When Intangible Heritage Disappears, a People Dies

When Intangible Heritage Disappears, a People Dies

May 27, 2026

In 2019, the government sold our telecommunications company UTS, including its infrastructure and everything connected to it. Seven years later, almost everyone seems to agree that this did not turn out to be a success story. The island is now left with a telecommunications sector that, according to many, is badly in need of improvement.

Now, I do not want to claim that UTS itself was intangible heritage. Although when the Dutch PTT sought to acquire a majority stake in SETEL around 1990, trade unions and others strongly argued that telecommunications formed part of our national patrimony and identity. In the end, that sale did not go through.

But that is not really what I want to talk about.

In December 2023, CUROM stopped broadcasting. With that, after ninety years, the curtain finally fell on Z86, Curaçao’s first radio station. Nearly three years later, the void it left behind has still not been filled — and probably never will be.

Anyone who truly experienced Z86 knows it was far more than just a radio station. It was an institution. The major morning interview program Prespektiva. The call-in show 2121. The hours-long news programs discuss and analyze local and international developments. It's natural presence in sports, culture, and national events.

Z86 literally talked Curaçao’s baseball and football into prominence. But also the Jazz Festival. And of course, carnival. Generations grew up with it. The station helped shape our collective consciousness.

That is why I dare say this: Z86 was unmistakably intangible heritage.

What is painful is that there seemed to be little real awareness of what was being lost. Not from the government. Not from the business community. Not from society as a whole. It is as if people only understand the true value of something after it has disappeared.

And perhaps that is precisely the problem of small societies: we often underestimate the institutions that hold us together culturally and socially, until they are gone.

I think especially of Z86 now that Curaçao, as the smallest country ever, is participating in the FIFA World Cup. I can hardly imagine how Z86 would have experienced, discussed, and carried such a historic moment. It would have lived on the radio for weeks. The entire island would have felt it.

But that voice is no longer there.

I cannot formulate a conclusion for this piece. You do that yourself.

Miguel Goede