For more than 200 years, this beautiful island was for a large group of people The White Hell.
Fellow humans like you and me — but without rights.
Traded and enslaved because it was profitable.
For over 200 years, this immeasurable injustice persisted as a habit.
Generation after generation, they lived as the property of others.
Every day toiling in the salt pans.
Surviving in the blazing sun.
And endlessly walking along the long footpath by the blue sea, to Rincón and back.
Until they finally gained real freedom in 1873, ten years after the official abolition of slavery.
The freedom that their ancestors had had a right to for centuries.
That was 152 years ago.
That may sound like a long time ago.
But those 152 years are still shorter than the over 200 years of unfreedom in The White Hell.
And so the memory of that still resonates.
In stories and music.
In the landscape and in our heritage.
In human relationships and stubborn systems.
Even though our Bonaire has changed unrecognizably since 1873: it is still there and continues to resonate.
These memories together form an important warning: to continue seeing each other as human.
And they together form an important task: to build a society where everyone will always be equal and equitable.
Today, Bonaire is proud of entirely different nicknames, such as Blue Destination and Divers Paradise.
Nicknames in which we hear freedom, progress, and prosperity.
But I also hear a deep longing in them.
A longing for a society where old power dynamics and unfreedom have disappeared.
Not only in daily life.
But also in our minds and in our hearts.
Precisely because of that great longing, we must confront our colonial past together.
That is why we must be able to openly say what still hurts us.
Tell each other the honest stories:
About the people who became victims of the colonial merchant spirit.
About the obviousness of old power dynamics.
About the guilt and shame that were passed down for 200 years.
About the almost self-evident power dynamics that — marked and unmarked — were passed down.
From generation to generation, even 152 years after the end of slavery.
Because all those stories form who we are together.
On an island that is growing and changing rapidly.
For some people, Bonaire feels like the promised land.
For others, the feeling prevails that their familiar island is disappearing or being taken away.
Both feelings also tell something about how we see the past.
And what past lives deep within us.
We must confront both realities.
But above all, we must look each other in the eyes.
Seeing each other as fellow humans so that we can move forward together.
Because that is the essence of our dreamed and beloved Bonaire:
A close-knit community of free, equal, and equitable people.
Who together shoulder the burden of an island that flourishes in every respect.
Where everyone belongs, where everyone participates and may participate:
Where your cradle stood or which language you speak.
Whatever story you carry with you.
Whatever the color of your skin.
And whoever you love.
Because however different the paths were that brought us here together: ultimately we must find a path to the future together.
No long, bitter foot journey in the blazing sun, as in The White Hell before.
But let our shared path be a hopeful journey towards our dreamed Blue Destination.
Where powerful, confident voices sing the words of Bob Marley:
“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our mind.”
A text that is usually sung as a hopeful message to the victims of slavery and their descendants.
But it fundamentally applies to all of us: on whichever side of this history you stand.
Everyone has the task of freeing themselves from mental slavery.
Let us all free our minds every day.
Look each other in the eyes with an open gaze - and listen to each others stories.
So that we can continue to build together and in freedom towards the Bonaire of our dreams
