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Conflict does not end when violence ceases. Societies faced with overcoming conflict are confronted with many obstacles in the long process of reconciliation as they move from cold war to warm peace. They have to bridge the divide of disparate collective memory while overcoming deep-rooted inter-group distrust. Disparate collective memories fuel the conflict by preserving hatred and distrust. We suggest that one step towards warm peace is the establishment of an overarching superordinate group memory, or Shared Collective Memory. Our paper introduces a theoretical reconciliation model that proposes three incremental reconciliation cycles to build a Shared Collective Memory through the parallel development of intergroup trust. It combines and expands on the existing conceptualizations of trust and of collective memory and provides a framework for future empirical research.

Collaboration with the Nazi occupier during WWII has always been a topic of dissent between French-speakers (FS) and Dutch-speakers (DS) in Belgium. According to a popular myth coined after the war and often narrated in the media and literature, collaboration was widespread in Flanders, whereas Walloons bravely resisted, although historical reality is much more nuanced. These representations regularly resurface in political debates surrounding the Belgian linguistic conflict. Demands for amnesty addressed by nationalist Flemish parties are a case in point. A questionnaire survey (N = 521; 315 FS and 206 DS) showed that collaboration was represented negatively and was morally condemned in both groups. However, DS expressed more Support for Amnesty (SA) than FS. This effect of Linguistic Group (LG) on SA was mediated by judgment of morality of collaboration, and this mediation was moderated by identification with the LG. Interestingly, SA was predicted by judgments of morality of DS, but not of FS, collaborators, in both groups, as if francophone collaboration was deemed irrelevant. Results suggest that differences between DS and FS in political position taking regarding the granting of amnesty are partly due to differences in representations of collaboration, and to different perspectives towards the same historical representation. The myth is both shared and disputed.

Este artículo examina el rol de la confianza intergrupal y el reconocimiento del sufrimiento pasado en las relaciones intergrupales. Un experimento con estudiantes belgas flamencos manipuló la importancia que belgas francófonos otorgaban a episodios del pasado de victimización para contrastar su impacto en las actitudes hacia los francófonos. Los resultado smostraron que las actitudes intergrupales eran más favorables en los belgas flamencos con alta confianza intergrupal cuando se les presentaba información que los francófonos juzgaban como importantes los sufrimientos de ambos comunidades, en comparación cuando la información solo enfatizaba el sufrimiento de los flamencos o de los francófonos. Estosugiere que un nivel de confianza intergrupo es necesario para que memorias compartidas de sufrimiento mejoren las actitudes.