We celebrate the event ‘Towards a European identity: the role of civil society organisations in the promotion of demotratic memory policies’
On Monday, November 25th, we held the event ‘Towards a European identity: the role of civil society organisations in the promotion of democratic memory policies’ at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid.
In this event, the results of the research developed throughout the year, ‘Towards a European identity: the role of civil society organisations in the promotion of democratic memory policies. A comparative study’. María Garzón, President of FIBGAR, Javier Dorado Porras, Deputy Director of the ‘Gregorio Peces Barba’ Human Rights Institute of the Carlos III University of Madrid, and Nadia Gayoso, head of the area of democratic memory and transitional justice at FIBGAR, took part in the event.
During the afternoon, the Final Report and the Executive Summary produced as a result of this research were presented, and a round table debate was held to find out, from the perspective of academia and civil society organisations, what the state of the memorialist panorama is at national and European level, how both actors have contributed to the implementation of democratic memory policies, how the future of the younger generations is perceived in terms of memory, and whether a conceptualisation of European democratic memory is being reached.
In addition, the event was attended by representatives of associations of victims and relatives, young people interested in memory, directors of other projects related to memory, and citizens interested in knowing what this research developed by FIBGAR has consisted of.
For this purpose, the Final Report is now available in Spanish and the Executive Summary is now available in both Spanish and English. The aim of these documents is to offer memorial associations in Spain and other countries, as well as other professionals, a tool to improve, as far as possible, their initiatives and activities, with the aim of strengthening democratic memory at a national and European level.
It is the task of all of us to work for the recovery, preservation and dissemination of democratic memory, not only at the national level, but also at the European level, in order to counteract the extremist and revisionist tendencies that plague practically all the countries of the European Union. This phenomenon puts our democracies at risk by contributing to a whitewashing of the massive human rights violations experienced on the continent during the 20th century. It is therefore essential to work for democratic memory, to remind people that democratic guarantees cannot be taken for granted and to strengthen the sense of unity among the countries of Europe around democratic values.
