If a hypothetical Spaniard had an accident in 2005 or 2006 and fell into a coma, today would be the best day to wake up. One only has to look at the press to find that Pedro J. Ramírez advocated “The state could not disclose the factsWith the left wing of the media focusing on intrigues, lies and characters trying to “make up the conspiracy theory” of the 11M, and youth groups arguing about the holes in the official version.

It seems like nothing has changed, and yet everything has changed.

From the “war for facts” to the “war for memory.” It is correct as shown Pedro J case There are still those who try to argue the facts. This is an almost impossible task. At the judicial level, with all flaws, “the facts are clearly proven” and unless an unexpected explanation emerges, the debate about what happened in those March days is largely closed.

Before us is something similar but very different: the battle for the memory of 11M.

What distinguishes history from memory? As French historian Pierre Nora said, “memory and history operate on two completely different planes.” While memory is “the memory of a past lived or imagined,” history is “a purely intellectual operation.” A scientific endeavor (social but scientific) that “requires critical analysis and discourse.”

So, while history focuses on explaining exactly what happened in the past; Memory focuses on how we remember that past, what we attach importance to, how we interpret events and what lessons we learn from them. This means that even when historical facts are clear, they can often be remembered in contradictory ways (and meanings).

Why is memory important? So, why is it worth fighting for? As Edgar Straehle often explains, memory produced after historical events reaches us earlier and, in a sense, forms the conceptual, symbolic and emotional “container” through which we receive these events.

The effects that memory leaves behind. What we saw a few days ago after abortion was included in the French constitution is very illuminating. The media was quick to say that the French country had become the first country to “constitutionally protect this right.” However, experts soon emerged who claimed that: Yugoslavia did this in 1974.

This fact surprised many. And the truth is that in the popular imagination, Yugoslavia is no longer a developed country and an international reference in terms of social rights, as it was in the 60s and 70s, but almost on the contrary, Yugoslavia is the hell left by wars and multi-ethnic conflicts. From the 90’s.

There are many more examples, from the uses (and abuses) of 23F in the consolidation of Spanish democracy to the war story of the invasion of Ukraine, but the conclusion is always the same: the way we remember the past has consequences for the future. now and in the future.

These consequences are working memory in our vision of the social world; They are the memories that shape the way we understand the future we are heading towards.

It’s been 20 years since 11M. That is more than enough time for the biographical memories of the elderly to be erased and for hundreds of thousands of people who did not experience these events to join the public debate. This is memory of memory.

For better and worse. Because, as Straehle points out when talking about the Paris Commune, “what matters in the past is […] They have not only their history, but also the fertile, complex and problematic memories they produce; It’s something where we constantly come back to what’s going on, but at the same time we never do it in the same way or for the same purposes.

Making memory as a society means not only “remembering what happened, but also interpreting and valuing it.” And this has a clearly pragmatic character: it depends on our goals, worldviews and interests. That is, “these memories should not be understood simply as what actually happened” (which also means that “every interpretation must offer reliable versions” and “depends on the event to some degree”).
facts”) but as part of “every gift.”

Today, 20 years later, we are talking about 11M, yes (and some of the tracks and documentaries are shocking); But first of all, we are talking about ourselves. This is March 11, 2024. It wouldn’t hurt to remember.

Image | GTRES

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