Postnational memory: Narrating the Holocaust and the Nakba

Abstract

At the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rages a struggle between two foundational tragedies: the Jewish Holocaust and the Palestinian Nakba. The contending ways in which both events are commemorated is a known feature of the conflict. Less known are marginal attempts to jointly deliberate on them. This article draws on such attempts to theorize a postnational conception of memory. Deliberating on the Holocaust and the Nakba, it argues, challenges the way nationalism structures ‘our’ and ‘their’ relationship to the past. While nationalism seeks the congruence of memory and territory, postnationalism challenges this congruence. Doing so entails (i) extending the communicative bounds of memory beyond national members, (ii) disrupting the territorialization of memory along national lines, and (iii) critically revising national narratives in light of a cosmopolitan memory. The article explores these three dimensions and offers a typology that differentiates the way nationalism and postnationalism mediate our relationship to the past.