From slavery to abortion: the Dutch King's apology to Africa falls short

Mathew Otieno

July 06, 2023 6 Reactions

The talk of reparations also fails to take into account the modern privileges associated with these historical crimes. For instance, by being citizens of the world’s richest and freest country, African Americans, most of whom are the descendants of slaves, arguably make up the freest and most prosperous large population of black people in the world, even if they are relatively worse off than white Americans.

Finally, there is also the question of the responsibility of the African regimes and businessmen that participated in the slave trade. The Kingdom of Dahomey, for example, got quite rich off the sale of slaves to European merchants. Should the government of dirt-poor Benin, which now governs the same territory, also pay reparations? If not, who should bear Dahomey’s blame?

For these reasons, it is technically impossible for the Dutch king and his government to ever offer adequate restitution for the crimes of their forebears. They should want, and try, to do something about it, to the extent that this is reasonably possible. But trying to completely expunge this stain would not only betray a performative self-hatred, but would also expose them to a never-ending cycle of escalating claims.

Modern hypocrites

Thankfully, of the two conditions for a proper apology, restitution is not the necessary one. If it were, children would despair of apologising to their parents, since they can never really offer them sufficient reparation. Likewise, though unable to pay up, the Dutch king and his government, as well as any others in their position, can resolve to do their best to not repeat the crimes of their ancestors on the descendants of the people their ancestors enslaved and colonised.

This is the one condition without which an apology falls flat.

Unfortunately, on this front, Willem-Alexander and his government are no better than their ancestors. They might even be worse, having the benefit of hindsight as they do. For when the Trump administration, in 2017, pulled funding for organisations that provide abortions abroad (especially in Africa), the Netherlands proudly set up an initiative to corral funding for the continued massacre of Africa’s unborn.

The initiative, known as SheDecides, is still up and running. It still sloganeers about abortion being healthcare, and actively advocates for the expansion of “abortion rights,” especially in African countries whose people have repeatedly expressed their overwhelming disapproval of the practice. It is, for all intents and purposes, a neo-colonial initiative, started and sustained by the same government that grovels about sins from the past about which it can do precious little.

The duty to redress the negative effects of slavery belonged primarily to the generations that practised and, thereafter, abolished the vile practice. Those who had the chance to do something about it then but did not, either out of practical expediency or personal weakness, can only answer to God, not the present generation, for their conduct.

This generation can, however, justifiably condemn those who, like the Dutch king and his government, commit crimes to which we are witness, against victims who move among us, carried about in the wombs of their mothers.

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Mathew Otieno is a Kenyan writer, blogger and dilettante farmer. Until 2022, he was a research communications coordinator at a university in Nairobi, Kenya. He now lives in rural western Kenya, near the shores of Lake Victoria, from where he's pursuing a career as a full-time writer while concluding his dissertation for a master's degree. His first novel is due out this year.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons