The past is not always discussed at home among Dutch Moluccans. The pain of forced departure to the Netherlands and growing up in camps outside society runs deep. But stories that were not shared in living rooms for decades nevertheless emerged during the exhibition Menyala.
“When the elderly talk, you are quiet as a child. You can sit there, but you don’t say anything.” These are the words of Alycia Schiphof (25 years old). Grew up in Drenthe, part of the fourth generation of Moluccans in the Netherlands. And a member of the working group that worked on the exhibition about Moluccan history.
It characterizes the way in which questions about the past were regularly dealt with in Moluccan circles. Even at Schiphof’s home there was not always room to talk about the past. “You just didn’t ask. But when I did Menyala started working, I noticed that it can be done.”
The exhibition Menyala about the history of Moluccans in Drenthe is now over. The exhibition was created with the help of a working group of seven young Moluccans who looked for unknown stories in their own environment.
“It often happens that in the Netherlands it is about Moluccans, but not often with Moluccans. This was really an exhibition that was created from within, with the working group but also a somewhat older sounding board group and other parties from the Moluccan community.”
The project resulted in an exhibition with other stories about the Moluccans in Drenthe. Well-known, but mainly negative, events such as the train hijackings were given a place there. But also the establishment of its own football club and ways in which Moluccan culture and Dutch culture mixed.
New stories emerged based on personal objects, mainly from attic rooms and storage boxes. And that caught on. “Moluccan families who would otherwise never come to the museum were now there. There is a need to hear the stories, but also from the community itself to tell the story.”
Alycia Schiphof tells how Menyala helped elicit stories from Moluccans from the older generations