Head of Egypt’s National Archives (NA) Abdel-Wahed El-Nabawy revealed that a large number of official directorates, ministries and governmental institutions dispose of and trade heaps of documents possibly containing historical material, without notifying the National Archives, the body responsible for the preservation of every official document across the country.

El-Nabawy told Ahram Online during an interview at his NA Headquarters office on the Nile Corniche that the National Archives managed to retrieve some old documents at antiques markets and succeeded to prevent the smuggling of masses of historical papers to Europe, America and the Gulf, while others were already lost.

The current head of the National Archives, who is also a History professor at Al-Azhar University, said that senior officials and directors of offices at ministries – including ministers who took office after the revolution – had told him, without exhibiting the slightest discomfort, that they had disposed of official papers.

“I was informed by the official that [the papers] were occupying space so they decided to dispose of them. Another senior official sent a fax asking permission to sell 50 tonnes of documents that belonged to his institution, an unimaginable action considered a crime by law," El-Nabawy said, preferring to keep the names of these officials private.

The Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the civil affairs apparatus, did not hand any of their documents to the NA either.

Criticising what he terms the “enthralled culture of documents” in the Egyptian governmental apparatus, El-Nabawy explained that “The general [view] in governmental institutions is that their documents are their own, so they don’t [believe they] have to hand them to the NA,” he said.

According to current law, the National Archives is the only official institution with the prerogative to dispose of official papers or archive them based on experts’ reports. “We’re responsible for every single official paper pertaining to all official institutions in the country. Nearly 8600 directories should hand their documents to us and, as long as said documents remain in their possession for the 15 allocated years, we cooperate with these bodies to help dispose of unnecessary ones. But this is our call and not up to a single clerk or official. This is the law, although it is rarely enforced,” El-Nabawy explained. A violation of this law is a crime punishable by a fine or jail in extreme cases.

Currently, entering the NA requires security permissions from the NA head and the National Security, through a reasoned request of permission including the full details of the research and the organisation benefitting from it (university, institution, etc), while the ordinary public cannot gain access to document viewing rooms.

“We inherited these security procedures and hope to change them, especially after the new constitution is drafted, but we can’t relax them now as the country isn’t stable yet. The reason we keep strict security procedures is because we possess archives that could be used against Egyptian interests or spark disputes with neighbouring countries. Also, most of the 100 million documents of our Archive are still on paper and we don’t want to expose them to frequent use lest they become damaged,” El-Nabawy explained.

El-Nabawy added, however, that the National Archives -- which hosts researchers from 181 countries, including Israel -- never denied permission to researchers, whether Egyptian or foreign, at least not during his term.

“Rejection of permission is rare and only occurs when the reason for access is potential harm to Egypt’s interests. There are documents we can’t yet release and, let’s not be more royal than the king, the British National Archives kept very sensitive documents regarding Egypt secret until 2003, although they should have released them in 1930,” El-Nabawy said.

As per Ordinance No.472 of 1979, all documents related to national security must be classified. But according to El-Nabawy, the percentage of classified documents in most of the world's archive is between two and five.

The Egyptian Archives is one of the best fives archives in the world regarding the Ottoman era, though its rank significantly retreats when it comes to documents pertaining to the second half of the 20th century, of which the NA holds far less important material.

One of the main weaknesses of the National Archives in relation to contemporary history is that it does not possess any military documents after 1945, even those related to the country’s four wars – 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 – against Israel. 

The problem, as El-Nabawy sees it, stems from the administrative position of the National Archives, while he believes it should operate as an independent institution under the presidency or cabinet.

Established at the Cairo Citadel in 1829 by Mohamed Ali Pasha, the founder of the modern state, the Egyptian Archives preserved all of the state’s papers in one place in order to easily and accurately supply information.

Late president Nasser decided that the documents should be made available to the people so they may read their history, which prompted him to launch the current National Archives as an independent institution in 24 June 1954. 

The archives lost their independence in 1966, when they were merged with the National Library, and merged again with the General Egyptian Book Organisation.

“To put it simply, in 1966 the National Archives became a division of an administration which, in turn, was part of an association following the Ministry of Culture which, itself, was part of the government. And thus we lost about 75 percent of its efficiency, its entire independent budget, and grew handcuffed by additional bureaucratic rules,” El-Nabawy explained.

The National Archives is now working on digitising all of its documents. So far, about two million documents have been scanned and the metadata of about 25 million documents awaiting scanning has been collected.

The new building at Cairo’s Ain Al-Sira neighbourhood – an extension to the 1954 building, not a replacement – is to house over 35 million documents in high-technology settings which include air modifiers and thermal control systems, in addition to advanced restoration laboratories. The new building is currently being tested by engineers to ensure it is ready to receive the documents.