his charge; his aim to provide, without prejudice or afterthought, for all who wish to know the Means of Knowledge....The good Archivist is perhaps the most selfless devotee of truth the modern world produces.'20 For Jenkinson, working on medieval and early nation-state records in the Public Records Office in London in 1906, the archival records exist for their evidential nature as a 'true' account of what happened. The archivist was thus a 'keeper' of the 'truth' for others to seek out. This vision of the archives supporting the search for 'truth' was part of the Enlightenment tradition that Jenkinson identified with, and included historiography, which John Bury (1867-1927) in his Inaugural Lecture on assuming the chair of Regius Professor of History at Cambridge in 1902, declared 'A Science.' It is a practice of history that G. R Elton as Regius Professor of History also defended, that a close and meticulous reading of the documents could lead the historian to an objective reconstruction of the past.21 But if Parkinson and his students were committed to this practice of history based on the archival documents, and were therefore not prepared to venture beyond the archival documentation of the nineteenth century into the undocumented twentieth century, others were not so constrained and prepared to venture into the contemporary history of Singapore's struggle for nationhood. One author was S Rajaratnam, a journalist turned politician and founding member of the Peoples' Action Party. Reflecting on the 'PAP's First Ten Years' for the Party's tenth anniversary celebrations in 1964, Rajaratnam justifiably pointed out that the Party had much to be proud of. It had 'achieved one of its fundamental objectives: the independence of Singapore through merger with the Federation of Malaya' and been able to thwart 'the manoeuvres of both the right-wing reactionaries and the communists on the far left with a fair degree of success.'22 Rajaratnam recalled the birth of the PAP in the discussions of 'a small group of trade unionists, teachers, lawyers and journalists' in the basement dining room of Lee Kuan Yew's Oxley Road residence. As Rajaratnam noted, the odds of the group establishing a new left-wing political party 'were seemingly against it because left-wing parties appeared to have had brief and unhappy lives'.23 According to Rajaratnam, what prompted this group of politically inexperienced men to push ahead with the establishment of a new left-wing party was the promulgation of a new constitution for Singapore proposed by a committed chaired by George Rendel, which Rajaratnam and his colleagues assessed would not be favourable to left-wing politics. For Rajaratnam, the major aim of the new party was to end colonialism, because they believed that if they could succeed, then all would be well. Towards this end, they 'underestimated the significance of racial, cultural and communal factors in the politics of our country.'24 The bulk of the essay then outlines the dilemmas and choices facing the party as 130 COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA - THE DUTCH ARCHIVES 20 Jenkinson repeated this vision of the archivist as the guardian of evidence in four of his addresses, and is here quoted from the Inaugural lecture for a new course in Archive Administration delivered at University college, London, 14 Oct 1947, reprinted in his Selected writings of Sir Hilary Jenkinson258. See also: 'Memoir of Sir Hilary Jenkinson', in Davis, Studies presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson. 21 Bury, 'The science of History', Elton, The practice of history and Elton, Return to essentials.. 22 Rajaratnam, 'PAP's First Ten Years', Full text published in: Rajaratnam on Singapore, 180 23 Rajaratnam on Singapore, 181.

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Jaarboeken Stichting Archiefpublicaties | 2012 | | pagina 132