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Destroying monuments: minority nationalists and counter-memorialisation
The sight of a monument being hauled from its pedestal by jubilant crowds has become a familiar media spectacle in recent years, from the removal of Lenin's in Eastern Europe to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The public ritual that is monument destruction marks the downfall of a despised regime and the overthrow of its value system, most commonly as the result of foreign invasion or popular revolution. It promises both a liberation from past sufferings and a Utopian future.
Yet the destruction of state monuments is not the sole preserve of triumphant People Power movements or foreign invaders. It has also a lengthy history as a propaganda tool employed by subversive militant groups, particularly ethnic minority nationalists in Europe and North America. In these cases, identity is contested from within by marginal extremists who embark upon campaigns of national counter-imagining through spectacular direct action against state symbols. In this way, the demolition of monuments has commonly presaged campaigns of increasing terrorist violence, including those of some of the most committed separatist organisations in the world today.
This work-in-progress seminar aims to provide an overview of the history of monument destruction as a subversive tactic, drawing upon key examples and examining their symbolic political and historical impacts. Situating this phenomenon within scholarship relating to memorialisation, iconoclasm, vandalism, and terrorism, it seeks to assess the role of what can be termed counter-memorialisation in minority nationalist militancy. In particular, it asks whether the illusion of power created by popular acts of symbolic destruction inevitably leads to an escalation of violence and eventual bloodshed.
Dr. Daniel Leach is author of "Fugitive Ireland: European minority nationalists and Irish political asylum, 1937-2009", and an Honorary Fellow of the School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne. The material in this seminar is drawn from an ARC APD application submitted through the ISR.
Yet the destruction of state monuments is not the sole preserve of triumphant People Power movements or foreign invaders. It has also a lengthy history as a propaganda tool employed by subversive militant groups, particularly ethnic minority nationalists in Europe and North America. In these cases, identity is contested from within by marginal extremists who embark upon campaigns of national counter-imagining through spectacular direct action against state symbols. In this way, the demolition of monuments has commonly presaged campaigns of increasing terrorist violence, including those of some of the most committed separatist organisations in the world today.
This work-in-progress seminar aims to provide an overview of the history of monument destruction as a subversive tactic, drawing upon key examples and examining their symbolic political and historical impacts. Situating this phenomenon within scholarship relating to memorialisation, iconoclasm, vandalism, and terrorism, it seeks to assess the role of what can be termed counter-memorialisation in minority nationalist militancy. In particular, it asks whether the illusion of power created by popular acts of symbolic destruction inevitably leads to an escalation of violence and eventual bloodshed.
Dr. Daniel Leach is author of "Fugitive Ireland: European minority nationalists and Irish political asylum, 1937-2009", and an Honorary Fellow of the School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne. The material in this seminar is drawn from an ARC APD application submitted through the ISR.
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By Swinburne CommonsThe sight of a monument being hauled from its pedestal by jubilant crowds has become a familiar media spectacle in recent years, from the removal of Lenin's in Eastern Europe to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The public ritual that is monument destruction marks the downfall of a despised regime and the overthrow of its value system, most commonly as the result of foreign invasion or popular revolution. It promises both a liberation from past sufferings and a Utopian future.
Yet the destruction of state monuments is not the sole preserve of triumphant People Power movements or foreign invaders. It has also a lengthy history as a propaganda tool employed by subversive militant groups, particularly ethnic minority nationalists in Europe and North America. In these cases, identity is contested from within by marginal extremists who embark upon campaigns of national counter-imagining through spectacular direct action against state symbols. In this way, the demolition of monuments has commonly presaged campaigns of increasing terrorist violence, including those of some of the most committed separatist organisations in the world today.
This work-in-progress seminar aims to provide an overview of the history of monument destruction as a subversive tactic, drawing upon key examples and examining their symbolic political and historical impacts. Situating this phenomenon within scholarship relating to memorialisation, iconoclasm, vandalism, and terrorism, it seeks to assess the role of what can be termed counter-memorialisation in minority nationalist militancy. In particular, it asks whether the illusion of power created by popular acts of symbolic destruction inevitably leads to an escalation of violence and eventual bloodshed.
Dr. Daniel Leach is author of "Fugitive Ireland: European minority nationalists and Irish political asylum, 1937-2009", and an Honorary Fellow of the School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne. The material in this seminar is drawn from an ARC APD application submitted through the ISR.
Yet the destruction of state monuments is not the sole preserve of triumphant People Power movements or foreign invaders. It has also a lengthy history as a propaganda tool employed by subversive militant groups, particularly ethnic minority nationalists in Europe and North America. In these cases, identity is contested from within by marginal extremists who embark upon campaigns of national counter-imagining through spectacular direct action against state symbols. In this way, the demolition of monuments has commonly presaged campaigns of increasing terrorist violence, including those of some of the most committed separatist organisations in the world today.
This work-in-progress seminar aims to provide an overview of the history of monument destruction as a subversive tactic, drawing upon key examples and examining their symbolic political and historical impacts. Situating this phenomenon within scholarship relating to memorialisation, iconoclasm, vandalism, and terrorism, it seeks to assess the role of what can be termed counter-memorialisation in minority nationalist militancy. In particular, it asks whether the illusion of power created by popular acts of symbolic destruction inevitably leads to an escalation of violence and eventual bloodshed.
Dr. Daniel Leach is author of "Fugitive Ireland: European minority nationalists and Irish political asylum, 1937-2009", and an Honorary Fellow of the School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne. The material in this seminar is drawn from an ARC APD application submitted through the ISR.