euro|topics - Georges Mink

22/11/2008

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Mink, Georges

3 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.

Libération - France | 29/08/2007

Georges Mink on the division of national memory in the EU

Georges Mink, research director at the political and social science institute, CNRS, examines the discrepancies between how History is seen in Western Europe and how it is seen in the countries from the former Eastern Block. The latter "are challenging us to face up to their national memory. ... Since 1989, countries in central Europe have built a strategy using the West's 'debt' to the East in order to increase pressure on the EU and to create demand for necessary adjustments of national memory along with compensation. ... In order to avoid dividing national memory at a delicate moment in the construction of Europe, should we not take more notice of the countries which have emerged from the collapse of Soviet rule and their will to incorporate the experience of Soviet oppression into the pedestal of legitimate European history?"

Le Monde - France | 16/05/2007

Georges Mink and the difficulty former communist countries have facing their past

The French researcher Georges Mink explains why the question of 'decommunisation' still hasn't been definitely dealt with in certain former communist countries. "For some of the most zealous political actors, declaring a desire to get rid of the most immoral after-effects of communism is part of the rhetoric necessary to legitimate the opposite objective: to exploit it for as long as possible, because creating 'dissensus' in collective memory guarantees an advantageous position for its actors on the political scene. Archives that are difficult to access actually materialize suspicion that is carefully kept alive. They have an inexhaustible potential as hidden proof of the existence and preservation of the enemy. The leaks, more or less organised, lead to a belief that justice is being blocked by a network of this enemy's accomplices. ... In this atmosphere of general denunciation, we may well wonder about the degradation of the democratic system."

Tribune de Genève - Switzerland | 09/01/2007

Georges Mink on the 'decommunisation' of Poland

George Mink, a professor at the Polish branch of the College of Europe (Natolin), explains in an interview conducted by Jean-François Verdonnet how Poland is facing up to its past. "Those in power owe their election to the demand for resolute 'decommunisation'. Poland was the first country in Eastern Europe to detach itself from the Soviet block. At the time, the way out was negotiated in exchange for a policy of clemency towards all those who had served the Communist regime. However, the terms of the agreement have now been denounced by the majority. The long-deferred process of 'lustration' is now defended by leaders who also use it to position themselves on the political scene. This is running the risk indicated a little while ago by Jacek Kuron, the former leader of the democratic opposition who compared lustration to a 'grenade thrown into a cess pit, splattering all around for a long time'."

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