Remarks, Dr Kris Rampersad,
Chair, Trinidad and Tobago National
Commission for UNESCO at the Opening of UNESCO Pan-Caribbean Consultative
Workshop on Memory of the World
Port of Spain, Trinidad, 25-27 September 2013
On
behalf of the Trinidad and Tobago National Commission for UNESCO welcome to
this Pan Caribbean consultative workshop on UNESCO Memory of the World
initiative. While we are a national commission with essentially a national
mandate, we also take very seriously our role as a member of the Caribbean
community and the wider UNESCO region of Latin America and the Caribbean.
As
we mark this year the 21st anniversary of the Memory of the World
programme and 13th anniversary of the Memory of the World Committee
for Latin America and the Caribbean, it is perhaps timely for us to reflect on
where we have reached with the programme.
In
the short 13 years since, eight countries from the Commonwealth Caribbean
(Trinidad and Tobago, St Lucia, St Kitts, Jamaica, Guyana, Dominica, Barbados,
and the Bahamas) have inscribed 21 collections of documentary heritage on the
International Memory of the World Register and twenty five collections on the Regional
Register.
We
tend to think of the University of the West Indies and Cricket as two main elements
I am sure you will agree that this has offered us an opportunity to collaborate
as a region in the 13 joint nominations submitted among several of our
countries – and these by four national committees in Barbados, Jamaica, Saint
Lucia, and certainly I want to particularly recognise the work of the Trinidad
and Tobago National Memory of the World Committee under the stewardship of Mrs
Joan Osborne.
But
much work still to be done in public engagement and to draw out private
collectors and archivists to present their work for consideration so we can
have broad representation of the diversity of cultures, languages and heritage.
Last
year’s meeting underscored the need for greater involvement by countries in the
Caribbean, and to support each other. Through the work of the Trinidad and
Tobago national memory of the world committee we have enlisted:
— The Derek Walcott Collection
— The Eric Williams Collection
— The C.L.R. James Collection
— Registry of Slaves of the British Caribbean
— Records of Indian Indentured Labourers
of Trinidad and Tobago
— The Constantine Collection
— The Donald ‘Jackie’ Hinkson Collection
— The Carlisle Chang Collection
— The Digital Pan Archive
— Records of Indian Indentured Labourers of Trinidad and
Tobago 1845-1917
— The Samuel Selvon Collection
At
the MOWLAC meeting in Port of Spain 2012 the concern was raised of the
involvement of countries in the region in the programme and how to encourage
the creation of national committees and the number of nominations coming from
the region. It was found that there was greater need for collaboration since in
some countries the MOW programme was not visible and professionals and owners
of collections did not know how to complete the nomination forms.
We
should also recognise that much of the critical documentary heritage reside not
only within the region but also in internationally-based institutions.
We
hope this workshop will meet with similar success of preceding workshops in
which nine inscriptions followed the 2009 workshop in Barbados, for example.
We
note among the objectives of this is to strengthen the memory of the world
programme through greater awareness, to increase nominations at the national,
regional and international levels; and to develop an action agenda and a CARICOM
MOW action plan for 2013- 2015.
I
suggest that among the latter you also take a look at the current draft
CARICOM-UNESCO memorandum of agreement and suggest any alternations you may
need to make to the text relevant to accommodate the region’s outlook for the
memory of the world programme within that MOU to be signed between Caricom and
UNESCO at the General Assembly in November.
We
know there are many, many areas in which we need to focus the heritage and I’d
like to also stir attention away from the printed heritage which we all know
limits us to the last few hundred years to other elements of record also
recognised by the memory of the world register – to also consider other forms
of documentation - items on stone, craft, recordings, visuals.
As we know, UNESCO
established the Memory of the World Programme in 1992 from a growing awareness of the poor state of
preservation of, and access to, documentary heritage in various parts of the
world - looting and dispersal, illegal trading, destruction, inadequate housing
and funding have all played a part. Much has vanished forever; much is
endangered. So a core element is to raise public
awareness and mobilise communities to capture and preserve and promote respect
and understanding.
In
the region, we need to move quickly to secure our endangered archives – and I
draw attention to the invaluable collections of the military history museum in
Chaguaramas that contains information on the connections between our islands
and South America, unrecorded elsewhere, and which can further expand the recent inscriptions by Cuba of the Life and Works of Ernesto Che Guevara, and
Columbia’s of Francisco De Miranda and Simon Bolivar and it may be useful to
supplement that with the archives of Mr Gaylord Kelshall of the Military
History Museum who has researched and written extensively about this period
which though recent, has still not been injected into teachings on our history
and as the Minister of Education is here with us I’d like to recommend that we
look at this immense UNESCO resource and work to revising the materials in the
school curriculum – in history, social studies, civics, visual and performing
arts, among others. This presents us with an opportunity to revise
our textbooks using new research and information s there is need to establish critical
synergies between archiving and education soWebiste is not just fossilised – and
consider utilising this model of engagement between ministry of education,
archive and library and the school system.
I’d also like to suggest that you consider how we may
establish a facility to resource and fund acquisition and maintenance of public
and private collections: like those of the Chaguaramas Military History Museum,
and dozens of others in private collections and establish linkages with these.
And we
also need to place some emphasis on capture yet undocumented heritage and utilise
digitisation and engage the enthusiasm of our young people to collate data from
disappearing knowledge holders.
