Decolonising the Caribbean: Dutch Policies in a Comparative Perspective

Abstract

The main goal of Oostindie and Klinkers’s Decolonising the Caribbean is to provide a comparative study of the several strands of postwar decolonization in the Caribbean: English, French, American, and Dutch. The book makes a special effort to bridge the gap between the study of Dutch decolonization in the former colonies of Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles, and Aruba, and that of the rest of the Caribbean. Suriname, here, is considered to be part of the Caribbean—a point made by several authors, both Dutch and Surinamese, over the past two decades.Despite the book’s comparative outset, it deals mainly with the Dutch colonial territories. Oostindie and Klinkers are both specialists in the Dutch West Indies, and the emphasis on Dutch politics comes therefore quite naturally—the more so, since most of the primary sources come from Dutch government documents. This angle complements the better-known English, French, and American aspects of decolonization in the Caribbean.In the past three decades, a number of studies debating decolonization have tackled the process from the point of view that Western domination has deliberately been prolonged out of economic self-interest. Oostindie and Klinkers make it quite clear that economic considerations can not have played a decisive role in Dutch decolonization in the Caribbean. “The argument runs mainly in economic terms, affirming that actually both the Dutch private sector and government have been benefiting enormously from the Caribbean connection,” they state, “[y]et precious few hard facts support this claim” (pp. 15–16). Certainly, the connection between the Netherlands and its Caribbean colonies is still a very strong one today. Oostindie and Klinkers argue, however, that this is not a result of Dutch economic self-interest but rather of the fact that both formally independent Suriname and the semi-independent Antilles rely heavily on Dutch development aid for their economic survival.One of the most interesting parts of Decolonising the Caribbean concerns the transfer of sovereignty to Suriname in 1975. The reader is introduced here to the several goals of Dutch decolonizing policies. The left-wing Dutch government tried to combine a great eagerness to get rid of the colony with an attempt to be an example to the world in “progressive” decolonization. The Dutch, however, failed to give serious attention to the sizeable parliamentary opposition in Suriname and embraced the view that the Surinamese government represented the people of Suriname. What proved to be especially difficult for The Hague was to be critical of the Surinamese government, due to guilt about the Netherlands’ colonial past. At the proclamation of the Republic of Suriname, the Dutch prime minister, “who in his speech took on his shoulders the guilt of centuries of colonialism and present-day disparities in prosperity, was visibly moved,” Oostindie and Klinkers note (p. 113).The book’s broad geographic and temporal coverage necessitated a tight focus on politics. One of the downsides of this approach is that some economic aspects concerning development aid are treated rather flimsily. On the other hand, this only underlines the authors’ point that development aid was more a political tool than an economic one.Decolonising the Caribbean succeeds in its effort to offer a link between Dutch Caribbean decolonization and the process as experienced in the rest of the Caribbean. Its realistic, nonideological point of view, solid research, and sound methodology further this aim. The book’s arguments regarding the postcolonial period will probably prove the starting point for debate in Holland for the decade to come. Considering the non-English background of the authors, the style of writing of the book is good. It is a pleasant and informative read for any student interested in the field of (post-) colonial and political history.