Blackbirding, indentured system for nomination

Samisoni Pareti
Recognising the documentary heritage of the Pacific’s role in the slave trade of the 1800s is the desire of a group led by the regional office of UNESCO in Samoa.

The group has begun work on having the Pacific slave route and Fiji’s indentured labourers system involving Indians, many forcefully recruited to work the Pacific islands nations’ cotton and sugar cane plantations in the 1870s submitted for possible inscription in the global’s Memory of the World register.

Failing this, the sponsors are hopeful of having the two historical events inscribed in the Pacific register.
“UNESCO’s Pacific office has contracted the National Archives of Fiji to coordinate the collection of documents on both the recruitment of Pacific islanders under the blackbirding system,” explains UNESCO Pacific’s communication and information adviser Abel Caine.

“Since Fiji’s National Archives has a good document collection on the indentured labourers system of Indian workers, they will also coordinate work on this as well.”

Caine appreciates that coordination will be multi-faceted, involving several archive institutions and governments.
Nominations may have to be multi-country as well.

For the blackbirding documentary heritage for instance, Fiji’s national archives will need the assistance of its counterparts in sourced countries, namely New Caledonia, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu as well as Australia, as the recipient country.

Most of these islanders were forced to work in Fiji but mostly in Australia with the oversight of the British colonial government,

Cooperation of repositories of historical documents in all these countries will be needed if the region is to succeed in getting an inscription in the world Memory of the World (MOW) register.

Established in 1993, the MOW initiative was to ensure the preservation of important documents triggered to a large part by the wanton destruction of the National Library of Sarajevo the year before.

Because the level of significance of documents varies, UNESCO’s MOW has a three-tiered structure; a national, regional and world register.

To-date, the 22 islands and territories of the Pacific have nil inscriptions in any of the three registers.
Caine and his team of supporters are trying to change all that.

“In order to have these entries considered for inscription in 2011, we would need to meet the deadline of submissions in 2010.

“We hope to have another meeting at the next International Advisory Committee (of MOW) in Barbados in 2009 to review our applications.”

The MOW conference in late February in Canberra provided the opportunity for the Pacific group of archivists and librarians to consider their options and review their proposed work programme.

The four-day conference hosted by the National UNESCO Commission of Australia at the National Library of Australia was attended by archivists, librarians and anthropologists from around the world.

A point raised constantly by speakers was the unintentional discrimination UNESCO’s MOW programme imposes on cultures that are not written but oral based.

Most communities of the Pacific islands fall under this category.

Speakers also spoke about the linkages in intangible cultures like traditional music, folklore or chants transformed to the tangible culture of documents, architecture and art.

Another thorny issue was raised by a speaker from Africa who lamented the concentration of African inscriptions on the global MOW register with the continent’s colonial legacy.

The speaker estimated that 70% of Africa’s inscriptions relate to its colonial past.

This is confirmed when one peruses Africa’s register in the MOW page in the UNESCO website.

Benin’s sole inscription for instance, is its colonial archives while the island of Mauritius has got inscribed records of the French occupation.

Tanzania has offered the German records while one of South Africa’s four inscriptions is the 1963 criminal court case number 253 that of the (white apartheid) state versus Nelson Mandela and others.

On the global register, the Pacific’s inscriptions appear under the Asia-Pacific category. This is dominated so far by South Korea with a total of six entries. China is second with five entries and Australia third with four.

Venue of the Third International MOW conference, the National Library of Australia, is the repository of at least one of the inscriptions; the Endeavour journal of renowned English explorer and navigator Captain James Cook.

During the Canberra conference, UNESCO announced the inscription of 11 new items on the Australian MOW register.

It included a 1915 film of the landing of the Anzacs at Gallipoli by British journalist Ashmead-Bartlett and the South Australian and Victorian women’s suffrage petitions of 1891 and 1894.

Inscribed too on the Australian register is Joseph Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski’s collection. He was the Polish migrant who pioneered the development of laser light shows and installations in the early 1960s.

*Pareti was sponsored by the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Committee to cover UNESCO’s 3rd international Memory of the World conference in Canberra on February 19-22, 2008.

List of Memory of the World Register—Asia and the Pacific Australia - The Endeavour Journal of James Cook (2001) - The Mabo Case Manuscripts (2001) - The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) (2007) - The Convict Records of Australia (2007) China - Traditional Music Sound Archives (1997) - Records of the Qing’s Grand Secretariat (1999) - Ancient Naxi Dongba Literature Manuscripts(2003) - Golden Lists of the Qing Dynasty Imperial Examination (2005) - Qing Dynasty Yangshi Lei Archives (2007) India - The I.A.S. Tamil Medical Manuscript Collection (1997) - Saiva Manuscripts in Pondicherry (2005) - Archives of the Dutch East India Company (2003)* - Rigveda (2007) Indonesia - Archives of the Dutch East India Company (2003)* Iran - “Bayasanghori Shâhnâmeh” (Prince Bayasanghor’s Book of the Kings) (2007) - The Deed For Endowment: Rab’ I-Rashidi (Rab I-Rashidi Endowment) 13th Century manuscript (2007) Republic of Korea - The Hunmin Chongum manuscript (1997) - The Annals of the Choson Dynasty (1997) - Seungjeongwon Ilgi, the Diaries of the Royal Secretariat (2001) - Buljo jikji simche yojeol (vol. II), the second volume of “Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests’ Zen Teachings” (2001) - Printing woodblocks of the Tripitaka Koreana and miscellaneous Buddhist scriptures (2007) - Uigwe: The Royal Protocols of the Joseon Dynasty (2007) Kazakhstan - Collection of manuscripts of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi (2003) - Audiovisual documents of the International antinuclear movement “Nevada-Semipalatinsk” (2005) Malaysia - Correspondence of the late Sultan of Kedah (1882-1943) (2001) - Hikayat Hang Tuah (2001) - Sejarah Melayu (the Malay Annals) (2001) New Zealand - The Treaty of Waitangi (1997) - The 1893 Women’s Suffrage Petition (1997) Pakistan - Jinnah Papers (Quaid-I-Azam)(1999) Philippines - Philippine Paleographs (Hanunoo, Buid, Tagbanua and Pala’wan) (1999) - Radio Broadcast of the Philippine People Power Revolution (2003) - José Maceda Collection (2007) Sri Lanka - Archives of the Dutch East India Company (2003)* Tajikistan The manuscript of Ubayd Zakoni’s “Kulliyat” and Hafez Sherozi’s “Gazalliyt” (XIV century) (2003) Thailand - The King Ram Khamhaeng Inscription (2003) Uzbekistan - Holy Koran Mushaf of Othman (1997) - The Collection of the Al-Biruni Institute of Oriental Studies (1997) * multi-country nominations

Memory of the World programme: Objectives • To facilitate preservation, by the most appropriate techniques, of the world’s documentary heritage. This may be done by direct practical assistance, by the dissemination of advice and information and the encouragement of training, or by linking sponsors with timely and appropriate projects. • To assist universal access to documentary heritage. This will include encouragement to make digitized copies and catalogues available on the Internet, as well as the publication and distribution of books, CDs, DVDs, and other products, as widely and equitably as possible. Where access has implications for custodians, these are respected. Legislative and other limitations on the accessibility of archives are recognised. Cultural sensitivities, including indigenous communities’ custodianship of their materials, and their guardianship of access will be honoured. Private property rights are guaranteed in law. • To increase awareness worldwide of the existence and significance of documentary heritage. Means include, but are not limited to, developing the Memory of the World registers, the media, and promotional and information publications. Preservation and access, of themselves, not only complement each other—but also raise awareness, as access demand stimulates preservation work. The making of access copies to relieve pressure on the use of preservation materials is encouraged. Source: UNESCO website