The royal family will visit the Caribbean part of the Kingdom from January 27 to February 9. But we actually know little about that area, say people who feel connected. Conversely, knowledge about the Netherlands is being rammed into the six Caribbean islands, they say to NU.nl. “I dreamed about ditches with grazing cows, while I had never actually seen them.”
“We all have to learn Dutch on the islands,” Lionel Martijn, director of the Consultative Body for the Caribbean Dutch (Ocan) foundation, remembers from his childhood on Curaçao. “Why isn’t it the other way around?”
Martijn was also taught about Dutch places and regions at primary school on the island, he says. “Then I had to learn all the Dutch rivers by heart. I dreamed about ditches with grazing cows, while I had never actually seen them.”
According to the Ocan director, it is good for the entire Dutch kingdom to learn about each other’s backgrounds, customs and history. “Otherwise we will continue to think in boxes and there will be no real commitment.”
Volg koloniale geschiedenis
Hardly any attention in compulsory education programme
Stichting Leerplan Ontwikkeling (SLO) says that within the compulsory education program in primary education and the lower years of secondary education, there is indeed “virtually” no attention for the Caribbean Netherlands. In the senior years, the area only comes up in the subject of geography.
If it is up to the SLO, that will change. “That could be done within the people & society profession,” says the foundation.
The Curaçao educational organization SIGE says that there is a lack of knowledge about the Caribbean islands in the Netherlands. “An example is that almost no one in the Netherlands has the Curaçaoan freedom fighter Tula knows,” says SIGE chairman Henry Vijber to NU.nl.
Wouldn’t it be weird if you didn’t know who your nieces and nephews are?
Michel Vreeswijk (this is not his real name) teaches history about a secondary school in The Hague. Recently, Dutch education has paid more attention to colonial history, but he believes there is still a long way to go.
“Barbados is currently part of the exam material, but the Caribbean Netherlands is not,” says the history teacher. Teachers are now investigating on their own whether or not to pay attention to the six Dutch Caribbean islands.
‘We are one family’
Sanne Lobato works as a museum teacher for the National Museum of World Cultures (NMVW). “It is very important that there is more knowledge in the Netherlands about the enormously diverse and complex history and culture of the Caribbean part of our kingdom,” she says. According to the museum teacher, this leads to mutual understanding and respect.
“We are one family in the Netherlands and on the islands,” explains Lobato. “Just like in a family, we didn’t choose each other, but are connected by choices others made in the past.”
Martin agrees. “Wouldn’t it be weird if you didn’t know who your nieces and nephews are?”
“We are now connected and will do our best to understand each other as best we can,” says Lobato. “That goes both ways.”
‘People hardly know the difference between Suriname and Curaçao’
Many of Lobato’s friends, her husband and her in-laws have roots in the Caribbean Netherlands. “After they come to live or study here, they have to become clear about their background again,” she says.
It strikes the museum teacher and her environment “that the people here in the Netherlands hardly know the difference between Suriname and Curaçao”. Another example of a lack of knowledge about the islands in the Caribbean part of the Netherlands is the language, she says.
“On most islands the official language is not Dutch, but Papiamento or English. That is something that many Dutch people do not know,” she explains. “That can be difficult when trainees, doctors or training from the Netherlands go to work on one of the six islands.”
Yet, according to Lobato, there is also a glimmer of hope, as she continued during guest lectures to secondary school students about colonial history and the past of slavery. “The vast majority of students know the name of most of the islands.” Only Saba and St. Eustatius are, according to her, “actually always completely unknown”.
De gedeelde geschiedenis van Nederland en de Caribische eilanden in het kort
Nederland veroverde de zes eilanden in het Caribisch deel van het Koninkrijk tussen 1631 en 1648. Tot 1863 maakte ons land er mensen tot slaaf.
Aruba, Curaçao en Sint-Maarten zijn inmiddels zelfstandige landen binnen het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden. Bonaire, Saba en Sint-Eustatius zijn bijzondere gemeenten van Nederland. In Nederland wonen zo’n 160.000 mensen met roots op de zes Caribische eilanden.
De relatie tussen Nederland en de eilanden is soms gespannen. De Nederlandse regering heeft zorgen over slechte financiële situatie in het Caribisch deel van het Koninkrijk. De eilanden zijn op hun beurt ontevreden over de slechte voorzieningen en vinden dat Den Haag zich te veel met hen bemoeit.
Lack of knowledge led to riot around King’s working visit
As an example of where the recent missing person went missing, Ocan director Martijn mentions the commotion about part of the royal family’s working visit to the Caribbean Netherlands. On Thursday, King Willem-Alexander, King Máxima and Crown Princess Amalia will paint a divided Chichi on Curaçao.
The Government Information Service (RVD) calls that statue “a typical Curaçao sculpture that symbolizes the responsible older sister in the family”. But according to critics in Curaçao, it is “a caricature of a black woman with her legs spread wide and large breasts prominent”. After questions from NU.nl, the RVD does not want to say whether the controversial part of the working visit will continue after the fuss.
“The people in Curaçao who prepared that part of the program have also viewed it too much through a European lens due to the centuries-long focus on the Netherlands,” says Martijn.
MPs only learned about enslaved people last summer
According to Lobato, the history of the Caribbean people and other disabled people of the islands in the Caribbean Netherlands is also unknown to most Dutch people.
For example, a delegation of MPs interrupted last August during a working visit to the islands above the Caquetio. The Spaniards enslaved in 1515 two thousand of these lovers.
State Secretary Alexandra van Huffelen (Kingdom Relations and Digitization) said in the run-up to the royal family’s trip that the population of the islands is disappointed with the lack of knowledge and education about the Caribbean Netherlands.
The cabinet has promised to increase knowledge about the slavery past and colonial history among the Dutch. It did so after apologizing for its slavery past.