Archives

by Dr. K. D. G. Wimalaratne, Director, National Archives

Sri Lanka holds its Archives week commencing today (5th). The idea to hold an annual Archives week in every member country of UNESCO was proposed by the International Council on Archives which is the professional organization for archives in the world. In compliance with this decision, every member country of ICA holds an annual archives week on their respective countries.

The celebrations will be held under the Minister of Human Resources Development, Education and Cultural Affairs Hon Dr. Karunasena Kodithuwakku. The central theme of the Archives week this year is "Archivists and Historians: their role in the use of Archival Sources for historical research". The archives week will be celebrated by issuing a poster to depict the above theme, a seminar on the same theme.

Moreover, an exhibition to commemorate the 400 years relationships with the Dutch will be held from November 5 - 8 . The professors of the universities and the professional staff of the department are scheduled to present academic papers at the seminar.

Sri Lanka with an ancient and an unbroken history going back to more than 2500 years, still has a potential for historical research pertaining to the ancient period. There had been several areas where intensive research has been undertaken and completed for the period covering upto the 15 century.

However, the research component covering the 16th - 19th century has been rather lacking in recent times due to various reasons. The non-availability of original, primary sources for the Portuguese period (1505-1658) in the National Archives of Sri Lanka, the lack of knowledge on the Portuguese and Medieval Dutch Languages among the Sri Lankan scholars are the main causes responsible for this situation.

History in schools

In addition, the teaching of history in schools has been shrouded in the wider subject called "Social Studies" where history is only a minor component. The Sri Lanka Historical Association in a survey found out that there is a dearth of teachers in schools qualified to teach history and this subject is covered by teachers in other disciplines.

In this context, it is essential and important that to find out the role of the Archivists and Historians in order to encourage and offer facilities to engage in serious historical research. The archivists in a National Archives are invariably engaged in historical research as they are the custodians of the archival material they preserve for posterity, used by the general public and researchers. Their role should be to encourage and help the research workers, while engaged in research. Their duty towards the scholar and the researcher is to forward the archival material to the user without any reservations, however, depending on the physical condition of the document.

Many archival material deposited in any National Archives which are not arranged, catalogued and described will hamper the scholar and as a result sometimes few would misinterpret and even distort the history of the country. In a situation where the history of a country is distorted or untruth prevails, it is the primary duty and responsibility of the archivist and the historian to correct such distortions and misinterpretations in using primary and authentic archival sources as far as possible.

Milestone

Today we have reached a milestone in our country's history. At this juncture what is the state of history? What is the responsibility of the Archivist and the historian? We tend to interpret history with an emotional touch in a situation, we experience at present. It is also not advisable to blindly follow the interpretations given by the foreign historians, who are not oriented in many aspects, specially of our economic, social and political history.

The importance of teaching history in schools need not be emphasized here. It is universally accepted that during the school days, analytical mind of the student could be easily developed. The teaching of history is one of the techniques to develop a disciplined and an analytical mind which will lead to produce well informed citizens and historians in the near future, with a professional approach. The Department of National Archives commenced the "School Archives" program five years ago to achieve its objectives. The setting-up of School Archives has been hampered due to many reasons. Few National schools have been able to establish school archives in a more moderate way.

The prime idea to establish a school archives was to inculcate an analytical and research approach in the student who offers history as a subject. The child would sit in a school archives and the teacher is expected to take the lessons in a friendly environment with historical sources around the students. They will get an opportunity to study history by looking at archival material or sources at their disposal. How far the schools which have these facilities made use of them at present? The developed countries have made the maximum use of the school archives system to teach the history of their respective countries and the discipline necessary for a child through enlightment on the development of the civilization of a nation down the ages.

The noble concept that "to develop a country people must be disciplined" is embedded in the lessons given at school through the history lesson, where culture and morals are ingrained in the minds of the young school children. It we are unable to train the minds of the people at an early stage of their life using history as a tool to cultivate tolerance, cohabitation, patriotism, integrity and dedication, the calamity and instability of a developing nation would bring in disaster and even destroy what we have archived since independence. We have to learn through history by whom and why we were divided, the suffering we underwent during the colonial era and we should not allow history to repeat itself. We as a nation should be able to crate & change the course of history of our land for the betterment of our society.

Join hands

The seminar of the archives week will concentrate on the role of the Archivists and Historians using archival material for the writing of history from the 16th century upto the post colonial period. We should not allow the foreign and local pseudo historians to distort and misinterpret our history. Accordingly, the Archivists and Historians should join hands, to unravel the past in a professional way and also to correct the distortions and areas where no research has been so far undertaken by the scholars.

The 21th century has ushered a new challenge for the Archivists and Historians. The creation of electronic and audio - visual records has made the archivists who are responsible for the preservation of this new media, very much nervous and concerned due to the fragility, obsolescence and the sensitivity of such records to be used by the historians and scholars in the future.

The integrity, continuity and originality of the computer media is at stake and if we do not take initial steps to create & preserve the electronic and audio - visual media, their authenticity could be challenged. What would happen to history documented on this new media? Will there be a history to write in 50 years hence?

The public administrators, music educators and others who are creating and using electronic and audio - visual media in their professional activities should realize the gravity of using the new media for future preservation and use. If the public administrators blindly create the electronic media in governance, the archivists will be in a difficult position to deposit and retrieve information to write the history of a nation. The historians will be given archival sources of a doubtful nature to write and interpret what happened many years ago.

Accordingly, we should endeavour to strike a balance between the electronic media and microfilm and paper media to preserve the collective memory of a nation. Relying more and more on IT is dangerous as we see the pitfalls of using only IT in recording our activities. We are now on a dangerous path, giving IT a prominence, without thinking the content, context and structure of the electronic records.

The creator of new media should realize to preserve the meta data to strengthen the integrity, authenticity and originality of computer based records. Otherwise, the future generations will curse us for not planning to preserve the sources to write the history of a nation, where modern technology has resulted in the erosion of reliable documentation and information, in a so called modern and a developed era.

It is also essential for a country to remember that the Archivists and Historians are two vital pillars who are responsible for the preservation and writing of a country's history for its national identity and development.

It is important to remember that archives are forever and history is not what just happened but what actually happened.

If the society does not recognize and support the Archivists and Historians, that society will never be able to build a nationhood, drawing inspiration, bitter lessons and collective achievement of the past, where Archivists and Historians have faithfully preserved and retrieved the sources to the best of their abilities.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager