4. At the threshold of the future
Already many times in the past the world seemed to have become smaller than
it had been before. For example, Polybius (died 118 BC) (who by the way rightly
conceived that the historian must also be a geographer and tried to set the events
he wanted to relate against their local background62) starts his account of the
history of Rome's coming to power in this way: "Formerly the history had consis
ted, in a way, of a series of unrelated episodes, the origins and results of each
being as widely separated as their localities, but from this time onwards history
becomes an organic whole: the events in Italy and Africa are connected with
those of Asia and of Greece, and everything bears a relationship to a single end."
In the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of our age the
progress of technology pointed in the direction of a planet unified by a consen
sus prompted by logic and a universal movement toward efficiency. The belief in
such a development caused an optimistic mood and was celebrated in World
Fairs, one of which offered the occasion for the first international congress of
archivists in 1910.
At the end of the 20th century the world has grown smaller again. Everyone
who watches television is aware of the interdependence of everything on earth.
Everything has grown global: ecology, economy, migration, crime. But the
picture is not as clear as optimists at the beginning of the century would have
expected. The tripolar pattern of a world split in two ideologically opposed
industrialised blocks which can be regarded as successors to the collapsed
empires, and one underdeveloped block in the south has vanished, leaving
mainly confusion both in politics and in world-view.
In this confusion it is rather hazardous to try to imagine what will be the
background for our profession tomorrow. Some lines, however, are obvious.
Whereas the background of the first archival congress was a world in which
European based empires were taken for granted and seemed to furnish a stable
pattern for future developments, we now witness the end of the Eurocentrism
which, after all, covered not much more than three and a half centuries.63 At the
same time a process of erosion of sovereignty is going on within the nation states
we are accustomed to.64 The process of transfer of elements of state power to
supranational organisations is being accompanied by a growing significance of
regions uniting nation states or parts of them on a basis of vicinity, economic
interdependence, and cultural similarities. Finally there are strong indications
that cultural antagonisms are on their way to replacing ideological confronta
tions.65 This phenomenon, in combination with world-wide migration move
ments causing cultural minorities in many countries, leads to an intricate
pattern of competing loyalties within individuals and populations and is not
affected by the boundaries of traditional national states. The current penchant
for cultural identity is being fuelled by the conceptual confusion caused by the
collapse of ideologies, broken traditional links in rapidly industrialised new
countries and disappointment with the results of adopting "Western" values and
methods.66
How will this background affect the work of archivists both on the international
scene and at home? The agenda set by those who responded to my questionnaire
has a colourful look. A wide variety of activities is being proposed corresponding
with the well-known objectives of ICA: the supporting of the development of
archives for the preservation of the archival heritage, the promoting of records
and archives management, the strengthening of relations between professionals
in the archival field and the promotion of the use of archives.
On the whole the proposals constitute a colourful sample card of activities in
which colleagues are engaged or want to engage. It would lead too far to list here
all these more or less precisely specified ideas and desires. Nor would there be
any need for it because such a list would differ only in a few details from a list of
activities in the past. Moreover, it would be of limited use to ICA's policy makers
or programme developers, not only because it would be difficult to find out
which projects would deserve priority but also because several ideas contradict
each other mutually. Some colleagues want ICA to go on organising world
congresses and sending experts, others think that these things should stop;
according to some colleagues the content of speeches should not be too specia
list, others condemn any paper which fails to reach the peak of current wisdom;
some archivists in young countries urge that microfilms of colonial archives
should be given to them, others think that the money required would better be
spent on improving health services.
It is possible, however, to distil from the variety of answers some tendencies.
Among the proposed priorities there are, actually, only a few which derive from
expectations about the future. Technological development forces toward ever
more encompassing unification of working methods and the standardisation of
concepts and formats, and demands compatibility of equipment. It is quite clear
that an international organisation of archivists must play a role in these
processes. Further international research will be required into new technologies
for permanent preservation of information.
In this connection it is worth noticing that the ongoing technical develop
ment with regard to preservation, methods of improving access to documents,
networks facilitating communication and the like leads towards the disintegra
tion of the profession. The variety of specialist groups within ICA is a reflection
of this phenomenon, which doubtless will go on. Perhaps in more than one of
them it will become clear that there are many reasons to link up with those who
were our brothers in arms at the beginning of the century, the librarians.
At first sight, most suggestions for future activities can be regarded to pertain
to continuation of existing strands of policy. Almost without exception they are
formulated in such ways that they can be considered as a form of critical judge
ment on experiences in the past. The general trend can not be misunderstood:
with regard to any project being planned, there is a strong demand for more
attention to be paid to practice, the real situation in loco with its peculiarities,
specific positive and negative factors. One of the respondents presses ICA to
carry out a world-wide inquiry into the situation of archives in order to collect
comparable data which are thought to be helpful in establishing priorities
and directing development efforts in the future. More attention to the local
DE PROFESSIE
63 Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis; The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), p. 3.
64 Peter Drucker, Landmarks for Tomorrow (1965).
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JAN VAN DEN BROEK FROM BRUSSELS TO BEIJING
65 Interview with Samuel Huntington, NRC-Handelsblad, June 26, 1993, p. 9; Francis Fukuyama, The End of
History and the Last Man (1992), p. 234.
66 Mark Juergensmeyer, A new cold war? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (1993), pp. 11-25.
179