Memories of Post-imperial Nations: Silences and Concerns

Memory and Agency

Recent decades have witnesssed a veritable ‘memory boom’. Scholars who have commented on this boom have linked it to the ‘death of the future’ and to the ‘ideological exhaustion’ which occurred after the collapse of Communism at the end of the Cold War (Rosenfeld 2009). Looking back seemed to be more promising than looking ahead. But there was also another reason for privileging memory, it was based on human agency which was highlighted at about the same time by social scientists who wanted to overcome deterministic theories of social evolution. However, emancipating the human agent from the fetters of determinism which made him/her a mere puppet in the hands of a preordained destiny begs the question of reconciling the aims of agents guided by their own intentions without taking heed of others. Therefore the social scientists who speak of agency also speak of negotation. This refers to a process of open deliberation which presumes agency freedom (Rothermund 2013, 147f). Agency and negotiation are thus interdependent. This would also be applicable to the field of collective memory. Maurice Halbwachs, the pioneer of this field, has stressed that this type of memory depends on social frameworks (1952). Introducing the concepts of agency and negotation one may say that the collective memory is the product of deliberations among many agents who can construct and deconstruct the contents of this memory. In this process individual and collective memories interact. Elements of individual memories may enter the collective memory which in turn may influence the ways in which individual memories are preserved and expressed.

There is, of course, an aspect of individual memory which is so to speak ‘not negotiable’. This is the personal memory which functions on its own. The taste of a particular food, the encounter with a long forgotten sight may trigger a flash of memory which then conjures up additional thoughts and feelings. There are many examples in literary works for this type of memory. Marcel Proust is often quoted in this context. His monumental novel ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ is devoted to the exploration of the enigma of memory. But many other writers have also portrayed such personal flashes of memory. Moreover, most people will have experienced such flashes in their lifetime. There are no direct links between this type of personal memory and the collective memory with which we are concerned here. But attempts may be made to find analogies of public and private memories. Triggers which activate memories may be found in sites which embody characteristics of the national past. This was the aim of Pierre Nora’s monumental documentation of the Lieux de Mémoire. He felt that the grand narrative of national history no longer cut any ice and focussed his attention instead on ‘sites where a sense of historical continuity persists’, admitting that such sites were ‘like shells on the shore when the sea of living memory has receded’ (Nora 1989, 12). Memory should be captured through individual means, because ‘the less memory is experienced collectively, the more it will require individuals to become themselves memory individuals’ (ibid., 16). Nora thus attributed agency to those ‘memory individuals’. As has been stated above, individual memory ignited by a flash of remembrace is ‘not negotiable’ and remains intimate and personal. But Nora expected obviously more from his ‘memory individuals’. If they had to share their memories with others they would have to enter a process of negotiation. This seems to need further exploration. It would be particularly interesting to find out how memory individuals turn into memory makers who make distinct contributions to collective memory. Such memory makers provide narratives which confirm the social identity of the group to which they belong. Nora says that ‘memory…is affective and magical’ (ibid., 8). Thus the memory-maker is a kind of magician who controls the affections of his/her audience.

Discussing the memories of post-imperial nations after decolonisation implies a study of agency in a particularly problematic field. It is surprising that in the midst of the ‘memory boom’ comparative studies of this field have hardly been attempted. As the subsequent account will show, such studies are urgently needed. In introducing the subject, we shall first sketch the trajectory from empire building to decolonisation.

The Overseas Expansion of Nation States and the Crumbling of Empires

In the early period of modern history, nation states emerged in Europe. They had well defined territorial limits. Their rulers recruited standing armies equipped with firearms. In due course they employed civil servants who helped them to subject their realms to central governance. Coastal states explored the oceans and derived profit from armed trade. They then acquired territories overseas and imposed their systems of governance on them. Organisational skills rather than mere military power helped them to entrench their dominance. They established a parasitical symbiosis with the foreign people they ruled and derived great profit from this arrangement. Large overseas empires were established in this way. They lasted for several centuries. But in the twentieth century these empires crumbled. This was mainly due to two world wars which sapped the strength of the imperial nations. The interwar depression contributed to the crumbling of empires. It caused a precipitous decline of the prices of colonial products. This made the territorial control of colonies superfluous. A cost/benefit analysis of imperial rule would show that the administration of colonies was expensive, whereas the benefits derived from them dwindled. Moritz Bonn, a perceptive German economist who later taught at the London School of Economics, coined the term, ʻdecolonisation’ in 1931 and predicted that the process which he had characterised in this way would speed up in the years to come. In 1938 he wrote: ‘…a decolonisation movement is sweeping over the continents. An age of empire-breaking will follow an age of empire-making’ (Bonn 1938, 101). Bonn did not predict the war which began one year after his book was published. He was optimistic about future developments and stated: ‘The day of a federated Central Europe is bound to come’(ibid., 421). Federation was to him an alternative to conquest. His vision of a federated Europe was premature. Hitler tried to unite Europe by conquest. Only after his defeat could federalism triumph. The European Union then became a new haven for post-imperial nations. Portugal is the most striking case in point. It was the oldest imperial nation and held on to its empire much longer than the other imperial nations, then opting for Europe while abandoning its crumbling empire.

The European Union did offer a new perspective for post-imperial nations, but their memories were still affected to a large extent by their national past. These memories have a distinctly national framework. Outsiders may see this even more clearly than insiders, but only insiders who themselves share their national memory can provide authentic insights into its complexities. This is why an attempt has been made to get together scholars representing six European post-imperial nations. Japan has been added to the list of nations to be studied, because its post-imperial status is in many ways similar to the six European nations though its special connection with the United States sets it apart.

The Memories of Seven Nations

John Darwin, Nuffield College, Oxford, presented an interesting survey of British reactions to the loss of empire. The early years of decolonisation were characterised by optimistic feelings about the harmonious transformation of the empire into the Commonwealth of Nations. Great Britain’s role as a world power would be retained in this way. Granting independence to India in 1947 was celebrated as a generous act. The tragedy of partition was conveniently forgotten. Liberal immigration laws admitted South Asian migrants who initially did not arrive in great numbers. The Suez crisis of 1956 disturbed the nation’s peace of mind. Prime Minister Macmillan then had to proceed with decolonisation in Africa. He highlighted the ‘Wind of Change’ which was blowing there, but he also embroidered the imperial legacy so as to reconcile the British nation with its fate. The illusion about the Commonwealth soon faded. At the same time increasing immigration was considered to be a problem and more stringent immigration laws were introduced. While imperial history was earlier well represented in British universities, it now lost its importance and those who taught it were no longer in demand. Finally, the younger generation of scholars turned to a ‘New Imperial History’. Some of its representatives held that Great Britain was constituted by its empire and faced a crisis after its loss. At the same time ‘Post-Colonial Studies’ spread in the Anglo-Saxon world with their emphasis on discourse analysis. This field of study was more attractive for those dealing with literature. Historians remained more sceptical, but some of them contributed to ‘Subaltern Studies’ which fitted in with the ‘New Imperial History’. The immigrants also contributed to British national memory. They had not come for political reasons, but in search of jobs which most of them found. However, by the 1980s millions of ‘coloured’ people had settled in Great Britain and race relations were thought to be a problem. Professor Darwin’s presentation was followed by a comment of Professor Astrid Erll, Frankfurt University, who stressed the relevance of media in the articulation of national memory. She referred to movies as conveyors of popular history. But she also pointed out that the memory of post-imperial nations seemed to lack a social framework for the articulation of the experience of decolonisation. She referred to Michael Rothberg’s book, which will be discussed later on, and said that his hopeful message of solidarity may not necessarily be valid. Memories often conjure up irreconcilable conflicts.

The post-imperial experience of the Netherlands was analysed by Professor Gert Oostindie, Director, Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden. He highlighted the importance of three different waves of immigrants who confronted the people of the Netherlands with the words: ‘We are here, because you were there!’ Unlike in Great Britain were immigration was due to economic reasons, the immigration into the Netherlands was caused by political conditions. The first wave of about 300,000 consisted of those who had to leave Indonesia. Many of them were Dutch government servants, but about 60 per cent were ‘Indos’ (the Dutch term for Eurasians). According to Dutch law, an ‘Indo’ was classified as a ‘European’ if recognised by the Dutch father. This classification entitled ‘Indos’ to Dutch citizenship but was also the reason for their being expelled from Indonesia. These immigrants preserved an identity of their own and cultivated a distinctive memory. Tjalie Robinson, a prominent literary figure of Indo-origin emerged as a great ‘memory maker’ among them. The second wave of immigrants (about 75,000) arrived in 1975 when Suriname became independent. Almost the entire Asian population left Suriname due to conflicts with their Afro-American compatriots. They were still Dutch citizens at that time and feared that they may lose this privilege if they did not settle in the ‘mother country’ as soon as possible. The third wave of immigrants consisted of the black people of the Antillean islands who had spurned independence as the privilege of retaining Dutch citizenship was of greater value to them than self-determination. They have forcefully reminded the Dutch of their participation in the slave trade. The government reacted to this in terms of a public apology and the construction of a monument in memory of slavery. The presence of these different types of immigrants has shaped Dutch collective memory. A long period of silence was followed by active commemorations and an official recognition of the post-imperial memories in the curriculum of schools. In his comments on this presentation Professor Rothermund stressed the role of immigrant ‘memory makers’ and the problem of the ‘balkanisation of history’ mentioned by Professor Oostindie. This problem arises when diverse groups each strive to add their own particular story to the general body of national memory. He also drew attention to the sceptical assessment of ‘post-colonial studies’ by Professor Oostindie but also by Professors Darwin and Labanca in their respective contributions. ‘Postcolonialism’ has become prominent almost at the same time as the ‘memory boom’. There have been interactions between these two currents, but while students of literature have turned avidly to postcolonialism, historians have found it less attractive.

The Belgian case was then presented by the young historian Pedro Monaville, University of Michigan. He emphasised that his nation was split into two parts: French-speaking Wallonia and Flemish-speaking Flanders. The Flemish people feel that the Belgian colonial empire was dominated by the Wallonian bourgeoisie and did not at all concern the Flemish peasants. This is still of importance for memories of the imperial past. As noted in the case of other post-imperial nations, there was a long silence in Belgium with regard to this past. This silence was broken only when new publications highlighted the cruelties perpetrated in the Congo under King Leopold’s rule and the complicity of Belgians in the murder of Lumumba, the first prime minister of the free Congo. Pedro Monaville noticed a ‘distinctive ugliness’ characterising Belgian colonial rule which burdens its post-imperial memory. Professor Dharampal-Frick stressed in her comment the attitude of the Flemish people to Belgian colonialism. Concerning the foreign authors who had written about the Congo, she asked about the role of outsiders in Belgian ‘memory making’.

Eric Savarese, University of Nice, presented the French case. After a general survey he mainly concentrated on the role of the ‘Pieds Noirs’ in French politics. About a million settlers had been repatriated from Algeria in 1961/1962. They deplored the French defeat and retained their identity in France where politicians tended to pay attention to their interests as they believed that these ‘Pieds Noirs’ had a political clout as voters. There is no evidence that they actually did vote en bloc, but the ‘memory makers’ among them were eager to spread this idea. Preserving the identity of this group becomes more difficult day by day as the young generation has no longer any connection with Algeria. Conjuring up memory wars helps to rally the ‘Pieds Noirs’. The competition for political space and a prominent role in national memory is very keen. The fierce debates caused by the passing of the law of 2005 which was supposed to highlight the positive features of French endeavours in Northern Africa marked the zenith of recent memory wars. In his comments Dr Jan Jansen, University of Konstanz, drew attention to the social arena which provided public space for memory debates and encouraged activities which could be termed ‘memory lobbying’. He also criticised the use of psychological concepts such as amnesia which are inappropriate for the analysis of collective memory. The memory boom, so he argued, had not contributed to reconciliation but had rather intensified conflicts. He also pleaded for a closer attention to the state as an actor in memory struggles.

The rather complex case of Portugal was discussed by Professor Antonio Costa Pinto, University of Lisbon. He began by describing the late process of decolonisation which ended in a protracted colonial war that came to an end only due to the political revolution in Portugal which ushered in a democratic regime after decades of dictatorship. Under this dictatorship the migration of Portuguese to the colonies had been encouraged. The ideology of ‘Lusotropicalism’ according to which the Portuguese had no racial prejudices and blended harmoniously with colonial societies had been spread at that time. It still remains popular in Portugal. The Portuguese settlers who returned to the mothercountry after decolonisation had no problems in coming home. Most of them had been in the colonies only for a short time. There were no ‘Pieds Noirs’ in Portugal and hardly any ‘memory wars’. The Portugese still remember their seafarers and discoverers with great pride and do not associate them with the negative aspects of colonial rule. Joining the European Union as a democratic country compensated the Portuguese for the loss of empire and ensured them of a better future. ‘Lusophone’ solidarity was seen as securing an important role for Portugal in world politics. Radu Carciumaru, University of Heidelberg, emphasised in his comments that Portugal had profited from the Cold War when defending its empire. He also referred to the special relationship between Portugal and Brazil.

Italy, a small and late empire, was portrayed by Professor Nicola Labanca, University of Siena. The fact that this empire in is recent manifestation had been a fascist one contributed to a conspiracy of silence. This silence was well maintained. The government kept a low profile. It did not open the colonial archives to public scrutiny but handed them over to a commission, mostly composed of ex-colonial administrators, who produced an official history. Academic historians did not deal with this aspect of the national past, only Angelo De Boca, a journalist and former resistance fighter interpreted the imperial past almost singlehandedly. He attacked the complacent claim Italiani, brava gente (Italians are good people) which was still made by many people. It was only after 1975 that debates began to be raised in Italy. There had been political but no cultural decolonisation. Surveys indicated that in many respects old colonial stereotypes still prevailed. Those who returned from the colonies had no interest in forming associations or cultivating a colonial nostalgia. Immigrants from the colonies did not come in great numbers to Italy. Those who have flocked to Italy in recent years are not from the former colonies but from many other parts of Africa and Asia. Their integration is a problem, this had led to the induction of a Black minister of integration in the recently formed Italian government. The lady who was apppointed to this post, is from the Congo and has long lived in Italy where she has been known for social activism on behalf of the immigrants. At the end of his presentation Professor Labanca referred to literature as a cause of change rather than a mere reflection of it. This point was taken up by Dr. Caroline Lüderssen, University of Heidelberg, in her comments. She stressed that literature reflects an enhanced reality, an aesthetic embodiment of memory.

There were parallels in the periods of silence and the subsequent revival of memories in the respective European countries. The case of Japan, presented by Professor Takashi Fujitani, University of Toronto, was somewhat different. Japan had subjected its neighbours, Korea ansd Taiwan, to several decades of very intensive colonial rule aimed at their integration into the Japanese state. This endeavour was suddenly interrupted by Japan’s defeat in 1945. Almost a million Japanese had to return from the colonies to Japan. A similar number of Koreans who had been forcibly taken to Japan remained there after the war. These Japanese and Koreans ought to have been a great repository of memory, but a long period of ‘frozen memories’ prevailed after the war. As Professor Fujitani pointed out, the conspiracy of silence was aided and abetted by the Americans who were eager to build up Japan as an ally in the Cold War. A resurgence of Japanese nationalism combined with anti-Americanism led to an eruption of memory in recent times. Kobayashi Yoshinori (born 1953) emerged as the leading popular writer spreading this new type of national memory. Professor Fujitani described Kobayashi’s mangas, illustrated like comics, which sold in millions. In one of them he praised Japanese rule in Taiwan. At the same time there was a movement for re-writing Japanese school textbooks from a nationalist point of view. Reviving national memory with a vengeance was a peculiarly Japanese contribution to the experience of post-imperial nations. Professor Wolfgang Seifert, University of Heidelberg, commented in detail on this presentation. He spoke of the challenging nature of Professor Fujitani’s reference to a transnational conspiracy of silence in which both the Japanese and the Americans participated. He also mentioned the parallels of

fascist and Japanese imperialism. However, while there were intensive debates in post-war Japan about the Japanese state, Japanese colonial rule was not discussed in this context.

The organisers of the conference, Professors Dietmar Rothermund and Gita Dharampal-Frick, University of Heidelberg, had invited Professor Aleida Assmann, University of Konstanz, and Professor Partha S. Ghosh, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, to provide general comments on the theme of the conference in its concluding session. Professor Assmann’s comments placed the theme of the conference into a wider context. She stressed that we are living in a period in which injustice, suffering and violence are major themes. The heroic triumphalism of a bygone age has been replaced by a tragic mood. She referred to Dinesh Chakravarti’s highlighting of ‘historical wounds’ and the political acknowledgement of having inflicted such wounds. The recovery of the memory of the Holocaust and the emphasis on human rights since the 1980s are testimonies to this new sensibility. The work of John Torpey (2006) has shown that the redressing of historical injustices has become a major theme in contemporary debates whereas hopes for a brighter future have receded. Professor Ghosh spoke of guilt, pride and silence when dealing with the experience of post-imperial nations. Wih regard to the reflection of memory, he urged that the process of invoking memory should be studied. He also recommended a ‚gendering’ of the approach to memory. Feminists have highlighted the experience of victimhood whereas the male attitude to the past is directed towards a bygone era. Referring to aspects of India’s national memory he mentioned the growing attention which the partition of the country in 1947 has attracted in recent years. The urgency of recording the direct narratives of survivors has encouraged the pursuit of oral history. But this pursuit also raises the ethical question to what extent it is permissible to rake up memory. This may not contribute to reconciliation which should be the major aim when dealing with traumas of the past.

Amnesia or Conspiracy of Silence?

Many authors have referred to the blocking of memories concerning the imperial past as ‘amnesia’. This is an individual mental ailment which may be caused by physical injuries or a psychic trauma. Therefore it can hardly refer to the collective memory of a nation. Amnesia is, however, a convenient metaphor which serves to account for the absence of narratives of experiences which are of such importance that they should be taken note of by everybody concerned. Similarly the term ‘aphasia’ (speechlessness) refers to an individual ailment. Its metaphorical use refers to an inability to articulate experiences for which one cannot find adequate expressions. This may happen if there is no social framework available which permits the formation of collective memory.

From the discussions at this conference, there emerged a distinct feeling of dissatisfaction with the term ‘amnesia’ and similar terms which refer to individual psychic phenomena. It was suggested to speak instead of silences which prevailed for some time and were broken only with some effort or due to a fortuitous coincidence of events. A conspiracy of silence rather than amnesia could affect a collective memory. This conspiracy may be due to a feeling of shame or discomfort, an unwillingness to articulate repentance for deeds which one may not have done but which one had tolerated. This kind of silence is the very opposite of amnesia. Whereas those who suffer from a loss of memory usually try to recover it, the participants in a conspiracy of silence do not want that this silence should be broken. Nicola Labanca stressed the importance of silence in his contribution. In Italy this silence was especially due to the fact that in its most recent phase the Italian empire had been a fascist one. But other national memories were also marked by long periods of silence. In Japan the term ‘frozen memories’ was applied to this phenomenon.

Jay Winter has provided a good definition of this kind of silence in an interview with a Turkish scholar ((Tarih, 2009): ‘Silence is a space where noboy speaks what everybody knows. And it is an area which is socially regulated, socially preserved and socially destroyed…The social contract of silence can only be broken in time, over a long period of time…’ Further research on this ‘social contract of silence’ in post-imperial nations should be an essential part of exploring their memories. By rejecting the term ‘amnesia’ and highlighting ‘silence’ the participants of this conference have taken a first step in this direction.

Neurologists have found out that the human memory changes with each recall of an experience. In the process of recalling it, the particular impression is ‘edited’ and then stored in its new version. Again, the individual ‘edited memory’ can only be referred to metaphorically when describing a collective memory. But as far as ‘frozen memories’ are concerned it may be stated that they so to speak remain‘unedited’ as long as the recall of the respective experiences is postponed. Once the silence is broken and recall sets in, ‘wars of memory’ may arise when a process of collective ‘editing’ begins.

Memory Wars and the Surfeit of Commemorations

‘Wars of memory’ reflect a contested past. Different ‘memory makers’ vie with each other with regard to the authority to interpret the past correctly. A typical example is the date of 19 March in France. This date has been fixed a an official day of commemoration of the end of the Algerian war. The date as such is not in doubt, but its meaning is contested. For those who would have never abandoned Algeria, this date marks a defeat and therefore they refuse to celebrate it. This is a clearcut conflict, other contests are more complex, involving detailed narratives of past experiences. Demonstrations and publications accompany such wars of memory. The demand for commemorations leads to a veritable boulemie of such events as Eric Savarese has pointed out. Once the silence is broken, experiences are recalled and articulated with a vengeance. Politicians trying to catch votes bend over backwards to please those who advertise their particular version of the intepretation of the past in order to get it enshrined in the national memory. School curricula are the most obvious testimonies of such a national memory. ‘Memory lobbyists’ would try to get an entry into the mainstream of national memory by influencing the authorities in charge of designing such curricula. Another contested field is the creating of places of memory by means of the construction of monuments. Governments may order the construction of such monuments. The Dutch monument in memory of slavery is a case in point. But municipalities may also adorn their cities with monuments dedicated to leaders whose credentials are in dispute. French and Italian examples were mentioned during the conference. As long as silence prevailed, visibility was also impaired. Once the silence was broken, there was also a demand for visible manifestations of memory. Such monuments are beacons in a sea of oblivion. They belong to the Lieux de Mémoire which have been mentioned earlier. It would be interesting to look at these monuments in terms of the dialectic process of agency and negotiation. Those who wished to erect such monuments had to gain support for their plans and convince others of the need for the monument. This required intensive negotations which must be documented in detail in most cases. The arguments used for or against the erection of such monuments would shed much light on the construction of collective memory. The activities of memory makers would be illustrated by these negotiations. Eric Savarese has mentioned incidents of the constructions of such monuments in Southern France. Presumably similar examples can be found elsewhere.

The Challenge of ‘Repentance’

After decolonisation the representatives of the ex-colonies soon raised their voices and demanded some apologies from their former rulers for the wrong which they had done to their erstwhile subjects. There were several reasons for the reluctance to respond to such requests. First of all, there was a fear that apologies would lead to a request for material compensation. Therefore there were at the most some expressions of regret for what had been done. But apologies were also avoided because there was still a widespread conviction that the colonial rulers had tried their best to improve the position of their subjects and had not exploited them. The belief in the mission civilisatrice did not end with decolonisation. In fact, this insistence on cultural superiority was most irksome to ex-colonials who felt that their own cultures had been fine and had been destroyed by their colonial rulers. When the ex-colonials asked for ‘repentance’ they had this aspect of colonial rule in mind rather than material compensation. The Algerian author Ismael-Selim Khaznadar (2012) has expressed this very well in his essay Élucider ou se repentir? in a volume edited by him. He specifically refers to the ancient concept of metanoia (ibid., 97), which means a change of mind—or a change of heart as Mahatma Gandhi would have called it. In the post-imperial context this would mean showing respect for the culture of the ex-colonials and admitting that the insistence on the mission civilisatrice was a sign of arrogance. This kind of national repentance is very difficult to achieve. The members of post-imperial nations have been imbued with their cultural superiority for such a long time that they are not amenable to such a metanoia. Moreover, they usually interpret the call for repentance as referring to an individual guilt. It was typical for this point of view that President Hollande when asked about repentance pointed to the fact that he was born at a time when he could not have done anything which he should repent. It did not occur to him, that he should express a national metanoia with regard to the claim of superiority with which colonial rule was justified for centuries. The challenge of repentance still remains and it is usually misunderstood. In France the term ‘repentant’ has become a term of abuse, hurled at those who appear to be bending over backwards to please the ex-colonials. The memories of post-imperial nations can be adjusted so as to live with the loss of empire, but it is much more difficult to overcome ingrained prejudices of cultural and racial superiority.

The Encounter with Immigrants

Much more than the mental challenge of repentance was involved in the physical encounter with immigrants from the ex-colonies who thronged to the metropolitan countries in increasing numbers. As the papers concerning the different post-imperial nations have shown, there were many reasons for this migration. The legal provisions which permitted this migration were also rather different. But whatever the legal conditions might be, large numbers of immigrants did join the post-imperial nations. While individual immigrants are usually integrated quite easily, large groups often resist integration. They tend to congregate in ‘ghettos’ and produce a community leadership of their own. They also provide an audience for memory makers who arise from among them and cultivate a group identity. It is the encounter with such groups rather than with individual immigrants which affects the collective memory of the host nation. Due to the very nature of this immigration, the migrants do not spread in the countryside but concentrate in certain urban areas which enhances their visibility. They do not only claim residential space but also wish to establish places of worship for their particular religion. This adherence to ‘strange’ religions often provokes negative reactions of the majority community, particularly if it is connected with a peculiar dress code.

For many people of post-imperial nations who had only the foggiest idea of the colonies, the empire only came alive after it had ended because it spawned human beings who settled down as one’s neighbours. Initially the immigration policies of several post-imperial nations were rather liberal, because there was a feeling that the imperial connection could somehow survive in this way. Moreover, the governments concerned wished to avoid the slightest impression of racial discrimination. The sequence of British immigration laws provides an object lesson of increasing discrimination which was however so carefully designed as not to reveal a racial bias. Immigrants into the British Isles were not motivated by political reasons, they were looking for jobs—and found them. The Netherlands also had liberal immigration laws and accommodated several waves of migrants, which were due to political reasons. France had to ‘repatriate’ more than a million people and experienced a rather tense post-colonial encounter. Portugal also had to receive many Portuguese who had lived in the colonies, but they blended fairly well with the metropolitan society to which they returned. Italy’s experience was similar as far as Italians returning from the colonies were concerned. There were fewAfrican immigrants from the ex-colonies. Italy has only become an attractive destination for African migrants in recent times. They come mostly from African countries which were not Italian colonies. But the old prejudices inherited from colonial times are now revived due to the encounter with the new immigrants. The Japanese case is a very special one due to the large number of Japanese that had to be repatriated after 1945 and the large Korean group which has remained in Japan. The post-colonial encounter of residents and immigrants in the metropolitan countries is of crucial importance for the memories of post-imperial nations.

Reconstructing Memories and Rebuilding Nations

Ruling an overseas empire was an essential part of nationbuilding in the seven nations studied here. Although the common people in the metropolitan nations were rarely involved in the affairs of the empire, the national elites derived a great deal of their self-esteem from the possession of empire. But ‘Britannia, ruling the waves’ was an image which not only inspired the British elite but also impressed the nation at large. The vision of empire pervaded national memory. It was revived whenever the nation faced problems which deeply touched its existence. The imperialism of the French Third Republic is a case in point. After the demise of the state ruled by Napoleon III, the new republic extended its empire with a vengeance and took great pride in this (Grandmaison 2009). Similarly after the disaster of World War II and the demise of the Vichy government, the Fourth French Republic hastened to recover its overseas empire. The Netherlands also embarked on such a re-conquest of empire in order to overcome the trauma of World War II. Portugal, always concerned with its marginal position in Europe, produced a map of Europe on which the outlines of its African colonies were superimposed, with the caption: ‘Portugal is not a small country’. In keeping with this vision, the colonies of Portugal were called ‘Overseas Provinces’. These are just a few instances of the connections of European nationbuilding with the possession of empires. Stressing this fact does not imply an agreement with the radical representatives of the New Imperial History who maintain that the nation was constituted by the possession of empire. But the collective memory of imperial nations was certainly influenced in many ways by the awareness of being in control of an empire.

Memories are malleable and have many dimensions. There is an erroneous idea that memories only have a limited scope, that they are unilinear and restricted in their capacity. There would then be a competition for memory space in terms of a zero-sum game. Against this common prejudice Michael Rothberg (2009, 271) has argued for a multidirectional memory which may permit a confluence of disparate historical imaginaries. Such a multidirectional memory could accommodate remembering the holocaust as well as the crimes committed under colonial rule. In fact, such disparate memories could support each other. A recall of the one may induce a remembrance of the other. This would not distract from the uniqueness of the holocaust but help to perceive both types of memory in their respective contexts.

There is a method of ‘cross-fading’ images in the production of films so as to evoke multidirectional memories. Astrid Erll has referred to this in her work on the representation of the ‘Indian Mutiny’ of 1857. At the end of the Bollywood film The Rising (2005) the image of the hero of the film, Mangal Pandey, is ‘cross-faded’ with scenes of the Indian freedom movement led by Gandhi, thus conjuring up a multidirectional memory of resistance to British rule. Erll (2009, 147) calls this ‘cross-fading’ a condensation into a single site of memory by means of a minium number of signs.

In this account of memories of post-imperial nations it has been stressed that only those who belong to these nations and share the national memory are in a position to reflect it with authenticity. But Rothberg’s concept of ‘multidirectional memory’ would also accommodate a ‘transnational memory culture’ as Marije Hristova (2012) has argued in a perceptive essay on Spanish writers who witnessed the civil war in Bosnia and compared it to the Spanish civil war whose contested history was just then debated in Spain. These writers were imbued with their national memory, but they looked at it from a new perspective due to their actual experience of the Bosnian civil war. The Spanish civil war had created deep cleavages in the Spanish nation and there had been a very special conspiracy of silence with a view to overcome these cleavages. In was only in the 1990s that this silence was broken. Rothberg (2009, 224) asserts that ‘history is an echo chamber’ in which many echoes reverberate. Recalling one event may remind one of another and thus trigger a flash of memory. Rothberg also stresses that ‘the dynamics of collective memory differ from the reason of history, with memory offering its own version of recognition and reconciliation’ (ibid., 235). In his conclusion he states, that the ‘uncomfortable proximity of memories is also the cauldron of which new visions of solidarity and justice must emerge’(ibid., 313). This should also be true of the memories of post-imperial nations which change in the course of time and are reconstructed in this process. In fact, these nations are rebuilding themselves, they shed old characteristics and acquire new ones. After their empires had been lost new orientations had to be adopted. Social change has affected these nations in many ways and had to be interpreted so as to contribute to a new image of the nation. Studying the memories of post-imperial nations is thus a transitional exercise at a historical moment when these memories are re-examined and contested.