: James Currey. 3 From the poem by Maya Angelou, delivered January 19, 1993, at the inauguration of President Clinton. www.poetseers.org/contemporary_poets/maya_angelou_poems/on_the_pulse_of_morning/ Closing the Books or Keeping them Open | 7 The need to account for violations and abuses perpetrated in violent conflict has become widely acknowledged in many quarters, leading to the growth of an international consensus that serious human rights violations should not be subject to amnesty. Allow me to digress for a moment to unpack this term, “amnesty”. Es- sentially, it comprises legal measures that have the following effect: a. “Prospectively barring criminal prosecution and, in some cases, civil actions against certain individuals or categories of individuals in respect of specified criminal conduct committed before the amnesty’s
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961-1989 by Hans-Hermann Hertle/Maria Nooke August 2011
    Special CWIHP Research Report The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961-1989 By Hans-Hermann Hertle/Maria Nooke August 2011 Forty-four years after the Berlin Wall was built and 15 years after the East German archives were opened, reliable data on the number of people killed at the Wall were still lacking. Depending on the sources, purpose, and date of the studies, the figures varied between 78 (Central Registry of State Judicial Administrations in Salzgitter), 86 (Berlin Public Prosecution Service), 92 (Berlin Police President), 122 (Central Investigation Office for Government and Unification Criminality), and more than 200 deaths (Working Group 13 August). The names of many of the victims, their biographies and the circumstances in which they died were widely unknown.1 This special CWIHP report summarizes the findings of a research project by the Center for Research on Contemporary History Potsdam and the Berlin Wall Memorial Site and Documentation Center which sought to establish the number and identities of the individuals who died at the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989 and to document their lives and deaths through historical and biographical research.2 Definition In order to provide reliable figures, the project had to begin by developing clear criteria and a definition of what individuals are to be considered victims at the Berlin Wall. We regard the “provable causal and spatial connection of a death with an attempted escape or a direct or indirect cause or lack of action by the ‘border organs’ in the border territory” as the critical factor. In simpler terms: the criteria are either an attempted escape or a temporal and spatial link between the death and the border regime.
    [Show full text]
  • Schießbefehl and the Issues of Retroactivity Within the East German Border Guard Trials Keegan Mcmurry Western Oregon University, [email protected]
    Western Oregon University Digital Commons@WOU Student Theses, Papers and Projects (History) Department of History 2018 Schießbefehl and the Issues of Retroactivity Within the East German Border Guard Trials Keegan McMurry Western Oregon University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/his Part of the Diplomatic History Commons, European History Commons, Legal Commons, and the Political History Commons Recommended Citation McMurry, Keegan, "Schießbefehl and the Issues of Retroactivity Within the East German Border Guard Trials" (2018). Student Theses, Papers and Projects (History). 264. https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/his/264 This Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at Digital Commons@WOU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Theses, Papers and Projects (History) by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@WOU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Schießbefehl1 and the Issues of Retroactivity Within the East German Border Guard Trials Keegan J. McMurry History 499: Senior Seminar June 5, 2018 1 On February 5th, 1989, 20-year old Chris Gueffroy and his companion, Christian Gaudin, were running for their lives. Tired of the poor conditions in the German Democratic Republic and hoping to find better in West Germany, they intended to climb the Berlin Wall that separated East and West Berlin using a ladder. A newspaper account states that despite both verbal warnings and warning shots, both young men continued to try and climb the wall until the border guards opened fire directly at them. Mr. Gaudin survived the experience after being shot, however, Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • Jason Johnson on States of Division: Border and Boundary
    Sagi Schaefer. States of Division: Border and Boundary Formation in Cold War Rural Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 288 pp. $99.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-967238-7. Reviewed by Jason Johnson Published on H-German (December, 2016) Commissioned by Jeremy DeWaal Sagi Schaefer’s book centers on the Cold War the creation of the Iron Curtain. Schaefer now inner-German border through the Eichsfeld re‐ brings a focus on the rural. gion, a rural Catholic enclave in central Germany. Schaefer’s fve chapters thus “foreground the His work continues the important historiographi‐ rural character of the borderlands …. roughly re‐ cal thread of moving beyond Berlin to investigate flecting the experience of farmers” (p. 11). The events and processes of German division that first chapter focuses on the early years of division have been, as Schaefer has written elsewhere, —1945-52—as occupation zonal frontiers crystal‐ “hidden behind the Wall.”[1] Scholarly analysis of lized into the 1949 border between the Federal Re‐ the rural border dividing Germany, stretching public and the German Democratic Republic more than eight hundred miles, has until recent (GDR). Schaefer persuasively illustrates that in the years been largely overshadowed by the division Eichsfeld, “Western economic reconstruction was of Berlin. the most powerful motor of division in those Anthropologist Daphne Berdahl’s pioneering years” (pp. 15-16). Chapter 2 then turns to the wa‐ work Where the World Ended (1999) on the thou‐ tershed year 1952 when the GDR removed thou‐ sand-person East German border community Kel‐ sands from its borderland and began to seal its la helped spark more scholarly interest in the frontier.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Origin and Composition of the German East-West Population Gap
    DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES IZA DP No. 12031 On the Origin and Composition of the German East-West Population Gap Christoph Eder Martin Halla DECEMBER 2018 DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES IZA DP No. 12031 On the Origin and Composition of the German East-West Population Gap Christoph Eder Johannes Kepler University Linz Martin Halla Johannes Kepler University Linz, CD-Lab Aging, Health, and the Labor Market, IZA and Austrian Public Health Institute DECEMBER 2018 Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world’s largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. IZA – Institute of Labor Economics Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5–9 Phone: +49-228-3894-0 53113 Bonn, Germany Email: [email protected] www.iza.org IZA DP No. 12031 DECEMBER 2018 ABSTRACT On the Origin and Composition of the German East-West Population Gap* The East-West gap in the German population is believed to originate from migrants escaping the socialist regime in the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
    [Show full text]
  • Ostpolitik Revisited1 Karl Cordell, University of Plymouth Stefan Wolff, University of Nottingham
    A Foreign Policy Analysis of the “German Question”: Ostpolitik Revisited1 Karl Cordell, University of Plymouth Stefan Wolff, University of Nottingham Abstract Taking a constructivist approach to foreign policy analysis and using German policy vis-à-vis Poland and Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic as an example, we examine Ostpolitik since the 1960s as a case of a norm-driven foreign policy. We argue that the content of Ostpolitik, including changes over time, can be explained by reference to a prevailing norm consensus in Germany about the country‘s foreign policy towards Central and Eastern Europe, which began to develop in the 1960s. 1 The authors wish to thank the British Academy for their support through LRG-35361 in the preparation of this paper. They also extend their thanks to Klaus Bachmann, Andrzej Dybczyński and Zdeněk Hausvater. This article partially draws on findings presented in Cordell and Wolff (2005a). 1 1. Introduction During his historic visit to Warsaw in December 1970 for the signing of the second of the so-called Ostverträge,2 German Chancellor Willy Brandt undertook a momentous and unprecedented gesture. During a commemorative act for the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April/May 1943, he fell to his knees in an act of apology for German atrocities committed against Poland and especially Polish Jews during the Second World War. Some 24 years later, In August 1994 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the (Home Army‘s) Warsaw Uprising of August/October 1944, German President Roman Herzog similarly apologised for German actions during the war in a speech in Warsaw and expressed Germany‘s unconditional support for Polish accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU).
    [Show full text]
  • Pcr 419 Course Title: International Politics of the Cold War (1945
    NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE COURSE CODE: PCR 419 COURSE TITLE: INTERNATIONAL POLITICS OF THE COLD WAR (1945 - 1991) 1 PCR 419 INTERNATIONAL POLITICS OF THE COLD WAR (1945 - 1991) Course Developer/Writer: Mathias Jarikre Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution School of Arts and Social Sciences National Open University of Nigeria Course Editor Course Coordinator Mathias Jarikre Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution School of Arts and Social Sciences National Open University of Nigeria 2 NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA National Open University of Nigeria University Village Plot 91, Cadastral Zone Nnamdi Azikiwe Expressway Jabi, Abuja Nigeria Lagos Office 14/16 Ahmadu Bello Way Victoria Island, Lagos E-mail: [email protected] URL: www.nouedu.net Published by: National Open University of Nigeria Printed 2017 ISBN: All Rights Reserved TABLE OF CONTENT Module 1 International Politics of the Cold War Unit 1 International Politics Unit 2 Polarity Unit 3 History of Cold War Unit 4 Chronicles of Cold War Unit 5 Causes and Consequences of the Cold War Module 2 Cold War as Social Conflict Unit 1 Approaches to Cold War Unit 2 Cold War as Social Conflict Unit 3 Iron Curtains Unit 4 Berlin Blockade and Airlift Unit 5 Berlin Wall Module 3 Cold War Strategies Unit 1 Marshall Plan Unit 2 Molotov Plan Unit 3 Containment Unit 4 Deterrence Unit 5 Detente Module 4 Military Alliances and Nuclear Weapons Unit 1 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Unit 2 Warsaw Pact Unit 3 The Role of Nuclear Weapons Unit 4 Arms
    [Show full text]
  • Defense at the Forward Edge of the Battle Or Rather in the Depth? Different Approaches to Implement NATO’S Operation Plans by the Alliance Partners, 1955-1988
    Journal of Military and Strategic VOLUME 15, ISSUE 3, 2014 Studies Defense at the Forward Edge of the Battle or rather in the Depth? Different approaches to implement NATO’s operation plans by the alliance partners, 1955-1988 LTC Helmut R. Hammerich Military historians love studying battles. For this purpose, they evaluate operation plans and analyze how these plans were executed on the battlefield. The battle history of the Cold War focuses first and foremost on the planning for the nuclear clash between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Although between 1945 and 1989-90 the world saw countless hot wars on the periphery of the Cold War, the “Cold World War,” as the German historian Jost Dülffer termed it, is best examined through the operational plans of the military alliances for what would have been World War Three. To conduct such an analysis we must consider Total War under nuclear conditions. Analyzing the war planning, however, is far from easy. The main difficulty lies in access to the files. The records of both the Warsaw Pact and NATO are still largely classified and therefore relatively inaccessible. Nor is access to the archives in Moscow two decades after glasnost and perestroika at all encouraging. At the request of historians, NATO has begun to declassify some of its key documents. Nonetheless, the specific details of the nuclear operational planning will continue to remain inaccessible to historians for the foreseeable future. As an alternative, historians then are forced to rely on collateral documents in the various national archives or on the compilations of ©Centre of Military and Strategic Studies, 2014 ISSN : 1488-559X VOLUME 15, ISSUE 3, 2014 diverse oral history projects.
    [Show full text]
  • Traces of the Past Along the German Green Belt
    The Green Belt in its entire length is not a well developed and signposted hike and bicycle path. It is not always easy to tell where the former border strip was, as most of the border fortifications have been dismantled. Moreover, in some places the Green Belt is not recognisable because parts of it are now used as intensive grassland, arable land Traces of the Past or woodland. along the German Green Belt “Those who cannot remember their past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana) The Green Belt in its entire length is not a well developed and signposted hike and bicycle path. It is not always easy to tell where the former border strip was, as most of the border fortifications have been dismantled. Moreover, in some places the Green Belt is not recognisable because parts of it are now used as intensive grassland, arable land or woodland. East German border guard on patrol Opening of the border at Mödlareuth “Western tourists” at the Iron Curtain 2 INHALT FOREWORD Dear visitors of the Green Belt and the borderland museums, For more than 25 years, the Green Belt, the stretch of unspoilt nature that has arisen as a result of the inhumane inner-German border, has been a constant reminder of our once divided nation. Nature has been left to its own devices here, not because we want to forget, but because we want to remember. Scores of people visit the Green Belt in an attempt to come to terms with history: the history of their country, their mothers and fathers, relatives, friends or even their own personal fate.
    [Show full text]
  • How the Germans Brought Their Communism to Yemen
    Miriam M. Müller A Spectre is Haunting Arabia Political Science | Volume 26 This book is dedicated to my parents and grandparents. I wouldn’t be who I am without you. Miriam M. Müller (Joint PhD) received her doctorate jointly from the Free Uni- versity of Berlin, Germany, and the University of Victoria, Canada, in Political Science and International Relations. Specialized in the politics of the Middle East, she focuses on religious and political ideologies, international security, international development and foreign policy. Her current research is occupied with the role of religion, violence and identity in the manifestations of the »Isla- mic State«. Miriam M. Müller A Spectre is Haunting Arabia How the Germans Brought Their Communism to Yemen My thanks go to my supervisors Prof. Dr. Klaus Schroeder, Prof. Dr. Oliver Schmidtke, Prof. Dr. Uwe Puschner, and Prof. Dr. Peter Massing, as well as to my colleagues and friends at the Forschungsverbund SED-Staat, the Center for Global Studies at the University of Victoria, and the Political Science Depart- ment there. This dissertation project has been generously supported by the German Natio- nal Academic Foundation and the Center for Global Studies, Victoria, Canada. A Dissertation Submitted in (Partial) Fulfillment of the Requirements for the- Joint Doctoral Degree (Cotutelle) in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences ofthe Free University of Berlin, Germany and the Department of Political Scien- ceof the University of Victoria, Canada in October 2014. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommer- cial-NoDerivs 4.0 (BY-NC-ND) which means that the text may be used for non- commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author.
    [Show full text]
  • Full Transcript
    THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION BROOKINGS CAFETERIA PODCAST FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL, 30 YEARS LATER Washington, D.C. Saturday, November 9, 2019 PARTICIPANTS: Host: FRED DEWS Managing Editor, Podcasts and Digital Projects The Brookings Institution Guests: CONSTANZE STELZENMÜLLER Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Center on the United States and Europe Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress DAVID WESSEL Senior Fellow Hutchins Center The Brookings Institution * * * * * 1 P R O C E E D I N G S DEWS: Welcome to the Brookings Cafeteria, the Podcast about ideas and the experts who have them. I'm Fred Dews. On November 9, 1989, the Government of East Germany announced that all of its citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of Germans from East and West climbed on to the heavily-fortified wall surrounding West Berlin, and began chipping away at the concrete with hammers and other tools, in a celebratory atmosphere. East German Guards stood down. Thus began the fall of the Berlin Wall that had divided the city since 1961, the beginning of the end of the Cold War was as hand. In this episode I'm joined in the Brookings Podcast Network Studio by Constanze Stelzenmüller, a Senior Fellow at Brookings, and the Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress. She is the author of the inaugural Foreign Policy Essay, titled, German Lessons: Thirty Years after the End of History Elements of an Education; and is here to discuss her fascinating reflection on the toppling of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago, and the lessons that were in store for her, her fellow Germans, Europe and the world.
    [Show full text]
  • Marking the 20Th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall Responsible Leadership in a Globalized World
    A publication of the Contributors include: President Barack Obama | James L. Jones Chuck Hagel | Horst Teltschik | Condoleezza Rice | Zbigniew Brzezinski [ Helmut Kohl | Colin Powell | Frederick Forsyth | Brent Scowcroft ] Freedom’s Challenge Marking the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall Responsible Leadership in a Globalized World The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, not only years, there have been differences in opinion on important led to the unifi cation of Germany, thus ending decades of issues, but the shared interests continue to predominate. division and immeasurable human suffering; it also ended It is important that, in the future, we do not forget what binds the division of Europe and changed the world. us together and that we defi ne our common interests and responsibilities. The deepening of personal relations between Today, twenty years after this event, we are in a position to young Germans and Americans in particular should be dear gauge which distance we have covered since. We are able to to our hearts. observe that in spite of continuing problems and justifi ed as well as unjustifi ed complaints, the unifi cation of Germany and For this reason the BMW Foundation accounts the Europe has been crowned with success. transatlantic relationship as a focus of its activity. The Transatlantic Forum for example is the “veteran“ of the It is being emphasized again and again, and rightly so, that it BMW Foundation’s Young Leaders Forums. The aim of was the people in the former GDR that started the peaceful these Young Leaders Forums is to establish a network, revolution.
    [Show full text]
  • Space, Borders, Borderlands: Global and East European Approaches in Historiography 43
    Space, Borders, Borderlands: Global and East European Approaches in Historiography 43 Wolfgang Mueller/Libora Oates-Indruchová Space, Borders, Borderlands: Global and East European Approaches in Historiography In an international research perspective, an increased interest in questions of migration and in the significance of space has contributed to more attention being dedicated to border regimes. The vast field of border studies crosses several disciplines from political science, through ge- ography and anthropology, to history and literature (see e.g. Wastl-Walter 2010). It subsumes a broad range of subjects including both metaphorical and material borders. The study of mate- rial borders, which is our concern here, has been a dynamically developing field in the last two and a half decades. After the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the dismantling of the Iron Curtain, the opening of former communist archives as well as the “spatial turn” in historiography stimulated interest in past border regimes. Karl Schlögel, among others, noted that in the preceding period since the end of World War II, the field was tainted with negative political connotations (Schlögel 2003). The end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Eastern bloc, and European integration, in particular the Schengen process – research areas highly rel- evant to Central Europe, including Austria – provided the field with a new impetus (e.g. An- dreas/Snyder 2000; DeBardeleben 2007). Globalisation and its attendant discourse of border- lessness on the one hand, and new concerns with demarcation on the other also spurred the discussion of the 1990s, with the latter concern dominating the 2000s (Newman 2006; Am- bruster/Meinhof 2011).
    [Show full text]