A/HRC/25/49
challenges, since communities themselves are never monoliths. It is therefore essential to
diversify the platforms and spaces for the many voices of history to be heard.
89.
Recognition through memorials of the participation of indigenous soldiers during the
two World Wars continues to be debated, especially in North America. In Canada, a
memorial to indigenous veterans from the First World War was built at the request of
indigenous peoples, integrating many elements of indigenous cultures. This recognition
took place at a later stage in history, however, and in a different venue to the main
memorial established for other Canadian soldiers. Commemoration projects are also taking
place in Canada regarding the history of Indian residential schools.
K.
The role of external actors
90.
External actors can play an important role in memorialization. Most often,
interventions stimulate memorial initiatives, seeking to bring about social changes through
a deliberate strategy of utilizing and funding memorials, in particular when the State
concerned lacks either the political will or financial power to do so. For instance, the
Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial was financed through private and governmental funds,
including from the United States of America. In the Middle East, the initiators of the art
gallery, Um-el-Fahm, who want to convert this space into the first Palestinian museum in
Israel, partly depend on donors in Europe and the United States. On a visit to Peru in 2008,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered $2 million for a museum of memory there.
91.
The role of external actors in shaping memorial landscape has been transformed by
the use of information technology. The Internet has led to the internationalization of
memory processes, an evolution epitomized by the memorialization of the Gulag.41
92.
These examples demonstrate the proliferation of memorial entrepreneurs. The
previous system of State-sanctioned, top-down memorials now competes with non-State
local and international initiatives. This internationalization of the memory process can lead
to very different results, ranging from a vision of history imported, or even imposed, by
powerful outside actors, to initiatives which truly help marginalized groups to articulate
their history.
L.
The recipients of memorial initiatives
93.
New forms of tourism have developed in places of suffering and a large number of
tourists visit, for example, the concentration and extermination camps in Germany and
Poland, places directly related to atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia,
Gorée Island in Senegal, Robben Island in South Africa, the International Red Cross and
Red Crescent Museum in Switzerland and the National September 11 Memorial in the
United States.
94.
Visits to these sites of conscience and memorials raise several questions. Who are
they intended for? For students? For victims and their family? For society at large? For
tourists? Usually, they are directed at the widest audience possible, with certain groups
accorded priority: the victims and their families, the communities directly affected and
youth.
95.
The key issue is the ownership of the memorial and/or the museum by the
communities concerned, including especially those in which they are located. The South
41
18
See, for example, gulagmuseum.org, gulaghistory.org and http://museum.gulagmemories.eu/en.