A physical life of some information

Yesterday I had a meeting at CIDAC in Lisbon. CIDAC began as the Centre for Anti-Colonial Information and Documentation, with AC later coming to stand for Amílcar Cabral, a leader of the revolution in Guinea-Bissau and major contributor to revolutionary theory and strategy.

The musty wooden floors and narrow corridors, filled from the ceiling to the floor with box files full of newspapers and documentation dating back to the '70's took me back to my own politically active days twenty-five years ago. Getting hold of information about Mozambique and other Southern African countries was difficult and a primary aim.

Four walls of one room in CIDAC is devoted to box files of information written by Timorese activists and solidarity groups. "It's their history and doesn't belong to us" I was told, "and one day, when we have funds, we will send all these documents back to Timor, so that Timorese people have access to this part of their history."

At that moment I felt overwhelmed - and humbled - with the idea of boxes of information being physically moved down two flights of stairs onto a transport vehicle and then onto a ship that would take it to Timor, unloaded, and driven to a room in a Library - so that people could access it.

Comments

[John Waddingham]

Dear Bev T

Rather tardy response to this 2007 post, but I have just been reminded of it. I would love to make direct contact with CIDAC to see what they are up to in their planning for the Timor archives. Any suggestions on who best to ask (sadly I have *no* Portuguese language)?

Many thanks

John Waddingham (Perth, Australia)

(timorfile on Twitter)