In 2019, 50% of the Dutch were proud of their former colonial empire. This is the highest number of all European colonial powers by far. So it seems strange that this is the Dutch king apologizing for the Dutch role in the slave trade.
And this is the prime minister apologizing last year. These apologies have made the Netherlands the first of the big slave trading nations to apologize for the slave trade. A truly historic moment.
But just like their citizens, the government hasn't always been so progressive. Sixteen years prior, the then prime minister and historian Jan Peter Balkenende, said the Dutch needed more, not less, of a colonial mindset. changing this conviction hasn't been easy.
As activists were calling for apologies. The Dutch society didn't seem ready for a new perspective on history. protests against colonial statues led to riots.
Slavery monuments got tarnished, and a majority of the public didn't want to apologize for slavery at all. So where does this colonial pride come from? It has to do with the Dutch identity that for a long time was built on the idea of a golden age in the 17th century, a time when the Dutch ruled the waves and founded one of the biggest colonial empires the world had ever seen, producing a brilliant nation of artists and scientists, that was welcoming to religious minorities, trade and tolerance.
was in the Dutch blood. A second strand that formed Dutch identity was the occupation by Nazi Germany. This led to ideas of both victimhood and heroic resistance to the occupiers.
these victims. didn't want to see with how little resistance the Dutch Jews were deported, or that they were the ruthless occupiers for millions of colonial subjects, So when after the Second World War, the Dutch became great again, it must have been because of the trade and tolerance mindset. The country became one of the richest nations in the world.
Progressive policies followed. The Netherlands introduced relative freedom for sex workers, lax drug laws and assisted dying. It was the first country in the world to legalize abortion, the first to introduce gay marriage.
Even Dutch gay pride is different. This was not a protest for equal rights, but the celebration, the freedom queer people enjoyed in the Netherlands. The Dutch saw it.
And it was perfect. A history and a nation to be proud of. They believed they were a true A guiding country.
An example to the rest of the world. But was that all there is to Dutch identity Over the past few years the other side of the Dutch colonial history has come into the spotlight. this focus has shifted from the glorious to the horrid, from the exploration trade and power to genocide, greed and exploitation.
The history of forced labor of slavery now gets attention. In the 1930s, the author Anton de Kom, asked about the Dutch colony of Suriname. What would Suriname have been worth without labor of slaves?
So what is this history about? Dutch colonial activities can be divided to the East and west. This is a map of all territories connected to the Dutch and slave trade in the West.
The Dutch took part in the transatlantic slave The Dutch took 600,000 people from the shores of Africa to their colonies, areas like these Suriname and the Dutch Antilles. Here, people had to work on sugar plantations in horrible conditions. Zooming out we can see the Dutch were involved in slavery and the slave trade in a lot of different places.
Many under that other Dutch colonial company, the East India Company, or VOC. They were active in the slave trade in the Cape, but also India and Indonesia. It is estimated a total of 600 to 1.
1 million people were enslaved in the areas around the Pacific Ocean. Apart from killing tens of thousands, dehumanizing millions and destroying communities, it made the Dutch a lot of money. The yearly proceeds connected to slavery have been put at 5.
2% of Dutch GDP, or €45 billion in today's terms. That is as much as the harbor of Rotterdam brings in. This is the biggest harbor of Europe and the 11th biggest of the world.
The Dutch royal family is estimated to have made the modern equivalent of half a billion euro. But it's not just the past. The legacy of slavery and forced labor is visible in the present.
in houses, on the Amsterdam canals. Infrastructure projects like these waterways or the national railroads that were financed by forced labor in Indonesia and politicians have linked present day racism in Dutch society to colonial attitudes. Colonialism and the effects of it weren't always the plight of politicians.
people that went to school in the 50s, 60s and 70s just didn't learn about this other side of the past. There was no need to talk about it. It took activists to make a change.
When Surinam gained independence in the seventies. It led to a wave of migration to the Netherlands. Once settled, they introduced our cuisine and helped Amsterdam win the champions League.
But at the same time, Surinamese of these people didn't always feel welcome. each year they were compared to the racist stereotype of Santa’s helper Black Pete, they were shocked by the complete lack of attention to the history of the slave trade. To keep this part of the history Surinamese Dutch started to celebrate Keti Koti.
Broken chains. Keti Koti is a remembrance and celebration of the 1st of July of 1863, when enslaved people were freed in Suriname. Even though after liberation, these free people were forced to work another ten years on the same plantations.
Surinamese Dutch wanted the government to acknowledge this history with official apologies and a monument to commemorate slavery. This gave the history the attention it deserved. 2001, a Dutch minister expressed deep regret at the slave trade on the UN Conference on Racism and in 2002, the National Slavery Monument opened in Amsterdam.
But this process also showed a split in how the Dutch remembered their past. because in the same year the founding of the Dutch East India Company 400 years ago was celebrated with the future king in attendance. This was still a glorious past.
It shows the contradictions in Dutch society. A nation of victims of Nazi occupation that couldn't see their role in the biggest colony a nation that was at the forefront of social politics yet so inflexible in acknowledging the past This is also portrayed by the Liberal Dutch prime minister that ultimately made these apologies. When protests against Black Pete opened the eyes of many Dutch people to the colonial caricature this character was.
for a long time. Mark Rutte wouldn't see it is not green Pete or brown Pete, it is black Pete. So I cannot change that.
This is an old tradition and I can only say that my friends in the Dutch Antilles, they are very happy when they have Sinterklaas because they don't have to paint their faces. As television series, museum exhibits and books about the history of the slave trade became ever more present. Still, the Dutch prime minister wasn't ready to budge When the Black Lives Matter movement, reached the Netherlands and research by big cities in the Netherlands and financial institutions showed slavery was an integral part of the Dutch society.
They apologized and they asked the government to follow in their steps. But the Prime Minister held firm. This was extra painful as he made apologies for past injustices of the Dutch government.
For violence in Indonesia, the persecution of Jews and their role in the genocide in Srebrenica. And then one exchange made a difference. Seemingly overnight, his vision changed.
Backed by research and the Dutch involvement in his history, The Dutch Prime Minister made his apologies and provided a 200 million fund to ensure raising awareness, fostering engagement and addressing the present day effects of slavery. Following that, the Dutch king apologized and even asked for forgiveness. Attention to this history seems to shift the stance of the Dutch public.
In 2021, 55% didn't think apologies were needed. Last December, that dropped to 49%. It's clear that the Dutch society is still divided, but these apologies matter.
In university, I wrote a paper about this. The research shows that when done well, apologies can lead to the rewriting of memory and historical identity in ways that both can share. This has been echoed by the Prime Minister.
Still, there is much to be done. The advocates for these apologies have mostly been from Suriname. But there are many other places connected to this history of exploitation and slavery that have gotten less attention.
From the former Dutch colonies in the Caribbean to descendants of enslaved peoples in South Africa, or the plight of the contract workers from India and Indonesia. That filled the plantations after the enslaved peoples were freed many instances encountering the same conditions. And there have been demands for reparations for these and other injustices.
For some, the past and the present seem intrinsically linked. And even though there hasn't been much research on the link between colonial attitudes and present day racism. That doesn't mean it couldn't be there.
It would seem that centuries of ideas about white racial superiority didn't just finish in a few generations. and when we talk about the Dutch identity and say that this was formed in the 17th century, the traditions of trade and tolerance have stayed with the Dutch over all these years. But colonial suppression, extortion and the slave trade are just dark pages in a closed book.
You're cherry picking history, and it doesn't make any sense. So the public has a long way to go. This is not the end of a long process, but just the beginning to give this history and the modern day effects the attention that they deserve.
The Dutch are not the only ones that are struggling with their past. In Germany To the east. There is finally some attention to their colonial history.
This is a history that hasn’t been widely acknowledged by them all. Many Germans don’t even know about it. What do you know about the colonial history of Germany?
It’s just in the last few years there has been renewed attention to the killing of the Herero and Nama tribes in Namibia. This atrocity has been called the first genocide of the 20th century. I went to Berlin to cover this story.
I asked myself why no one ever talks about this colonial past, and I wondered how Germany is dealing with it. My next video is entirely on the topic, and while that won't hit YouTube for a while, you can watch it right now. On Nebula.
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