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The Dutch state has for centuries “enabled, encouraged and profited from slavery,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Monday in a formal apology for the country’s role in slavery.
“The book of our shared history has many pages that fill us in the 21st century with dismay, horror and deep shame,” Rutte said while speaking at the Dutch National Archives, adding that those pages cannot be simply erased with an apology. “We cannot erase the past, only face it.
“For centuries, the Dutch state and its representatives facilitated, stimulated, preserved and profited from slavery,” Rutte added, labeling it a “crime against humanity.”
Seven other ministers and representatives have traveled to Suriname and six former Caribbean island colonies, where they made a similar statement on Monday on behalf of the government.
The Cabinet’s plans leaked out last month and have been criticized by a range of community groups for being hasty and lacking in consultation. Campaigners say that July 1 would have been a more appropriate date, which marks 150 years since slavery was actually abolished in the Netherlands.
Six organizations even went to court in an effort to have the date changed, but lost on the grounds that it was a political question.
Rutte acknowledged that the run-up to this day “could have been better.” But, he added, there should not be a reason to “do nothing.”
“We need to take steps forward and have the difficult conversation about the slavery past,” he said.
Pressure for a formal apology from the Dutch government has been growing in recent months. In October, a parliamentary majority supported making an official apology after a working group reported on a research trip to some former colonies. In the past 18 months, the mayors of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague, as well as the management of the central bank of the Netherlands, have apologized for their institutions’ role in slavery, and enrichment from it.
The formal apology also includes funds for a slavery museum and awareness projects.
During the 250 years in which the Dutch funded an economic and cultural “Golden Age,” the Netherlands exploited more than 600,000 people from Africa and Asia — about 5 percent of the 12 million enslaved by Europeans from the 17th to the 19th century.
Rutte has previously said that he would not apologize for the role of the Dutch state in slavery, arguing that it would “only have a polarizing effect.” He acknowledged, however, during Monday’s speech that he had changed his thinking about how the Dutch state should deal with its slavery past.
“For a long time, I didn’t think it was possible to take responsibility in a meaningful way for something that was so long ago and that none of us were part of,” Rutte said. “However, I was wrong, because centuries of oppression and exploitation persist in the here and now: in racist stereotypes, in discriminatory patterns of exclusion, in social inequality.”
The Netherlands has been struggling with reports of systemic racism in its police force and foreign ministry. Earlier this year, Deputy Finance Minister Marnix van Rij admitted there was institutional racism in the Dutch tax office, after tens of thousands of parents, often dual nationals, were falsely accused of child-care benefits fraud.
Nicolas Camut contributed reporting.
Source: Politico
