Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, introduced A Apology on behalf of his country’s government about its role in slavery, acknowledging that the past “cannot be erased, only confronted.”
This intervention by Rutte was highly expected, as it would address the Netherlands’ participation in 250 years of slavery in former colonies and come in response to a report published in 2021 on the subject.
What did you say in apology?
“Today I apologize on behalf of the Dutch government for the country’s actions in the past,” Rutte said during his speech in The Hague. Not only to the “suffering” slaves, but also to “their daughters and sons and all their grandchildren.”
“We, who live here and now, cannot help but recognize and condemn slavery in the clearest terms as a crime against humanity,” he elaborated.
At the same time that Routi delivered his speech in The Hague, several of his ministers were present in the former colonies of Bonaire, St. Maarten, Aruba, Curaçao, Saba, St. Eustatius and Suriname to “discuss” the subject with the local population.
What happened in the past?
Slavery helped finance the Dutch “Golden Age”, a period of prosperity due to sea trade in the 16th and 17th centuries. About 600,000 Africans fled the country, mainly to South America and the Caribbean.
At the height of its colonial empire, the United Provinces, known today as the Netherlands, had colonies such as Suriname, the Caribbean island of Curaçao, South Africa, and Indonesia, where the Dutch East India Company was based in the 17th century. .
Slavery was abolished in Suriname and other territories controlled by the Netherlands on July 1, 1863, but it did not end until 1873, after a 10-year “transitional” period.
When was the topic brought up for discussion today?
with movement The Black Lives Matter movement In the United States, the controversy returned to the fore in the Netherlands, where racism continued to affect citizens of the former colonies.
So, in recent years, the Netherlands has begun to grapple with its role in the slave trade and its colonial history — without which Dutch cities and its famous museums, filled with works of art by Rembrandt and Vermeer, would never be the same.
what has been done?
Before Rutte, the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague had already apologized for their role in the slave trade.
But the prime minister has long been reticent about offering a formal apology, having previously claimed that the age of slavery was behind him and that such a statement would reignite tensions in a country where extreme poverty is increasing.
However, this was not the first time he had spoken about this topic. In September, he acknowledged the “terrible suffering of slaves” in Suriname, at the end of a two-day visit to the South American country, a former Dutch colony until its independence in 1975.
Was the formal apology well received?
Rutte’s apology on behalf of the government sparked controversy, with groups of descendants and some affected countries criticizing it as “hasty”.
In addition, the activists indicated that the apology should come from the Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, and be given in the former colony of Suriname, on July 1 of next year, on the 150th anniversary of the end of slavery in that region. Root defended herself: choosing the right moment is “complicated” and “no moment is right for everyone”.
Sao Martinho’s premier, Silveria Jacobs, also said on Saturday that the island would not accept apologies if they were made on Monday, the date previously reported by the media.
However, in Aruba, Prime Minister Evelyn Weaver Croese told the ANP news agency that Al Jazeera accepts the apology, but emphasized that this was only a “first step”.
* With agencies
