Azim Koning

I worked in the University of Amsterdam and was a member of the University Council; during that period Govan Mbeki received the honour of doctorate of the University of Amsterdam.

Nowadays I work at NIZA, which is the result of the merger of three former anti-apartheid and solidarity organisations. NIZA focuses on democracy, media, human rights agenda, media, refugees, migrants and our institution houses a library, information and documentation centre, as well as the archives of the former anti-apartheid movements from the early 1960s onwards. Mrs Mbandla [South African Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology] visited NIZA in June last year. We discussed issues on archival material relating to the Netherlands and South Africa.

Since then we have set an archival committee in the Netherlands, founded in March this year. It was founded by three organisations, NIZA, KAIROS (formerly Christians against Apartheid) and the Netherlands-South African Association, a kind of friendship organisation in the past with Afrikaners. This latter organisation, which was founded over 100 years ago, was not at all critical on apartheid issues. However, many things have been changed in Southern Africa and in Holland as well. Nowadays we cooperate on different subjects.

Our Netherlands Committee has been set up to inventory, to unlock, to make accessible, to safeguard, to store all kinds of material on the relations between the Netherlands and South Africa between 1945 and 1994. It does not focus exclusively on anti-apartheid material, but on the whole of the relations between our country and Southern Africa, which have always been affected by apartheid. The former State Archivist of the Netherlands is chair of our committee and other members represent Southern African oriented organisations, churches, trade unions, the International Institute of Social History, the International Information Centre, the Archives of the Women's Movement, and other groups. Our committee will stimulate the use of archival material and foster research, and will provide material to others in a digital way or by duplication. Within a few months we hope to start our first inventory of archival material.

I would like to make some remarks on aspects of international co-operation which we
will be discussing tomorrow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. Although a large part of the archival material relating to the international anti-apartheid movement may be stored, I am not sure that we know where it is stored. Other questions can be raised
as well. Is all the material accessible and how is this accessibility organised? Do we know how things are arranged in specific countries? In some organisations things are set up quite well, but there are also still private collections in basements. Is the use of material guaranteed to researchers and to the public? Do researchers and partners in the Southern African countries know about this? Most of the discussions cannot be
answered or completed today. This Symposium will give us the opportunity to take
these issues forward.

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