On Memory Politics and Memory Wars: A Critical Analysis of the Croatian Dialogue Document

Based on public demands for rectifying injuries of the past, memory politics recently became the most potent catalyst of social divisions and confrontations, as well as possible limitation of freedom of expression. In addition, facing the past might not yield conciliatory, but rather antagonizing effects, leading toward so-called “memory wars” regarding conflicting past narratives that might jeopardize political stability and aggravate cultural trauma in highly polarized societies, especially if there are powerful mnemonic warriors propelled with foundational and teleological attempts to impose historical “truth”, as the author shows in the first part of the article. In the second part the author focuses on the origin of the politics of memory in Croatia and ongoing “memory wars” regarding displaying and using controversial symbolic expressions, while parts three and four contain a critical analysis of the Dialogue Document provided by the Council for Dealing with the Consequences of Undemocratic Regimes that aimed to deliver comprehensive recommendations for political decision-making and law-framing in an attempt to face the difficult past and socially contested symbolic expressions