Memoricide

Memoricide is the destruction of the memory, extermination of the past of targeted people. ^[1] It also refers to destruction of the traces (such as religious buildings or schools) that might recall the former presence of those considered undesirable. ^[2]

Memoricide is used in support of ethnic cleansing. ^[3] Since memoricide refers to intentional attempts to erase human memory about something, it usually takes the form of destruction of physical property. ^[4] The term was coined by Croatian doctor Mirko Grmek in a text published in Le Figaro on 19 December 1991. ^[5]

Allegations of memoricide

According to some accounts memoricide was employed by Greece toward Macedonians of Slavic origin. ^[6]

The dissident ^[7] historian Ilan Pappe deployed the concept of cultural memoricide as systematic attempt of post-1948 Israel in relation to Palestine. ^[8] . Also, the Spanish historian Jorge Ramos Tolosa has used this term in the context of the Zionist-Israeli practices in Palestine ^[9] .

Grmek used the term to describe activities of the rebel Serb forces in Croatia during the first year of the Croatian independence war. ^[5]

It has been argued that the burning of the Institute for Sexual Research in 1933 by Nazi students was an act of memoricide. ^[10]

See also

• Cultural genocide
• Damnatio memoriae
• List of destroyed heritage
• Yimakh shemo
• Desecration of graves
• Forced assimilation
• Identity cleansing
• Paper genocide

References

1. Anić & Goldstein (2007) , p. 846: "memoricid m (gen. jd memoricida) pol. uništavanje sjećanja, zatiranje prošlosti nekog naroda"
2. Jones (2010), p. 1.
3. Pavlaković, Pauković & Raos (2012) , p. 235: "Surely, committing memoricide is a way to contribute to ethnic cleansing."
4. Porteous & Smith (2001), p. 9.
5. Sémelin & Hoffman (2007), p. 404.
6. MRGI (1994), p. 94.
7. Rivera-Pagán (2015), p. 113.
8. Masalha (2014) , p. 148: "In The Ethnic Cleaning of Palestine the concept of cultural memoricide is deployed by historian Ilan Pappe, where he highlights the systematic scholarly, political and military attempt in post-1948 Israel to de-Arabize and "ecologicide" the Palestinian terrain, ...."
9. Ramos Tolosa, Jorge (2015-08-03). "«¿No hay eco en el eco?». El memoricidio de la Nakba y sus resistencias". Revista de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos (in Spanish) (18). ISSN   1887-4460.
10. Fuller & Owen (2022).

Sources

• Pavlaković, Vjeran; Pauković, Davor; Raos, Višeslav (1 September 2012). Confronting the Past: European Experiences. CPI/PSRC. ISBN   978-953-7022-26-6.
• Anić, Vladimir; Goldstein, Ivo (2007). Rječnik stranih riječi [Dictionary of foreign words] (in Croatian). Novi Liber. ISBN   978-953-6045-49-5.
• Porteous, Douglas; Smith, Sandra E. (17 October 2001). Domicide: The Global Destruction Of Home. McGill-Queen's Press. ISBN   978-0-7735-2257-2.
• Jones, Adam (13 September 2010). Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-136-93796-5.
• Masalha, Nur (20 October 2014). The Zionist Bible: Biblical Precedent, Colonialism and the Erasure of Memory. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-317-54465-4.
• Rivera-Pagán, Luis N. (30 April 2015). Essays from the Margins. The Lutterworth Press. ISBN   978-0-7188-9400-9.
• Sémelin, Jacques; Hoffman, Stanley (2007). Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide. Columbia University Press. ISBN   978-0-231-14282-3.
• MRGI (1994). Minority Rights Group International Report. The Group. ISBN   9781897693407.
• Fuller, Matt; Owen, Leah (7 October 2022). "Nazi Gender Ideology, Memoricide, and the Attack on the Berlin Institute for Sexual Research". Peace Review . 34 (4): 529–540.