Democratic Memory for a more European Youth( MEM4EU)

Within the framework of the European Year of Youth, the project “Democratic Memory for a more European Youth” (MEM4EU) aims to recover the affection towards the common European project, carrying out training, promotion, and dissemination activities of the European democratic memory among young Spaniards so that they become European citizens more committed to democracy.

The pacifying role of the European Union often goes unnoticed by the general public, especially among young people who consider the European democratic memory as something alien that belongs to a distant past that does not concern them.

MEM4EU therefore proposes:

(1) to favor learning spaces on the values of European democratic memory and integration through the development of a massive online course;

(2) to motivate young people to share and express their vision through the organization of virtual spaces for constructive dialogue in both university contexts (especially in master’s programs focusing on human rights and democratic governance) and extra-university contexts (especially in contexts committed to the European vision);

(3) sensitizing and raising awareness among Spanish citizens through the implementation of a campaign on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram).

This free online course is composed of 5 different modules, with explanatory videos, educational content, additional resources, and their respective bibliographies. The topics treated in these modules are:

1. Memory as the fifth pillar of transitional justice, where we reflect on the origins of transitional justice, types of memory, and how it contributes to the existence of this kind of justice.
2. The European Union as a peace project, where we talk about the totalitarian regimes and the dictatorships during the XX Century in Europe and the European integration as a peace project.
3. Memory politics of the European Union, where we teach the different stages that divide the path towards democratic memory in Europe and its policies nowadays.
4. Spain and its long fight for democratic memory, where we talk about the terrible experience of the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship, the democratic transition and the Pact of Oblivion, the fight of Spanish victims, the international convictions of the Spanish government, the memory politics and the Democratic Memory Law of 2022, and the Argentinian Complaint.
5. The future of the European Union, where we reflect on the threats that suffer nowadays democracies and which instruments they have to be able to tackle them.

You can access this course by clicking here: https://cursos.fibgar.es/?lang=en