The slavery past is still part of the daily life of many Dutch people. That is one of the conclusions of Markus Balkenhol's research, for which he obtained his doctorate cum laude last month at the VU University. The PhD student lived in two Afro-Surinamese households in the Bijlmer for almost a year.
The history of slavery has received increasing attention in recent decades. A lot of research is being done and all kinds of organizations and monuments have been erected to commemorate the slavery past. But how is this period in Dutch history still present in the everyday life of the descendants of enslaved people?
In order to find out, Balkenhol has conducted PhD research at the Meertens Institute in recent years. The ethnographic fieldwork proved crucial to investigate this. Balkenhol:“Initially I focused on the monuments and the people behind them. That is how I came into contact with Roy Ristie, one of the founders of the Monument of Consciousness on Surinameplein. He said:'If you really want to understand what my motivation was, you have to know where I come from.' Through him I ended up in Amsterdam Zuidoost.”
Angisa's and winti
The PhD student lived with two Afro-Surinamese households in the Bijlmer for almost a year. He went grocery shopping, had conversations on the street and on the couch at home. “I wanted to know whether the slavery past was still a topic of conversation in everyday life. That turned out not to be the case per se. The past is mainly present in an implicit way. In the clothing especially in the angisas :the headscarves, which can convey different messages through different folding methods. But also in music, which is a natural part of the lives of many people in Zuidoost.”
Balkenhol discovered how important music is in Afro-Surinamese culture through his first housemate, who made music in a Kaskawina band. Kaskawina is a contemporary term for a Surinamese music style that originated during slavery. “Through the band I came to birthdays, weddings and festivals. The music is partly entertainment, but there are many layers underneath. On birthdays, for example, there may come a point where the music changes slightly. People start dancing in a different way and suddenly people fall into a trance and manifest winti (ghosts) themselves. So the music also has a spiritual dimension.”
Secrets
“The lyrics refer to all kinds of facets of Surinamese history, and in particular the slavery past. But there are also hidden messages about the winti culture, which are indirectly related to the slavery past. For example, I was once talking to two men and a woman. While we talk about winti I saw that woman get a little restless and at one point she said to those men, "Don't tell him all that because he's only going to use it against us." Traditionally this has been meant as a protection against the white people, the plantation owners, so don't tell this.'”
Cultural code
“As I started to listen more closely to the lyrics, I noticed that there are many expressions – odos – are like ‘don’t show the back of your tongue’ or ‘don’t just put your insides out on the street’. You also have that in other cultures, but here it is very dominant. In my dissertation I call this aesthetics of reticence :through a certain cultural form, such as songs or proverbs, a moral obligation of restraint is conveyed.”
“In the days of slavery, restraint was a means of survival. It was also forbidden to practice the winter religion (and in Suriname until the 1970s), so you had to find ways to do that without the plantation owners realizing it. My analysis is that the structure that emerged then still exists as a cultural code. And that that code still influences the contemporary relationship between the Netherlands and Suriname.”
Caring nation
The history of slavery is currently a subject of great interest. That while it was long thought that this historical period was more or less closed. According to Balkenhol, this has everything to do with the image that arose of the Netherlands as a benevolent, compassionate nation:“In this way, a positive image was created on the basis of the abolition of slavery. In newspapers from that time, the Netherlands is portrayed as a caring nation, a nation that cares about others. King Willem III plays the role of a caring father in that story, because he abolished slavery."
“In my dissertation I argue that the abolition of slavery was partly used to show the greatness of the Netherlands. It is often said that the atrocities of slavery were concealed, but that turns out not to be the case. Sometimes they were highlighted to show how good it was that the Netherlands had abolished slavery. When we talk about the silence of slavery, that is the silence. So not that it was not talked about, but that it was talked about in a certain way.”
Reparations and Zwarte Piet
What does that mean for the future? According to Balkenhol, the discussion will continue in the coming years:“Then it will not only be about commemorating slavery, but also about Zwarte Piet. And in the near future we will have the discussion about the reparations. The Caricom is engaged in legal proceedings against, among others, the Netherlands to demand reparations. So that discussion is sure to come. The colonial past is so deeply rooted in Dutch society that people will often be surprised.”