A/HRC/28/36 7. The Deputy High Commissioner stated that history teaching should stimulate and promote civic engagement, critical thinking and discussion, in order to help us to understand not only the past but also contemporary challenges, such as discrimination and violence. She concluded that even when it was too soon or too painful to reach a shared narrative of past events, a first achievable step was to acknowledge and understand that a diversity of views existed about why and how the events had occurred. The challenge was to distinguish manipulations of history for political ends from the legitimate continuous reinterpretation of the past. III. Contributions of the panellists 8. In her introductory remarks as moderator of the panel, Ms. Shaheed recalled that she had devoted two consecutive reports to the issue of historical and memorial narratives in divided societies, relating to history textbooks (A/68/296) and memorials and museums (A/HRC/25/49). In those reports, Ms. Shaheed sought to identify the circumstances under which narratives of the past, promoted either by governmental or non-governmental actors, could be or become problematic from a human rights perspective. She stressed that, too often, stakeholders failed to acknowledge cultural diversity and the multiplicity of historical and memorial narratives between and within communities. Unacknowledged wars also raged in the area of culture and education, in which deep misunderstandings between communities were cultivated, thereby preparing the grounds for discrimination, violence and even future revenge. 9. Ms. Shaheed noted that people constantly strived on the one hand to retrieve, validate, make known and have acknowledged by others their own history, and on the other hand to contest dominant interpretations. She underlined the essential role of historical and memorial narratives, as components of cultural heritage, in shaping collective identities. Noting the lack of common narrative of the past between or within countries, she stressed the importance of ensuring a multi-perspective approach to history teaching and memorialization processes, and of fostering critical thought, analytical learning and debate, so as to allow a better understanding of the contemporary challenges of exclusion and violence. 10. The Special Rapporteur emphasized that academic and artistic freedoms, unfortunately too often restricted, were important in this process. Academics and artists, in particular, could help us to understand that neither written history nor remembrance of the past ever produced final, never-to-be-changed outcomes. The past has always been subject to interpretation, discussion and reinterpretation. The Special Rapporteur noted the need to open space for diverse narratives to be articulated in culturally meaningful ways for all. Furthermore, self-expressions through artistic creativity were indispensable to make victims visible. 11. Ms. Shaheed observed that enabling a plurality of narratives of past events was particularly crucial in post-conflict and deeply divided societies, because it allowed insights into the experience of the other, whoever it may be, and a glimpse of people’s common humanity beyond the fractured identities that are especially prominent in conflict. She concluded that such a plurality was crucial for reconciliation processes to be sustainable. 12. Ms. Stojanovic stressed the timeliness of the panel. She indicated that there was most often no common narrative of the past. For example, numerous debates took place shortly after the First World War on how to consider the man who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Gavrilo Princip, whom some qualified as a criminal and others as a hero or a freedom fighter. Every historical situation has been the subject of diverging interpretations depending on the angle from which events were analysed. Post-conflict societies, whether 4