Boxing teacher Ro Dors sails in a canine over the Surinamese Marowijne River, together with his son and nephew from the Netherlands. They are on pilgrimage to the place in the rainforest where Boni lived. This maroon leader fought against the Dutch slavery regime in the 17th century. Ro Dors has named his Amsterdam Thaiboksschool Boni Gym after him.
But once he has arrived at Boni -Doro – the place where, according to tradition, the severed head of Boni jumped out of the boat of his beulen – Ro Dors wants to get away quickly again: “A lot has happened here. You shouldn’t think that you can walk and situations. It is blood, blood, a lot of bloodshed.” No place to go around like a tourist, he thinks. They quickly get back in the boat and sail home.
Amanda van Hesteren records it The new generations of Suriname (NPO2). When Ro Dors founded his Thai boxing school Boni Gym in Amsterdam in 1984, he had two goals. He wanted to remove young people from the street, where crime and drug addiction demanded many victims, and offer them a safe home. And he wanted to teach them something about their home country Suriname. That is why he named his school after Boni. Now his son Leroy and nephew Gerwin want to breathe new life into ‘Boni Gym’. Not as a boxing school but as a clothing line. Hence the Surinamese pilgrimage.
The four -part documentary series from Omroep Zwart and the VPRO follows young Dutch people who return to the country of origin in search of knowledge and connection. The reason is always a concrete goal. In later parts, the Tiffany and Rakesh couple go to the Saamaka (a Marron people) to plant cassava for their Amsterdam restaurant in a traditional way. Theater maker Dewi wants to make a performance in Suriname about Javanese experience. Architect Lindsey wants to build a hospital in a village deep in the jungle.
Wan Pipel
The constructive tone is striking. The slavery past and other Surinamese traumas only play in the background. Van Hesteren brings positive stories about the wealth that the country has to offer to the descendants in the Dutch Diaspora. The constructive also has a disadvantage: as a viewer you sometimes crave some conflict, friction, which should undoubtedly be there. What do the residents think of the visitors from the Netherlands who enter their country as holy land? Are the companies all going from a slate roof? You also wonder how torn it should feel for the Surinamese Dutch to stand in the Netherlands with one foot and with one foot in Suriname.
It is striking that Van Hesteren not only focuses on the Creole population group (descendants of slaved Africans), but also on Javanese, the Hindustani, and indirectly the Maroons and the native. Those groups often live past each other, according to the distribution and rule of the former colonial power. But since independence, fifty years ago on November 25, it has been ideal to form ‘Wan Pipel’. This documentary wants to give it to that. As restaurant owner Rakesh says: “Suriname is set up as a segregation state, never intended as a country. We make it a country.”
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Also read: Amanda van Hesteren: ‘Now that the Netherlands is becoming more right, you feel that your right to exist is on tension’