[ad_1]
King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands has apologized for his country’s role in enslaving colonial peoples since the 16th century. He was speaking on Saturday (July 1) in an address marking the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Suriname (in South America) and in the Dutch Caribbean colonies in 1873.
“But today, on this Memorial Day, I ask forgiveness for the apparent failure to address this crime against humanity,” he said.
Earlier in December 2022, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also made a full apology, after announcing the results of a government-commissioned study. It found that between 1945 and 1949, the Dutch used “excessive violence” in Indonesia after World War II. While the Dutch had established themselves in the seventeenth century, they began to rule the country in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Then Japan took control during World War II, at the end of which the Dutch tried to regain control amid the formation of the independence movement.
What the king and prime minister said
In his speech, the King thanked the researchers for shedding light on the history of slavery in the country. We know that more than 600,000 people were transported across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa on Dutch ships, to be sold into slavery or worked on plantations. About 75,000 did not survive the crossing. We also know about the extensive slave trade to the East, in the areas controlled by the Dutch East India Company. We know of the atrocities committed against the indigenous people in the colonies.
Prime Minister Rutte echoed that sentiment last year in a speech, when he said: “We who live in today’s world must acknowledge the evils of slavery in the clearest terms possible, and condemn it as a crime against humanity. As a criminal system that has caused the suffering of untold numbers of people. The suffering continues.” in people’s lives today. And we in the Netherlands must face up to our part in that history.”
Slaves were “ripped from their families and dehumanised,” Rutte said, and “treated like cattle.” While no one alive today is responsible for past Dutch atrocities, “it is also true that the Dutch state, in all its manifestations throughout history, bears responsibility for suffering.” Terrible befallen slaves and their descendants.
Another independent study was commissioned by the king to discover the exact role played by members of the Dutch royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau, in this history.
What was the Dutch role in the slave trade?
According to the United Nations website on Slavery and Remembrance, “Like other European maritime nations, the Dutch were quick to involve themselves in the transatlantic slave trade. Between 1596 and 1829, the Dutch transported about half a million Africans across the Atlantic.”
Large numbers were taken to the small islands of Curaçao and St. Eustatius in the Caribbean … The Dutch also transported about half a million Africans to their settlements in Dutch Guiana, particularly Suriname, where they worked mainly on sugar plantations.
The Dutch used slaves to work on coffee, sugar, and tobacco plantations, apart from domestic labor in the colonies. Centuries of the slave trade financed what is known as the Netherlands’ “Golden Age” – the period roughly between 1585-1670, when trade, the arts, sciences, and the country’s military flourished.
According to Rutte’s letter, “By 1814 more than 600,000 enslaved African women, men, and children had been shipped to the American continent, in deplorable conditions, by Dutch slavers… In Asia, between 660,000 and more than a million persons—we don’t do it” so we don’t know exactly how many – were traded within the areas under the jurisdiction of the Dutch East India Company. “
When slavery was officially abolished in 1863, it was not the slaves who received compensation from the Dutch state, but the slave owners.
What else does the government do?
According to an official statement, “The government will provide €200 million in a fund for measures aimed at raising awareness, promoting participation and addressing the current effects of slavery.”
July 2023 marks the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, since while it was officially abolished in 1863, another 10 years were needed for its implementation.
One of the criticisms often leveled at the Netherlands is that its school system does not adequately deal with its colonial past and the slave trade. In its latest statement, the government said it would “give the Netherlands’ role in the history of slavery an important place in education, where young people connect with history.”
Apart from this, the country is also looking into returning the artwork looted during the colonial period.
Why are some people not happy with an apology?
Some activist groups have asked for financial compensation and a recognition process for history to be more inclusive of the modern-day descendants of those affected by slavery.
There is also the current issue of racism. In 2020, the then UN rapporteur on racism, Tendai Achiume, said that a self-image of “tolerance” was preventing discrimination from being addressed in the Netherlands.
The country has seen allegations of systemic racism in the police force and other government services, dual nationals have been unfairly accused of defrauding childcare benefits, and immigrants are generally found to have lower levels of educational and professional success than white Dutch.
As Rutte said in his speech, “Centuries of oppression and exploitation still have an impact today. In racial stereotypes. In discriminatory patterns of exclusion. In social inequality.”
And the apology itself was a long time coming. Sections of the Dutch population feel the nation today has nothing to apologize for for crimes committed centuries ago, while some fear that an apology could open the floodgates to demands for reparations.
[ad_2]
