UNESCO day to remember slavery
On 23 August, we celebrate the UNESCO day for the commemoration of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. NiNsee organizes an annual lecture to commemorate our first director Glenn Willemsen on this day. The lecture is free and open to the public. Guests are welcome to visit the NiNsee exhibitions for free before the lecture begins.
This year, Dr. Rebecca de Bies from Anton de Kom University in Suriname presented an insightful and inspiring lecture entitled 'LANGUAGE LOSS AND AFRICAN CULTURAL HERITAGE IN SURINAME AND THE CARIBBEAN.'
The lecture was presented in Dutch, but Dr. de Bies has provided the following English summary:
The languages of the enslaved Africans having survived the Middle Passage did not make it in the new homelands of these Africans. In these new homelands the Africans acquired new languages. In Suriname the enslaved African had to go through a process of language shift twice. In the first shift, a natural one, African languages died in the new society. In the second shift where the oppressor had imposed his language upon the enslaved African, the former was unable to completely destroy the mother tongue of all the enslaved, as he had done with the family structure. Sranantongo, Nengre, the new mother tongue language of the enslaved was retained; be it that its domains of use had been decreased. The oppressor partially succeeded in imposing his language upon Surinamese society. The Dutch language in Suriname: Surinamese Dutch was and is highly influenced by Sranantongo and so amongst other has become the carrier of African culture as well. The oppressor imposed his language upon Surinamese society, but he was not able to successfully impose his culture upon this society. The descendants of enslaved Africans in Suriname up to now share cultural elements, traditions rites and so on with their ancestral lands in Africa.
Download the introduction speech by Dr. Artwell Cain (in Dutch)
Speakers from previous years
2009 “Barack Obama and the Children of Globalization" by Dr. Robert Allen
2010 “Reparations and Reconciliation: addressing Europe’s Legacy of Black Enslavement in the Caribbean” by Sir Hilary Beckles