Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization

by Michael Rothberg

Multidirectional Memory brings together Holocaust studies and postcolonial studies for the first time. Employing a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, the book makes a twofold argument about Holocaust memory in a global age by situating it in the unexpected context of decolonization. On the one hand, it demonstrates how the Holocaust has enabled the articulation of other histories of victimization at the same time that it has been declared "unique" among human-perpetrated horrors. On the other, it uncovers the more surprising and seldom acknowledged fact that public memory of the Holocaust emerged in part thanks to postwar events that seem at first to have little to do with it. In particular, Multidirectional Memory highlights how ongoing processes of decolonization and movements for civil rights in the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere unexpectedly galvanized memory of the Holocaust. Rothberg engages with both well-known and non-canonical intellectuals, writers, and filmmakers, including Hannah Arendt, Aimé Césaire, Charlotte Delbo, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marguerite Duras, Michael Haneke, Jean Rouch, and William Gardner Smith.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Theory, Academic, Philosophy, Holocaust

404 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Darya]

Обмежилася ознайомленням з передмовою, аби взяти на озброєння методологічну пропозицію. Вона полягає в тому, що хибною є концепція, яка стверджує, що пам'яті різних груп, зокрема про їхні травматичні історичні досвіди, змагаються одна з одною; це не так, що якщо в суспільному дискурсі говорять про історичну трагедію, яка спіткала групу А, то залишається менше простору і уваги до історичної трагедії, яка спіткала групу Б. Навпаки, дискурс, який виникає довкола пам'яті про одну історичну трагедію, може підсилювати можливість привернення уваги до іншої історичної трагедії. Для прикладу автор розглядає, як дискурс про Голокост у перші повоєнні десятиліття (коли він і сам ще був на етапі дискурсивного оформлення) співіснував з проговоренням пам'яті про трагедії, пов'язані з європейським колоніалізмом (і використовувався деколоніальними мислителями для оприявнення і підсвітлення певних аспектів). Але очевидно, що є багато інших плідних контекстів, де цю концепцію можна застосувати.

[Elevate Difference · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Multidirectional Memory, Michael Rothberg offers an alternative to competitive memory, or the idea that the capacity to remember historical injustices is limited and that any attention to one injustice diminishes our capacity to memorialize another. Rothberg also disputes the idea that comparisons between atrocities erase differences between them and imply a false equivalence. In focusing on the Holocaust, Rothberg navigates between two extremes: the tendency to proclaim the Holocaust so distinct that it should not be compared to anything else, and the tendency to universalize the Holocaust, turning it into an abstract lesson about good and evil that can be applied to any and all atrocities. His solution is “multidirectional memory,” which describes collective memory as “subject to ongoing negotiation, cross-referencing and borrowing; as productive and not privative.” In other words, comparisons can both aid in understanding and illuminate differences.

In part one, Rothberg explores the idea of “boomerang effects” found in Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism and Aimé Césaire’s works on colonialism and genocide. Through these works and many others, Rothberg examines how, prior to a full accounting for the Holocaust and its reinvention as a historically unique event, scholars such as Arendt and Césaire were constructing the Holocaust and totalitarianism as colonial practices, ideas and structures brought to Europe from the colonies. While Rothberg does a serviceable job of explaining and justifying the productive nature of the comparisons in the abstract, he glosses over the unfortunate concrete relationship between colonial genocides and the Holocaust, specifically Hitler‘s modeling of concentration camps after the North American reservation system and his co-opting of the language and tactics of the so-called Wild West. He mentions these links briefly, but so vaguely as to conceal them from any reader not familiar with the historical facts.

In part two, Rothberg focuses on the works of W. E. B. Du Bois, André Schwarz-Bart, and Caryl Phillips as they explore the light the Holocaust and anti-Semitism shed on the Black experience in the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean. Here, the comparisons are limited to the abstract connections between the historical oppression of people of African descent (including slavery, colonialism, segregation, and genocide) and the Nazis’ racialization, ghettoization, and extermination of the Jews. This section also emphasizes both peoples’ histories with “ghettos, ruins, and other diasporic spaces.” This is perhaps the best example of multidirectional memory in the book.

In parts III and IV, Rothberg explores various works (both literary and cinematic) to examine the connections between the Holocaust and the Algerian War in the waning days of French colonialism and the opening days of the Eichmann trial that would transform the public discourse surrounding the Holocaust. Here, Rothberg does a better job of distinguishing the abstract connections between colonialism, racism, and the Holocaust from the concrete connections between French treatment of the Algerians and French complicity in the Holocaust. Perhaps most disturbing is the implication that a timely attempt to address French complicity in the Holocaust may have prevented many if not all of the atrocities committed against the Algerians, as both involved the same people, places, and tactics.

Overall, Rothberg does a decent job of showing how multidirectional memory can improve understanding through comparison; however, the book fails in a few places. By limiting himself to elite discourse, Rothberg underestimates the public’s capacity to undermine or diminish memory of one atrocity through competition with another as part of the self-fulfilling nature of competitive memory. He also doesn’t seem to fully explore how the taboo against comparisons in general and certain comparisons specifically undermines attempts to make such comparisons productive. Finally, his language is often so stereotypically academic that it may be inaccessible to non-experts. In the end, I am left uncertain whether to recommend the book or suggest that readers attempt to find some other work that addresses these concepts more clearly and completely.

Review by Melinda Barton

[Vicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book, the first to analyse the ways in which collective memories of political violence and genocide cross-fertilise one another rather than competing with one another. Rothberg has proposed a far more nuanced understanding of collective memory that has particular relevance for places where the understanding of history is highly polarised, such as conflict zones. However, the book is written in a dense inaccessible style and is quite repetitive, with Rothberg sometimes recycling sentences nearly word for word. The repetition got frustrating and the book would have benefited from some editing to weed it out.

[Zefyr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Against the framework that understands collective memory as competitive memory -- as zero-sum struggle over shared resources -- I suggest that we consider memory as multidirectional: as subject to ongoing negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing; as productive and not privative. (p 3)

This is one of the most thought-provoking books I've read in years. The first chapter is fairly broadly accessible and wildly worthwhile if you're able to get through Rothberg's denser language. Later chapters are more variable; I had only read a few of the texts Rothberg analyzes, and had seen none of the films. Generally someone reading this book is reading it to learn this concept of multidirectional memory or as part of learning Shoah/postcolonial studies and media, such that it's expected that they won't have read or seen all of that analyzed content, so I wanted to see better background/summaries/context of the analyzed content. That didn't happen, at least not in a way that made it clear what was background and what was analysis, so it was sometimes challenging to understand how a particular work demonstrated a concept about multidirectional memory Rothberg was trying to communicate, and usually a bit of a slog just to get through the analysis itself. But, again, worthwhile.

Assertions of uniqueness...actually produce further metaphorical and analogical appropriations (which, in turn, prompt further assertions of uniqueness). However, such moments coexist with complex acts of solidarity in which historical memory serves as a medium for the creation of new communal and political identities. It is often difficult to tell whether a given act of memory is more likely to produce competition or mutual understanding -- sometimes both seem to happen simultaneously. A model of multidirectional memory allows for the perception of the power differentials that tend to cluster around memory competition, but it also locates that competition within a larger spiral of memory discourse in which even hostile invocations of memory can provide vehicles for further, countervailing commemorative acts. The model of multidirectional memory posits collective memory as partially disengaged from exclusive versions of cultural identity and acknowledges how remembrance both cuts across and binds together diverse spatial, temporal, and cultural sites. (p 11)

...the content of a memory has no intrinsic meaning but takes on meaning precisely in relationship to other memories in a network of associations. (p 16)

Opening up our powers of comparison requires a framework that takes the wayward currents of collective memory seriously but can also make judgements that distinguish between different articulations of relatedness. I argue that both individual and collective memory are always in some sense multidirectional. In "making the past present," recollections and representations of personal or political history inevitably mix multiple moments in time and multiple sites of remembrance; making the past present opens the doors of memory to intersecting pasts and undefined futures. Memory is thus structurally multidirectional, but each articulation of the past processes that multidirectionality differently. In other words, as soon as memory is articulated publicly, questions of representation, ethics, and politics arise. (p 35-36)

[Maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Argues against collective memory that “takes form of a zero-sum struggle for preeminence” and considers memory instead as multidirectional. Convincing argument in a transnational context, not so much on local identity & memory. See David Blight for example, regarding competing visions of Civil War and how “the forces of reconciliation overwhelmed the emancipationist vision in the national culture.” Read for comps.

[Agnes Kelemen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thought-provoking and useful book for memory studies. Some parts are maybe less substantiated than others.

[Lindsay McBride · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really thought-provoking book and really challenged my thinking. I loved the variations he used for examples from film and art to traditional and contemporary literature.

[Jake La Fronz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this one. Not sure on it's applications outside of the context it's written for. But nevertheless I loved the concept/theory of it.

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A transformational book for me. Rothberg's view of history as an ethical responsibility applies to all cultural knowledge

[Maxy.kai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genius. Required reading.

[steds · Rating 4 out of 5]

really good re-reading of global suffering, holocaust in particular, to find connections and potential new-narrative formation beyond competitiveness