A Museum To Never Have to Say "Nunca Mas" Again

Cerca de Museo de la Memoria y de los Derechos Humanos

The outstanding Museo de la Memoria y de los Derechos Humanos or The Museum of Memory and Human Rights was opened in Santiago, Chile in 2010.

This museum was built to honor victims of human rights' violations, some of which survived and too many of which did not, with the truth of what happened to them.

The idea is that this truth is a basic human right as well.

This is a Chilean museum and thus it is focused specifically on the tortures, murders, disappearances, censorships, exiles, and other terrible events which occured during the height of the Pinochet years from 1973 to 1988.

However, the museum's mission is very clearly framed as a universal one. At the entrance of the museum, all countries with truth and reconciliation commissions are represented on a map of the world.  The best known of these commissions overall is likely the one authorized by President Nelson Mandela in South Africa, but the sobering fact is that there are dozens of such commissions, sometimes specifically supported by governments green-lighting investigations into their countries' pasts and, sometimes, groups of individuals with only the courageous mandate of conscience.

Even if one believes (as I do) that transparency about any human rights' violation is necessary (for all, not just for victims and their families) no matter how painful, the introduction of the truth to children, our youngest citizens, is not always practically easy.  This museum does an extraordinary job of accessibility for children: first the inner architecture lands itself to easy avoidance of the rooms covering subjects that are not appropriate for young children (e.g., torture and murder) and easy viewing of other very compelling objects or images: the beautiful art created by prisoners, often for their children, the paintings created by children to express what they went through during the Pinochet dictature, or the films of children expressing themselves no less poignantly. Also, as you can see on the museum's website, there are many activities specifically dedicated to children (by the way following the links to the pictures of some of these activities will allow you peeks into the museum that I can not offer as taking pictures was not permitted.)

There is a particularly moving space, to the side of the memorial room where one can view a large fixed "cloud" of mostly black and white pictures of women and men, young and old, who were murdered or disappeared during the dictature; it is a space with a large red bench facing a wall where the cloud pictures are projected dynamically. One face replaces the next for several minutes until all the faces zoom out, forming letters, which assemble to read "NUNCA MAS" or "never again".

Sadly, we are not at never again yet in this world, but with efforts such as those exemplified by this museum, we may be closer to being on our way.

Till later,

Anne