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South Africa, on 26–27 November, 2009 This publication brings together a number of the ‘think WORKSHOP REPORT pieces’ prepared for a workshop convened by the Nordic Africa Institute in Pretoria, South Africa, on 26–27 November, 2009. The workshop marked the end of the Institute’s Documentation Project on Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa. Leading scholars, Documenting Liberation Struggles researchers and others, from both the Nordic countries and southern Africa, concerned with documenting those in Southern Africa struggles, attended the workshop. The papers included here concern both the history of those struggles and Select papers from the Nordic Africa Documentation Project workshop the sources for that history. 26–27 November 2009, Pretoria, South Africa Edited by Chris Saunders I ISBN 978-91-7106-671-8 Nordiska Afrikainstitutet (The Nordic Africa Institute) P.O. Box 1703 SE-751 47 Uppsala, Sweden 9 789171 066718 www.nai.uu.se DOCUMENTING LIBERATION STRUGGLES IN SOUTHERN AFRICA Select papers from the Nordic Africa Documentation Project workshop, 26–27 November 2009, Pretoria, South Africa EDITED BY CHRIS Saunders Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, 2010 Indexing terms Solidarity movements Archives Documentation Documents Conference reports Southern Africa Scandinavia Photo: Mikko T. Helminen ISBN 978-91-7106-671-8 © the authors and the Nordic Africa Institute The report is available for download at www.nai.uu.se Contents Introduction Chris Saunders ........................................................................................................... 5 PART 1 Aspects of the History of Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa and the Emergence of a Global Civil Society Håkan Thörn ............................................................................................................... 11 Southern African Liberation Struggles and the Nordic Countries: Ideas for Research Harri Siiskonen ............................................................................................................ 24 International Solidarity and Struggle Archives: Finnish Support to the Liberation Struggle in Namibia and Mozambique Pekka Peltola ................................................................................................................ 33 On the Limits to Liberation in Southern Africa Henning Melber ........................................................................................................... 39 Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle Recycled: Remembering the Principles of the Struggle in Political Ways Lene Bull Christiansen .................................................................................................. 48 PART 2 Sources for the History of Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa Issues in Writing on Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa Chris Saunders ............................................................................................................. 59 Liberation Archives in South Africa: An Overview Brown Bavusile Maaba ................................................................................................. 66 Liberation Struggle Material and Digital Technologies: Opportunities and Obstacles William Minter ............................................................................................................ 72 Digital Innovation South Africa (DISA) and Digital Preservation Pat Liebetrau .............................................................................................................. 82 Assessing Information in South Africa’s Department of Defence Archives Gary Baines.................................................................................................................. 87 Rescuing Zimbabwe’s ‘Other’ Liberation Archives Gerald Chikozho Mazarire ............................................................................................ 95 Notes on Contributors ................................................................................................................... 107 Workshop Programme .................................................................................................................. 108 List of Participants ........................................................................................................................... 111 Final Project Report Proscovia Svärd ............................................................................................................ 113 Workshop participants. Introduction Chris Saunders This publication brings together a number of the ‘think pieces’ prepared for a workshop convened by the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) in Pretoria, South Africa, on 26–27 November, 2009. This workshop, which marked the end of the NAI’s Documentation Project on the Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa, was at- tended by leading scholars, researchers and others, from both the Nordic countries and southern Africa, concerned with documenting those struggles. The workshop participants discussed a range of issues relating to that objective, including issues of access and visibility, and ways in which co-operation between Nordic universi- ties and Southern African universities could be furthered. It was agreed that it was important to document lessons learned from documentation and digitization processes to share the knowledge accumulated to date. Other papers presented at the workshop and not included here may be found on the website www.liberationafrica.se. The Nordic Documentation Project on the Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa was established in 2003 when Lennart Wohlgemuth was Director of the NAI, and in his presentation to the 2009 workshop he recalled that in the early 1990s Dr Ibbo Mandaza of the Southern Africa Regional Institute for Policy Stud- ies in Harare, Zimbabwe, had persuaded him that the NAI should participate in a project on the history of liberation struggles in southern Africa. While the general project was unfortunately never completed, a research project was set up by the NAI in 1994 entitled ‘The National Liberation of Southern Africa: the role of the Nordic countries’. Tor Sellström, its co-coordinator, had worked closely with the liberation movements in the region over many years. The NAI project resulted in the publication of two volumes on Sweden’s role written by Sellström himself, and one each on Denmark, Finland and Norway, as well as a volume of interviews that Sellström had conducted with important actors in the struggles across the region. Sellström’s work was the first major study of international solidarity with the anti- apartheid struggle, and it has only relatively recently been followed by similar stud- ies of such solidarity in other countries.1 After the publication of the NAI volumes, the Nordic project became a documentation one, which included establishing a 1 See esp. South African Democracy Education Trust, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, vol- ume 3, International Solidarity, parts 1 and 2: 2 volumes, Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 2008, Roger Fieldhouse, Anti-Apartheid. A History of the Movement in Britain (London: Merlin Press, 2005); William Minter et al. (eds), No Easy Victories. African Liberation and American Activ- ists over a Half Century (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2008), and Journal of Southern African Studies, special issue, June 2009. 6 Chris Saunders website on Nordic support to the liberation struggles in southern Africa (www.lib- erationafrica.se). Proscovia Svärd, who co-ordinated this project until 2009, helped identify material relating to the anti-apartheid movement in Iceland, which had previously been almost entirely undocumented.2 It was possible here only to include a selection of the papers presented at the Pretoria workshop. In the first group of papers that follow, Håkan Thörn, author of an important book on the anti-apartheid movement in general,3 sets the liberation struggles in southern Africa in a global context as a transnational movement that he relates to the world-wide search for global justice. Harri Siiskonen then consid- ers the Nordic churches and governments in relation to the liberation struggles in southern Africa and offers suggestions for future research. Pekka Peltola discusses Finnish support to the liberation struggles in Namibia and Mozambique and Hen- ning Melber the limits to liberation in southern Africa.4 Lene Christiansen tackles the issue of the political impact of how the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe is remembered. These papers by scholars from the Nordic countries remind us of the very extensive Nordic interest in the history of the liberation struggles in Southern Africa over many years. It is hoped that they will encourage continued interest in those struggles in the Nordic countries in the future. The second set of papers included here relate more directly to the sources in Southern Africa for the history of the liberation struggles in the region and to digital initiatives in regard to them. The first of these papers considers what historians have written about those struggles so far and the kinds of sources they have used. Brown Maaba then provides a brief overview of the various liberation archives in South Africa. William Minter discusses problems associated with the use of digital technologies for creating a digital archive, and Pat Liebetrau draws on her experience as project manager of Digital Innovation South Africa (DISA) to write about digital preservation. Gary Baines tells us how difficult it has been to ac- cess information from
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