Democratic states base their identity on the proclamation of the democratic tradition and on the moral and social recognition of all citizens who gave the best of themselves to preserve its essential values. With this conviction, the Government of Catalonia (Generalitat de Catalunya), through the Department of Home Affairs, Institutional Relations and Participation, is promoting the creation of the Democratic Memorial, an institution that will foment the historical knowledge of the fight for democracy in Catalonia to thereby guarantee the civil right of memory.
The Directorate General for Democratic Memory organized, from 17th to 20th October 2007, the First International Colloquium on Democratic Memorial: Public Policies on Memory, for the purpose of uniting reflections and experiences about the need to establish democratic memory in collective heritage, a need that Catalonia shares with many other countries of the European Union and the world who have suffered traumatic processes.
The Colloquium was directed at all the people who, from associations, academics or cultural management areas, feel involved in the task of making memory of the past an educational tool of the future.