Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the tech-savvy ways that beginning in 2012, the Indian government, state and central, has memorialized, for political purposes, the slaughter on 17 November 1913 of Bhil “tribals” who were reputedly gathering for prayer at Mangadh Hill on the Gujarat/Rajasthan border.

Paper long abstract:

On 17 November 1913 Bhil “tribals” known as Bhagats, followers of the religious reformer, Sri Govind Guru (or Giri), were gathered at Mangadh Hill on the Gujarat/Rajasthan border. Accounts of what transpired differ. According to the colonial government, the Bhagats were engaged in treasonous activity; in the effort to counter it over 400 Bhagats lost their lives. According to Bhagats, the combined forces of Britain and various princely states ruthlessly slaughtered over 1500 innocent devotees as they gathered for prayer. In comparison to the much more famous slaughter at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, in April 1919, this hatyakand – massacre, mass murder – seemed to have disappeared into the mists of history … until it re-emerged as its hundredth anniversary approached. In 2012 Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, now Prime Minister of India, began an ongoing campaign to memorialize the victims of the massacre. He presented them as “tribal” martyrs whose contributions to the Indian freedom struggle had been unjustly overlooked for far too long. Subsequent efforts to memorialize the victims of Mangadh Hill have exploited and interwoven the possibilities afforded by both physical space and cyberspace. They include most prominently the development of the Mangadh Hill site itself, which Mr. Modi now envisions (as of November 2022) as a global tourist destination, and the establishment of Sri Govind Guru University, which serves students in the so-called tribal belt of eastern Gujarat. The political utility of these efforts is difficult to overlook. Memorializing the victims of Mangadh Hill as not just social and religious but also political martyrs aims to integrate a large but marginalized population more tightly into the Indian state. Just as important, it provides a means for Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party to try to attract voters on whose support its rival, the Congress Party, had depended.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the use of technology to document and remember the Indigenous victims of Christian-inspired genocide in Canada. In 2021, radar discovered the remains of 215 children at a school, making real the horrors of residential schools, and was behind the Pope’s apology the following year.

Paper long abstract:

On July 25, 2022, Pope Francis, on a “penitential pilgrimage” in Canada, arrived in Maskwacis, AB, to offer a public apology for the abuse that Indigenous children and their survivors faced in Catholic-run residential schools. This apology was a long-time in the making and, in so doing, fulfilled # 58 (the call for a papal apology) of the 94 Calls to Actions as outlined in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Though it mentioned neither sexual abuse in the schools nor reparations, the Pope’s apology was an important first step towards reconciliation between the Church and Indigenous groups in Canada. Technology played a key role in the Pope’s apology in at least two ways. First, in the previous year, ground-penetrating radar survey at a former residential school in British Columbia (that had been in operation until as late as 1969) had located the remains of 215 children. For many Canadians the “215” suddenly made the residential school system, and the TRC (and subsequent report) that documented it, more tangible. Technology had done, in other words, what other media (including victim testimonies) could not. This technology, I suggest, was directly responsible for the Pope’s apology the following year. The second use of technology is in the Pope’s apology itself, as national and international media followed the “penitential pilgrimage,” with videos (still) widely circulating on online platforms such as YouTube. Technology here both attests to religious violence and commemorates its victims, in ways previously unimagined.

This case study, thus, examines the use of technology to document and remember the victims of Christian-inspired genocide. Since many of the victims and survivors are also Christian, we see how the violence of the Church inspired new forms of Indigenous faith, but also Indigenous resistance, both of which involve technology.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will examin the technologies of remembrance in the the Islamic Shiite religion, in Iran, through the political history of Shiite in connection with the massacre of Husayn, his family and his companions.

Paper long abstract:

With the Shiite Ṣafawīd dynasty (1501-1722), the historical story of Husayn’s oppositional movement and the tragic outcome of his rebellion against the ruling caliph of the time, Yazīd, developed into a self-reflecting, powerful source that connected all oppositional movements in the Shiite community against all kinds of tyranny. The conflict that ended with the massacre of Husayn, his family and his companions had a tremendous impact. The mourning over their catastrophic demise was readily adopted into older forms of mourning rituals already existent in every region. During the 18 century these gently gave birth to a form of theatre, called Taʿziyih, structured around the polarisations of Husayn’s story and the definitions of mukhālifkhawānī (antagonist) and muwāfiqkhawānī (protagonist). A taʿziyih concentrates on this paramount moment in Shiite history. It is performed over several days with different storylines, all of which revolve around the Karbalāʾ massacre. Every theatre performance ends with the martyrdom of one of the famous characters connected to Husayn; it is therefore named after the main protagonist to be killed last on stage. This paper will examine the historical/political role that taʿziyih plays in remembering mass murder as an ongoing process of legitimizing political power, through the history of Iran.

Paper short abstract:

Societies need a new vision to overcome all the trauma consequences. A new vision means first understanding the entire region as wounded and the role of religion in it as a factor in providing security. Second, to revitalize the traditional visions of forgiveness, mercy, justice, and peace.

Paper long abstract:

Having seen the CEE region through the lens of a wounded collective identity, and in which the role of religion in society has been assessed primarily in terms of security, we must turn our attention to the most important issue for the region. What is the vision for the region's societies thirty years after the collapse of communism? A new vision is needed. Indeed, a number of facts and events suggest that the path of individual and collective freedom has led to a maze. In many ways, we have been disappointed by what we set out to achieve, not least in the wake of the 'expected West' (Bottoni 2017).

A new vision is needed in this region, as it is throughout Europe and on other continents of the Globe. In a region with a wounded collective identity, a new vision can only respond first and foremost to trauma, one that removes the distrust and threats that can be traced back to trauma and continue to hinder human and community prosperity, the real prioritization of the common good. In the face of a culture of fear, vengeance, and egoism, a culture of mercy is the appropriate and suitable vision. All the historical traditions, entrenched phobic reflexes, and ethno-narcissistic policies that are understandably but predominantly present in the region can only be countered by an approach centered on mercy: rebuilding trust through understanding and forgiveness. A new way of thinking is needed, which also requires opening up to new cultural resources. The modernization paradigm has reached its limits; the postmodern position enjoys welfare inertia without concern for relations of injustice. The culture of mercy draws on the noblest cultural traditions of humanity to vote confidence in man and community.

Paper short abstract:

Romanian public culture has overtly acknowledged the Romanian participation in the Holocaust very late, officially only at the beginning of this century, with the Wiesel state report (2003). Antisemitism and the (lack of) remembrance of the Romanian Holocaust then developed a digital turn.

Paper long abstract:

Romanian public culture has overtly acknowledged the Romanian participation in the Holocaust very late, officially only at the beginning of this century, with the Wiesel state report (2003). My paper will present an overview of the topic for the last three decades or so, emphasizing the religious meaning of the Holocaust and the strategies (some inevitably seemingly religious or pseudo-religious) in trivializing or in negating and then excising the Holocaust from the Romanian interwar and post-war history. Even if the process is unfortunately not unknown in other post-dictatorial countries in Central and Easter Europe (Hungary, Poland or Croatia), the digital turn in discussing and framing such an essential remembrance (or, for that matter, sorry proper remembrance) has not only presented the main characteristics described by the panel, but involved a rather significant number of religious authorities, religiously affiliated persons and sympathizers, including the digital revival of the infamous Iron Guard. They have concocted a particular form of lack of remembrance and negationist rewriting of history which may interest the worldwide scholar of religion nowadays precisely because – as in the 1930s-1940s – they benefitted from that unique expertise of some scholars of religion, history, and culture. My presentation will explore their significance for the present topic by highlighting their ‘technological turn’.

Paper short abstract:

Stress and trauma are present in almost every person's life. However living with it shows diversity. Resilience implies the highest level of functioning after trauma. A clear clarification of this concept is essential for societies to show flexibility in the face of future traumas.

Paper long abstract:

„Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands" (APA, 2023).

The concept of resilience has changed a lot over time. The physical term is now used in a wide range of disciplines, from security policy to medical clinical practice. The interpretation of the term tends to expand across disciplines, but the underlying processes are becoming less and less clear. An important distinction is that the original passive meaning of resilience is now assumed to be "active" in the human interpretation. One consequence of this is that part of the literature marginalises the notion of resilience as a passive, innate quality that is present independently of our will. What is unclear at the individual level is difficult to translate into the societal level. By returning to the roots of the concept in physics and psychology, and by placing resilience on a new footing, we can move closer to a social understanding, which is essential for future struggles. Societies that have accumulated historical trauma and transgenerational memories of it deserve increased attention in understanding what gives them resilience.