M. Usman Farooq of Forman Christian College in Lahore travelled from Pakistan to Armenia to undertake research on the role of politicians in how, and what, nations remember.

M Usman Farooq (left) with DisTerrMem research colleagues in Yerevan

Memories are delicate possessions. They are often built upon deeply rooted wounds and injuries that can have long-lasting effects on one’s behavior and mind-structure. Yet at times, memories can equally have a therapeutic effect. Collective memory, as a subject and as a ‘possession’ for a community that has faced historical persecution, is also perhaps a responsibility to fulfill as well as a burden to share. Despite all of the pain that can be associated with remembering, memories are preserved as imperishable holdings. They may, over time, get redefined, but they remain constant in their essence of ‘re-minding’.

It is a mistake to believe that memories of persecution of a particular community can simply vanish, though many a tyrant might like to think so. Adolf Hitler, in a speech to his military generals just before the invasion of Poland, remarked, “who, after all, remembers the annihilation of Armenians?” His remark is printed – ironically, for the very purpose of remembering - on one of the walls of Tsitsernakaberd, the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex (which also includes the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute) in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan.

But it is not only the museum wall that reminds people of a tyrant’s ignorant remark or about the historical atrocities Armenian people went through in their centuries of history, but also the whole city of Yerevan itself. With its long list of museums, such as the History Museum of Armenia, Yerevan History Museum, Matenadaran, National Gallery of Armenia and many more, all filled with rich collections of artifacts and archaeological discoveries, Yerevan is a city that ‘remembers’ and ‘reminds’. Furthermore, the city gives a strong sense of memorizing and recalling its own history through its very expressive buildings and architecture, which represent each and every phase and part of that history. I could feel this very strongly after spending six weeks in Yerevan in summer 2019.

My research work in Yerevan, as part of the DisTerrMem project, was to focus on reviewing the current literature on the role of politicians as creators and replicators of state-led discourse on a nation’s memories, or as potential channels of dissent and counter-memory. My base was one of DisTerrMem’s six partner organisations: the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography in the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.

The National Academy of Sciences of Armenia

As a first-time visitor to Armenia – both professionally and personally – I also planned to interact with a range of researchers and scholars of Armenian genocide studies, and to explore and experience the city and its neighborhoods in order to learn about the historical wounds of Armenian people, and the sensitivities attached to them, in a holistic way. As it turned out, my interactions also educated me in a far broader sense – encompassing the culture, language, religion and politics of Armenia. Interestingly, my first impression of Yerevan was of a city that felt in many ways like Karachi, the largest city of my native Pakistan. Underneath their physical infrastructure, these are both cities that also show their history in very personal ways - with emotions, dreams and strongly-attached meanings.

M Usman Farooq (left) with Armenian DisTerrMem research colleagues

During my visit I was invited by a dear colleague and a friend to attend a First Conference on Afghan Studies, Afghanistan being another conflict-ridden nation with many wounds and troubling memories. The event was organized by The Scholarly Association for International Studies of Afghanistan (Consociatio Eruditorum Studiis Afganologicis Internationalibus / CESAI) in partnership with, among others, my hosts, the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia. The invitation was a fortuitous one, since many of the topics discussed at the conference were directly relevant to my research for DisTerrMem.

Delivering a talk on contemporary state and society in Pakistan

Studies were presented on several important aspects of Afghan political history, in which a range of media were used to share information, including posters, postage stamps and photographs (each considered as modes/tools of memory communication). Other presentations explored the mobility of Afghan people and the status of Afghan refugees in neighboring countries such as Iran. The three-day conference concluded with a guided tour, in the suburbs of Yerevan, of some important historical locations like Geghard Monastery (a medieval monastery affiliated with the Armenian Apostolic Church), Garni Temple (the only Greco-Roman colonnaded building in Armenia and a symbol of pre-Christian Armenian history), and Mount Ararat (a national symbol to Armenian people which is also believed to be the landing place of Noah’s Ark after the great floods).

Upon visiting these sites and the other sites of remembering in Yerevan, I was confronted with one of the fundamental questions of collective memory studies: what is the significance of an event from the past that is remembered? And how do we remember it? Is our remembrance of parts of the past mainly due to these physical spaces, consciously thought out and strategically planned, or the scientific inquiry of historians, or there are more channels of remembering, both conscious and unconscious?

My own research has primarily focused to date on reviewing the role of politicians in transmitting state discourses, and their confirmation or confrontation of aspects of remembrance of the past. I began reviewing the existing literature on the subject with what Paul Ricoeur (2004) calls the ‘what’ of memory: how do we characterize the past? I sought to understand the various narratives, through Ricoeur’s analysis, created by politicians. It is interesting to note that while the role of politics in memory has long dominated debates in collective memory studies - ever since the conceptualization of collective memory by Maurice Halbwchs (1925), relatively little has been written on the role of individual politicians as formal or informal channels of collective memory, or in re-creating the past in a holistic sense, one that resonates with a diverse groups of people. These were the issues and questions I aimed to address throughout my stay in Yerevan. I believe Yerevan was a perfect setting for this kind of research - as it provides such pertinent examples of the significance of remembering the ‘what’ of the past, and the loss of forgetting it.

M. Usman Farooq is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Forman Christian College University in Lahore, Pakistan. Among his areas of focus are democratic governance, civil society, political economy and developmental state, international relations, peace building and conflict resolution, social movements and social mobilization. Discover more at www.disterrmem.eu/forman-christian-college

Yerevan: A city that remembers