ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes one such institution, the Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which provides a distinct lens through which to examine the activist potential of the memorial museum. It argues that understanding the activist potential for memorial museums is best pursued by disaggregating. The chapter also analyses three tensions inherent in the form: how a specific institution is constructed as a social space in relation to political narratives; what are its modes of representing history; and how does it envision a relationship to community through the performance of the tour. Their eyewitness accounts provide an indelible introduction to the human losses of a period otherwise presented within a strongly political and collectivized narrative. In psychological terms, trauma is an experience that cannot be incorporated into forms of remembrance and tamed knowledge. Traumatic history disrupts communities, undermining intention to inculcate ‘lessons’ or capture the narrative for any particular use or value be it conservative or progressive.
