occasion of Memory of the World Workshop
11 June 2007
The Honourable, Executive Mayor of Tshwane, Dr G Ramokgopa
Professor Abdel-Kader Asmal
Mr Abdel-Aziz Abid, Senior Programme Specialist from United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco),
Deputy Minister Ntombazana Botha
Members of the Diplomatic Corps
Delegates
Ladies and gentlemen
Welcome to this wonderful family reunion in Tshwane, South Africa. As the
Executive Mayor, Dr Ramokgopa has indicated, the city has much to offer. Apart
from historic sites, the natural environment around this city is quite
amazingly beautiful. We are gathered here from various parts of the world, not
far from the site Paleoanthropologists believe was the home of our common
ancestors, the Cradle of Humankind (Maropeng).
With the passage of time some among those early hominids migrated. They
travelled north, they travelled to other continents, perhaps driven by need or
by curiosity, they spread across the globe so that today their descendants are
found in every part of our planet. Others remained in the perhaps friendlier
diverse habitats on our vast continent. When I say this is a family reunion, in
a very profound sense that is true. It is an extremely important gathering with
a very special mission, to honour our heritage, ancient and more recent. We owe
it to those ancestors and our children's children to maintain a special,
observable, bond of belonging and connectedness, to our human family, our
nations, our cultural groups and communities.
That special bond is cemented by our memory. Memory is the principal tool we
employ to store and preserve both our human experience and our knowledge of the
world around us. We rely on it to preserve, recycle and to relate that
experience to new listeners. Every human society has relied on the experience
of its older members as the foundation on which to build what is new. Since the
birth of the human race our unique ability to pass on our knowledge of the
world, our experience in life and our achievements to our off-spring has
enabled our species not only to survive but to prosper.
A visit to the Cradle of Humankind will be arranged where you will be able
to see, touch and feel some of the oldest milestones of our epic journey to the
present. Think of that visit as a pilgrimage! It will allow you to cast your
minds' eye over history � a history that has seen breathtaking triumphs but
also extremely disheartening failures, a history that has witnessed humanity
scaling the heights of achievement but one that has also witnessed the human
race plumb the depths of depravity! The human family's creativity has brought
joy and happiness to many but that same creativity has been applied to enslave,
persecute and brutalise fellow human beings.
In South Africa, 13 years ago, on the 27th April 1994, we gained our
freedom, delivering this country from brutal oppression. South African freedom
was greeted with approbation throughout the world, every nation celebrated with
us. We remain deeply grateful for the support, especially to our brothers and
sisters in Africa that the struggle for freedom enjoyed. 2007 promises to be a
very exciting year for our government and indeed for the people of South
Africa. In July 2005 South Africa hosted a very successful conference on
Unesco's Heritage Committee, which administers the International Register of
world heritage sites.
Today we host the International Conference on the Memory of the World (MOW).
To participate in discussions about documentary heritage and the importance of
preserving this kind of heritage, from the 19 to 23 August 2007, the World
Library and Information Congress will be meeting in Durban, South Africa. Some
of the delegates participating in this workshop will also be attending the
International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Conference in Durban.
During September 2007 my department will be holding a National Consultative
Conference on intangible heritage with relevant stakeholders; this is another
Unesco Programme that intangible heritage conference could not have been better
timed! September is "Heritage Month" in South Africa and this year we celebrate
one of the most enduring of our intangible legacies - Poetry. 2007 promises to
be an exciting year!
Unesco established the MOW Programme in 1992 so as to safeguard and protect
the world of documentary heritage from both natural and man-made dangers.
Unesco has to be commended for this farsighted initiative. The onus is now on
member countries to make sure that the programme is implemented and most
importantly, that it is kept active. To date, only eight African Countries,
including South Africa, have established a structure national body to deal with
the issue of documentary heritage. One of the hoped for outcomes of this
workshop will be the establishment of National Committees of the MOW where they
don't exist and the resuscitation of those National Committees which have
become defunct. I want to urge all the African countries to work closely
together to ensure that an African Regional Committee of the MOW is
established. This Regional Committee may then work through structures such as
New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) to make sure the issue of
documentary heritage gets onto the agenda of the African Union and other
forums. I am particularly pleased that Unesco is represented by some leading
officials at this workshop.
Programme Director, I cannot overemphasise the importance of preserving
documentary heritage. Unesco's publication "Safeguarding the Documentary
Heritage of Humanity" � at page five, one reads, "In 1992 Unesco launched the
Memory of the World Programme to protect and promote the World's documentary
heritage through preservation and access. The two tasks complement one another,
for access incites protection and preservation ensures access." Last year when
the South African government mandated my department to lead the national
commemoration of important national events, the entire exercise revealed that
without the archival sources, i.e. documentary heritage, we would not have
succeeded in implementing these projects. Much research was done in the
archival and library repositories of the country and I can safely say that at
least about 90% of the information we were seeking was found.
At page three the Unesco publication goes on: "Documentary heritage in
Libraries and Archives constitutes a major part of the memory of the peoples of
the world and reflects the diversity of peoples, languages and cultures.
However, that memory is fragile." The fragility of our collective memory is
that it is necessarily reliant of records � now stored and maintained in a
myriad of ways but still liable to abuse, destruction and mutilation. As the
department continues with new commemorations during 2007, I am confident that
our Library and Archives will again prove one of the most invaluable sources in
that regard.
We have appointed a National Committee that advises me as Minister about
collections for whose listing on the International Register we should motivate.
That committee is made up of the National Archives of South Africa, branches of
the Department of Arts and Culture such as International Relations, Freedom
Park, the National Library, Iziko Museums and Northern Flagship Institute. It
reviews all proposals and markets South African collections. We have already
received nominations for some collections in the department.
The establishment of a refreshment station at the Cape under the
administration of the Dutch East India Company (DEIC) in 1652 had far-reaching
impact on the history of the South Africa. The DEIC administration at the Cape
lasted for almost a century and a half, developing from a refreshment station
into a European settlement that expanded by the dispossession of African common
lands and pastures. The Khoikhoi and San on whom the Dutch East India Company
had initially depended for trade in of cattle and other livestock were reduced
to servitude and wage labour. That story is recounted in all its tragic detail
in the Dutch East India Company records, which makes them unique and
irreplaceable for an understanding of South Africa's historic past.
Within Unesco's Memory of the World Programme and on the initiative of the
Netherlands, a project entitled "Towards a New Age of Partnership (Tanap): a
Dutch-Asian-South African Programme of Co-operation" was given initial impetus
by the holding of an international Tanap conference that took place in December
1998 in The Hague and at Leiden in the Netherlands. Prof Jatti Bredekamp, Chief
Executive Officer of Iziko Museums, Ms Mandy Gilder, Deputy National Archivist,
and Ms Marian George, Head of the Cape Town Archives Repository attended that
conference.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to congratulate my colleague, the Minister of
Education, Ms Naledi Pandor, for successfully launching an updated South
African History Online project on the 22nd May 2007. The database is designed
to promote the study of history in our country, it looks at our country's
diverse cultures and heritage. This on its own will enhance the way our
children, the learners, are taught about the past, especially regarding the
history of oppression, in particular, the legislated system of apartheid and
how it destroyed the lives of the majority of the people of South Africa.
I wish you well in your deliberations and I look forward to receiving your
recommendations regarding a way forward.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Arts and Culture
11 June 2007
