Transitional Influences, 1991–2005

Abstract

This chapter asks why there is a Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum, versus another memorial form or nothing at all? Drawing on interviews with Ethiopian actors, site visits, and debates within museum and memory studies, the answer is found in four critical influences. First, is the commitment of memorial activists. Second, are memorial museums created in Ethiopia’s regional capitals dedicated to the history of the armed movements that overthrew the military regime. Third, is transitional justice: prosecutions of former regime officials that examined the history of the Red Terror in terms of abuses, perpetrators, and victims, a narrative arc that resonates with how memorial museums narrate the past. Fourth, are material objects: exhumed human remains and a simple memorial stone, which together provided a reason for creating a physical site and a foothold for where that site should exist in the country’s capital. These four factors both resonate with the explanations for the rise of memorial museums as found in the disciplines of memory studies and transitional justice, and reveal innovations in the Ethiopian context.