Mixed reactions to Rutte’s slavery-excuses
PHILIPSBURG – Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte offered profound apologies for the role of the Netherlands in the history of slavery on December 19. Reactions to his speech remained however divided, at times cynical and mostly critical. An overview.
Amsterdam’s mayor Femke Halsema already offered last year apologies for the role her city played in the history of slavery. She labeled Rutte’s speech as “a beautiful moment,” appreciating that he had taken the time to explain how criminal the slavery-system had been.
Christa Tache, a reader of the Algemeen Dagblad, wrote in a letter to the editor that the majority of citizens in Amsterdam had nothing to eat during “the Golden (Gray) Age.”
They were exploited as laborers and servants (that is what they called laborers). So who is it now who does not know the history? It was a group that committed indeed gruesome acts and they turn my stomach as well.”
Jorien Wuite, a former (acting) Minister of Education and a former Minister Plenipotentiary for St Maarten who is now a member of the Dutch parliament for D66, highlighted what she considers the most important part of Rutte’s address: his confirmation that the role of the Dutch state in the transatlantic slave trade amounts to a crime against humanity. “For centuries the Dutch state and its representatives have made slavery possible, stimulated it, maintained it and benefited from it.”
The reactions in the Caribbean were mixed: Aruba accepted Rutte’s apology, Curacao first wants to hear what its parliament has to say about it and St. Maarten came up with conditions.
“Every well-intended apology is always welcome,” Aruba’s PM Evelyn Wever-Kroes said, adding that the apology is “a turning point in the history of the kingdom.”
Curacao’s Prime Minister Gilmar Pisas spoke of “a new stage in the relationship between Curacao and the Netherlands.” But before accepting the apology, he wants to hear the opinion of his parliament.
St. Maarten’s Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs wants research into how colonialism could happen, who was affected by it and who is responsible for it before accepting the apology.
Jacobs said that she had experienced “mixed emotions” and that she extended “an invitation to openly dialogue on the ways to approach the abrupt and forced apology for slavery past by the Netherlands.”
Rather ambiguously, Jacobs added that “we are not at the stage that we can either accept or deny the apologies, saying that it is “in poor taste” to move full steam ahead with the apology before proper dialogue has taken place. She furthermore labeled Rutte’s speech as “a statement shrouded in secrecy as to the real motives.”
Jacobs also criticized the announcement of a 200 million euro fund for awareness and education and the 27 million euro the Netherlands has pledged for the construction of a slavery museum. “Built on European soil this institution is meant to bring awareness to the Dutch atrocities during the Golden Age. Such an enterprise can be conceived as an admittance of ignorance regarding the subject of slavery and colonialism. How can a nation admittedly ignorant of their own colonial violence determine the conditions for an apology, let alone reparations? How can a nation be sorry for something they admittedly know little to nothing about?”
Jacobs maintained that “for an apology to be sincere, it must come with the realization that slavery and colonialism have impaired our people’s economic and social development.”
Jacobs also mentioned the Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome-theory (PTSS) which holds that slavery trauma is held in people’s DNA and that it is passed on to next generations.
The black author Ibrahim X. Kendi wrote six years ago on AAIHS.org (the website of the African American Intellectual History Society) under the banner of Black Perspectives that PTSS, a theory first published in 2005 by the black psychologist Joy Degruy, is a racist idea. “Black people must realize that the only thing wrong with black people is that we think something is wrong with black people. Black Americans’ history of oppression has made black opportunities—not black behaviors—inferior,” he wrote. Black people as a group do not need to be healed from racist trauma. All Black people need is to be freed from racist trauma.”
Kendi has expressed concerns that PTSS will, at the very least, fall into the wrong hands and be used by racist forces as further confirmation of black cultural, psychological and ontological inferiority.
While DeGruy is trying to help black people survive psychically in a world that tries to strip them of their humanity, Kendi maintains that the world has not succeeded in doing so.
MP Melissa Gumbs (Party for Progress) referred to a statement Mike Bindraban (project leader Dialogue and Education in the town program colonial and slavery history in Rotterdam) made during the last IPKO: “No words, but action.” Gumbs wrote that the apology “comes amidst a flurry of stubborn voice in the Netherlands and unnecessarily combative and incohesive local voices. I find myself wondering: Now what?”
Gumbs offers a way forward “The now what must include self-reflection and self-study, especially on the part of the Dutch government, the royal family and the people of the Netherlands. I urge for self-reflection and self-study because it does not surprise me that a country that does not teach nearly enough of its own history of colonization to its citizens, now makes an empty apology that is not backed by action.”
Gumbs is furthermore of the opinion that “reparatory justice in the form of remuneration is necessary.”
“We must find a way to move on from all of colonization’s remaining effects, including our dependency on hyper-capitalism and tourism, our misogynistic and patriarchal culture and its impact on the rights of women and children, and our treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered St. Maarteners.”
The One SXM Association spearheaded by former Education-Minister Rhoda Arrindell published a petition against accepting the Dutch apology. Within a short time, the petition gathered more than one thousand signatures.
MP Sarah Wescot-Williams said that she considers the apology by the Dutch government as a first step. “We should focus on the what now,” she wrote, adding that the dialogue group the government want to establish “must be a true representation.”
Wescot-Williams furthermore noted that reparations is a “deeply-rooted process that cannot be compensated with the recent loans from the Dutch government.”
“No national dialogue on slavery and reparations is complete without the broader dialogue of who we are as St. Maarteners,” the MP added.
Dew Sharman, the vice-chairman of the Surinamese parliament is “absolutely not in agreement with the apology,” saying that some things have been left out such as reparations.
Amand Zunder of the National Reparations Committee Suriname, acknowledged that the apology is “very clear” but that it is lacking the associated issues of responsibility and liability.
He wants a debate about reparations.
Suriname’s President Chan Santokhi remained critical about the date of December 19. He expressed a preference for July 1, 2023. However, he was also looking forward: “In the future we must work more together for the honor and recovery of this black page in our history.”
Lastly, Rabin Baldewsingh, the national coordinator against racism and discrimination in the Netherlands said that he was very happy with the apology. “This helps in the fight against racism.”
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Present-day slavery
A beginning
