Do records truly matter? Does the preservation of memory really matter? Can memory and history be a weapon in the hands of the powerless, for the present and for the future?
These are some of the questions we carry in our work with CPT, especially with Aegean Migrant Solidarity. We ask them particularly when we are tired, and when we see that despite all our efforts, despite our continuous documentation, the situation remains the same: the criminalization of migration, of migrants, and of solidarity; more violence and more deaths at the borders; more prisons and detention centers.
Sometimes we wonder whether the information and human stories we collect are just more fleeting moments on some timeline – moments that even we will soon forget ourselves, when the next injustice takes its place: another shipwreck, another unjust conviction, another prison built for the innocent.
And yet, hope comes from unexpected places and at unexpected times. The recognition of the community of El Guayabo in Colombia as a subject of collective reparations, and the recognition and compensation for the villages and families in Iraqi Kurdistan affected by unlawful bombings, are victories that give new strength to us in this corner of the world. Victories that come after years of struggle and resistance – and after the persistent documentation of the violence and injustice that communities endure – let us answer the question, “do records really matter?”, with a resounding yes.
Memory is an essential element of the present, of our identity and our values. It serves as a bridge of solidarity between different geographies, communities, and times. It reminds us that freedom and equality are never given, but the result of constant struggle. And forgetting is not merely the absence of knowledge – it is a form of injustice, for it allows the same mistakes, inequalities, and forms of oppression to be repeated.
Let us not surrender to forgetting, even if it sometimes seems the easier path in our daily lives.
May memory be our guide, and our moral compass.
Pray for our collective memory and our collective history of struggle.
