Safeguarding the primary source
“Without archives, we would all be orphans of the past, deprived of personality and knowledge and condemned to repeat ourselves.” (Jean Pierre Wallot, former President of the International Council on Archives, as quoted by Narissa Ramdhani in her opening speech at a workshop on archives held at the Nordic Africa Institute in September 2004.)
The Nordic Africa Institute has for more
than a decade been involved in documenting the relations between
the Nordic countries and the Southern African liberation movements.
In August 1994, soon after the first democratic elections in South
Africa, the Nordic Africa Institute launched a research and documentation
project on National Liberation in Southern Africa: The Role of
the Nordic Countries, co-ordinated by Tor Sellström. The project’s
main objectives were to document the involvement of the Nordic
countries in the liberation struggles during the period 1950–1994
and to analyse the social, political and economic factors behind
this involvement. The project was financed by the governments of
Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and resulted in a series of
six volumes (National Liberation in Southern Africa: The Role of
the Nordic Countries, a series of six volumes by Christopher Munthe
Morgenstierne [Denmark], Iina Soiri and Pekka Peltola [Finland],
Tore Linné Eriksen [Norway] and Tor Sellström [Sweden],
three volumes).
When the research activities were coming
to an end, the Nordic Africa Institute was left with a unique collection
of primary source material. The question then was: how could this
material become available for further research?
The request for repatriation of historical material
At an international conference held on Robben Island in February 1999, arranged
by the Robben Island Museum, the Mayibuye Centre and the Nordic Africa
Institute, the participants agreed that there should be technical and financial
assistance to the Southern African countries to collect and process written
and oral material. Several African leaders and organizations have also
strongly encouraged the restitution and return of cultural property to
its original owners, something that could be applied in the area of archives
as well as to museums. The requests came at a time when it was urgent to
produce a modern history that could become accessible to younger generations.
The National History Commission in South Africa had as one of its objectives
that South Africa does not end up a country freed not only from apartheid,
but also freed from history.
The archive project at NAI
Bearing in mind the requests for help in this area, the Swedish Ministry for
Foreign Affairs approached the Nordic Africa Institute and encouraged the
creation of an archive project that could document the material that was
available in the Nordic countries.
The anti-apartheid movement was arguably
a very significant social movement in the Nordic countries during
the late 20th century. A large number of organizations participated
in the activities, such as government bodies, churches, youth organizations,
political parties and labour movements. When a vast bilateral cooperation
emerged, many well documented conferences and meetings took place
in the Nordic countries during this period of time.
The first task at the Nordic Africa Institute
was to identify which archives and types of artefacts could be
of interest to institutions in, for example, South Africa and Namibia.
It turned out that there was a greater interest in posters, films,
pictures etc, as most of the documents were written in the Nordic
languages. The next step was to contact the best known Nordic organizations
and archives and reach an agreement with them on how to order and
catalogue the material, make indexes in English of the collections
and write presentations of the organizations’ historical
involvement with Southern Africa. Many ‘activists’ have
not always had a great interest in archives and much of the work
at the time was done in fairly unorganised ways in public basements
or homes. In some cases the archives had not only to be put in
order, they had to be found as well.
The result of the work is now available
in the database, www.liberationafrica.se. (Nina Frödin and
Marianne Lidskog at the Nordic Africa Institute have co-ordinated
the project activities, Gerolf Nauwerck and Alexandra Swenning
have done the work with the database.) Besides the catalogues of
the collections one can also find detailed information on the location
of the archives and how to contact them. Personal stories from
Nordic volunteers in the refugee camps have also been included.
Interviews, music recordings, posters, films and pictures have
been digitised and will, in due course, be made available in the
database. A large part of the Swedish collection of documents from
the research and documentation project on National Liberation in
Southern Africa: The Role of the Nordic Countries has been scanned,
but cannot yet be viewed on the site.
Regional support
There is an active search for history and its role in forming and reforming
national consciousness in many African countries today. The Institute is,
through the archive project, co-operating with some of the African projects
in this area. Examples of such initiatives are the archives of Lucio Lara
in Angola and the archives of the different SWAPO-offices around the world,
which have been returned to Namibia. The Institute has also been engaged
in inviting relevant institutions in Southern Africa to visit archives
in the Nordic countries. Interviews, exhibitions and posters have been
digitised by the Institute and donated to institutions in South Africa,
Namibia and Cape Verde.
Why put an effort into documentation?
The writing of history can become an important link between people and enrich
our present lives. A South African Ambassador recently said that she was
only 15 when the uprising of the school children in Soweto took place in
June 1976. At that time, she could not imagine that there was someone far
away who supported the children’s cause in her country.
History is said to be the discipline
that records and interprets past events involving human beings
and takes ‘the long view’ of things. It is therefore
desirable that it is based upon documentation that confirms
the truthfulness of what is written. Safeguarding primary source
material therefore becomes an important cornerstone for our
future interpretations of the past.
It seems however inevitable that
the writing of history does not involve personal aspects. A
Norwegian professor of history, Randi Rønning Balsvik,
concludes that “the writing of history is usually a conscious
and unconscious dialogue with the present time... A superior
outlook on what is true and of great value often governs what
is written. It often deals with what kind of self-image the
people involved wish to be lasting… A human being often
attempts to portray the past so that he or she is able to cope
with it, so that it gives honour and meaning for an individual
and a community today”. (Quote from Randi Rønning
Balsvik [ed.] Africa in a perspective of historiography [Afrika
i eit historiografisk perspektiv],Volum: Utsyn & innsikt.
Oslo: Samlaget, 2004. Unofficial translation by M. Lidskog) .
