De-commemoration is a social phenomenon that regards the destruction or profound modification of material representations of the past in public space, representing the opposite or undoing of memorialization. The precise term was coined by Israeli historian Guy Beiner in 2018.[1]
De-commemoration is the set of “processes in which material and public representations of the past are removed, destroyed or fundamentally modified”. Guy Beiner introduced the concept of de-commemorating in reference to hostility towards acts of commemoration that can result in violent assaults and in iconoclastic defacement or destruction of monuments. Beiner's studies suggested that rather than stamping out memorialization and giving an impression of freedom from the past, de-commemorating can paradoxically function as a form of ambiguous remembrance, sustaining interest in controversial memorials. The very dishonor that damage or removal brings to the memorial gives it back its importance in a distinct way juxtaposed to commemorative plaques, statues, and monuments that recall the past in public spaces that are very often ignored in everyday life.[2] [3] Destruction of monuments can also trigger renewed acts of memorialization (which Beiner labelled "re-commemorating").[4]
According to the framework of sociologists Tracy Adams and Yinon Guttel-Klei, three types of practices can be identified related to the phenomenon. The most widespread is desacralization, that is, desecration and destruction of the monument.[5] The second practice is reframing, which consists of showing the controversial past by recontextualizing the memorial or giving it a new meaning. In practice, this can involve adding explanatory plaques or renaming memorial spaces and streets, thus changing the status and symbolism of monuments or landscapes.[6] The third practice, planned obsolescence, is rarer and refers to monuments deliberately built with a limited lifespan in order to criticize real established monuments or they are installed to spark controversy and thus provoke their demolition.[7]
De-commemoration is not a recent social phenomenon,[8] and has involved five different approaches in historical examples according to a framework set by Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg.[9] It can be the result of a change in political regime and then aims to adapt the symbolic landscape. This is the case, for example, in France after the First Empire, in colonized countries after their independence, or after the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe.[10]
De-commemoration can also be linked to a societal transformation that makes monuments or place names appear anachronistic, for example by trying to reduce the over-representation of male statues or street names, or in New Zealand by making room for memorials to Maori people, history, and culture.[11] It can also result from forceful action, from a mobilization that directly aims to provoke changes in the memorial landscape. This is the type of de-commemoration, such as that carried out during and following the Black Lives Matter movement, or in Latin American countries confronted with the legacy of colonialism, or in European ports regarding the Atlantic slave trade. This type of de-commemoration is often the kind that is most spread and documented in mass media, in particular regarding the decolonization of public spaces.[12]
De-commemoration can also sometimes act as a smokescreen, a maneuver by those in charge to prevent political change or to sidestep a debate on the past, as in postcolonial Namibia.[13] Finally, it leads, more rarely, to a transformation in the way of thinking about memory, to reconsidering commemoration itself. This rarely happens because the tendency is to replace the destroyed monument with another of different meaning but of the same type. However, de-commemoration also leads to questioning and modifying the legislative frameworks of memorial uses and sometimes to resorting to new technological tools with how memorials are conceived, created, and interpreted.[14]