The cabinet has apologized to the family of the anti-colonial writer and resistance hero Anton de Kom ‘for the suffering he and his family experienced at the hands of the Dutch authorities at the time’.
A special chair will be set up at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam that will make the rehabilitation ‘concrete and visible to a wider audience’.
Minister Wopke Hoekstra (Foreign Affairs) apologized to the children and other family members of De Kom during a meeting at his ministry. He was “a brave man who fought for justice, equality and human dignity,” says the minister. “The actions of Anton de Kom and his important contribution to Dutch and Surinamese history deserve honor and recognition.”
Rehabilitation for De Kom
In a statement, the family said they were “moved and delighted” by the rehabilitation. “This reparation recognizes the courage, vision and tireless effort of a man who has spent his life fighting for freedom and equality against the spirit of the times.”
The family has long fought for rehabilitation. They see the recognition as ‘a step towards a just society, in which we dare to confront our colonial past, take responsibility for what happened and recognize the suffering that people have suffered’.
The chair, which will be created after consultation with the family and the Anton de Kom Foundation, is, according to the ministry, aimed at the historical processing of the Dutch slavery past and how this affects the present. De Kom’s ideas will be central to this.
Slavery history
De Kom was born in 1898 in Suriname, which was then a colony of the Netherlands. His father was enslaved. In 1921 De Kom left for the Netherlands. He later gave lectures there about the slavery past and the history of Suriname.
At the end of 1932, the left-wing activist De Kom returned to Suriname. He was monitored there by the authorities and soon expelled from the country. A year later he published his famous history book Wij Slaven van Suriname, an indictment against racism and exploitation.
During the Second World War he was a member of the resistance. De Kom died on April 24, 1945 in concentration camp Sandbostel. He was later awarded the resistance memorial cross posthumously and is also included in the Canon of the Netherlands. Three years ago, the House of Representatives asked the cabinet for his rehabilitation.
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