A/HRC/45/45 perceive the world and other people perceive us. Celebrating certain pieces of music; glorifying certain events, heroes or heroines, whether real, mythological or fictional; and repudiating other events form perceptions and help to define relationships. 17 33. Conversely, the logic of marginalization, exclusion, negative stereotyping, dehumanization and denialism makes perverse use of these instruments, with the opposite results. 34. The legal and regulatory framework for transitional justice has changed radically over the period between its origins and the present day. The current view is that transitional justice processes must be focused on and implemented in line with the effective fulfilment of States’ human rights obligations.18 35. States must play an active and decisive role in this area, in accordance with international standards. The Special Rapporteur concurs with the view of the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, which recommends the adoption of comprehensive public policies on memorialization.19 36. As a part of transitional justice, memory must take and be consistent with a human rights approach. The purpose of the proper use of memory is to establish “a dialogic truth”, 20 that is, to create the conditions for a debate within society on the causes and consequences of past crimes and violence and on the attribution of direct and indirect responsibility. This makes it possible to go beyond “completely separate and unreconciled accounts of what had happened”21 and thus narrow “the range of permissible lies”.22 37. The aim is to enable victimized populations to explain a brutal past without justifying it, thereby easing existing tensions and allowing society to live more peacefully with the legacy of past divisions. Without falling prey to a dangerous relativism or establishing a homogeneous way of thinking, different narratives and interpretations of past violence can coexist in a democratic society, and this feeds into the dynamics of social reconstruction. 38. The process referred to in the previous two paragraphs should never result in the denial or downplaying of the violations committed, nor should it give rise to scepticism about the findings of truth commissions and/or legal proceedings, which provide a verified minimum record of violations, whose real number, in practice, is usually much higher. The voices of the victims of human rights violations must play a key role in the construction of memory, thereby avoiding the distortions that the perpetrators may attempt to impose. 39. In specific cases involving armed conflict between different groups, including tribal or ethnic groups, the process of memory must not give rise to competition between victims. This occurs when certain groups receive the backing of the authorities while others are marginalized, either deliberately or because they do not have sufficient sway in political circles or the media to make their voices heard in the public arena. 40. Memory processes related to armed conflict can lead to the manipulation of history and the cult of martyrdom, which tends to reopen past wounds, intensify hatred and incite new acts of violence. The 2010 report on the mapping exercise documenting the human rights violations committed between 1993 and 2003 within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo warns of the dangers of vengeful memorialization. 23 Similarly, the 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 GE.20-09155 Examples include works of fiction such as the television series Derry Girls, which gave Irish and British teenagers a better understanding of the conflict in the north of the island, and the television miniseries Holocaust, which has resonated around the world since 1978. Salvioli, Fabián, “La justice transitionnelle aujourd’hui”, in Julián Fernández and Olivier de Frouville (eds.), L’hirondelle et la tortue. Quatrièmes journées de la justice pénale internationale, pp. 109–114, Paris, Pedone, 2020. “Principles on Public Policies on Memory in the Americas”, resolution 3/2019, adopted on 9 November 2019. Sachs, Albie, The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000. Ibid. Ignatieff, Michael, “Articles of faith”, Index on Censorship 5, 1996, p. 111, available at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/030642209602500522. www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/CD/DRC_MAPPING_REPORT_FINAL_EN.pdf, para. 111. 7