New Age of Partnership (TANAP, 2000-2005), the Nationaal Archief teamed up with archival services in five countries and universities in fifteen.28 The TANAP project aimed at preserving VOC archives, improving their accessibility, teaching historians the required skills for using these documents, and exchanging knowledge about archival management. International cooperation activities of the Nationaal Archief were not only motivated by VOC and colonial records though. The Baltic Connections Project, for instance, was a partnership between archival institutions in nine countries around the Baltic Sea. This project primarily focused on assembling descriptions of records concerning the maritime relations between the countries around the Baltic Sea (1450-1800).29 In these international efforts, archives or a range of research topics and their relevance for a number of countries formed the basis. In that sense, the MCH Program should not be very different, although the CCHP provides the framework for cooperation. Hence, object, mission, partners, criteria for projects and financial structure are explicitly stipulated, and, not unimportantly, archives as common cultural heritage, not archives as information, provide the foundation for collaboration. Earlier I described the line of thought of the CCHP which could be brought back to: I think that yours is also mine therefore I have a say in it. This, however, only works when the partner acknowledges that claim. That in practice this is not easy to accomplish I will illustrate while discussing two MCH Program activities. The first is a multilateral activity in which all priority countries took place; the second is a bilateral project between India and the Netherlands. Simple Present Maybe Mutual In June 2009, the Nationaal Archief organised the MCH conference 'Connecting Archives' (The Hague). Its goal was to strengthen relations with the MCH partners, to generate commitment for the MCH program and to jointly seek a direction for archival cooperation within the framework of the CCHP. Invitees consisted of directors of the national archival institutions plus directors of archival services in possession of Dutch records, like the Westkaapse Argiefbewaarplek (Western Cape Archives and Records Service) in Capetown, South Africa, and the Tamil Nadu Archives in Chennai, India. One of the results of this conference was a document called 'Connecting Archives. Recommendations of the Mutual Cultural Heritage Archives Conference'. In the following paragraph I will look closely at this text. The aim is to establish what the cooperating partners agreed on regarding claims of mutuality. These recommendations start with: 'We share a past. A distant and a more recent past. There are visible and invisible reminders of this past. A great deal of these is to be found in archives. By maintaining, managing, using and highlighting this heritage, we can foster a critical reflection on our mutual past and current COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA - THE DUTCH ARCHIVES 28 These were archival services in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, South Africa and the United Kingdom. The uni versities were located in China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Myanmar, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam. See: http://www. tanap.net/content/about/heritage.cfm (accessed March 4, 2012). 29 These countries were: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. See: http://www.balticconnections.net/ (accessed March 4, 2012). 180

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Jaarboeken Stichting Archiefpublicaties | 2012 | | pagina 182