Anton de Kom

Counter discourse on Dutch territory

Eighty-six years after publication (2020), Wij Slaven van Suriname (1934) by Anton de Kom (1898-1945) is included in the canon of Dutch culture and history. While it previously went unnoticed, even in most literary and historiographical circles, the work now reaches the larger public because it was covered by television, radio, newspapers and magazines. Wij Slaven van Suriname was included in the canon because the book is ‘an indictment against racism, exploitation and colonial domination’.

Surinamese students, tired of waiting for a second edition of Wij slaven van Suriname, published pirate editions of this text as early as 1969. Wij slaven van Suriname is important for the Surinamese people because it is the first comprehensive publication from the entire Caribbean region that rewrites colonial history from the perspective of the colonized. This makes this work the original text of postcolonial writing back from the Dutch colonies.

This study of Wij Slaven van Suriname investigates the textual genesis of the original and the intentions of the author: the construction of a counter discourse against the dominant colonial discourse. Some call Wij slaven van Suriname a historiographical text in the sense of a critical study of authentic sources and material, others an essay according to the European text analysis and rhetorics. From the perspective of traditional Afro-Surinames oral narrative structures it might be possible to consider Wij slaven van Suriname an aitidey type of narration: a story told on the eighth day after the funeral of the deceased.

In the meantime, research has been done in 2023 for the exhibition ‘Anton de Kom and the SSU (the initiators of the pirate editions)’ in museum De Lakenhal Leiden.