date is a spectrum

Dates are always a little frustrating. They return like ghosts, they are a spectral evocation. January 27 is a symbol of barbarity in history: International Holocaust Remembrance Day. As survivors testify, they point out, what happened at Auschwitz is unimaginable. And yet, despite everything, there has been a demand to imagine the pain inherent in this symbol of Western destructive logic, which condemns the effectiveness of domination and death in its terrible relationship between capitalism and technology.

You are never in anyone else’s shoes, says Primo Levi drowned and saved, Dates bring us together around an absence. At the center of every gesture of remembrance lies a faceless presence that testifies precisely to that lack. There is nothing sublime in the inaccessible distance of the past. Like a monument of wandering mourning, which waits every year to disrupt the comfortable oblivion on which our daily lives are built, this date inevitably refers to dehumanization.

January 27, 2024 is also marked as the date of death. The clash between the past he invokes and this bloody present could not be more tragic. But nevertheless, this temporal montage points, precisely, to the capacity of memory to intervene in the present. Paying tribute to the testimony given on this date should be an act of resistance against all injustices of the present. He who answers the call of the dead can only feel motivated by the demands of his time.

The clash between the past it invokes and this bloody present could not be more tragic.

Today Gaza is dying under the debris. The cruelty of thousands of innocent deaths opens an unfathomable wound. The inseparability between civilians and combatants creates a persistent threat. Violations of the laws of war, forced displacement of populations, indiscriminate attacks or starvation as collective punishment make the state of exception effective in all its rigor. Genocide – as well as Genocide – has also been updated; The Signers return with all their sinister accusations. Revenge and crime are legitimized by their own impunity. International law is crumbling; Aggression and threat to the legitimacy of the entire world is looming. “Taking measures to stop the genocide” is not enough; violence will only end through a ceasefire and political negotiations.

The uniqueness of the State of Israel cannot be denied. This is based not only on the violence that it is capable of inflicting, but also on the memory of the oppression and murder it has suffered since time immemorial. In its foundation are also hidden the dead who could not escape such a fate. Within a few years of the Holocaust alone they numbered more than six million. The whole world had to be protected from the violence that began with the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights, which was also inspired by these deaths. Since then, respect for his memory has been essentially linked to the condemnation of all violence, and especially that of any state, including Israel. The suffering of those past generations, which we invoke today, on this date, can never be a means of legitimizing bloodshed. On the contrary, we need its fiercest criticism and censorship.

“We know we have to decline. The rejection is total,” writes Blanchot after the atrocities of World War II. What is unbearable about violence is its normality and our resignation to it. The erasure of the memory of destruction leads to helpless surrender and surprise in the face of explosions of hatred. Today more than ever we must reject and remember the 27th of January that returns every year to warn us of the danger of our own and others’ violence. On this date, nothing should resonate more than the pain that haunts the present and the demand to stop all attacks on life. Even from memory.

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Paula Kuffer Is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Barcelona.

Dates are always a little frustrating. They return like ghosts, they are a spectral evocation. January 27 is a symbol of barbarity in history: International Holocaust Remembrance Day. how do they explain