The musician finds it very special “to finally hear official words that can contribute to the healing of that past”. His words that neither trivialize nor deny our past of slavery. Words that, as far as I’m concerned, should have sounded much earlier. Words have power. And this is a start.’
Typhoon underlines how important it is now if ‘with this apology we also take real responsibility. After all, we cannot talk about equality, inclusion or eradication of racism unless our past and its impact on the present are fully acknowledged.’
According to Rutte, the government has not apologized ‘to clean up’, or to shut down the past. “We are doing it and we are doing it now to find the way forward together on the threshold of an important commemorative year”, said the prime minister. The apology is a “comma, not a period,” he stressed.
Dutch history has “many pages” that today fill us with “bewilderment, horror and deep shame,” Rutte acknowledges. An apology doesn’t delete those pages, “nor should they.” An apology must ensure dialogue and healing “throughout the realm”.
