archiving and accounting for. There is moreover a tacit narrative embedded in
all our records of what the institution creating those records considered worth
remembering and what can then be forgotten. The archival appraisal of what
to retain or dispose of the records is in effect an evaluation of that institution's
social memories and judgement of what parts should be remembered and others
forgotten. The archiving and archivalizing experiences within post-colonial
Singapore have demonstrated the involvement of archives in shaping perceptions
about the development of the city-state through shaping of its social memories.
What this means is that the archives, as Randall C. Jimerson in his Presidential
Address to the Society of American Archivists in 2005 pointed out, is
simultaneously 'a temple' shaping the formation of social memories, and
concurrently 'a prison' controlling the preservation and security of records,
while also being 'a restaurant where the different demands of record keepers
and users are served and mediated. As a temple and a prison, archives are about
power55, and Jimerson calls on his colleagues to 'Embrace the power of the
Archives,' and use that power for good and ensure that archives protect the public
interests, rather than the privileges of the powerful elites.56 In similar vein Joan
M. Schwartz and Terry Cook note that 'archives have always been about power...
Archives have... always been at the intersection of past, present, and future...
These spaces are the loci of power of the present to control what the future will
know of the past.' Reminiscent of George Orwell's novel 1984, that 'who controls
the past, controls the future, who controls the present, controls the past...'
Schwartz and Cook assert that 'Through archives, the pastis controlled.'57
COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA -
THE DUTCH ARCHIVES
55 Jimerson draws on Ketelaar, 'Archival Temples, Archival Prisons: Models of power and protection' for this
seemingly contradictory metaphors to describe archives.
56 Jimerson, 'Embracing the power of archives'.
57 Schwartz and Cook, 'Archives, records, and power'.
142
