Whose Past Counts? Collective Remembrances
Disasters and subsequent recovery efforts are guided by a number of community considerations. Least understood of these are the communities’ collective memories of past disasters and their efforts to recover. This chapter argues that disasters shape the collective memory of communities and these collective memories persist over generations, thus becoming part of a community’s gestalt. The chapter develops the concept of collective memory as it applies to disasters as a framework for examining two very different cases—the earthquake of 1775 in Lisbon and the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 ce. Although these were disasters of very different forms, they were of such importance that they continue to be part of the collective consciousness of residents in both cities. The cases also illuminate four important issues that are critical to understanding disaster recovery: resistance/resilience; religion/naturalism; memorials/remembrances; and authoritarian/collective responses.