Before the Dutch press start posting ‘click bait’ articles about St Maarten, how about you interview actual DUTCH St Maarten people? Are we not ‘Dutch’ enough? Ask us how we feel. There are MANY reasons why the Dutch are perceived as being more racist and xenophobic than the Germans. People say it, because …
IT’S TRUEš¤·āāļø Denials cannot change facts. I lived it for three years. Anyone asks me what I remember the most about Holland, and it is THIS:
I experienced waaaaaay more blatant, BRUTAL racism in The Netherlands, than 15 years in the Midwest and Southern USA, much more than in Germany. When we point out that their racism HURTS minorities, it is dismissed and denied. So how can WE the average Black or Brown St Maartener side with Europeans who are prejudiced against their own citizens? Not based on actions, but jiggaboo and Zwarte Piet stereotypes. It makes people like ME, who used to be PRO DUTCH, change our mind, and never look back.
The St Maarten Government did not turn me against the Dutch. It was the Dutch treatment of me when I got there that turned me. Andre Bosman and Ronald Van Raak’s treatment of me, when the doctors told them I was dying. When they THOUGHT I was going to die. AFTER I HELPED THEM, WITHOUT ASKING FOR ONE THING, NOT A PENNY. I don’t work for money. Words did not turn me against the Dutch, their actions did. But everything done in darkness, will see the light….
They don’t respect us or care enough about their BLACK citizens to even pretend to care. They used to correct me when I called them Makambas. They thought I didn’t know any better. My use of the word Makamba, is of course intentional. I use it to describe CERTAIN Dutch people, and I use it a lot.
Why? Well… to piss them off of course. The BLATANT BULLSHIT AND HYPOCRISY OF THE DUTCH. They call me A RACIST, if I call them a Makamba, I ask them if they are offended while wearing their Blackface, Jiggaboo, Zwarte Piet ‘Christmas’ costumes.
Blacks living in Holland live with it, because they have NO choice. Imagine my shock, after 40 years in the so called racist USA and the Caribbean… So depressed at Christmas, recovering from surgery and pneumonia, only to be surrounded by dozens of European Caucasians in Black face, painted red lips…. PLAYING CALYPSO!!! But it has NOTHING to do with making fun of us they told me, I was SENSITIVE. You know I had a rough time. In Holland, when you are the minority, they are bold and blatant about it, especially in the South. I was 40, and being called a monkey for the first time in my life by the ‘liberal’, ‘progressive’, Dutch… Who are supposed to be MY people, but they are not.
When I said….”Wow, Makambas truly ARE the most racist, they called ME a racist for calling them a Makamba. For using an archaic word used by the people they raped, pillaged, killed and enslaved… The name the African slaves and plantation workers called them…. Makamba.
NO… It is not a nice word, but good Dutch people do NOT wear Zwarte Piet faces, JUST THE MAKAMBAS. In Holland, they thought when I used the word, I simply didn’t know better. Every time I use the word it is intentional. I want Makambas to feel how I feel when they tell me to accept Zwarte Piet…Okay, but you will just have to accept being called a Makamba. It’s called ’empathy’, but the majority of Makambas I encountered in Holland have no grasp of what the word means. Hollanders expect everyone to change and adapt for them, to THEIR specification, we must live to please THEM. My time in Holland was a nightmare, many times I almost died… NOT because of surgery, but because of Makamba politicians like Bosman and Van Raak. The disingenuous and utter hypocrisy of those two.
I was sick, in a strange land, surrounded by people who felt because I was a Dutch Antillian I was inferior… As Europeans they were Superior. It was not what they said, but how they treated you. I did the ONLY thing I could do… fight them, ALL of them, and I am not done with the Tweede Kamer yet. Ask the police about me in Holland.
I speak more than Dutch and English, I minored in Spanish and German. I’ve been to Germany. I LIVED PURE, UNADULTERATED, Dutch racism FOR THREE YEARS. And it does some damage to you. Racism permeates Holland more than the stench of marijuana in Amsterdam, when you step off the train. I am neither a journalist nor a reporter, but if I am genuinely interested in a topic, if it is relevant, I ask questions. Contact a real Dutch Sint Maartener, you don’t have to speak to me, I will put you in touch with REAL St Maarteners. DO NOT FACEBOOK ME, email: judithreginaroumou@gmail.com
This is the ‘Friendly’ Island, they are much nicer than me. The Dutch like to hold themselves up as these paragons, the Dutch LOVE to tell you what to do, but what everyone needs to be doing is working on themselves, and using common sense.
Right now the Dutch Sint Maarten government and the Dutch Netherlands government are fighting a proxy propaganda war online and on land.
How is this helping us, the suffering St Maarten people? How does your propaganda change anything for the struggling people, trapped in a desperate cycle? How do you improve our lives, by lumping us together with the elite, corrupt government only known for its decades long tyrannical oppression and abuse of the poorer, usual darker Dutch St Maartener?
I lived in the USA among Rednecks and Hoosiers, I lived in EVERY gemeente in Holland. I was born and lived in the Caribbean. Maybe you should consider asking people like me, who are not politicians nor millionaires, how they feel for a change. People who actually live it.
Part of my aggressive blogging comes from my frustration, when I am the ONLY one speaking out in a population that tops one hundred thousand people, if you count both sides. I waited for days for others to speak out. When I finally did, there was a chain reaction. They bashed me, but that is all they can do…
The Netherlands calls us Dutch, they want us to act European, but we are not. We are unique, we are Afro or Indo-Caribbean and respect of our indigenous culture by Europeans is a HUGE part of the problem. Respect should be mutual even when you do not agree… Holland really does treat St Maarten, Curacao, Saba, Aruba, Bonaire, Statia different. And when they deny that Antillians are treated as ‘lesser’ Dutch, then they are pretty much calling us stupid. Just like our government, you think that we don’t have the intellectual capacity to grasp what is going on. We do… Why would we take Holland’s side, if it’s just more of the same?
I guess it is the Anguillian in a lot of us. The more we know, the more quiet we stay. We realize how dangerous it is for us in St Maarten, if they think that we know too much. It is safer to play dumb, act crazy or ignorant. You want them underestimating you. If they fear you, you are in danger.
How can the average St Maartener side with Holland, when they REFUSE to separate the average hard working, struggling St Maartener from the criminal millionaires in the SXM, and their billionaire sponsors? I get 400 dollars per month disability, and I qualify. But how do you have the intelligence to be elected or appointed Parliamentarian or Prime Minister, but you PRETEND not to be able to see the VAST differences between how Parliamentarian Anqelique Romou/Roumou is living and how anti government, non profit blogger Judith Roumou is living? If Andre Bosman, Ronald Van Raak, the Ministers and Dutch Parliamentarians do not have the intelligence to distinguish the have and have nots , then they should resign.
It is easier for the Dutch Government and politicians to spew bullshit in the papers to keep up appearances, than it is to actually land in St Maarten, go into the districts, speak to the people and, ASK THEM… actually help.
You are either a part of the solution, or you are a part of the problem.
What do I do for a living 16+ hours per day?
I read and I write and I research.
Since March 10th, when they published the Washington Post hit piece, I’ve been reading nothing but St Maarten government propaganda. Fed to the press by my criminal government, and the local and foreign press buy it.
I didn’t buy itā¦. because I was born with a functioning brain.
Now, this morning I see the Holland government’s bullshit propaganda, and I’m even more disappointed, because they are supposed to know better.
You want respect, Holland?
STOP treating the average St Maarteners, LIKE ME, like children
STOP giving our government money knowing that it will NEVER reach us. The TRUE definition of insanity it is doing the SAME sht over and over and over again, for DECADES, dealing with the SAME criminal asshole politicians, and expecting a different outcome.
TRY talking to people like me directly, but you can’t because you are afraid of people like me, so you continue to base your prejudice and judgement of us on the politicians who have been abusing us and misusing funds for decades. You don’t have to talk to me. There are about 50.000 of us, and most agree with me.
If Holland is smarter than St Maarten, why are they falling for Grisha, Rolando, Theo, Frans, Toontje, Chris b.s.?
Is it possible, that they know but simply don’t care?
Holland is mostly about faƧades, keeping up fake appearances, just look at Amsterdam.
It is more important it seems for Holland politicians to ACT like they care, than to actually care.
I have to go. I am not even supposed to be writing. MY CONTACT INFO PHONE OR WHATSAPP IS BEST: 721 527 6730 or 721 580 0514.
Stay blessed St Maarten.
Holland, Wake up!