The historical monument

After going through many empty and wide open streets, everything seems to wind down at an angle to history when approaching a historical monument. Reflections about it are possible, but the empty parking spots create a certain impression. Everything seems to be painted in the atmosphere of autumn leaves.

However, resistance is felt in the vicinity of such a monumental wish to preserve something particular in history. Is this reluctance to enter into a dialog with the historical monument due to it trying to make out of nothing something into a permanent feature of mankind? It is still odder that such an edifice is made out of silent stone. Indeed, it cannot be that history, or rather time, stands still. Rather life is revealed through many stories told.

It is a dilemma of a historical monument: to stand out for some remembrance, but at the risk to distort history by letting the many small and big stories of men and women, soldiers and children be forgotten. The historical monument appears to overlook that time moves on.

There are more paradoxes in such non-seeming surroundings of the monument. The aura surrounding it suggests a confusion about what imprints of the past upon the present should be allowed to dominate outlooks onto the future. At the same time, it is clear that over and again old, new and similar movements spin off such a reference to the past not to be transcended by changing times. Some of them may move beyond that past, but still in reference to what the monument stands for. Others will cling to the monument as reference point even though the political co-ordinates and more so the defining power of politics have altered subjects, categories and especially the material itself by which life of mankind can be comprehended.

'Denkmalpflege', the taking care of monuments, relates very often to the kind of tradition of which Paul Tillich spoke about, namely as a means to distort the perception of the present. Especially if used as 'rallying points' in order to evoke specific memories about the past, then many thoughts can come to one in the light of how different movements try to make use of the historical monument.

For instance, the search and yearning for living together may be too simple a word to explain all those frentic movements trying to find some rallying point. Some very specific ones end up coming together at the historical monument. They try to re-write present developments by taking recourse to what this edifice stands for to them: a specific interpretation of who belongs to the group. Here the historical monument draws the lines of allegiance via recourse to a particular ceremonial for a specific remembrance.

Society entails quite a complexity in both understanding of what brings people together and what entails safeguards of the constitution that allow people to live, work and enjoy life together. Here Aristotle reminds that a constitution could serve only then its purpose, if it holds those people together who belong together, but keeps equally those apart who would create together an explosive mixture.

In that sense, use of the historical monument by right wing radicals would mean they try to overwhelm present society by revoking old symbols to create other bondages than what the current society allows. They respond to what has become impossible to them, namely to integrate themselves individually in society. Only 'en masse' and with a particular brand of slogans do they believe thay they can achieve that. There is no dialogue, but vindictiveness in the air when they rally around the monument. For they tend to use the same messages of that historical period they consider to be significant anew, that is here and now. Personal mission is found in such a historical identification for which the historical monument stands according to their own interpretations. They do so with intent to establish mythical linkages amongst themselves and wish to sanction their bondages through the blessings of the historical monument.

The problems of modern societies are well known. The binding powers have become weaker, i.e. break-up of marriages and other relationships are occurring as rapid as closures of companies creating ever new uncertainties. The disorientation that goes with loss of both family and familiar (friendships) ties aggravates the situation of both the individual suffering under this lack of social empathy and of society because easily over-demanded by these extremist tendencies. There is even at risk that entire communities fail to reach that critical level of consensus and sustainability needed to protect human lifes.

Once arbitrary power can rule, daily occurrences at school, in the back yard, at home, indeed everywhere and nowhere pile up to alter outlooks and expectations about the future. For they all hit negatively 'home' because they tend to convey to the individual an unexpected, equally negative (or deadly) and unjust denial of him- or herself as a human being filled with dignity and self respect.

Such occurrences as described already by Peter Weiss in 'Aesthetics of Resistance' drive out the human language capable of giving recognition to the other as a human being and therefore to the emotions of being alive, that is not in fear. Instead silence, the inability to talk openly to one another by letting doubts, questions and new ideas emerge, dominates and intensifies fear because of having in reality no contact with anyone else.

If this tendency is allowed to be continued by adopting a hard, even semi-military language based on strict hierarchy with the lower one not worth anything, then the despise of anything different, alive, happy and in need of human communication begins to affect everyone. Such language of constant denial, abuse, threats (and not challenges) etc. readies everyone step by step in their mentality for a fight (see Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, as philosophical prescription of how an entire society can be made ready for such a fight). As a subculture, it pulls the youngsters growing up in such an environment into an undercurrent of violence and denials, in short quasi and substantial illegal actions. Due to the extreme lack of solidarity in the group with each and every individual, that leaves everyone alone and weak, exposed to the arbitrary use of power the group then has over every individual. The experience of mobbing becomes a common feature and exposes everyone to every abuse of power.

Once violence and coercion are mixed with criminal activities and sanctioned more and more by such ideologies that can exploit these new weaknesses and wishes to appear as strong as all the others facing a similar desolate situation, then there is a situation at hand that has gotten out of control. Alone the numerous killings of foreigners in Germany after re-unification high light the perversion of morality that goes with such an ideological process of re-verification of what is not allowed. Especially in a society like post war Germany the trust is weak because too many of the older generations have either gone themselves directly against life or else they did not do anything to prevent it when Jews and others were taken away for no other reason but that they were different. What has created that morass of confused feelings amongst all those newly sprung up extremist movements, and here Skinheads or football hooligans have to be included, is the fact that they are more than just frightened by this almost absolute lack and loss of trust in life, that is in other people.

Even a successful business man with 15 apartment houses would admit, that things look bleaque in Europe because too many people have no longer any ideals and therefore they spin out of control. Such a comment suggests that social cohesion and cultural identities of people are threatened because people believe that everyone is drifting apart. Some think this calls for extra ordinary measures and for re-establishing some key rallying points. Reference to a historical monument can help in such an ideological vacuum and social crisis.

But contrary to these interpretative, but equally one-sided and even more so ideological projections upon a historical monument, there has to be stressed that at least in the case of some their original purpose was to remember something terrible had happened in the past. A historical monument was often constructed with the intention to redefine linkages between people after they had experienced the overcoming of some horrible event or crisis such as war, liberation acts, overcoming of famine etc.. That makes it into an instrument by which it should become possible to redefine the sense of togetherness and of belonging. This intent includes almost a literal instruction to remain as a society together in honour of those who had given their lifes in battle such as the monument of the 'Unknown soldier' in the Hofgarten of Munich.

Yet if people are to be bonded by the same memory, then something of that past is meant to live on. That makes it difficult to distinguish between kinds of historical monuments. At least three categories can be made out: one refers to the type mentioned above with strong tendency to glorify war, its heroes, that is one readily made for ideological abuse and distortion of history; then, a second kind would be the one constructed, for instance, in memory of those who either helped overcome Facism or else suffered under it; while a third category would depict that not everyone carries within him or her the same memories, as stories are differently told, and thus the monument would be constructed not with the intention that a specific lesson is drawn out of past events, or out of history in general, but rather to keep the questioning about what took place at a certain time in history open to new interpretations as an understanding for the events matures.

Rarely can be found in Europe such a third category since most historical events are used to solidify the national consciousness and identity, as Greece does on its 'Orchie' - No-day when Greece defied the dictations of Mussolini and instead repulsed his armies at the beginning of Second World War. Quite differently in Greece is remembered 17^th of November, the day when the students revolted in Athens against the Greek military dictaturship, for not only schools and universities are closed in memory of the conditions of freedom, but also anarchists take in an almost yearly ritual to the streets to mark that day with barricades, stones and over demonstrations to defy any kind of authoritarian power. The main demonstration goes to the embassy of the United States of America since the belief remains strong that this superpower was behind the coup of the military dictators. Even more so a deadly terrorist organisation called November 17 has sprung up since 1973. That group is known for the numerous individual assassinations it has committed, while never caught for their actions until the very end. Through declarations in newspapers, they justify their killings such as the most recent case of a British army officer working at the British Embassy in Athens and assassinated with the justification that he had participated in the Kosovo war. Amazing is that while this poses an enormous security threat and undermines any confidence in police and intelligence services due to having failed until now to capture but one member of the November 17^th group, at the same time the sentiment and support amongst Greeks for the group is quite high. There is that dangerous justification, namely 'such a capitalist bastard does not deserve to live', as if the punishment itself legitimises the judgement about that person.

Such then are the ongoing complexities of history, that categories amounting to such rising tensions and then unloaded in either individual terrorist acts (in remembrance of the discussion on this subject by Jean-Paul Sartre) or massive onslaughts (but does there exist a difference between left and right wing terror?) are not easily put into a single category of a historical monument.

How difficult to find, therefore, the proper language in the construction of such a historical monument, that becomes evident in what is presently a controversial theme especially in Germany, namely how to remember the Holocaust and at the same time ensure that this does not reoccur?

Naturally any historical monument as recreations of some specific moment and event in history should remind of the precariousness and value of life. But the majority of historical monuments do not elevate thoughts to that level of understanding. Rather they are, generally speaking, bleary in meaning, because they have been designed to reinforce but one single understanding of history.

Too many of the historical monuments existing in Europe are linked to but a particular event for which they stand out, in order to commemorate more features of heroism in war, than the soberness of truth. Most of these historical monuments try to make belief things as they occurred in a legendary way in e.g. 1871, 1914-18, 1939-45. Seldom do they invite and enhance reflections about the apparent difficulties to reconstruct the past in a truthful way.

We know from not only history, but also from own lived through experiences that actions, circumstances and contexts can easily alter also the possibilities of men and women to come together, that is how they support each other in such a way that war and criminal actions by others can be prevented in time. Crucial is to regard history not in an one sided way as a final outcome, as a destiny, but as the consequence of decisions and breaking of rules and ethical standards. For instance, once treaties are not respected and war perceived but as a 'lovely game', then destruction is immanent. Especially if war is looked upon as mere distraction from boredom in society, then such false needs lead to destruction and senseless waste of lives as was the case in First and Second World War. This a historical monument ought to expose and criticise. However, whether or not a historical monument would be capable of doing just that, that is doubtful, but at the very minimum it ought to refrain from contributing to the legends of hero ship and instead strengthen the wish to hear about reality.

Thomas Mann in his novel 'Zauberberg' (Magical Mountain) describes how eager those men were to leave behind their desk in the office and join a war that meant to them adventure, distraction, a getting away from it all. Little did they anticipate the horrors of violence and the emptiness of life in trenches. They were pushed into the brink of death or complete sacrifice by a military machine learning to use technology over man. It severed more than ever before the bondage between men and women. As Nathalie Sarraute would say, prior to 1914 Kafka could have written like Dostoevsky, but he could not thereafter. Human relationships had become after 1918 not only abstract, but now they are governed ever more so by factors of technology and organisational logics they can no longer understand any more in human terms.

There have been many questions such as 'but what makes people go to war', while answers to these questions are rare and hardly convincing, for too great a puzzle besets man's mind (George Steiner) as to why such terrible things can happen. Sometimes people feel getting involved in something greater than themselves, without really knowing why they let that happen. As if something overcomes them, they succumb to simple arguments which they realise only afterwards that they were foolish and wrong, but then it is too late. Had they listened to their parents or to the advise of a good friend, those things may have never happened. Man left is constantly wondering about all his 'missed opportunities'. Still, many historical monuments do not emphasize that. Instead they aim to glorify some decisiveness that altered apparently the outcome of the war and sealed the fate of so many men, women and children.

A historical monument stands not only out in the urban landscape by being set apart from road systems and other paths of communications, but risks in representing solely a glorious deed or event to be outside all times lived and experienced really by mankind. For lack of another term, the hidden dimension of a historical monument of the negative category may be called a psycho-sociological mix-up. Confusion, but also mistaking different levels, prevent reflections thereof from being articulated as 'sober truths'.

Michel Foucault and others before him, like the historian Thudicydes would speak about the 'voice of reason' that goes unheard in moments of decisive deliberations. Athens of Ancient Greece entered a fateful war with Sparta despite voices warning that would mean but one thing: total defeat of everyone.

Hence there is a need to know why mankind repeatedly ends up victimising itself by allowing the making of wrong decisions. One possible motivation was mentioned already above, namely the wish to escape boredom. There are others, more personal ones, that motivate people to embrace decisions even if they know that they are putting at risk not only their lives, but equally and above all that of others. If these decisions enable them to escape all sorts of family restrictions, and they begin at early childhood (e.g. don't play with those children, don't date that guy etc.), they are easily lured into doing the wrong things, especially if there is the promise that now they can do things never allowed before (see David Mantell, Family and Aggression, where there are differentiated those children who would later volunteer to do service in the Viet Nam war and those who became conscious objectors to military service, that is prepared to go to prison rather than kill anyone else or else flee to Canada or Sweden to escape conscription; the ones who volunteered grew up in restrictive family homes preaching 'law and order' while allowing their children never to express an own opinion, so that these children started doing already illegal things at an early age, but always hidden from their parents who would hit them the moment they were caught).

Even though Freud failed to answer Einstein's question about whether or not war can be prevented, there is something to this thesis about aggression and violence as being the result of a single act called 'Enthemmung': the loss of any hesitations and respect for the other as a human being.

Sometimes great things are born out of opposition to what the parents say, others find solutions by doing just what their parents say. It is not a clear-cut solution, but altogether the binding powers that keep people together and respect life, that is often quite apart from those who are really unknown to one another. Their way of living and search for solutions can be described sometimes as a hidden panic due to the fact that they think unable to do anything to secure a proper living. Often references were made about Hitler not withstanding his inferiority complex, that he could not conceive his life as a workman painting apartments of rich people. Envy and other kinds of projections intermingle with this deeper drive to secure some niche in society or, in another way, gain some position of power over others, so that they can be forced to secure for oneself that livelihood one is unable to do. Certainly Hitler was an extreme pathological case and Erich Fromm made some brilliant analysis as did Alexander Mitscherlich. These are nevertheless only partial answers for a much complexer issues, but it points out what has affected people throughout history.

Therefore, it depends from what marginal angle the historical monument is reflected upon and in turn to what kind of reflections of history the monument contributes to. In order to begin such reflections, it must be underlined that not everything affects in the same manner the course of events. Reactions to those events can vary, so that the decision to construct a historical monument in memory of what took place is but one of them.

Usually the construction involves a patriotic act, hence the question remains, but how to reach out to history and still remain politically differentiated enough to distinguish between patriotism and clear analysis of the present? This question can be confronted by various interpretations of a historical monument, insofar it is important to know what was meant by constructing such a symbolic representation at a prominent location in the city? Another question can be added, but does this historical monument reflect in a differentiated manner the movements of those times? They all sought some kind of expression in time, in order to leave a specific imprint upon history, but it is a true or merely an ideological, that is distorted one?

The finally constructed historical monument is more of a testimony of what these movements could achieve during those times. Usually they do not manage to create a true expression. Circumstances, lack of money, some political constellations and the will of a few or many to realise something, all that may have bolstered the chances for one kind of model of historical reflection over others. Subsequently it is very natural that many reasons and questions intermingle when passing by such a monument on the way to work.

When standing in front of a historical monument, then the daily level and the historical one seem at times quite apart. By contrast, there are other monuments that commemorate D-Day or other historical events which are deeply ingrained in the memories of the people. It reminds them of what they had gone through during that time, what everyone suffered then. In view of such a monument they shall remember afresh on memorial day what it was like back then! There is, for instance, the monument commemorating First World War in Ottawa, Canada, but how strange that it depicts soldiers pulling a canyon through a gate - out of fire or into hell? For commemoration purposes, the veterans of First World War would sell poppies to remind of the many poppies that sprung up on the battle fields of Verdun, there where the countless many had died. The poppies are symbolic associations that remind when even travelling past a field containing these red flowers.

Such associations can be equally connected to Lisgar Collegiate in Ottawa that has still on the fourth, but unused floor remnants of the shooting range where the cadets were trained prior to leaving for First World War in Europe. By comparison, in Munich at the grave of the 'unknown soldier', a grandmother would explain to her grandchild why the father would never return from Stalingrad. Different cultural settings, different stories and everyone confronted by those missing, or as the song of Simon and Garfunkel goes "my brother died....", while another song drifts through the generations to pose the question "but where have all the flowers gone...gone, gone to the graveyards...when will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?"

Almost forgotten in this nebulous existence of a historical monument is the fact, that there remain many further questions that have gone unnoticed until now and no one seems able to answer the child asking the father, 'but why war, why did you join the army?' All that touches upon the crucial moment of critical reflection, but can history and whatever took place back then be ever revoked by the kind of monuments we find throughout Europe? What do the war fields of Verdun say still today to any visitor? What about the grave of the 'unknown soldier' in Munich? Who has visited Auschwitz and has not left it with a new touch of silence in the heart?

Then, there is the monstrosity of the people's battle memorial monument in Leipzig. It is most difficult to come to terms with. Consequently it has become a recent subject of debate in that city itself. To advance that debate an international workshop was recently attempted to answer the question, whether or not this particular historical monument can be linked to contemporary trends and be given a new and different meaning through a conscious act of re-interpretation. According to its main initiator, Dr. Rodekamp, it would mean trying to give the monument a much more European rather than restrictive national or even local-regional dimension? Conversions of industrial buildings for new usages may be easier than adapting historical monuments to the new course of history in Europe. What then are the reflective answers to this question within this context of modern Europe?

To step aside for the moment, for Stefan Zweig history consists of golden opportunities for mankind, e.g. when Beethoven wrote the 9^th Symphony or how the Marseilles song was created in Strasbourg, but really used as battle cry by French soldiers coming from Marseilles. But is history really made, once men and women start together decisive actions? That may be too much a pathos, but the experience of making history does give to all actors another sense to what they are doing.

But while American politics appears to many since the Viet Nam war to be way out of tune, in terms of history it is interesting to note that due to the most recent presidential voting outcome between Gore and Bush being indecisive, the decision by election is suddenly no longer a mere ceremonial definition of the victorious one. That conveys another sense of history. The pat situation redefines history and politics by revealing how close things can come to make a difference. People do not wish life to be a mere outcome of arbitrary decisions, but once the outcome depends upon a difference of few votes, then it is graspable that an entire course of society can be altered given some extra or additional efforts. So in the aftermath to the election, there is a different history in the making. Many more are getting involved in the decision as to whom to give a vote, but still a grasp of understanding what makes people move on, that is not simple. However, this thinking process is subdued by the rhetoric of the political fight preferring now that courts, that is the 'law' decides and ensures the right candidate is declared the victor of this presidential election.

Other factors tend to drown out history, the identification as to moments in which mankind decides its own fate and destiny. For instance, once history is linked to the market, society disappears as a conscious decision making body, while reality is presented as if driven by an invisible hand (Adam Schmidt: 'The Wealth of Nations'). By now additions to that market concept have been made and are reflected in terms such as self-regulatory behaviour, in order to counterbalance some things. It goes already so far as the Minister of Culture for Finland, Ms. Linden speaking on the 5^th of May in Athens, Greece to mark that day as 'Day of Culture', can refer to the 'economy of emotions', so that people do not get out of control, but still enjoy what the Information Society has to offer in terms of entertainment, video games but just one of them. The worries are well founded, for the Information Society is marked by a seeming unbalance between communication per technology and what people are really talking about in their daily lives. The trust of the political proposal is clear: not the forces allowed to affect people should be regulated, but the emotions or response of the people to those forces. Business not just as usual, but under special conditions!

Indeed, such organisational strategies know also how to use monuments for purposes of channelling emotions into parochial feelings for the nation. In this context, it is worthwhile to cite Andre Breton who in an interview described his situation after the end of First World War:

"Bear in mind that, during the spring and summer of 1919 when the first six issues of Literature came out, we had very little freedom of movement: I wasn't discharged until September, and Aragon several months after that. The powers that were took great care to ease the transition between the kind of existence to which the war had introduced us, and the kind that the return to civilian life held in store. This precaution was hardly superfluous. The inevitable contact between soldiers returning from the front soon ended up retrospectively heightening the reasons for anger: their feelings about the pointless sacrifice or so many lives; their desire to 'square accounts' with the rear guard, whose famous hard-line policies had for so long gone hand in hand with ruthless racketeering; the innumerable broken homes; and the extreme mediocrity of any future prospects; the headiness of military victory had died down....

We had gotten away from the war, that much was certain, but what we couldn't get away from was the 'brain washing' that for four years had been turning men - who asked only to live and (with rare exceptions) get along with their neighbours - into frenzied and fanatical creatures who not only did their masters' bidding, but could also be ruthlessly decimated. Naturally, some of these poor fellows were now looking rather angrily at the ones who had given them such good reasons to go fight. One couldn't keep these former soldiers from comparing notes or sharing their individual experiences, which the censorship office had made sure were never broadcast. No more than one could keep them from discovering the extent of the war's ravages, the limitless passivity it had generated and, when this passivity had tried to rouse itself; the terrible harshness of the repression that followed. As you might imagine, they were not in the best of moods.

Andre Parinaud: Still, the general atmosphere was not one of revolt, but rather of apathy - or so it seems at this remove.

Andre Breton:

It's true that most of these soldiers soon chose their camps. Little by little, they formed associations whose leaders quickly managed to channel their dissatisfaction. Moreover, even when their interests began to diverge sharply, as 'war veterans' they maintained a certain measure of purely sentimental solidarity (which in retrospect is rather amusing). The powers I spoke of - who had braved extreme unpopularity during the war years - had no trouble staying in office, simply by promoting darkly destitute ceremonies to absorb the unrest that threatened to spread like a stain. These ceremonies foreshadowed the constant inauguration of monuments to the dead that live on today as testaments to an age of vandalism, such as the shrine of the 'unknown solider' in Paris' Place de l'Etoile.... As far as I was concerned, now that I was freed from the military yoke, I was determined to avoid any new obligations. Come what may."

(Conversations, The Autobiography of Surrealism - Interview by Andre Parinaud, New York, 1993, p. 37 - 38)

Breton's point about the use of monuments to remember only certain things, because an elongation of censorship, emphasizes that there are other intentions than just remembrance at stake. For if such a historical monument is made to forget the deeper cuts the events referred to left behind in social reality, then it says something about the cleverness of forces in power. By knowing how to organise events around the monument, in order to make everyone forget the true facts, then those who do remember things in the same, that is controlled way, these people can then easily be denounced as being not patriotic, as even traitors with no respect for the fallen dead. Already the Social Democrats in Germany could be coerced into voting for the war credits to make possible start of World War I by this type of argument. The Conservative Right threatened them that if they would vote otherwise, then they could be denounced forever as 'Vaterlandslose Gesellen' - apprentices without a fatherland or home.

In short, monuments and the ceremonies around them indicate the organisational potential of a society interested in undermining or undercutting real solidarity effects. Power wishes to make decisions alone and anyone who protests against that faces expulsions. Even more so, anyone who dares to solidarise with that ousted person and speaks up in protest against unfair and unjust treatment, that person is punished even more severely for daring to question that decision. The effect is an ending of solidarity. It leaves the individual in such a system exposed to mobbing, if he dares to criticise those in power. If all are against that individual, not power is wrong, but that individual for threatening the entire system. Such a mechanism produces mobbing and even colleagues of the person participate in this out of fear to loose their own jobs if they show signs of solidarity, indeed resistance. Mobbing is used to ward off any criticism and allows those in power to claim that all things were done in agreement with everyone.

A historical monument in its clear-cut affinity to the victorious power underlines the ruthlessness of history, namely that power can never tolerate in fact a different opinion. As such the monument becomes an a historical edifice of anti-democratic impulses. As such it goes against anything wishing to change the relationship people have to power and denies any democratic demand for accountability and transparency as basic principles of governance.

So a historical monument of the first category is a part of an encompassing method on how power wishes to safeguard its privileges on decisions and distributions of privileges. In Iran, the death of a child who went searching for mines in the war against Iraq was declared by the Mullahs as the best way to attain special rights for his family, e.g. one brother of his could then study at university, that is find access to other privileges. The promised land is never far away from the real whip or death, so that lured by that sacrifices of human lives are readily made. By giving in to the whimsical wishes of power, all principles upholding life in freedom of human dignity are abandoned. Clearly these methods leading to sacrifice of life as used by those in power are very similar everywhere. Regardless of differences in cultures and time needed for economic development, these powerful mechanisms exploit the human mentality in the most clever, equally stupid way. Power in that sense is both sophisticated and rudimentary and most of the followers hunger for allusive privileges that they think are only available for those that have the power.

Such a power arrangement based on the distribution of privileges is arbitrary and does not follow any law. If left unchallenged, those in power shall retain forever the illusion, that they can do whatever they like as long as they maintain the system of exclusive decision making processes. Hence no one working for one formal organisations may in the name of the organisation declare solidarity for someone treated unfairly in another organisation. There is the law of neutrality and of keeping silent, that is no one is allowed to draw up explicitly a political position to what is going on.

Solidarity and outspokenness is not allowed for that would spoil the chances of that organisation to be on 'good terms' with every other organisation. Such practice can be linked to the role such a historical monument does and should play for the power as prevailing right in Europe. Such power upholds the perversion of logic, namely that governance is the outcome of being victorious and not of human deliberations.

The critical point starts once the historical monument is used again as ideological rallying point to negate freedom of the individual and thus prevents the individual to find in his or her time reasons of existence: 'la raison d'etre' - the reason to be (Jean Paul Sartre). Once that is negated, the life of the individual is threatened because all those who wish to belong together, they base their common bondage on a wish to forget their individual weaknesses vis-a-vis others. Because of this internal and eternal fear not to be able to survive in society, they turn all emotions against human relationships and thus come easily under the tutelage of those who wish to decide on their own who belongs, who not to the group. That is the reflex of the supervise group to those officially in power.

Frederique Chabaud, co-ordinator of EFAH (European Forum for Arts and Heritage) emphasises that the latest book by Paul Ricoeur does focus on this problem of 'forgetting'. His interpretation has to be seen in the context of what he strives for, namely an ethical sovereignty based on 'just memories'. Ricoeur's work started with 'interpretation', something Adorno would call in German more readily 'Deutungen' (the pointing out of interpretations that give the material substances another meaning altogether) and which can be linked to Freud's thesis about interpretations of dreams. This is to say, one has to be very careful when it comes to interpreting a historical monument for it is not a dream, but something like a castle built on sand and therefore ready to collapse at any moment once the waves come in. By linking this problem to Ricoeur's ongoing work, it follows that monuments cannot be simply re-interpreted, in order to make possible some conversion of those meanings, that were attached to the monument in the past. There has to be retained a realistic notion as to what is possible with any given, even if most controversial monument such as the one in Leipzig.

For if 'just memories' are left out, then no normal meaning can be found nor any activity be brought in relation to any kind of sovereignty. The expediency of any simple conversion follows its own logic and, therefore, the acquisition of all memories would serve but the purpose to silence the question, but what is a just society? Consequently such failed re-interpretation would be but a pre-determination of a wrong kind of justice in terms of the needed dialogue within society between the present and the past. It is inconceivable that such a dialogue could be realised without 'just memories'. As a most crucial concept, this says a lot about how Europe can develop, in order to become a just society. Due to the many wars and other problems, there are many tasks ahead in order that Europe can realise that. It shall not be easy due to the many re- Nationalisms reinforcing themselves all over Europe.

By not standing up against such false notions as 'patriotism for the fatherland as preparation for war', the historical monument continues to uphold fatalist ideas about the course of events. It is not reflection, but enticement to war that makes the historical monument pervert all sobering truths about the possibilities of mankind to live in peace. A historical monument is even more dangerously tied up with such ideological trends, if it tries to uphold the notion that history is solely made by special events and by great men, or as the case of the Leipziger People's Battle Memorial, by a great grouping of nations. That links the monumental to suggestive powers about what man can do, if he rises above himself and looks history, so to speak, straight into the eyes.

In reality, the suggestive principle of the historical monument rests on a restoration of an illusionary continuity of identity despite all changes. Even more important, it rests on a lie that such an identity existed in the past. Through this backward lie to legitimise something like 'us being a great nation', the monument becomes an epochal voice resisting all changes. No wonder that forces of restoration side with it.

In many forms the historical monument does demonstrate these effective, equally highly suggestive powers, hence it can help reproduce dangerously such blindness that does not allow coming to terms with time, that is with the fact things move on, change and go beyond even the present.

If the monument has, therefore, an impact upon such movements that use it to organise resistance against all changes, then this ultra conservative way of stepping out of reality means really new risks and even dangers are looming ahead. In Leipzig, that is the case once right wing movements use the people's battle memorial monument again in 2000 to evoke anti-foreigner slogans. Their chants are based a wish for a society that can be liked to Nazism. To that belongs the lie that Auschwitz never existed and what Nolte as historian legitimises as national assertiveness. In such a context, the people's battle memorial monument of Leipzig can easily be used to revoke old battle cries of extreme German Nationalism.

All that tumult at the foot of the monument cannot really be seen at the top of the monument just looming over and above daily life. There the standpoint about the monument in Leipzig is being re-interpreted by historians, museum directors for war or peace museums etc., all trying to find a new role for it. That is a bit like trying to define a different context of meaning, when in fact all these efforts go against the grain of history. In brief, it is not enough legitimacy to attempt this re-interpretation of the historical monument by giving it a European dimension by arguing, but one has to come to terms with such monumental edifice of history.

The difference resides in what is considered to be monumental and still within man's reach of hands and sense of understanding. Therefore much more humane are the sculptures standing quietly on some Greek platia waiting till everyone has gone home, in order to step down from the high pedestal. This they do, the poets claim, when these sculptures think to be alone. They wish not to be seen what they do when they become alive again. Poets describe that as a surrealist moment. It is translated into an anxiety about life leaving no longer one to sleep so deeply, but to dream in reality. Or else it is a sign that far flung dreams are really the songs heard at night due to the sculptures singing strange, but interesting tunes of music. As such, it is the quivering light of the night no longer to be defined as just black like the darkness of the night. The Surrealists have always claimed that black knows many colours and cannot, therefore, be singly defined.

But this the historical monument attempts to do during the day time, namely to define in a single, imperfect but equally tough and over simplistic way what is history about when man turns to action worthy to be remembered. The scars and wounds of those who died in vain are covered up by this heroic attempt to transcend death by constructing something that has an allusion to immortality. A lot of misunderstandings surround that issue and it lets people believe certain, but wrong things about how future prospects can be created on the basis of what decisions and decisive actions were made in history.

Elytis in 'Axion Esti' says that the German officer who shot and killed a Greek refusing to obey his orders in the land of ivy, did not know that his life had ended then, while the future of that Greek had but just begun. In analogy to that, one is almost tempted to say, the historical monument means an end to future development and thus contributes towards a forgetfulness, that the future belongs to those weak people who power mistreated so much, as if life does not mean anything.

Thus to return to the problematic side, learning to forget through a monument by remembering only something specific in history, that is risking that the very same and old mistakes of the past are going to be repeated again in future. This is especially the case, once history is conceived as a single force man needs to grasp, in order to forge his destiny. It is like man trying to capture lightening to gain extra energy.

In brief, a tragic pathos can manifest itself in such monuments meant to immortalize, but in vain for the next generations have already another aesthetical taste. That can evoke anger amongst the elderly resenting that the younger look more into the future rather than showing respect for the past. In turn, if the radical right returns to the monument, then it must receive the endorsement of those elderly who could never accept the defeat of 1945 as Nazism did not the one after 1918. A lot more questions have to be asked here than what is heard publically even in conjunction with a possible prohibition of the NDP to organise itself as a legitimate party. The ideological foundation of National Socialism is after all something linked to the strength of the state over the individual and as such not easily refuted by efforts to bring about democratic practise in post War Germany both East and West.

If only all would remember those who died in vain or were killed for nothing. There is the vanity of the generals (Solzhenitsyn: August 1914) as one fatal cause, or superiors who think the value of life can be reclaimed through wastage thereof (Bataille). As the twentieth century has worked itself through a 'Disenchantment of the Eye' (Martin Jay), account thereof depends upon working through its very intellectual history, including arguments presented on how to perceive things. That is connected with how evidences of history are revealed through non conformists thoughts. It is done best by staying outside any system, but in the memory track (Sigmund Freud). Such an effort would mean trying to uphold conditions of a peaceful civil society. It can be done by avoiding any urge to enter again old and new fields of conflicts without having learned anything out of the past, when it comes to shape the future.

But what then is the future of mankind, if there are always those who seek to go down in history as truly great men? The driving force to be 'great' is reflected in a beautiful pantomime by Marcel Marceau. He imitates a person walking through a garden and admiring so much that one monument standing there, high above the ground, because he believes everyone looks up to it when passing by. Enchanted by this idea and wishing to be admired likewise, this person climbs up to the pedestal and pretends to be himself a monument. Hardly up there, his entire body turns into stone. Silence, the winds and an occasional bird landing on his head are the only visitors. There is no audience, no admirers passing by and practically the wish to be a monumental figure turns into something else, namely stone. The Pantomime description reveals the vanity of man and underlines the emptiness of such need.

Instead of wishing to be remembered by everyone else, it is much more important to see that everyone is great. Vincent Van Gogh said, the sign of a great man is that he can see the greatness in others and that means not those representative heroes of history, but the simple people. As David Fine, sculpturer in Israel would say, to be very simple and equally monumental, that is truly great art and history is endowed by the contributions of many unknown artists that have enriched greatly man's self understanding. To be simple, that is most difficult while to be monumental in that sense implies to be great in humbleness.

Hence there is no need for heroic deeds. The necessity to be remembered for such deeds, that is not to be ranked above everything and everybody else. It would be a foolish act for it turns man into stone. That is the case when becoming completely insensitive towards the needs of others. Rather it is much more desirable to be respectful of the greatness of mankind in all the varied dimensions of daily life. This is where meanings can flow together and form a river out of which the languages of mankind are created to nourish and refresh man's self understanding via others.

Not to be forgotten is perhaps a main spring of men in power. That drives them to do absurd things, even to lie, just in order to go down in history as a great man about whom people shall say in future he did not nothing in vain. However, exactly these men fear the rapid pace of daily changes for they have grown to be afraid of being forgotten the moment they step out of the limelight of actual or breaking news.

Pablo Neruda describes this very well with fishermen fighting a huge polypon that had gripped their small fishing boat one day. One arm after another came over the board side and starting to cling to the oars, mast and rudder. One of those brave fishermen did not escape the fate but was dragged by the sucking arms into the sea never to be seen again. The others fought bravely and finally they succeeded in escaping the monster. The next day they were heroes. Every newspaper carried on the front page their story. But when they bought the same newspapers the next day, other headlines screamed out newer, fresher and more exciting news, but nothing about them. They felt to be already forgotten by everyone. It was then, says Neruda, that they grew afraid of life. They started to drink something like ouzo, a kind of alcohol which turns milky once diluted with water and which the Ancient Greeks called the milk of the Gods by which the King of Corinth could even outfox the devil fetching him to hell. In those drinks they managed to drown their fears, but whenever they looked up, their eyes no longer saw straight railway tracks leading to the harbour, but instead these tracks were in their eyes bent, shivering like themselves inside and certainly not straight. They had grown afraid of life due to realising that they live in a world that forgets easily what the others have done just yesterday.

It is the plight of politicians trying to be great men, especially if in an office that has measures of history like the White House in Washington. Journalists comment on how the current president of the United States, Bill Clinton, tries in vain to enter the history books to be read by future generations. What mark shall he leave once he leaves the White House? At least he tries setting up a library to be known in future through such an act, but will there be streets named after him like Washington or even monuments constructed? Indeed, it must be a strange feeling to be forced to pack one's things after eight years in office and to become once again an ordinary citizen!

The American constitution does try to safeguard the country against the vanity of men wishing to become great, but in doing so, step outside all human proportions as did Hitler. Yet what does it take that men in office of the White House are not tempted nor pressured into doing something great in order to be remembered for generations to come, if that would mean going to war and leaving but more scars too hard to forget and yet too painful to remember. The way Bill Clinton handles the wounds of Viet Nam demonstrates that kind of official silence which is more deadly than the silence of cemeteries of the unknown soldiers.

Certainly history has shown over and again that the risk of something leaving behind more scars than redemptive powers is abnormally high. Over and again society is being inflicted upon by violent outbursts of energy due to hate and pettiness of mind. War and crime propel people towards doing things, they would never conceive as being capable of doing in sober moments of truth. Unfortunately there are many ways to intoxicate people into believing they can become strong in the wrong sense of the word, namely to be powerful over others and hence free to do with their lives whatever they want. Such abuse children experience first at hand through their own parents. Rather everyone ought to be strong in words and convictions, in order to live peacefully together with the others. If unable, they end up forming single forces going against themselves and others. They tend to forget that all the others are like themselves, that is human beings dependent upon love, water, the ability to share and to work the land.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine is one of those tragic interlocked conflicts about holy land claims propelled by both extreme religious and secular demands. Since everything is holy and therefore absolute, all opportunities and means to remain in touch with this holy land are justified. Around that notion of being in the right because holy, fanaticism is built up, but one of blindness to the fact that young children are trained to handle guns on the basis of hate for the other side, while death is suggested to be the entry into the holy land. The lure is simple, since dying for the cause makes one become a martyr. He shall enter paradise. It is a fake, but effective promise made by those who lure the others into war and self sacrifice. It is suggested that he will have done his duty for a better future, but one which he will not see like Moses.

In that context of Israel, the sculpturer David Fine created some time ago a peace monument on an air force base so that the pilots returning could see it clearly. The monument is a tank turn upside down, like a beetle helplessly thrown on its back, with the nose of the tank stuck into the ground. It is a message suggesting that making war is in vain, but whether or not that message is always remembered, can be doubted.

The People's Battle Memorial Monument in Leipzig

A whole range of questions exist as a result of the workshop held in Leipzig, October 23 - 25. Is it really possible to come to terms with the 'people's battle memorial monument' by trying to give it now a European dimension? What is the European dimension? What about the debate about historical monuments or about 'Denkmalpflege', as it is called in Germany with Antje Vollmer of the GREENS making some very contradictory statements to this subject, but within the overall trend towards privatization.

The leading spirit of the workshop, Dr. Rodekamp and director of the Museum for the History of the City, did connect the discussion to find some re-interpretation possibilities of the monument, in order to gain the city's support in trying to obtain the necessary finances for the restoration needed by the monument. There is a set target, if the monument is to be saved by 2013, that is when the monument will have its one hundred year anniversary.

Until now nothing has been done with this monument precisely because it is not only an ugly, much loved, equally hated object in the city landscape. It is also a controversial one, ideologically speaking, while in terms of the needs of the present an empty statement with regards to Germany after re-unification in 1989. Furthermore the monument is most difficult to be integrated into the newly shaped urban landscape of Leipzig. Not only the fairs have moved out of the inner city region, but also the market halls and other infrastructures in the vicinity of the monument are no longer in use. As depicted at the beginning of these reflections, the monument stands alone in an urban landscape having become empty and devoid of any meaning.

Subsequently the monument poses not only questions of how to face restoration costs, but what symbolic meanings it took on since its opening in 1913, that is one year prior to the start of the First World War. As if such an occasion can escape the interpretation that this was done with intent to incite for War, it means all the more posing the serious question, but could such a monstrosity be really called after some successful conversion of meaning an European peace monument?

Of course, Dr. Rodekamp is right in trying to distinguish between past and present, that is between former uses and what needs to be done, if it is to attain a European dimension. There were even times when the monument was used as rallying point of specific car owners, that is an almost innocent use in terms of wanting to have a common denominator for some unique kind of mobility. Still the far more serious implications of dealing with such a monument have to be spelled out and it is of interest what sort of social and political context shall be given to the debate, whether or not the monument should be torn down, left to itself or be renewed, that is restored. Those favouring the third solution would argue that begins by just cleaning the granite stone having become over time black. It would make the monument look at least not so gloomy as right now.

Insofar as its architectural design and features of the monument falls out of the classical lines of the Wilhelm era, preservation rules for cultural heritage may apply as well to this monument and hence prevent its dismantling. But of real interest is how the director of the monument described the Monument as having quite another dimension. According to him the Monument represents the 'Innerlichkeit' - the interior sentiment - of the German nation as conceived by the Nationalists of those times.

Since that Nationalism accumulating in First World War, there had been many attempts to use and misuse the Monument after 1918 for solidifying or upsetting whatever may have been the political foundation of the Weimar Republic.. All that ended with 1933 when the National Socialists started to use the monument during their reign from 1933 until 1945 as rallying point for their pathos of war. The latter is based on the assertion of the people: 'das Volk'.

Clearly the suggestive principle was that this 'Volk' - the word 'people' sounds so different in English - would stride towards 'ruhmreiche Taten': 'deeds worthy to be remembered'. Therefore, in accordance with such an ideology a 'Volk' deserves a monstrosity of monument as epigram of the monumental deeds still ahead, in order to become famous, strong and united. What then is the situation today? Here Dr. Rodekamp, who lives in the vicinity of the monument, had to admit that right wing radicals, neo-fascist groups, anti foreigner movements etc. are lately using again and increasingly more so the monument to incite themselves with the same or similar slogans of the past. Even while the monument itself may look on as silent witness whether or not 'der Anschluss gefunden werden kann' - the connection to the past - it means that the monument itself is not neutral, but lends itself exactly to this type of ideological manifestation.

By not being neutral in the way it can be interpreted, it means that the monument sets out definite principles on how it can be integrated in any kind of memorial ceremony. Simply said, the monument can be used as rallying point to incite, but not to become sober and reflective.

One reason for saying that about this particular monument is its very appearance alone from the outside. For the monument appears to be willing to respond to the need for incitement because of its suggestive strength. The need itself is the result of fear to be crushed, to be left alone, to be without a strong foothold in society. The excluded rally around it to exclude others who do not share with them this sense of conviction. With the monument as testimony, the excluded find themselves by determining more forcefully who can belong to their self determined group. Insofar this is the case, such a group can grow into a movement. This is already reflected in the monument representing the wish to belong to a nation. With its strong emphasis upon 'Innerlichkeit', it revokes over and again the concept of 'self determination'. With it goes the perversion of freedom: not the individual, but the nation should be free to determine itself and, therefore, capable of delineating itself from all others.

That is not the same meaning Woodrow Wilson evoked at the end of the First World War. Yet the misunderstanding of that concept has fuelled ever since the xenophobic forces in Europe. Today they attempt to steer Europe away from integration and towards even more assertiveness based on cultural self-determination. The extreme case of that is 'ethnic cleansing'. It has been practised as of late in former Yugoslavia, indicating, therefore, that these forces never really vanish.

The crucial difference to the kind of self determination President Woodrow Wilson referred to and how the concept has been perceived in Germany, that can be explained on hand of the concept of 'Innerlichkeit'. German Romanticism would declare that to be the subjective reality of the self. It is inside the human being and which cannot be determined by any outside force.

However, Hegel foresaw already the impossibility of this interior world to exist on its own, since the very existence in reality demands by necessity that there is given a form and a concept to this inner world. Unfortunately the need to give oneself a concept means that the 'I' destroys itself in the process, or as Hegel puts it 'das Ich geht im Begriff zugrunde'. That is why ground, destruction and reason are oddly mixed up in some kind of inclusive form of self assertion ending all solidarity with the other as human being.

Such inner fear and assertion reflects itself perfectly in the monument because a suitable vehicle to give the concept of 'Innerlichkeit' a material substance by which it becomes possible to contribute to the new nation. As it was the case after 1871 when the German state came into existence under the iron rule of Bismarck, such ideological formation can be repeated endlessly. It is not history evolving, but made to appear as the static element around which all other things have to resolve.

The monument is conceived in such a way that the interior is presented as the soft spot, the vulnerable inner world, making it all the more necessary that it is protected on the outside by a shell made first out of a cement layer and which is then protected by granite.

Soft inside, double hard outside may even depict a nation wishing to reflect itself in such double terms. That is then the UN-usual monument standing out of architectural history in relation to what was built in Germany during the reign of Wilhelm. It is a special fearful way of posing the question as to what nation is to be formed.

In that sense, it is significant that the monument does not recall consciously the reason for its existence, namely the memory of various armies having defeated Napoleon. Rather it is much more significant to the ideological proponents of the monument that after many fruitless efforts to construct such a monument, it was finally done with the help of the people who donated the money. This linkage to people making possible the construction of a monstrosity of a monument makes it almost impossible to criticise the ideological position behind it.

By approaching now the monument in an effort to get finally city officials to deal with it, there is urgency in the air. It is said that something has to be done now in anticipation of the year 2013, that is when the monument shall have its hundredth anniversary. Dr. Rodekamp attempts this by using the debate in the workshop, in order to find out how it would be possible to give the monument a European dimension while not neglecting the national context. However, this very approach taken now by those involved in Leipzig actively with the monument confirms only how Europe is being used or rather misused nowadays. As a matter of fact Europe has become synonymous with secular Nationalism wishing to test in the newly emerging European reality, that is after the fall of the wall in 1989, how far it can do in its desire for self-determination.

The key question posed by everyone under this national umbrella called Europe is how open can everybody be to one's neighbours while still managing to retain a self entity able to claim its own or unique cultural identity? The German Conservative battle cry for a 'Leit-Kultur', a culture that leads, belongs in that category of using Europe to further own interests.

Both the scientific-historic efforts and the political battle cries trying to solicit culture for their own purposes leave out one important question, namely who is ready to identify him- or herself with such a nation depicted by such a re-interpreted monument linked now to the so-called European dimension? Nationalism is nationalism, and an 'Innerlichkeit' defined as such not really what constitutes a living culture.

A living culture is known through its people not only engaged in dialogue based on the openness to others, but also in respecting each other's and very different cultural backgrounds. That fulfils the notion that no culture can define itself, but only through others does everyone find a way of expressing themselves. 'Osmosis' can be used as a concept to describe such a process. It means no cultures can define itself by itself, but only through other cultures. In other words, any society that is cut off from others in this global world has but destroyed the cultural basis of all human communication.

To be sure, there is another approach to historical monuments. They are seen by historians like Reinhard Koselleck as 'monumental icons' in need of being decoded and deciphered. The dilemma exists insofar not every historical moment offers the codes or keys to do that. Their static appearance is as deceptive as are icons themselves. In reality, icons are schematas with maximum freedom of expression within that repetitive pattern based on some decentralised linkage to the centrality of meaning. Here the Orthodox world is rich in examples, while the Roman Catholic Church and other Western religious movements had their difficulties in appealing to the senses while leaving the concept of God or the centrality to be worshipped not only unseen, but abstract. Out of that followed not only the picture dispute since the 6^th century A.D., but also very peculiar forms of political manifestations.

To be sure, European nationalism tried to make concrete the principle of unity on the basis of self determination for belonging together. It is not a simple equation and therefore monuments as political icons have to be evaluated accordingly. In other words, do they contribute or not to reflections about war and peace? Since all have been constructed after the event took place, do they show remorse or have they been constructed with intent to incite patriotic and national feelings whenever that need arises? If so, they tend to glorify war and its heroes while making forget what suffrages goes with all those 'glorious deeds' that apparently happened then and should happen again if people are willing to rise to the occasion.

Thus monuments can declare different things, the prime one being, of course, what is worthy to be remembered out of all those past events. Crucial is, therefore, how they perceive and give freedom to interpretations of all those things leading up to the key event and in reference to which the monument has been constructed.

The monument in Leipzig appears above all by itself in the wish to stand outside the current times and yet to be determined finally by some definite outcome within the context of war. The anticipation of First World War, to make the people ready for such a sacrifice as they did for the monument itself, circumscribes both content and context of the monument. Its monumental size suggests at the same time that it stands above being either defeat or victory, in order to attain a mystified centrality as to forthcoming decisions with many more decisive actions to follow. These are the hidden promises or how it can used as an ideological tool to lure people into the wrong thinking about how to shape their lives. By understanding itself as being above direct outcomes of war, its transcendental logic does not make it into a peace monument, but one which can glorify deeds in the context of both war and peace. The latter concept is really the redefinition of time in relation to war.

If, therefore, the monument in Leipzig is taken as an example of national unity, then it represents a conscious attempt to make this synthesis appear to be almost a mystical arch for all kinds of betrayals needed to attain this unity. Any nation unified into one single betrayal, namely that of human life as being important, leaves the monument in this world of silence speak out the only true significance for all, namely of being out of one's own living time and ready to exist only within the continuity of a different time zone that the nation demands as such.

Like the monument, the nation stands alone, not understand by all or many, and yet used as the unmoving force that can move all. Hegel called that force 'death' and an incarnation of that is only possible, if mystified beyond any rational thought and what human beings can understand when living and being together.

In brief, the monument stands for an atypical disbelief in other forms of humane society and, therefore, awaits the opportunities to revenge itself against any efforts of enlightenment. No wonder then that Adorno and Horkheimer realised that the failure of the Enlightenment is the result of xenophobic forces that continue to be active in an unhindered way by insulting human dignity and as such transform those experiences into wounded pride that creates not only individual, but equally national loneliness. Carlos Fuentos identifies rightly so this as 'the' key dimension of how architects designed then Theresienstadt as the way to the concentration camp: 'the vision of loneliness'. It goes with a nation seeking by itself and apart from all other cultures such a mythical strength that it does not see the monologue of its language follows out of loneliness, that is a state of despair about the situation of mankind due to not knowing any more on how to continue staying in a dialogue with others and, therefore, with reality.

Location of monuments, or when it is too late to turn around

To repeat, the static appearance of historical monuments is as deceptive as are icons by themselves. While the one side understands in them signs of belief, the other side conceive it as being really power. The closest a historical monument comes then to history in terms of inner and outer deceptions, but unified through xenophobic forces, the more its meaning relies upon an unfulfilled need for greatness. Distortion enters insofar others may call that a search ideals, others goals and still others notions of making history, in order to be remembered as in the past others were before.

Yet a historical monument violates life if it ignores that it cannot touch twice upon the same time axiom of history, as it is impossible for man to step twice into the same river. Consequently only some or very few of these monuments can make a difference by belonging to the second or even more so to the third category. Many of them end up somewhere in-between inciting war and offering a justification at to what happened back then, but only with some remembrance as to what took place in reality. Stronger places like the Museum of Verdun do underline the nonsense and irrationality that have brought about war and with it the loss of many lives.

Indeed, historical monuments rarely make possible reflections upon man's actions with the aim to limit in future xenophobic forces taking hold once again of man. Such reflections comes about when men are not ready to die for a national or as a matter of fact for any cause, especially not, if it would mean killing the friend with whom one had studied together just one year earlier on in Paris, as depicted by the famous film 'Jules et Jim'.

Stefan Zweig in 'Sternstunde der Menschheit' (Hours of the Stars in the history of Mankind, that is when something truly outstanding happened) wrote also about the reason for Napoleon’s defeat not near Leipzig, but at Waterloo. This story gives only a side view on history, but an important one. Napoleon had no longer all his former staff assembled around him, most of his capable officers had been killed or gone into retirement. Only some old and very loyal followers who had always obeyed his command were with him when facing the British army at Waterloo. Of interest to Stefan Zweig is what happened once Napoleon realised that the Prussian army suddenly took off into the surrounding woods. Not sure what this served the overall battle aim, he ordered one such loyal officer to gather his troops and to pursue the Prussian army, but under one condition, namely to stay in touch with him at all times just in case his troops were needed back at the main front line. The officer took his troops and set out to locate the Prussian army. Soon they were lost and after some vainless searches for the Prussian army, they wondered what to do. Some officers of lower rank urged the main officer in charge to return immediately to Napoleon, but to this loyal officer an order was an order that had to be obeyed. Not only his hesitation to disobey, but lack of sensing what would be the right decision in such a case made him forget the request of Napoleon to stay in touch. The Prussian army managed to return to the main battle ground and arrived just at the moment when both sides were exhausted, that is not defeated but also unable to continue fighting. The sudden appearance of the Prussian army tilted decisively the balance and Napoleon was defeated for a second and decisive time. Stefan Zweig concluded that the outcome of history can be determined by those who are not able to take their own initiative and do not judge by themselves what is the most appropriate thing to do in such a historical moment.

Unfortunately too many historical monuments do not reconstruct history in such a way that it is brought to the consciousness that the war could have been prevented. Instead the very glorification silences the critical review of the past and leaves many things unsaid vis-a-vis future generations. So monuments are unsuitable to provide unique insights into what could make a difference in the history of mankind.

There is the description of Andre Malraux as to how the first experimental use of gas in First World War created such havoc amongst all men, that friend and foe mixed up the directions in which they were running. Panic stricken, they all suffered the same loss of illusion, namely that human life was to be respected while science managed to unlock the secrets of nature and with it create machines and technologies that went beyond any human ability to destroy life.

Taking it further and still around the same time as linked to the First World War, Solzhenitsyn reveals in his novel August 1914 that the breaking out of war begins a long time before and continues after it happened because the backs of men and women are constantly broken. It is not as Kant said cynically, 'human beings are bent wood that cannot be straightened', but that the many burdens leave many go into their knees. It leaves culture to be something before, after and during war, that is not in peace.

Once culture cannot function as mediating segment throughout society, in order to allow for a feeling of security and safety for growing up, then immediate and long-term impacts of all wars have been a negation of the fictitious difference between civilians and soldiers. Total war engulfed everyone and only some sober spirits sob silently when writing in their diaries, that they could have prevented the outbreak of war, but that they failed terribly by not doing so. The theatre writer Hochhuth departs from such a diary entry by a young man who died on the battle fields of First World War. He meant perhaps that if he had kept alive the imagination and not let the human consciousness be reduced to a perception of war as an escape from boredom created by daily, routine life, then there might have been a difference to what took place at Verdun and not only there. Yet the absurdity was also born there, on those battle fields, for as a Canadian teacher for Physics explained to his pupils over and again by not doing science, but explaining his historical account, that all soldiers got out of their trenches around Christmas and started to celebrate together, but by the third day mistrust entered their hearts again and fearful that the others would shot first, they backed away, that is they went backwards to the trenches in order to keep the others in their eyes.

The senseless of war cannot be reflected adequately in the kind of powerlessness people feel when overwhelmed by all kinds of events that over roll them. Andre Breton makes them be not exactly responsible, but he criticizes them for not asking many, that is difficult questions about life, but just want to live. They can be converted through a training to obey commands and thus be turned into frenzied machines of destruction. That means they are too malleable and allow, therefore, too many things to happen unnoticed, that is without their apparent self doing or awareness as to what is going on. They have learned to keep their nose out of the business of others.

Here the theory of Solzhenitsyn is more direct: generals at the central headquarters find war to be a lovely game and in preparing for it interesting to see if the army is really physically fit. Therefore they order the Russian soldiers on their way to the Finnish front to get out of the train and to walk the rest of the way along the track. That senseless exercise was thought to be such a good idea, but after four days of walk besides the means of transport, i.e. railway line, this made no sense at all to those soldiers forced to make that long walk. Consequently the Russian army was defeated by the Finnish one since they were already worn out and dispirited even before they got engaged with their Finnish counterparts. Senseless war is, therefore, a metaphor for more than just foolish commands by some superiors who think they can dispose over the lives of others, as they believe they can order their troops to inflict more than just pain defeat upon the others picked as the enemy in this procured situation.

Why then this emphasis upon First World War as a calamity mankind had to face when there are all those horrific questions about Second World War along with its concentration camps to exterminate the Jews, Intellectuals, Gypsies, disabled people and others who were declared by the Nazis as not belonging to the 'Volk' - the people? It is because racialism along national, religious and political lines is but an extension of prejudice? If allowed to continues unchallenged and let ready to explode always in the faces of those people, who oppose the reduction of man to a national or ethnical 'we', that is one delineated from the 'others' whoever they might be, then contrary to what Marx said, prejudices are not a healthy sign of people, but rather an economy of decisions enacted upon almost automatically over and again in a blind, stupor manner which is equally frightening and harmful to any co-existence.

Thus at a time when Israel is involved in a violent struggle with the Palestinians seeking as well some safeguard, in order to be able to call the places where they live their home, something more has to be said before squandering more money on historical monuments. For maybe they ought to be left more to the natural decay of time than be restored, because the latter act tends to resurrect over and again some false arguments about their place in telling the history of mankind.

If any definition of home can be proposed, then one which is free of the imposition by a historical monument. Home is the location from which to solicit hope in real, not illusionary terms that life can be sustained. We see how families react when someone of their kin is killed in a plane crash. It is something else when the strife of society reaches right down to the very chord of family life, as one member decides to become an opponent of the regime or another joins a radical movement with no certainty that it will end there. The revolt against the life the parents convey can make sons and daughters join the secret police and even betray their own father. There are many implications on how children are brought up, but also how couples get caught up in the central fugal forces of modern cities and allow their relationships to be so much corrupted, that despite some love they are defeated by inabilities to find solutions for staying together.

Jean Baudrillard in his book about America writes "such is the whirl of the city, so great its centrifugal force, that it would take superhuman strength to envisage living as a couple and sharing someone's life in New York. Only tribes, gangs, Mafia families, secret societies and perverse communities can survive, not couples".

Life is complicated by these estranged things affecting human relationships as communicated to everyone daily through family and social life. Consequently minds, souls and hearts are filled with many anxieties due to the single most reduction of all needs to the one to shape all kinds of alliances, but certainly not based on love and trust, in order to survive in these societies.

In such social environments, it is suggested that no single person can achieve anything by doing something at a humble and modest scale. Even though the collectivity of life has since Socialism collapsed, as has gone into ruin collective farming, other mechanisms drive people to abandon their safe niches in life, in order to join forces in need of coming to terms with new demands e.g. large scale farming as industrial scale of productivity and efficiency. Again it is the need to become massive that leads to destruction and to the need for a historical monument as replacement of reflections.

A good example for such folly is when a freshly elected politician from the Flemish side of Belgium to the European Parliament speaks with such heroic pathos that he needs to refer to "his people that suffered under Charlemagne" as if he is, if not a king, then at least their leader. There is no modest scale in that speech nor any sense for the absurdity when politics is used to convert a relationship to people into a collective property belonging to the one who names them as such freely. What follows such incredible moral indignation about the past is that pain becomes an edifice for mistaking politics to be moralism of the first rank and freedom a perversion as the sole right to say things others should not because not true. That such position can be articulated in the Cultural Committee of the European Parliament and receive thereafter applause is telling enough about the state of affairs at the moment in Europe.

Hence the need to do something against all odds in order to speak out against such heroic pathos reflected in the wish to set for oneself some historical monument touches upon some other factors speaking out of time and against such a trend. For as the workshop in Leipzig attempted to reach out to the European dimension, it is equally odd that Europe is being now more united by security needs in the wake of the Balkan war than by being a community of people wishing to work and to live together. Already the conversion from European Community to European Union meant Europe was conceived to be now a more monolithic train ready to expand on already laid out tracks (Adorno).

To consolidate and to solidify security needs, Solena in agreement with the ambassadors from all 15 member states started a new classification of information that is sensitive material, i.e. not accessible since part of the negotiation with NATO. This very move towards a lack of transparency and accessibility of information means only some generals or officials appointed by various member states decide over the security needs of Europe. As such the open spirit is out and the new enforcement of anonymous rulers in place, even prior to real power in Europe having been identified in terms of legitimacy and democratic accountability.

So where does this leave any historical monument in light of such developments? As if Europe is failing to come to terms with the past, the re-Nationalisation and the exclusiveness of European affairs a part of that drive towards more national self determination in co-operation with others, all that leaves the European dimension without voice and without any institutional support.

That means the very question posed in Leipzig, but can there be given to the People's Battle Memorial Monument a European dimension, is a programmed failure. It does not take into account what is happening at the European level in terms of recent developments, that is how lessons of the recent past are drawn to legitimise the future being shaped in a non democratic way.

As if intrusive thoughts evade the question, by leaving unanswered the critical aspect of history, it means that crucial matters are left unsaid while all other things are let to go astray. This is especially the case when they are not dealt with honestly. Yet such flagrant abuse of truth in a general sense can never be translated into concrete terms. Instead the concepts used will not make sense to someone just trying to sell sunglasses in the streets of Brussels where it rains almost all the time.

This paradox is not very far off from the relationship Europeans may have to the European Parliament. As a privileged place of exclusion, that is as a kind of protection against daily plights, the structures and forms of deliberations designed to arrive at European directions and regulations makes the very building into an edifice of not historical, but sad dimensions. It is cut off from the rest of society and, therefore, a ghetto within the modern ghettos of Brussels with here the population communicating, there the officials escaping the city on the weekend.

If all the security and other protective forms are added, it is safe to say that decisions are made at the most at very superficial and not at all substantial levels. It leaves in Europe as much undone, as other things are hurried over by an ever pressing agenda in order to deal with the next issue looming ahead because it had been dealt with adequately when there had been a chance to do so in the past.

The historical monument is set apart from such hectical and daily life, but past, present and an open future are not its elements of reflections, especially if leaves out the simple question, but what opportunities were missed in the past and therefore what obligations does that pose for the new kind of life everyone seems to be striving for? Outcomes are known in various degrees of certainty and again what a historical monument could solicit for, then to make an effort to give Europe a different level of reflection about its history.

If the historical monument could become a part of general cultural guidelines for reflections on peace and war, then it should be remembered that symbolic meanings can easily mean the opposite in practice. At least in Heidelberg there existed two parallel streets, one called War, the other Peace. When National Socialism rose to power in Germany 1933, their flags were seen immediately on the street called 'Peace' and not on the other one called 'War'.

Perversion of meaning is always the success of propaganda and manipulation, or it is also what Shakespeare would say, remains to be the main paradox besides Hamlet's question "to be or not to be", for "should the words suit the actions or vice versa the actions the words?" It is up to culture to work through that solution so that it is not possible any further to speak about peace but meaning war and vice versa, but as Ernst Bloch in his understanding of the 'slave language' spoken in all hierarchical arrangements, would argue, that remains to be the case as long as the slaves are not freed and the masters not liberated from their blind need to lead.

Indeed, the discussion about the historical monument does not stop here. There will always be the question as to what kind of enrichment the self understanding begins to sense when it defines itself in terms of what pain it has and continues to cause in an effort to realize itself by not speaking with the others. Michel Foucault would say, 'we only speak then with the other when there is no victory necessary'. That then places the historical monument fatefully in-between those still needing victories, while those claiming victories have already been defeated before they begin to speak. For they are about to forget once again all those silenced by history.

Hatto Fischer

Brussels Nov. 2000

Links:

Europe in the 21^st century – in memory of Vimy Ridge by Hatto Fischer (2009)

http://poieinkaiprattein.org/conferences-symposiums-workshops/europe-performing---toronto-nov-2009/europe-in-the-21st-century---in-memory-of-vimy-ridge-by-hatto-fischer/

Methodological questions by Hatto Fischer (2012)

http://poieinkaiprattein.org/youth/eu-youth-project-nation-and-identity/methodological-questions/

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