We Can’t Let It Go

We Can’t Let It Go

15 May 2026

It is not simply because the new prime minister of the Netherlands happened to be visiting here, but over the past few days, I have noticed more and more how slavery, the colonial past, and the relationship between Willemstad and The Hague keep returning as topics of conversation and writing.

It feels as though these themes are starting to dominate everything. Whether the subject is football or poverty reduction, the same frame keeps coming back. As if we are trapped inside a socio-psychological cage.

And not only on this side of the ocean, but increasingly on the other side as well.

It is also not really a dialogue in which mutual understanding gradually grows. It feels more like separate monologues, with everyone held captive in a mental reality that is centuries old. That, in itself, becomes a barrier to further development.

Whatever my own views may be, a genuine dialogue will have to take place. And perhaps it does not even need to take very long — though that may be naïve of me to think.

Because when I look at Suriname, something seems to have shifted there. The apologies were accepted, and the Netherlands — including the king — seems, in a way, to have been forgiven. I have the sense that both countries have moved into a different phase.

At the same time, I try not to fall into exactly what I am describing here. I, too, have been shaped by this history and by the conversations surrounding it. But I want to continue living and thinking outside that cage. Not because the past is unimportant, but because a person should be able to be more than the history that shaped them.

Miguel Goede