Resumo
Negative heritage has received a lot of attention during the last couple of decades. This is perhaps best seen in the proliferation of terms that have been coined to describe it: hurtful, painful, dark, difficult, conflict, post-conflict, dissonant, taboo, traumatic, etc. Within negative heritage, the legacies of dictatorship and civil conflict are particularly problematic. If heritage helps reinforce collective identity—even some forms of negative heritage (i.e. 9/11 in the US), the legacy of oppressive regimes is almost always divisive and attempts to overcome it usually meet fierce opposition, even decades or centuries after the events. Research on this kind of heritage has tended to focus on three issues: multivocality (the diverse and conflicting views that emerge around a specific monument or site), nostalgia (the idealization of a dark past by some sectors of the post-dictatorial society) and ideology (the legitimization of past political oppression through its material memories). Here I would like to explore an element that I feel has not been properly addressed: hatred. Legacies of dictatorship are, primordially, repositories of latent social violence that can be reactivated at any point. Starting with my experiences dealing with the heritage of civil war and dictatorship in Spain, I will explore other contexts (from Ukraine to the United States) where some forms of heritage continue to work as rallying points for political violence.
Palabras chave
Patrimonio negativo. Dictadura. Guerra civil española. Franquismo.