The unveiling of the Moluccan monument is being closely followed from Bovensmilde today. Moluccan families gather to travel to Rotterdam together. “This is a special moment again,” says Jecy Sihasale. “In any case, March 21 and June 21 are always the days when you think about history (ed.).”
On Sunday morning after the church service in the Moluccan Church of Bethany in Bovensmilde, a bus drives to the square. About thirty people get in. The bus’s destination is LLoydkade in Rotterdam, where a new Moluccan monument will be unveiled in the presence of Prime Minister Rob Jetten and Mayor Carola Schouten. Emotions are tense.
“I keep my sense of happiness a bit low,” says Sihasale, initiator of the bus trip. She is tempering her expectations now that stories are circulating about possible excuses from the government. “That has to do with so many promises made in the past to my grandparents, to my parents. I try to keep expectations low and we have to see first.”
Sihasale’s grandfather, a former KNIL soldier, came to Rotterdam with his wife and children on orders from the Dutch army. Many Moluccan men fought in the war of independence in Indonesia in the hope of establishing their own Republic of the South Moluccas (RMS). When Indonesia became independent, the KNIL soldiers were no longer safe in the Moluccas and the soldiers and their families came to the Netherlands on military orders.
In total, approximately 12,500 Moluccans left for the Netherlands. Along the way, the soldiers received their discharge letter and upon arrival a temporary stay in old residential barracks at, among others, Camp Westerbork, which was renamed Woonoord Schattenberg.
What was initially supposed to be temporary became permanent. The promised safe return never took place. Among the second generation, sometimes violent actions arose to demand improvements to their situation.
“Let’s go to Rotterdam with the right intention,” says Sihasale upon departure. “For our grandfathers, our grandfathers and grandmothers. Remembering all the people who were on the boat and arrived at the LLoydkade.”
The possible excuses that will follow make the day very difficult, according to Sihasale. “We know that the motion has been adopted and that an independent investigation will take place into the past. Into the, as far as I am concerned, incomplete decolonization process. But the question is: what are you apologizing for? At what point do these apologies expire?”
For Sihasale the following applies: first see, then believe. “So many false promises have already been made.” Isn’t there also a fervent hope for an apology? “Hope… I think that the Netherlands will take a step in the right direction with an apology. But it remains difficult to get your hopes up.”
