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In South Africa. as is the case almost everywhere else in the world, the remembrance of wars also offers many points ofcontact for national or group-bounded identification. The "Anglo-Boer War is no different. Through its main historic actors - British imperialists versus Afrikaner nationalists - this war got the reputation of a "white man's war". Once again black actors, whether active or passive participants, disappeared from the field of vision. The propagated new national consensus in South Africa cannot bear the memory of that sharp conflict. According to the contemporary uniformity of thought there is no longer talk of victors and vanquished. Black auxiliary troops - on both sides of 1he front - must now get 1he deserved attention. Prompted by last year's centenary, tho old "Anglo-Boer War" is being noiselessly re-baptized into a new "South African War", or even more neutral: the "1899- 1902 war". As though within the new national community there is no longer room for a separate commemoration of the dead,. but only for a collective remembrance uniting the victims in a posthumous act of reconciliation. The collective commemoration of all the victims, irrespective of the racial or ethnic dividing line of old. must therefore, according to the new national ideology, serve the new national unity. This contribution wishes to show some points of similarities between the politics of memory in present-day South Afr ica and in other European societies. especially the German case.

Der Verfasser thematisiert die Auseinandersetzung mit der eigenen Geschichte in Belgien, die erst in den 1990er Jahren begann. Er tut dies am Beispiel der Konflikte um die Einrichtung eines Holocaust-Museums in Mechelen, die die Frage nach der "absoluten Einzigartigkeit des Holocaust" aufwarfen. Diese Debatte - gerade auch unter Historikern - macht deutlich, dass die Aussage eines Zeitzeugen für die Historiographie "eher Last als Segen" ist. Die flämische Regierung hat inzwischen die Einrichtung eines neuen Museums ("Kazerne Dossin") beschlossen. (ICE)

The use and abuse of anachronism is often seen as the quintessence of the writing of history. Historians tend to conceive it as the hardcore of their métier to avoid anachronism. It designates a confusion in order of time, especially the mistake of placing an event, attitude, or circumstance too early. The awareness of historical anachronism is omnipresent in times of a radical rewriting of history, in particular as a result of political transformation. History reflects the needs and ambitions of a political context, and the sense of what is deemed historically significant does not remain unattached hereby. Chronology and anachronism are essential to particular conceptions of history, and if history is in a process of being rewritten, they are the first items to be addressed by the defenders of the old system and the advocates of a new discourse. In political debates on the use or abuse of history anachronism is often seen as ultimate proof of the (un-)reliability of new insights and conceptions. As anachronism is defined as a way of transferring contemporary sets of values, assumptions and interpretative categories, every political reorientation inevitably provokes a discussion on that level. If a 'new nation' is in search of a 'new past', a new reflection on the basic categories of historical thinking becomes necessary. The changing discourses in South African historiography since the end of Apartheid serve here as an illuminative example.

The use and abuse of anachronism is often seen as the quintessence of the writing of history. Historians tend to conceive it as the hardcore of their métier to avoid anachronism. It designates a confusion in order of time, especially the mistake of placing an event, attitude, or circumstance too early. The awareness of historical anachronism is omnipresent in times of a radical rewriting of history, in particular as a result of political transformation. History reflects the needs and ambitions of a political context, and the sense of what is deemed historically significant does not remain unattached hereby. Chronology and anachronism are essential to particular conceptions of history, and if history is in a process of being rewritten, they are the first items to be addressed by the defenders of the old system and the advocates of a new discourse. In political debates on the use or abuse of history anachronism is often seen as ultimate proof of the (un-)reliability of new insights and conceptions. As anachronism is defined as a way of transferring contemporary sets of values, assumptions and interpretative categories, every political reorientation inevitably provokes a discussion on that level. If a 'new nation' is in search of a 'new past', a new reflection on the basic categories of historical thinking becomes necessary. The changing discourses in South African historiography since the end of Apartheid serve here as an illuminative example.