Around noon, the Bigi Spikri, the traditional procession to the Keti Koti commemoration in the Oosterpark, departs from the Amsterdam city hall. Several hundred people, mostly in festive attire. Lots of drums and horns.
About thirty activists are walking in the tail of the parade. They hold up signs that say “No healing without recovery” and “July 1st free every year.” They are dissatisfied with how things are going since Prime Minister Rutte apologized for the slavery past in December. “Those apologies were important and historic,” says organizer Mitchell Esajas. “But if you recognize this crime against humanity and also recognize that there is an impact in the present, there must be a program to repair the suffering and achieve equality.” The 200 million euros that the cabinet recently allocated, Esajas considers “insufficient”. “It really has to be a structural program.” The protest march, he says, is intended as an “incentive” to speed up the arrival of such a program.
The march begins. Esajas picks up a megaphone and shouts: “What do we want?”
The demonstrators: “Reparations!”
Esajas: “When do we want it?”
“Now!”
There are also many white Dutch people among the demonstrators. Like Dymfke van der Lanen, who carries a sign with ‘Apologies and then?’ She follows along “because we are not there yet,” she says. “The effects are felt to this day. Apologies are of little use if you do nothing else.” What exactly should be done, says Van der Lanen, “must be determined by the descendants. And the Dutch state must listen and facilitate.”
After more than an hour of walking and singing, the march ends in the Oosterpark, where the commemoration with the king can be followed on large screens. Demonstrator Andrew Leliëndal has a “bittersweet feeling” with today. “Bitter because of the memory of slavery. Sweet because we are on our way to eventual healing. But apologies alone will not get you true healing.” He believes that the cabinet should come up with “more than just words”. “That 200 million is more than just words, but of course it means nothing.”
Correction (July 1, 2023): In an earlier version of this message, Andrew Leliëndal’s last name was incorrectly stated as ‘Leliënwoud’. That has been corrected in this version.