Festival Series ‘Memory Matters’ in Dortmund: Remembrance and Football

Taking a plural culture of remembrance seriously implies taking seriously the plurality of the places in which it is created and negotiated. Plural cultures of remembrance do not emerge at memorial sites, they emerge from how we live and work together – and in how we play together. They are negotiated in sites that mean something to a lot of people; these could be theatres, or even football stadiums. A plural remembrance culture means illuminating ambivalences, strengthening the work that takes place at and in relation to significant places, so that they might become sites of plural remembrance.

With ‘Memory Matters’, the Dietrich-Keuning-Haus, the Schauspiel Dortmund, the Nordstatliga, and the Coalition for Pluralistic Public Discourse highlighted new modes of remembrance: the focus of the Festival of Plural Remembrance Culture hovered at the junction between remembrance culture and football.

Dortmund, as a part of the Rhein-Ruhr metropolitan region once known primarily for coal and steel, is today, after many years of structural transformation, a university city with a vibrant cultural scene. It has also declared itself a ‘Football Capital’, and is home to Germany’s largest football stadium. More than 40% of the population has a ‘migration background’. Over the years, as these diverse communities have lived and worked together, vibrant sites of negotiation have emerged across community lines, and are now spearheading efforts for a plural culture of remembrance.

In Dortmund, as in some other German cities, football has the power to unite. Through the engagement of many fan initiatives over the years, football in Dortmund has become a meaningful site of socio-political discourse. In this, football clubs are operating within a remarkably tense arena: while, for example, the salaries of professional players are often seen as exorbitant and disconnected from any societal reality, both the players and the clubs themselves are increasingly serving as actors within the socio-political context. They use their influence to advance societal causes, including questions relating to remembrance policy. ‘Memory Matters’ addresses this tension and shows how the interplay between civil society engagement and economic players can make a substantial contribution to the promotion of a plural culture of remembrance.

PENTAGON Spezial

To kick off the festival, CPPD member Aladin El-Mafaalani brought together a panel of speakers and over 300 guests for PENTAGON Spezial, held in the Dietrich-Keuning-Haus. The panel consisted of social scientist and coordinator of the Nordstadtliga, Germany’s largest street football league, Mirza Demirović, journalist, moderator, actress and former football player Shary Reeves, and former football player, author, and founder of the educational initiative well:fair foundation Neven Subotić.

Together, they discussed the role that football can play in a plural culture of remembrance. What has football got to do with remembrance? What role does football play in the educational context? Can we entrust organised football with more responsibility? And what functions can football serve in the negotiation of belonging and identity? Mirza Demirović emphasised that remembrance policy work must pay more attention to rising nationalist tendencies within the football scene, which can serve as a litmus test for societal change. Moderator Aladin El-Mafaalani pointed out the links between financially powerful sponsors of clubs and to their often lacklustre efforts at addressing their own histories, taking the arms manufacturer Rheinmetall as a prominent example. Shary Reeves highlighted the importance of comprehensively addressing racism and discrimination within football, while Neven Subotić called upon us all to take the individual dimension of remembrance work more seriously and to make it more accessible.

Workshops
Three accompanying workshops addressed different target groups in relation to the topic of remembrance culture and football. The workshop ‘Football unites!? – The Question of Remembrance in Football’ brought together moderator and CPPD member Samuel Stern and education and pedagogical experts to discuss how discrimination, racism, antisemitism, and the tension of remembrance in football are dealt with.

A further workshop brought together young people between the ages of 15 and 27 to create performances using theatre methods. The two workshop leaders, Yulia Yanez Schmidt and Felix Scharr, used this approach to critically examine the role of artistic forms of expression within football, and how they can contribute to a plural culture of remembrance.

The third workshop, conducted in cooperation with the Nordstadtliga, supported girls between the ages of 8 and 15 who are all part of the ‘Nordstadtliga Queens’ and who represent a diversity of ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds. Educational experts from YouMo! and Shary Reeves used playful exercises to strengthen the participants’ social competencies, thus empowering them in their identities.

Spaces for communication will also be needed in the future for the further development of our local cultures of remembrance. The event in Dortmund was a part of the CPPD festival series ‘Memory Matters’, being held in 2024 in four German and two further European cities as a series of events, workshops, artistic positions, and discussions.