By now, most folks have heard about “Missing White Woman syndrome,” a term which was coined by PBS news anchor Gwen Ifill. Recently we’ve seen this in full force with the case of Gabby Petito. However, let us not forget that in May 2005, another missing white woman, Natalee Holloway, propelled the island of Aruba into U.S. headlines, where it stayed for years. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley called for a boycott of Aruba, and was joined by fellow Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia.
For an island dependent on tourism, these boycott calls had an impact, though how much impact they caused over the long term has not been determined. Recently, former Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren has attempted to revive her crusade against the island.
Let’s hope she fails.
Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.
Van Susteren went looking for reasons to attack the nation on Oct. 26, starting with an innocuous tweet about a bird.
I find it unconscionable and racist to hold an entire people responsible for the death of one person. This is what Van Susteren has done and continues to do. Period.
In light of this smear campaign, let’s talk about Aruba and its colonial Caribbean brothers and sisters. Aruba is part of what is often referred to as “the Dutch Caribbean,” or the “Dutch West Indies,” which includes the territories, colonies, and countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean. They include the constituent countries of Aruba, Curaçao, and St. Maarten, and the special municipalities of Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and Saba. Take a look at this map and the graphic below.
Aruba, Curaçao, St Maarten, Bonaire, Saba, St Eustatius and The Netherlands
For those in the U.S. who have not had the opportunity or funds to vacation to these six islands, very little is known, taught in school, or covered in mainstream media (with the exception of the aforementioned Natalee Holloway case).
I did get an education at home about the history of enslavement because three-quarters of my more recent ancestors were enslaved in the U.S., but I don’t remember learning much, if anything, about the powerful Dutch West India Company or its role in sustaining the slave trade. That history is the genesis of what is now the Dutch Caribbean.
The short documentary Going Dutch: The Role of the Netherlands in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, produced by Perry Leenhouts in 2009, gives a good introduction to how the Dutch colonial properties in the Caribbean came to be.
Vimeo Video
The Countries and Their Cultures website offers an excellent Netherlands Antilles historical overview.
My formal education didn’t teach me about any of the Dutch islands until I was in graduate school for anthropology, and we studied Papiamento in a sociolinguistics class. Papiamento (also spelled Papiamentu) is spoken throughout the Caribbean Kingdom of the Netherlands, as Simon Romero wrote for The New York Times in 2010.
You can learn more about Oswin Chin Behilia here, and take a listen to Calister’s song to her country below.
YouTube Video
While many folks stateside are aware of Haitian Creole (though perhaps not the fact that the vast majority of Haitians do not speak French), few know of Papiamento/Papiamentu.
Travel Noire’s Brunno Bragga took a deep dive into this “language of resistance” in June.
YouTuber Sheedia Jansen, who is from Curaçao, shares a few words in Papiamento below.
YouTube Video
There are quite a few folks tweeting in Papiamento; Twitter, which typically provides an option to translate tweets, has not included Papiamento in this service.
Though islanders present smiling faces to tourists, who fuel a major part of their economies, there have been turbulent times in recent history. Consider this labor uprising in Curacao in 1969, which was dubbed a series of “riots.”
More recently, in 2013, pro-independence (from the Netherlands) party leader Helmin Wiels was assassinated.
More recently, the role of South American drug cartels, as well as the organized crime and money laundering via online gambling in Curacao, have been under investigation, and political officials have been arrested.
This BBC investigative report on the power of gambling interests is chilling.
I raise these negatives not to disparage the people of Curaçao, but to point to the vulnerabilities faced in countries with small economies. Far be it for me to point fingers, given we are dealing with a corrupt former president and his minions’ coup attempts here at home. Most Americans experience the Netherlands Antilles through a cruise ship visit or a stay in a tourist hotel; rarely is there any interest in looking past the pristine surfaces of beautiful beaches and sunshine.
Yet even those beaches, as well as scuba diving locales, are also facing a major threat: climate change.
I’ve barely scratched the surface of these islands today; please feel free to correct any errors I’ve made, or add to the discussion with your knowledge of the area in the comments below.
“Mashi Danki” (“thank you very much” in Papiemento) for reading! See you next week!
Read the first installment of Caribbean Matters here, and last week’s entry on Barbados’ PM Mia Mottley at COP26 here.
For an island dependent on tourism, these boycott calls had an impact, though how much impact they caused over the long term has not been determined. Recently, former Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren has attempted to revive her crusade against the island.
Let’s hope she fails.
Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.
Van Susteren went looking for reasons to attack the nation on Oct. 26, starting with an innocuous tweet about a bird.
I find it unconscionable and racist to hold an entire people responsible for the death of one person. This is what Van Susteren has done and continues to do. Period.
In light of this smear campaign, let’s talk about Aruba and its colonial Caribbean brothers and sisters. Aruba is part of what is often referred to as “the Dutch Caribbean,” or the “Dutch West Indies,” which includes the territories, colonies, and countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean. They include the constituent countries of Aruba, Curaçao, and St. Maarten, and the special municipalities of Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and Saba. Take a look at this map and the graphic below.
Aruba, Curaçao, St Maarten, Bonaire, Saba, St Eustatius and The Netherlands
For those in the U.S. who have not had the opportunity or funds to vacation to these six islands, very little is known, taught in school, or covered in mainstream media (with the exception of the aforementioned Natalee Holloway case).
I did get an education at home about the history of enslavement because three-quarters of my more recent ancestors were enslaved in the U.S., but I don’t remember learning much, if anything, about the powerful Dutch West India Company or its role in sustaining the slave trade. That history is the genesis of what is now the Dutch Caribbean.
The short documentary Going Dutch: The Role of the Netherlands in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, produced by Perry Leenhouts in 2009, gives a good introduction to how the Dutch colonial properties in the Caribbean came to be.
Vimeo Video
The Countries and Their Cultures website offers an excellent Netherlands Antilles historical overview.
My formal education didn’t teach me about any of the Dutch islands until I was in graduate school for anthropology, and we studied Papiamento in a sociolinguistics class. Papiamento (also spelled Papiamentu) is spoken throughout the Caribbean Kingdom of the Netherlands, as Simon Romero wrote for The New York Times in 2010.
You can learn more about Oswin Chin Behilia here, and take a listen to Calister’s song to her country below.
YouTube Video
While many folks stateside are aware of Haitian Creole (though perhaps not the fact that the vast majority of Haitians do not speak French), few know of Papiamento/Papiamentu.
Travel Noire’s Brunno Bragga took a deep dive into this “language of resistance” in June.
YouTuber Sheedia Jansen, who is from Curaçao, shares a few words in Papiamento below.
YouTube Video
There are quite a few folks tweeting in Papiamento; Twitter, which typically provides an option to translate tweets, has not included Papiamento in this service.
Though islanders present smiling faces to tourists, who fuel a major part of their economies, there have been turbulent times in recent history. Consider this labor uprising in Curacao in 1969, which was dubbed a series of “riots.”
More recently, in 2013, pro-independence (from the Netherlands) party leader Helmin Wiels was assassinated.
More recently, the role of South American drug cartels, as well as the organized crime and money laundering via online gambling in Curacao, have been under investigation, and political officials have been arrested.
This BBC investigative report on the power of gambling interests is chilling.
I raise these negatives not to disparage the people of Curaçao, but to point to the vulnerabilities faced in countries with small economies. Far be it for me to point fingers, given we are dealing with a corrupt former president and his minions’ coup attempts here at home. Most Americans experience the Netherlands Antilles through a cruise ship visit or a stay in a tourist hotel; rarely is there any interest in looking past the pristine surfaces of beautiful beaches and sunshine.
Yet even those beaches, as well as scuba diving locales, are also facing a major threat: climate change.
I’ve barely scratched the surface of these islands today; please feel free to correct any errors I’ve made, or add to the discussion with your knowledge of the area in the comments below.
“Mashi Danki” (“thank you very much” in Papiemento) for reading! See you next week!
Read the first installment of Caribbean Matters here, and last week’s entry on Barbados’ PM Mia Mottley at COP26 here.