Cultural Amnesia, Cultural Nostalgia and False Memory:

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Cultural Amnesia, Cultural Nostalgia and False Memory: "
Ali A. Mazrui

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	1063443
Doc. No	:	LA107072
Call No	:	‭10.1163/15692108-12341249‬
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Ali A. Mazrui
Title & Author	:	Cultural Amnesia, Cultural Nostalgia and False Memory: [Article] : Africa’s Identity Crisis Revisited\ Ali A. Mazrui
Publication Statement	:	Leiden: Brill
Title of Periodical	:	African and Asian Studies
Date	:	2013
Volume/ Issue Number	:	12/1-2
Page No	:	13–29
Abstract	:	The point of departure of this article is Ernest Renan’s observation that the secret of nation-building is to get one’s history wrong. We critically analyze – in the broader and historical context of the encounters between Africans and Europeans – the role of collective memory in its four functions of preservation, selection, elimination and invention. We focus on the first function to examine in depth how positive preservation of memory can become a form of nostalgia and how negative selection by memory can lead to elimination and amnesia. We argue that both nostalgia and amnesia can be forms of “getting one’s history wrong” in order to get one’s national identity right. We also attempt to show how historical invention can be consolidated into a false memory – placing something in the past which was never there before. The point of departure of this article is Ernest Renan’s observation that the secret of nation-building is to get one’s history wrong. We critically analyze – in the broader and historical context of the encounters between Africans and Europeans – the role of collective memory in its four functions of preservation, selection, elimination and invention. We focus on the first function to examine in depth how positive preservation of memory can become a form of nostalgia and how negative selection by memory can lead to elimination and amnesia. We argue that both nostalgia and amnesia can be forms of “getting one’s history wrong” in order to get one’s national identity right. We also attempt to show how historical invention can be consolidated into a false memory – placing something in the past which was never there before.
Descriptor	:	African Studies
Descriptor	:	Asian Studies
Descriptor	:	collective memory
Descriptor	:	colonization
Descriptor	:	General
Descriptor	:	historical invention
Descriptor	:	Middle East and Islamic Studies
Descriptor	:	national identity
Descriptor	:	national memory
Descriptor	:	nation-building
Descriptor	:	Social Sciences
Location & Call number	:	‭10.1163/15692108-12341249‬