Response to the Minister's Speech at the Opening of the Maastricht Symposium "Archives and Europe Without Boundaries"

Abstract

sider the prospects of their common future. From the core of a small group of countries agreeing to set up common economic institutions, the movement has grown in size and scope to encompass the whole of Western Europe and now parts of Eastern Europe as well. The economic and political significance of traditional boundaries is fast disappearing and the realization of your dream of a united Europe is at hand. We rejoice with you. Developments in the Third World, particularly in Africa, have followed a more tortuous path. The colonization of the peoples of Africa involved the destruction of pre-colonial systems, the breakdown of relationships between peoples, and the imposition of new state systems and socioeconomic linkages based on imperial interests. The boundaries of the new colonial countries were artificial creations putting communities asunder. The colonial system itself provided what new framework there