La memoria histórica: ¿campo de batalla o camino hacia la reconciliación? El pasado entrometido. La memoria histórica como campo de batalla, de Iván Garzón

Abstract

“El Pasado Entrometido: La memoria histórica como campo de batalla” by professor Iván Garzón Vallejo (Crítica, 2022), is an invitation to explore the essentially tragic character of transitions, to democracy or from war to peace, in which crucial political dilemmas are evidenced: reconciliation versus justice; oblivion versus memory; politics versus law; coexistence versus human rights, and future versus past. Societies, like people, go through different, and not necessarily sequential, stages of grief: denial, wrath, depression, acceptance and negotiation.  Garzón Vallejo highlights the importance of avoiding Manichaeism to face the shadows, lights, and complexities of wars. Furthermore, he questions the notion evidenced in the aphorism "those who cannot recall their past are condemned to repeat it", given that neither does the past repeat itself in the same way, nor does its memory deliver us from horror.