Here is an excerpt from Marco Armiero’s reflections on toxic heritage and uncomfortable pasts, published in the “Landscape” section of the Italian magazine L’Indice della Settimana, dedicated to European cultures, translated into English.
Before we were swept up by wars and energy crises, for a few years we asked ourselves—and perhaps some still do—about our relationship with what is often described as a toxic heritage. What should we do with the many monuments and other, more or less tangible, traces that mark our landscapes with controversial, questionable, often simply horrific memories?
Some cried out against “cancel culture,” warning that a new, more inclusive sensitivity—more aware of the horrors of the past—would lead to a massive campaign to destroy monuments deemed unfit for the times. Needless to say, no bulldozers have been seen roaming European capitals. On the contrary, debates over contested memories have often fostered a greater awareness of the heritage that occupies our public space.
It seems to me that the real cancel culture—the operational, normalized one—is instead the one that has silenced uncomfortable memories, effectively erasing all those stories that do not fit within mainstream narratives. There are not many statues dedicated to those who resisted European colonialism; there are not many plaques commemorating workers, students, or protesters killed by repression, even in our democratic states. And more simply: why do we know so little about history from the perspective of women?
This form of cancel culture needs no bulldozers, because it is already among us: it has erased so thoroughly what does not fit dominant narratives that we are no longer even aware of what is missing. And, with a strange sleight of hand, if someone tries to bring these forgotten stories back to light, they are accused of violating the sanctity of Memory as it has been handed down and inscribed in our everyday landscapes.
In reality, the questions raised by those who seek to come to terms with uncomfortable pasts and with oppressive memories occupying collective spaces are the best antidote to any form of selective amnesia. It is not, therefore, a matter of erasing or tearing anything down, but rather of cultivating and making visible the stories hidden in the folds of our cities or in our rural landscapes.
It is from this desire to reread familiar landscapes with new eyes that, in many European cities, urban explorations have developed as genuine laboratories of guerrilla narrative. These experiments use traces—often imposing and monumental, sometimes tiny, like commemorative plaques—as portals through which to access forgotten stories.
Decolonial tours now run through numerous European cities, bringing to light the highly visible yet silent traces of the colonial past.
Read the full Italian version of the article in L’Indice della Settimana
