Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, center, at the National Archives in The Hague, December 19, 2022. PETER DEJONG / AP
He wasn’t really in favor because less than 40% of his fellow citizens supported the idea and because he didn’t want to offer the extreme right of Geert Wilders and Thierry Baudet the baton to beat them. In one of those reversals that he has the secret of, Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte reviewed his position on Monday 19th December. “I thought slavery was a story far behind us, I was wrong,” declared the Liberal leader in an official speech at the National Archives in The Hague. We can only unequivocally recognize and condemn slavery as a crime against humanity. »
On behalf of his government and the state, he therefore apologized before the representatives of various communities “posthumously to all the slaves of the whole world who have suffered (…); their daughters and sons and all their descendants. Three quarters of Dutch people of Surinamese, Caribbean or Indonesian origin had long hoped for such a statement.
Various meetings would outline the Prime Minister’s progress. In the summer of 2020, a black woman stationed herself outside her office and went on a hunger strike to protest the discrimination she claimed to be a victim of. Mr. Rutte had a long talk with her and had persuaded her to put an end to her action. He then invited representatives of different communities to meet with them and traveled to Suriname. During this trip, a resident told her how young people kept wondering about her origins and her story. According to one diplomat, these encounters had a strong influence on him.
“Remorse” of the authorities
“Centuries of oppression and exploitation shape the present, in racist stereotypes, discrimination, social inequality,” he emphasized on Monday. This remark stands in sharp contrast to that of his Christian Democrat predecessor Jan Peter Balkenende, who as late as 2006 was hailing the Dutch colonizers’ “dynamism” and their ability to “see beyond borders”. A formula often used by Dutch people who are proud of a past whose downsides they have long ignored.
In order not to offend them and to spare his Liberal party, which is very reserved on the issue, Mr Rutte has nevertheless expressed skepticism about apologies in 2021, a year after he offered the Jewish community an apology for the role played by the Dutch authorities during World War II against the colonized. He said he wanted to “reflect” and felt it was very “complex” to comment on such ancient facts.
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