Parliamentary delegation ‘must be on the plantations’

For the first time in thirteen years, a delegation from the House of Representatives will travel to Suriname on Saturday. The aim: to learn about the Dutch slavery past, its consequences, which are still being felt by some groups of Dutch people, and the way in which the Dutch government can best recognize this. “You can read a lot about it, but if you want to see how slavery continues in the present, you have to stand on the plantations, talk to relatives,” says Member of Parliament and delegation leader Kiki Hagen (D66).

Next year it will be commemorated that slavery was definitively abolished 150 years ago. The legal ban has been in existence for ten years longer, but slave owners were given a bridging period by the Dutch government to absorb the financial consequences. Hagen: “We are now investigating how we should shape that commemoration.”

The delegation, with MPs from D66, CDA, PvdA, SP, GroenLinks, ChristenUnie, Volt and Bij1, visits a plantation in Suriname and speaks with President Chan Santokhi, among others. The MPs will also visit Curaçao and Bonaire, where they will, among other things, lay a wreath during a commemoration of the slave revolt of 1795.

Also read: On the trail of Surinamese fighters

‘Time for an apology’

The trip is a continuation of an investigation into the history of slavery, which the Home Affairs Committee has been conducting since the beginning of this year. The committee organized two round table discussions with experts and relatives. It soon became clear from those conversations: almost all speakers invited by the House of Representatives think it is time for the Dutch government to apologize for the slavery past.

Whether the visit of the members of parliament is a preparation for that? Hagen does not want to comment on that. She maintains that the delegation is ‘considering’ issuing an advice to the cabinet after the trip on how it should deal with the slavery past. “I think this trip will form the basis for the conversation. Do we have to apologize? Are apologies enough? Or does more need to be done?” Other MPs who go along are more outspoken. In June, Don Ceder (CU) and Inge van Dijk (CDA) said to NRC that they do see the trip and the talks in the House of Representatives as preparation for apologies. They do not want an answer to the question whether the Netherlands should apologize, but how.

Proponents point out that the consequences of the slavery past are still being felt, in the form of racism and discrimination. They believe that recognition and reconciliation begin with apologies. And, it also sounds: the cabinet has made apologies more often in recent times. This year alone to the veterans of Dutchbat and their relatives, for the mass murder in Srebrenica and the extreme violence during the Indonesian war of independence.

Making excuses ‘complex’

In 2013, then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Social Affairs Lodewijk Asscher (PvdA) called the Dutch slavery past “a blot in history”. On behalf of the cabinet, he then spoke of ‘regret and remorse’.

But in 2020 Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) found apologies still “complex”. He reasoned that it would only increase polarization in society. And, he wondered, “Can you hold people alive today responsible for the distant past?”

In the years that followed, the list grew with organizations and municipalities that do recognize their role in the slavery past and apologize for it. In 2021, the mayors of Amsterdam and Rotterdam already apologized for the slavery history of their cities. Utrecht, ABN Amro, De Nederlandsche Bank and the province of North Holland followed in 2022. The government also seems to be moving in that direction. Prime Minister Rutte hinted in July that apologies might be made this year.