If the burden of carrying the nation's history on his shoulders is a heavy one it doesn't show on the amiable features of Dr Abdulla el Reyes. In fact, as his staff will testify, he is seldom seen without a smile. The task he was given nine years ago by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, to take over the organisation of the national archives, collecting, preserving, restoring and cataloguing millions of documents so that the UAE's history is recorded accurately for posterity, was monumental, but he says quite simply: "It was a must. It had to be done."
Today, a vast modern building with distinctive blue glass windows standing in Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi, is testament to the success of el Reyes and his team. The National Center for Documentation and Research (NCDR) houses a veritable treasure-trove of historical documents, dating back more than 500 years, that chart the history of the region and specifically the years since the founding of the United Arab Emirates in 1971.
It is a unique research tool for students and scholars who come from all over the world to pore over original documents and copies of others held elsewhere, but more than that, it is the nation's memory. Until March 2000, when el Reyes was appointed as director general of what was then called the Center for Documentation and Research, tonnes of valuable paperwork were languishing in dusty warehouses in Musaffah and Dubai. The centre, housed in the Cultural Foundation, had been set up in 1968 by the late Sheikh Zayed to archive important documents, but 32 years later badly needed modernisation, especially with regard to storage.
"They had run out of space at their premises in Abu Dhabi and documents were dumped in warehouses in huge bundles on the floor without any air conditioning or temperature control. The ink was fading and they weren't even in boxes or on shelves," says el Reyes, who admits, with a conspiratorial smile, that he deliberately painted an even blacker picture of their condition. "I gave an interview to a local journalist at that time during which I said that half of our national history had been eaten by rats which of course was the headline the following day and caused quite a stir. Everybody kept calling me and I admit there was a little exaggeration but it did the trick and created the awareness that we needed," he laughs.
El Reyes, 50, took over the only computer in the building - an ancient machine carrying the very first version of Microsoft Windows. "We adopted the slogan 'From no tech to high tech,'" he says and sent an initially reluctant staff on computer-training courses. "I felt it was important that all the staff were competent with IT so I sent them all off on training courses. Some of them were quite scared at first but they are all very appreciative now."
El Reyes graduated in linguistics from Wisconsin University and had an impressive track record as part of the team that set up Zayed University from scratch. However, he admits that history was not his strong point before he took on his new role. From a Dubai family that can trace its roots back to Saudi, he started his career as a teacher and taught in a public school, eventually becoming principal before being seconded to the team tasked with creating the brand new university. The UAE University at Al Ain had become overcrowded and a new hi-tech college was needed. Once Zayed University was established, el Reyes was to resume his job as a professor of linguistics at the UAE University when he received the call from the office of Sheikh Mansour, the deputy prime minister and chairman of the NCDR.
"My secondment was over and I was actually driving back to Al Ain when I got the call. Sheikh Mansour wanted me to lead this organisation and bring a new image to the centre. "Actually I had never heard of it and when I started to think about it, I realised it was all about history which I felt wasn't my area of expertise. I really didn't think it was the right thing for me. But this is when love comes after hate. I started to read and then I fell in love with history," he says.
"The purpose was to showcase the history of the UAE, to show the world that we are preserving and restoring our documents and history. It's a place for all kinds of research for students and scholars who come here. We have 10 different archives in 10 languages. We trace back our documents to the Portuguese in 1507, after that the Dutch came here from 1623 to 1667 and then the British from 1667 to 1971 when it became the UAE. It's a unique centre unlike the other national archives all over the world.
"It has two mandates: the first is to document history and the second is research. The two complement each other. Without documents we would not be able to research and publish. And if you have documents and don't do research, the documents are useless." The archive moved out of its original home at the Cultural Foundation and into temporary accommodation while the new building, which opened in 2005, was being constructed. During his first few months at the helm el Reyes came across a manuscript that became a crucial pillar of the Center's future strategy. It turned out to be a brilliant and detailed history of the rulers of Abu Dhabi during the years between 1793 and 1966.
He explains: "During the early days I opened a drawer and found a manuscript called Qasr Al Hosn. It had not been published and, after reading the first 50 pages or so, I soon realised why. There were very many sensitivities in it that would have made publication difficult, but it was a fascinating and accurate account of the times based on diligent research and documentation." The author was the Calcutta-born historian Dr Jayanti Maitra, who currently heads up the research department. She explained that it had been consigned to a drawer because it was thought to be too controversial. Dr el Reyes disagreed and immediately had it translated into Arabic and showed it to Sheikh Mansour.
"I thought if we published this it would be a very quick win for the centre. When I gave His Highness a copy I flagged up the sensitive areas that covered issues such as the struggles between Ras al Khaimah and Sharjah when people were killing each other. "I told him this was an excellent history of our country and asked him how he wanted us to proceed. He asked me, 'Did you make up these stories or are there documents,' and said if we didn't make them up and if the stories were true we must publish."
The book was pivotal and was voted the best book at the Sharjah Book Fair in 2003 when it was published. Dr Maitra was relieved and grateful to see her work published. "I can't brush up history or whitewash events, I present history as it is but I wouldn't have been able to move an inch had it not been for the support I received. Dr Abdulla's attention to detail is awesome. He would sit at the publishers helping with headlines, selecting photographs and writing captions."
Once staff at the revitalised organisation had assessed the millions of documents in the archives, their major task was to scan them and catalogue them. The relevant software for indexing and cataloguing was swiftly installed and the digitisation took two years. Says el Reyes: "There were more than seven million of them, the majority from the UK, written by political agents who were sending back regular reports, a lot of them confidential at the time. One of the good things these people did was to keep records. If they hadn't done that we wouldn't have had records dating back as far as the Portuguese, letters and maps, reports and, later on, even photographs. Once technology came in, it was easier but if somebody had not recorded and documented these events we would not know about them."
Researchers were sent to national archives all over the world to copy and record historical documents. What was needed next was an archive relating to the years after the formation of the UAE in 1971. "We didn't have any documents. The country was formed but we needed to know who did it and how they did it. I thought there was a need to collect the documents of all the ministries so I put in a request to Sheikh Mansour and a national archival law was passed," el Reyes says.
In 2008 the organisation was formally established as the NCDR, under the umbrella of the Ministry for Presidential Affairs. A five-year strategic plan was worked out and the various ministries informed that from now on they must not destroy documents until a team from the Center had viewed them. With 221 government institutions to monitor, including ministries, local government offices and businesses owned by the government, the sheer scale of the task faced by the Center's staff is mind-boggling.
"We asked them to form committees and liaise with our team of about 40 people, and we helped them to organise their storage and indexing. Then we selected five per cent of all the documents, which is more than the archives of most other countries. "The Ministry of the Interior alone produces more than 30 million documents a month, including passports, driving licences, IDs, everything. Multiply that by 12 and then by 38 years and you will get an idea of the scale."
Clearly even the vast new building was not going to be big enough to accommodate the mountains of paperwork, so two new buildings, one in Dubai and another in Abu Dhabi, have been commissioned. Building starts next year and is due to be completed by 2013. In addition to the ongoing archiving of documents, vital books on archaeology and heritage, many of which are written in English, are being translated into Arabic. There are five in-house translators but work is being outsourced using UK-based firms to speed up the process.
A second volume about Sheikh Zayed's life is to be published on December 2, to coincide with the National Day celebrations. The first, published in 2007, covered from 1946 to 1971, and the second will focus on the years from 1971 to 2004. Work is also taking place to record the memories of people who lived through the formation of the emirates. "Oral history is equally important and we have teams interviewing old people and documenting their memories. We also give our staff brochures and questionnaires so they can interview their parents about their lives, finding out about what kind of businesses they ran and how they interacted with other businesses both inside and outside the UAE.
"None of this would have been possible without the support of Sheikh Mansour, who takes a daily interest in what we are doing and is constantly in touch asking questions and making suggestions." El Reyes believes the value of such individual memories is a vital part of the nation's heritage and the way both the UAE and the wider Arab world is perceived globally. "We are trying to showcase life here the way it was before and demonstrate how people lived peacefully and how their lives had meaning."
Still, el Reyes admits that he has mixed feelings about modernisation and the effects it has had. "My generation has seen both the old ways and the new," he says. "To be truthful I like the old. There was an appreciation of values and family traditions. People lived lives based on love for each other. It was true teamwork. If somebody became sick in the town everybody provided help. Forty years ago everybody lived in one house. We used to visit each other on a daily basis, then it became weekly, then monthly. Now it can be once a year."