slavery

Sunday, March 9th, 2014

Steve McQueen and the Dutch

The Best Picture win for 12 Years A Slave in the 2014 Academy Awards last weekend has not gone by unnoticed in the Netherlands. Not because of the thematic of the film but because ‘our Steve McQueen’--as the Dutch now call him--lives in Amsterdam together with his Dutch wife, journalist Bianca Stigter. So that makes this Oscar...

Tuesday, December 3rd, 2013

How much is an African body worth? Ask Theresa May

December 1, 1834, slavery was abolished in the Cape Colony. Around the world, people are watching, often aghast, more often with clenched jaws and more, Twelve Years a Slave, and then talking, or not, about the back-then....

Tuesday, August 13th, 2013

Hiding in plain view: Dealing with the legacies of Dutch slavery

The year 2013 marks 150 years since the abolition of slavery in the former Dutch colonies. It's worth mentioning that the Dutch abolished slavery a while after the British (1833) and French (1848) and, only after much...

Thursday, March 28th, 2013

The trouble with the official Dutch commemoration of the abolition of slavery

On the first of July this year the Netherlands are commemorating the 150th anniversary of the abolishment of slavery in their former colonies Suriname and their dependencies: the Dutch Antilles. The mayor of Amsterdam considered it a good...

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Slavery and ice cream at the Waterfront

Not today’s music break. No matter how big your star or fan-base is in Zimbabwe, Gabon or francophone Europe, if you intend to rap about slavery while eating an ice cream at Cape Town’s Waterfront, you’re making...

Saturday, March 5th, 2011

Secrets of Slave Cities

What is it with these “facelifts” that tend to uncover the dirty sinews of yesteryear? Back in Cape Town, South Africa, as the “Mother City” attempted to cover up all its dirty divisions in preparation for meeting the...