A majority of the House of Representatives believes that research should be conducted into the arrival of the Moluccans in the Netherlands, their 75 years in the Netherlands and how that history still has an impact today.
According to the motion, submitted by Don Ceder (Christian Union), the aim of the investigation is “to achieve a process of recognition and an appropriate gesture that does justice to the community and strengthens the community”. Thirteen other parties also support the motion.
“Of the first generation of Moluccans who experienced this history themselves, fewer and fewer people are alive. That is precisely why we can no longer look away from the questions that have been alive for decades within the Moluccan community,” says MP Ceder.
One of the goals of the motion is to achieve recognition of Moluccan history. For example, it is being investigated whether a national agenda is necessary for this, which examines how “justice can be done appropriately to the Moluccan community”.
The results of the study should be known in the first quarter of next year. According to Ceder, the cabinet must then come up with proposals for the so-called national agenda. The House of Representatives will vote on the motion on June 16.
This year marks 75 years since the first more than 12,000 Moluccans came to the Netherlands. Moluccans fought in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army (KNIL) on the side of the Dutch when Indonesia was still a Dutch colony.
After the independence of Indonesia, the KNIL was disbanded. Moluccans did not want to belong to the ‘new’ country and proclaimed the Republic of the South Moluccas, the RMS, in 1950.
The Netherlands brought thousands of Moluccans to the Netherlands in 1951 on military orders. On the way here they were discharged from the KNIL.
The thousands of Moluccans were sheltered in residential areas, such as Schattenberg. Better known as the former Camp Westerbork. Many former KNIL soldiers and their families lived for years under appalling conditions in Schattenberg.
The stay would be temporary and the Netherlands would make every effort to ensure a safe return. But that promise is never kept. A temporary stay became permanent.
Schattenberg was closed in 1971. In the previous years, many Moluccans moved to different villages, where they lived together in a Moluccan neighborhood. This happened in Drenthe in Assen, Bovensmilde and Hoogeveen.
From the many recorded stories, which RTV Drenthe has also recorded, integration in the Netherlands was not always easy. Villages in Drenthe were not always well prepared for the arrival of the Moluccans.
After the Moluccans had waited a generation for their living conditions to improve, a group turned to violent actions. Some young people became radicalized partly due to the trauma they received from their parents.
Drenthe experienced several Moluccan actions in the 1970s: the train hijackings in Wijster (1975) and De Punt (1977), the school hostage-taking in Bovensmilde (1977) and the hostage-taking of the provincial government building in Assen (1978).
There are also various initiatives in Drenthe from the Moluccan community to draw attention to history. For example, the Camp Westerbork Memorial Center recently announced that a Moluccan zone will be created on the site.
Moreover, there are all kinds of initiatives in the province to give more attention to the Moluccan story, for example through educational projects.