The importance of identity

Broken chains

On July 1^st we celebrated the end of slavery in Suriname and the former Dutch Caribbean colonies, effectively 150 years ago. The remembrance day is called Keti Koti, Surinamese for Broken Chains.

King Willem Alexander of the Netherlands formally apologised for slavery and for the role his royal forebears played in the slave trade. On June 30, prior to the celebration, I attended a ceremony in the monumental St Bavo church in Haarlem, where recently the grave of a Surinamese woman was re-discovered. Susanna Dumion was taken from Suriname to Holland as an enslaved woman by her owner in 1753. She lived to a great age and passed away in 1818, 105 years old! Her life was investigated 200 years later, which finally gave back an unknown woman her Afro-Surinamese identity.

Mariska de Jong, Chairwoman of the Haarlem branch of the Slavery Remembrance Committee in this country, is writing a book on Susanna Dumion’s life. 

A wreath is laid on Susanna's grave

 

Identity is a key word in slavery, as one of the effects of slavery was the denial of identity in people who strongly leaned on the oral tradition of their forebears. The connection with their African past was brutally cut off, which not only harmed the people themselves, but also the communities they came from.

Disrupted societies

Recently, Dutch historian and author Martin Bossenbroek was interviewed on TV following publication of his new book De Zanzibar Driehoek (The Zanzibar Triangle, not yet available in English), about the slave trade on the African east coast. At some stage he mentioned the disruption of traditional African communities due to many centuries of slave trade. It set me wondering: could this disruption be linked to the present-day migration tide into Europe?

 

I wrote several novels, of which The Batavian is set against the background of migration in the Mediterranean. My latest book Anansi is an historical novel with the slave trade as its background theme. So naturally I wondered about a possible connection between the slave trade and present-day migration, and started an investigation of my own.

Dehumanisation is of all ages

Enslaved people and the indigenous population of colonial areas weren’t seen as people with their own feelings and dreams. They were commonly described as stupid, without morals or character, denying them their identity and culture. This ineradicable attitude took root in the minds of plantation owners and slave traders and eventually became a common opinion in western minds. Even though the tide is turning, we still see the consequences today: open or hidden discrimination.

arrival of a slave ship

The parallel with present-day treatment of migrants cannot be denied. Rejecting their own culture and values, the humiliating treatment before we allow them into our country. The pushbacks to sea of the virtual wrecks in which they arrive on our coasts, refuting all international treaties.

the deadly routes to Europe (source: NOS)

The way migrants are being dehumanised cannot be shown more clearly than in an article which I found in the Dutch press. When another of these unseaworthy boats full of migrants founders at sea, the victims are buried in anonymous graves, without bothering to find out who they were. Their families are left in uncertainty about their fate. I’m afraid the article is in Dutch, but here it is:

https://nos.nl/artikel/2480215-onduidelijkheid-over-lot-migranten-op-weg-naar-eu-verschrikkelijk-voor-families

The article concludes as follows: It is an obligation we have as human beings to one another, but especially in Europe as a community. Even if we do not want them here, then let us at least show them respect by giving them a name and a face.

Africa is shackled to the past

Let us focus on Africa for a moment, even though migration isn’t only an African thing. According to Marie-Laurence Flahaux and Hein De Haas (2016), poverty in itself isn’t the only cause of migration, as is often assumed. If you are too poor, you cannot even travel. But poverty lies at the base of migration all the same. As soon as the mean income of a region increases by a tiny margin, people are seen to take to the road to find a better life elsewhere. They are condescendingly called ‘fortune seekers’ over here, as if that is a bad thing. I am a fortune seeker myself, and you, dear reader, probably as well.

https://comparativemigrationstudies.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40878-015-0015-6

Poverty and violence are the cause of a great deal of migration even inside Africa, and Africa itself knows closed borders not unlike the European outer boundary. It is a universal control reflex of authorities.

Looking at a study by Nathan Nunn (2007) of the lack of economic development in Africa, it appears that 20 years ago (it is an old study) the mean yearly income in Africa was about 40% of the income in other developing countries. In some countries it is slowly improving now, but that apparently only fuels migration.

Jamestown, Accra, 2012

 

What surprised me, and now we are looking at the link to the slave trade, is that according to Nunn the lack of economic prosperity in Africa is greatest in regions where the slave trade was strongest!

Are we finally being presented with the bill?

So perhaps I’m jumping to conclusions, but we might say that Europe is now being presented with the bill of the slave trade from the past, as the Africans from regions destitute through the former slave trade, who are now marginally able to pay a human trafficker, are now knocking on our door.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/nunn/files/hup_africa_slave_trade10.pdf (Nathan Nunn)
 

Apart from the economic angle, there is another effect. In some areas of Africa, mutual distrust between people, and mistrust of authorities is rife. Authorities are seen as the enemy, which doesn’t really surprise me. And it has an effect on behaviour of people during migration, where they are confronted with authorities bent on making life difficult for you. It may even have an effect on the death rate during migration.

The interesting thing is that Nunn has found that distrust also is a legacy of the slave trade: there is more distrust amongst people in areas ravaged most by the slave trade. 

https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/11986331/nunn-slave-trade.pdf (Nathan Nunn)

Finally 

I know a Ghanaian family who have managed to put one of their sons through University. That young man now has a certificate of his ICT training, but finding a job in Africa depends on having influential friends. He is working hard to find a job, but meets with little success. Such young people are greatly at risk to end up as a migrant on the shores of Europe.

Do I have a fitting solution? I haven’t studied international relations or whatever qualification is needed to find a solution. But my common sense says this must be solved at the source. Closed borders, pushbacks and dirty deals with dictatorial governments will not hold back the tide of migrants. So don’t bribe dictators to act as gatekeepers for Europe, but invest in working opportunities and equal prospects for everyone in Africa. Eventually that will put the brakes on migration, human trafficking and deaths at sea.

On July 1^st, 2023, we looked back in horror on the days of slavery. But did we learn the lessons from the past? Will there not be a need for more excuses by governments, 150 years from now, when our descendants look back with horror on the way Europe now deals with migrants?

 

ANANSI published in English

The river took all the wisdom Anansi had gathered to the sea, which spread it all around the world, and thus a little wisdom lives in us all.

Today, June 18, I released the Kindle edition of ANANSI in English. Edit July 2: the paperback edition is now also available.

On the rear cover of the paperback is a short introduction:

ELMINA, 1683

For many generations, the stories of the smart spider Anansi have been told in West Africa. As a young girl, Efua learned them from her grandmother. But her village is not safe, and like many others, Efua is abducted and sold on the slave market of Elmina. Here, years later, she meets a Dutch sailor named Evert Adriaansz, who addresses her with respect and recognises the person she really is.

Efua carries Anansi with her - in the dungeons of Fort Elmina, in the arms of her beloved, in the darkness of the slave ship and in the jungle of Suriname. 

Anansi is about the horrors of the slave trade and the plantations of Suriname, about Caribbean pirates, hurricanes and the hardship of seafaring in days long gone. It is a tale for those who love the sea, faraway countries, history and suspense. And above all, Anansi is the story of two young people, one black and the other white, who will not abandon one another despite cruel persecution.

The Dutch edition was released officially on June 12. Several book presentations are planned in this country. Presenting the book in the UK or elsewhere is a little impractical, but instead here is the video trailer I made about the book some months ago:

ANANSI – advance notice

A month and a half remain before the Dutch edition of my new novel ANANSI will be published. The English edition will follow shortly afterwards.

 

There is no book that cost me so much effort as Anansi. When I was interviewed by a journalist of the local newspaper De Ware Tijd in Paramaribo last year, she asked me whether I wouldn’t romanticise the slavery period too much. A valid question. My reply was ‘don’t worry - I won’t mince words.’ And I didn’t, because I tried to write an honest story without trying to play down the horrors of the past.

Dilemmas and pitfalls

This puts us right in the middle of the dilemmas an author is confronted with when writing a story such as this. Anansi isn’t an history book, but an historical novel of a rebellious Dutch sailor and an enslaved woman, who feel irresistibly attracted to one another. I mainly wanted to write a good story, and in a novel to some extent the author can ignore reality. One wonders whether in the 17th Century an equal relationship could have existed with an enslaved woman. I think nothing can withstand true love, but it must have been very difficult socially. However, I found an answer to that in the book.

As an author, one must be honest in the choices made and do one’s homework. The truth about slavery history is difficult to determine, in part due to it being several centuries ago, and also due to the sensitivity of the subject and the heated debate it causes, with diametrically opposed opinions. The only way to learn your business is by doing your homework, and with tact and modesty it should be possible to avoid most of the pitfalls.

I admit I was a bit naive in this respect, having been under the illusion that in a novel about this theme, even though being careful with words, perhaps the word ‘slave’ would be permitted in the historical context. After all, the grande dame of Surinamese literature, Cynthia McLeod, uses it in her books herself!

I was in for a surprise though, being urgently advised to change the wording in my manuscript. So just before the deadline it took me two days to thoroughly weed out all the even remotely controversial words from the manuscript. I think I succeeded, and perhaps the book is better for it.

All the same, in hindsight I often wondered whether I should have written this book. But why not? I thoroughly investigated the history of slavery and drew my conclusions. The horror I felt in the slave dungeons of Elmina and Cape Coast, and at the historical drawings of the steerage of a slave ship and the cruelties on the plantations, and the many publications and historical travel diaries I read, that horror just cried out for release.

The forebears of many Surinamese people weren’t free like mine, unless they ran away from the plantation to lead a harsh life in the jungle. Their descendants feel strongly connected to them, a strong aspect of culture in their community. I can hardly imagine what it must be like, knowing your great-grandmother was the property of a businessman, who could abuse her or have her beaten to death with impunity.

To anyone who wishes to read of slavery, I can recommend We slaves of Suriname, the 1934 book written by Anton de Kom, the Surinamese author and Dutch WW2 resistance fighter, whose mother was born in slavery. He puts into words what is still being felt by many present-day countrymen of his.

According to R. S. Rattray, the West African folk tales of Anansi are told predominantly in the dark of night. They often carry a moral message, or make fun of important people. That is why the storyteller usually begins with the disclaimer of his tale merely being a rumour he or she picked up somewhere.

Like the storytellers of Anansi I cannot escape a disclaimer myself. During the scant months in which I studied Suriname, I can only have penetrated skin deep into the culture and history of that wonderful country. All I tried in my story was make a connection, and whether I succeeded, is up to you to judge when you read the book.

The English edition of Anansi will appear during the summer, in e-book and paperback format (Kindle/Amazon).