Editor’s Note, June 2010

• Posted on June 23, 2010

Like many of you, we’ve been trying to go about our business in the midst of fluttering flags, the sonorous blast of vuvuzelas and 2010 FIFA World Cup™ supporters dressed in every possible hue! While we have paid some attention to this extraordinary sports event and some of the fascinating issues that it raises about identity, representation, copyright and access to information, we’ve also tried to keep a focus on broader archival matters.

Two of this month’s blogs deal with the World Cup. The editorial blog looks at the question of identity and representation and Uthando Baduza examines an exhibition at the South End Museum in Port Elizabeth, which focuses on the 2010 FIFA World Cup™, Organising Committee CEO Danny Jordaan and his contribution to soccer. Our new deputy director, Xolelwa Kashe-Katiya , fresh from the Media, Advertising, Publishing, Printing and Packaging Sector Education and Training Authority (MAPPP-SETA), shares her thoughts on proposed changes to the SETA landscape and the implications of this for the creative and cultural industries. Kaningu Kalume Tinga offers some insight into the under-representation of African properties on the World Heritage List, while Gabriele Mohale takes a critical look at the Heritage Transformation Charter and finds it wanting.

This month, our Ancestral Stories blogs take a look at three initiatives that promote public engagement with family history. Lucy Campbell takes us through how her personal journey through slave history has led her to a new kind of tourism – interpretive tours – which she conducts through her company, Transcending History Tours. Heather MacAlister tells of the work being done at Ancestry24, of photographing, publishing and tagging images of cemetery headstones and posting these as well as records like birth and death notices online for public use. Siyabonga Mkhize describes how he has reconstructed the Mkhize past and what he has found and set down in his book, Uhlanga lwaseMbo (2007).

We know that many of you would like to share information with Archival Platform readers, but are reluctant to do so in your own names. As such, we’ve decided to create an opportunity for people to invent avatars and new personas, or simply write under nicknames. This month we introduce the Memory Bandit, who shares his, or maybe her, thoughts on the legislation and mechanisms that promise to protect or facilitate access to information. We hope you enjoy the slightly irreverent tone of the blog. If it inspires you to submit one yourself, so much the better! We will be introducing a new feature in our website that will facilitate this process in the near future.

Our courts, and those elsewhere, have had to apply their minds to some tricky questions of late. In South Africa, the Mail & Guardian has successfully challenged both the Office of the President and the World Cup Local Organising Committee for access to information. An application for an interdict to prevent the Mail & Guardian from publishing a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad,  however, was not successful; the cartoon had already been published online. The debates that raged around this issue brought issues of representation, respect and freedom of expression to the fore. Meanwhile, a Belgian court is considering an application to ban a 1930s publication, Tintin in the Congo, on the grounds that it is racist and ANC Youth League leader, Julius Malema, is apparently facing a possible genocide charge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

As South Africans celebrated the return of a signed copy of the Freedom Charter, saved from auction in London, and Tanzanians welcomed back a Makonde Mask, stolen from the country’s National Museum, the Cairo Conference on Restitution brought countries together to address the return of cultural objects to their lands of origin as a collective.

Three memorials have been in the news this month. In Durban, a recently erected statue of King Shaka was removed after the Zulu Royal Household raised concerns that it did not adequately reflect the Zulu warrior king. In Standerton, a Great Trek memorial stone – removed on the instruction of the town’s previous mayor – has been repaired ad re-inaugurated. And, in Cape Town, scrap metal thieves have been found guilty of removing and cutting up a bronze memorial to two local struggle heroes.

Given the ever-expanding nature of online content we’re particularly pleased to note that South Africa’s Cabinet has approved a new Broadband Policy aimed at improving access to and efficiency of internet usage. We hope that the technology to make this possible will follow shortly!

Do take a look at the information about exhibitions, calls for conference papers, journal articles, a poetry competition and new resources (including books and other publications available online) in this month’s newsletter.

Please remember that the Archival Platform aims to facilitate communication, stir debate and provoke action. We welcome your contributions on any issue that may be of concern or interest to those involved in the archival sector.

With best wishes

Jo-Anne Duggan