Well, if you consider a national slavery apology you might want to follow the current events in The Netherlands.
Good grief things are heating up here.
It started with the plan to do an apology. 19th november. But it has now grown to a list of demands.
Translated from Dutch news website:
Package of demands sharpens apologies for slavery from cabinet
There must be a reparation fund for descendants of the victims of slavery. The word negro must be made a criminal offense and Zwarte Piet (black pete is a populair elf/joker charakter with black face he is seen together with the Dutch version of santa claus) must disappear from the public domain. Only by complying with these and other demands will the parties agree to the government’s public apology on 19 December. This is evident from a letter that various interest groups have sent to the cabinet and is in the hands of Nieuwsuur .
The parties want the cabinet to present a concrete roadmap that will last until “the subordination of the descendants has been resolved”. For example, they want the Netherlands to cancel the domestic debt of the Caribbean islands and Suriname. In addition, the recovery fund must structurally finance black cultural institutions and institutes.
Speech by King Willem-Alexander
Another condition is that King Willem-Alexander will give a speech in Amsterdam’s Oosterpark during the commemoration on 1 July. The Prime Minister of Aruba and organizations including Zwart Manifest, Kick Out Zwarte Piet, The Black Archives, NiNsee and Vereniging Antilliaans Netwerk support this document full of “preconditions”. “From our positions, we only agree with December 19 and we can only defend this publicly if the cabinet commits to the preconditions that we provide,” they write.
Acknowledgment of, apologies for and the repair of damage caused by the slavery past will have to be enshrined in law, the organizations believe. Last Thursday, members of the cabinet at the Catshuis spoke with organizations and representatives of the Caribbean part of the Kingdom and Suriname about the proposed apologies for the slavery past.
According to the drafters of the preconditions, it emerged during the Catshuis consultations that the cabinet is very concerned about the polarization in society, which is also having an effect on the current political climate. The fear is that the momentum that has now been created could be undone if we wait too long.
