We are by the water from where colonisation was able to happen.
A bit further down on the quay, we can see housing complexes with the names of the warehouses that were once there. Cotton, cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, tea and pepper: the raw materials that were key for the development of the capitalist world.
The gunshots we just heard are meant to symbolise hunting. To me, this signifies the supposed right to kill animals for entertainment and the hunting of my grandparents, who were not considered fully human. The Dutch at the time were the clockmakers of the known world, and they were able to use their skills for making canons, which were used to force the colonized in the East and West to accept the laws and regulations of the colonial rulers. Under the Treaty of Breda in 1667, Surinam - which came under Dutch rule through armed conflict - was kept, while New Amsterdam and New Netherland, now New York and the surrounding area, were ceded to England.
Dutch school textbooks always noted how the Indigenous People were too weak, and that this is why they took the strong black people from Africa to work on the plantations. Mind you: slave labour. Before the “Netherlanders” left New Netherland, they had already committed genocide on the local Indigenous People.
Know that my ancestors were not weak or strong. Governor Aerssen van Sommelsdijck (1637-1688) signed a peace treaty with the Indigenous People in 1686. The Indigenous People did not want to be slaves and resisted the colonists. History tells us that this governor broke the treaty and went out murdering the Indigenous People.
The firearms served as powers of enforcement to establish colonial power. Indigenous Peoples were driven from their land up to this day. Which is to say: the right to their land was taken from them. Despite the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, they were deprived of their right to self-determination.
Oh brother and sister of the Amazon area, you were there first.
Your right to your land was taken from you.
You no longer know your language. You have drastically decreased in number.
Bullets did not rob you of your desire to live in harmony and equilibrium with the earth, the waters, the animals and fish. None could break your strong connection with your ancestors, the spirit world, the realities of the spirit, despite the mandatory religious teachings the colonists brought to corrupt your spirit. Today, by the IJ river, your story is only told in part, the story of the rightful inhabitants of the Americas and the Caribbean. Including that of the Indigenous Peoples who have no right to self-determination.
As a descendent of the Indigenous People and Africans, I will allow no division in my spirit. The government of the Netherlands acts as if it has or had no Indigenous People in its Kingdom. Not on the Caribbean islands, not in Surinam.
The truth is revealed. Nature tells us that she will not be meddled with. She is not a human product. People, you are not at the top of the pyramid. You are nature, too. Nature, which always seeks to be restored, no matter how long it takes.
Some figures: Indigenous Peoples constitute just five percent of the world’s population, but protect as much as eighty percent of its biodiversity. But when it comes to sustainable financing, this is not taken into account. In fact, less than one percent of the money raised by international NGOs for sustainable purposes goes to Indigenous communities. So when we protect their land, communities and rights, we are also protecting eighty percent of its biodiversity. This is an important point that we need to understand, but that has yet to be fully appreciated in our society. Indigenous communities are at the frontline of the fight against rising climate disasters.
‘Rematriation process’ is a term used by Chautuileo Tranamil (mapuche-pewenche) person of the earth-person of the Pewen tree, which she would like to introduce to us. We have a responsibility to care for nature, like a lioness protecting its young. We need to free our feminine energy.
Thank you to Ravon Chacon and the ancestor Zitkala-Sa of the Dakota People to whom the work For Zitkála-Šá is dedicated.
Glenn Helberg (Willemstad, 1955) is a psychiatrist, you might know him from Zomergasten and his t.v. programme The Therapist (VICE). He has been chairman of the Ocan Foundation (consultative body Dutch Caribbean), was a member of the Advisory Board of the Dutch Human Rights Council. Board member of Pride Amsterdam, Stichting Kleur, ETT- Expertise Centre Transcultural Therapy, among others. He is a writer, speaker and is referred to as an activist.
photo: Eveline Renaud