Beyond the Long Shadow: Engaging with Difficult Histories

In their third episode, the UN Department of Global Communications will consider how radio has been used to fuel genocide, but also how the same medium was used in the aftermath of atrocity crimes, to assist with the reconstitution and tracing of families.

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the International Red Cross, the International Tracing Service and radio stations such as the BBC, broadcast lists of names of survivors in the hope that families would be reunited. Forty-nine years after the end of the Second World War and three months after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda had ended, the BBC began a radio project to support the people of Rwanda. The first service, BBC Gahuzamiryango – “the unifier of families” broadcast the names of children who were looking for their parents and collected messages from refugees living in camps in Tanzania, DRC and Burundi who were trying to trace their loved ones.

Moderator
Mr. Ben Dotsei Malor, United Nations

Guests
Prof. Maria Petrova, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Dr. Christian Höschler, Arolsen Archives, Germany
Dr. Sara E. Brown, CHHANGE, United States
Mr. Ally Yusuf Mugenzi, BBC Great Lakes service, Rwanda

Register here.

Beyond the Long Shadow: Engaging with Difficult Histories is organized together with the Outreach Programmes on the transatlantic slave trade, and the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. The aim of the collaborative series is to develop a deeper understanding of the legacies of these painful histories – and through examining the past, consider how best to build a world that is just, where all can live in dignity and peace. The series is organized by the United Nations Department of Global Communications.