Open Session Witness Seminar

Background information

A Witness Seminar is a form of oral history, in which a group of eyewitnesses, led by a moderator, collectively recall memories of a historical period or event. It is a method that has been applied to medical history (Tansey), but also to political and cultural themes from recent history, such as the Falklands War in England, or the emergence of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. See for example this page .) Its importance is to record as representative a diversity of memories as possible, of important episodes from the past, as a form of intangible heritage and collective memory, in addition to existing knowledge from archives and media.
 

The hard drug problem was an intense and drastic period for the city and its residents. In the Dutch Mining Museum, this period is currently referred to as “gray”: the period after the mine closures, which was characterized by disappointment in the government, unemployment, alcoholism, and a new phenomenon for the region: the use of opiates and cocaine by young people. All this led to personal misery for addicts and their families, but also to social misery such as nuisance, crime, and a rapidly deteriorating reputation of the city.

Yet this period was also a phase of cultural change and innovation. The drug problem must be seen in a broader context: the influence of the Catholic Church in Heerlen and the surrounding area decreased, citizens went in search of new forms of spirituality, entertainment, music, and art. The city's crisis also offered opportunities and breeding grounds for innovation, in squats and underground cafés. Innovation was also visible in the approach to the drug problem: in Operation Hartslag, the police and emergency services have worked together since 2001 in a way that was followed nationally (Hermans 2016; Nuijten 2023).

   
A culturally embedded Witness Seminar on this period, involving a variety of groups and stakeholders who experienced this period closely, offers the city and its residents all kinds of opportunities. First of all, to reflect collectively on this changing period and to record the common memory for the future. But also, to shape a new narrative about it as a Heerlen community, a more nuanced and not just "bleak" view of this period in the city's history. Finally, to stimulate cooperation between all kinds of parties in the city, through a collective effort of cultural institutions, scholars, artists, and city people.
 

A Witness Seminar also offers opportunities for the city imaging of Heerlen. Heerlen would play an innovative and progressive role nationally and internationally if it were to explicitly face this difficult period in this way. European cities that temporarily had an “open drug scene” at the end of the twentieth century (Heerlen was certainly not the only one!) tend to want to forget this period as quickly as possible once the worst problems have been overcome. This is certainly understandable, but it prevents processing, commemoration of victims, and recognition of emotions and part of the reality of the past (Blok 2019).  

Literature

• Hermans, Maurice. The Anti-City: Pioneer of Growing Smaller (2016). 
• Nuijten, Arjan. Regulating Paradise. The local origins of harm reduction in the Netherlands (University of Amsterdam 2023).
• Tansey, E.M. 2008. “The Witness Seminar Technique in Modern Medical History.” In History of the Social Determinants of Health, edited by Cook, H.; Hardy, A.; Bhattacharya, S., 279–95. Telangana: Orient Black Swan.
• Blok, Gemma. 'Victims of the drug war. Cultures of memory around heroin in the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland', Locus. Journal of Cultural Studies 2019.