By Hadassah Vorm

Not everything I have inherited is visible — my diverse heritage lives within me, even if it cannot be seen at first glance.
The African diaspora, alongside the Jewish diaspora — the very epistemological source of the term ‘diaspora’ — holds a distinguished place in the study of diasporas.
Yet I start with Suriname, the land that holds my heart, where I was not born but where I have lived and worked. It is a place where my — and our — families still reside, where our ancestors fought and struggled. Suriname, the land upon which we live or once lived, is older than we are. It existed before us and will continue long after us! In saying this, I also put our own presence into perspective.
The more I learn about slavery and colonialism, the more I realize how little I truly know. This is a truth for most of us. Life is far too short to know everything, yet in acknowledging this, we find the space to focus, to master a particular domain, and to deepen our understanding.
I strive to weave this understanding daily into my trauma practice with my clients, a journey I will return to later. But now is the time — especially with fifty years of political independence — to turn our gaze inward and reflect on who we are, where we come from, and what we carry within us.
Our beautiful national anthem says, ‘about how we came here together here,’ as if it doesn’t matter how we came together. Yet that is precisely what is of vital importance! It is an assumption that it does not matter – but it does. Because the moment you realize this, you also begin to understand why our interests are still not aligned, and why we lack leaders capable of uniting those interests.
When considering the five largest population groups based on actual demographics:
1.The indigenous population, pre-Columbian, not ‘discovered’- they had always been here. And they are still here. They did not come together with us. Colonialism stripped them of their land, and slavery took away their dignity. They did not come to live together on this land, to cooperate, or to become a newly composed people. They only saw potential in the land – its natural resources, to cultivate and use the products for global trade. Human labor was needed for this, and that labor was taken from Africa.
2.The African enslaved people, partially including some of my own ancestors – had no choice or reason to be in Suriname. They were there, but forcibly. When they tried to escape, they were captured, returned, or killed. In that process, a group of people (including Kabiten Broos, courageous ancestor of Marvin Hokstam Baapoure and my husband) fought for their freedom.

So within this colonial script, there were also free people. yet they were seen as ‘another kind’ through the lens of our colonized minds. Escaped Maroons, or as the so called ‘Boslandcreolen’.
But they had not merely escaped; they had fought for their freedom and that is something entirely different. These were descendants of the same group of people, stolen and taken from Africa. They stayed in the forest and established their own communities. Seen this way, their stakes were of a wholly different kind, their resistance a testament to resilience and self-determination.
When slavery was abolished, it was not because white people suddenly realized how wrong it was, but because increasing pressure on this flawed system came from all over the world — including Europe. The colonizer was forced to consider his own interests. Not the interests of the people in our land, Suriname, but entirely different interests.
‘The law of nature is, that when I am a slave, it is in my interest to serve the master. For if I do not serve him, then I have a ‘hell of a life.’ I also have that even when I do serve him, but then it
is slightly better. Or… I flee, run away as a slave. Then things can happen, such as:
a)I end up in hell (as the Bible says, and as the master has assured me time and again), or I am captured, tortured, or killed.
b)I arrive in a landscape (busi) I do not know. There live others (the indigenous people) who know me only as a slave. They too have a choice – the choice to return me as a slave or to help me build a life in this land. And most of the indigenous people chose the latter.’
That then becomes my new interest as a former slave. And it is a different kind of interest than that of the former slaves who stayed in the city. So when we talk about being ‘one’, we must reflect on what we truly mean by this unity.
3.Population groups Chinese, Javanese, Hindustani from India – contracted from Asia and brought to Suriname. We pretend as if their interests were the same as those of the African descendants or the indigenous people. But that is not the case.
For the Asians, Suriname represented an opportunity for mobility – a chance to escape poverty. It was a choice they made. And yet it is often said, “Yes, but that was a forced choice.” Still, there is a fundamental difference in interests here.
Whether you sign a contract on paper with the agreement of both parties, or whether you go to a market where people are displayed as commodities and then buy me — that is a world apart. And this is deeply embedded in our transgenerational traumas.
Even today, there are still people who have no interest in making us aware of this. Because then we would see that these population groups have, up until now, had entirely different interests. Deep down, we know that the interests of the Asians and the Africans did not align.
Fifty years ago, with the independence, it became clear that for the indigenous people there was no way back. After all, they had always been in their own land. Descendants of Africans could not return either; that path was closed to them.
The Asians could have returned, but they chose not to, for returning would have meant falling back into poverty, back into a caste system, or into other hardships.
So we had to create a common interest in Suriname at that time. But we did not understand independence as the creation of an interest separate from that of the colonizer. This interest could have been: now that we were here together, let us do better. Yet we did not see it as a mandate for ourselves, but rather as: ‘Now we are in charge, and we do whatever we want!’
And our leaders began to do exactly what the colonizer had done: conducting politics with us, at our expense. We all went along with it too, because in our minds, we are all colonized. And it takes time for this awareness, this sense of reality, to awaken within ourselves.
We are still learning this at home and in school, yet there is no space – a taboo – to discuss together how all of this came to be, what it has done to us, and how it could be different. Only by confronting these questions we can begin to shape our own thinking and consciousness.
If you understand this, it sheds light on why we are still not truly ‘Wan Pipel.’ Because subconsciously, our interests still differ fundamentally. We need honest, genuine leaders who understand this and feel it deeply.
People sometimes say, ‘We shouldn’t make things so complicated,’ but if you refuse to engage with your own social context, others will make it complicated for you. Because when we talk
about interests, it is not about superficial matters. This is about your capital, your property, what you believe belongs to you, about authority, and ownership.
But we don’t speak about it this way, and we still use the language of the colonizer. It is painful, because we have now become, regarding ourselves, the colonizer. And we are that for the indigenous people. We are that for our children. Transgenerationally, we pass this on, again and again.
Fundamentally, we must look at ourselves and at others. Because a white woman has different interests than a Hindustani or Black woman. The context of that white woman’s interests is entirely different from that of the Black woman. Only once we have deconstructed this can we begin the process of decolonization.
By sitting together and unpacking things. For the colonizer has created a narrative — and that narrative must be dismantled, within ourselves. As a BIPOC* intercultural trauma therapist in mental health care, I work with clients in a way that is interculturally and intergenerationally sensitive, supporting them through trauma processing and ongoing recovery.
We need to name the big, white elephant in the room, to focus on the daily practice in which our present, big, colored elephant stands. I have been deeply concerned about this for some time, and I am certainly not alone. I have spoken with several professionals in Suriname who work in mental health care and have conducted extensive research on this issue. What they see there is the same as what is visible here in the Netherlands.
*Black, Indigenous & People of Color

In June 2025, I was on the ABC islands to give training sessions and workshops, and I held discussions with various Antillean professionals working in the Caribbean. They told me that the need is immense, because the existing (white-lens) support still does not align with the psychological and emotional needs of the local population. This is not surprising, as mental health care there is also still based on the white system – something the colonizer once established in the colonies and which remains the status quo in the former colonies to this day.
And what happens (institutionally) within the white system when signals – or the experiences of ‘the other,’ the person of color, in daily practice – are systematically denied or disempowered.
In my view as both professional and lived-experience expert, also a descendant within the current intercultural and intergenerational methodology, the only real answers to the urgent need for healing and restoration can be found within the communities of people of color themselves.
Because our division – intergenerationally embedded through the institutionalized ‘divide and conquer’ system – introduced centuries ago – continues to operate to this very day. A lack of
trust and unity is what I hear, see, and experience in practice. This also has multiple causes from a transgenerational perspective.
Yet it is through intentional collaboration, mutual support, and the inclusion of others who share our identity in our pathways to success that we build the foundations necessary to meaningfully address and transcend our historical disparities.
A critical examination of African diasporas reveals that, in numerous instances, the term ‘diaspora’ is deployed in a vague, ahistorical, and uncritical manner. Within this broad conceptual framework, various forms of mobility – transnational and intranational- are frequently and indiscriminately encompassed.
Crucially, insufficient attention is paid to the historical contexts and lived experiences that constitute diasporic communities and inform their collective consciousness, or to the ramifications arising from their absence.
Dr. Kim D. Butler, Ph. D. (Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paulo and Salvador) a leading historian of the African diaspora in Brazil, argues that ‘conceptualizations of diaspora must be able to accommodate the reality of multiple identities and the various stages of diasporization over time.’
She offers a straightforward, useful framework for diaspora studies, organized into five dimensions:
(i)Motivations for, and conditions of, migration;
(ii)the ties to the homeland;
(iii)the ties to host countries;
(iv)internal relationships within diasporic communities;
(v)a comparative study of different diasporas.

Prof. dr. Robin Cohen (emeritus Professor of Development Studies; former Director of the International Migration Institute, University of Oxford) is a social scientist. He works in the fields of globalization, migration and diaspora studies. Cohen offers a suggestive framework based on what he considers the nine common characteristics of a diaspora. He distinguishes between different types of diasporas:
a)diasporas formed through victimization (e.g., Africans & Armenians)
b)diasporas formed through labor migration (e.g., Indians)
c)imperial diasporas (e.g., British)
d)diasporas formed through trade (e.g., Chinese & Lebanese)
e)cultural diasporas (e.g., Caribbean)
You can observe the gaps within these categories and conclude that these diasporas are not entirely distinct from one another. It is also interesting that, while the other diasporas are defined in national, ethnic, or even ideological terms, Africa is simply grouped under a single label and referred to merely as ‘African’.
The description of African diasporas as ‘Black’ while diasporas from other regions are rarely labeled by color, is notable. Beyond the politics of a ‘Black’ identity, the point is that other diasporas are identified by ethnic, national, or even linguistic and religious markers.
The homogenization and racialization of Africa is widespread, in academic and popular discourses, within and outside the continent – among those who show little interest in understanding its remarkable diversity, or who seek to impose a liberatory Pan-African solidarity.
Prof. Edward Alpers, Research Professor of History at the University of California, LA (political economy of international trade in precolonial eastern Africa, including cultural dimensions with special attention to the wider world of the Indian Ocean) observes something noteworthy here.
The homogenization and racialization of African diasporas is highly problematic. In some studies, the islands of the Indian Ocean are discussed – yet are often geographically classified as African. From a strictly geographical perspective, the ‘African diaspora’ would then represent an intra-African diaspora, encompassing movements from the continent to the islands off its coast.
Hunwick & Powell (The African diaspora in the Mediterranean lands of Islam) They are even more concerned with the racialized partitioning and reduction of Africa. The fragmentation of the continent creates zones that are treated as distinct, such as the ‘Middle East’ versus ‘Africa.’ This reflects a legacy of Orientalism and colonialism.
North Africa, including Egypt, is often regarded as part of the Middle East, although Middle East specialists generally do not extend their focus further west than Egypt. Northwest Africa – the Maghreb – is frequently treated as a marginal region within Middle Eastern studies and largely overlooked in African studies.
Northwest Africa (from Morocco to Libya), despite its close and enduring connections with West Africa, has remained largely outside the purview of most Africanists.

The question of what Africa is—and who Africans are—is crucial for African diasporas. I myself operate under the assumption that Africa constitutes a geography, a history, and a material constellation of places. Ifriqiya, from which the term Africa has his roots in, originally referred
to what is now Tunisia.
The Africa I envision is the Africa of the African Union (AU) – the 54 states that constitute the continent and its islands. This history is always filtered through the lens of the present. It is within this context that numerous intra-diasporic movements have occurred.
Five categories can be identified:
1.Trade diasporas (Hausa & Dioula in West-Africa);
2.Slaves-diasporas (West Africans in North Africa/ East Africans on the Indian Ocean islands);
3.Diasporas formed through conquest (the Nguni in South Africa);
4.Refugee diasporas (e.g., Yoruba wars, 19th century);
5.Diasporas formed through pastoralism (e.g., Fulani and Somali in the Sahel regions of West & East Africa).
These intra-African diasporas have been studied without employing the term ‘diaspora,’ except in the case of commercial- and slave diasporas. In comparative histories of global African diasporas, it is primarily the slave diasporas that have received the most attention, due to their often transregional nature and their resemblance to the dominant Atlantic slave diasporas.
The other diasporas should not be overlooked; historically, they served as intermediate stations, giving rise to new African diasporas in the twentieth century. In this way, national borders reinforced their diasporic identities and directed them into the circuits of international migration.
y studying Africa’s engagement with its multiple diasporas and the conjunctures that have structured the configurations of Africa’s integration patterns within the world system, new avenues of research are likely to emerge.
This approach will transcend existing studies of the Atlantic diaspora and ensure that we continue to look beyond the ‘Black Atlantic.’
Returning to the struggles faced by the descendants of victim diasporas, many of us contend with our own identities, navigating the duality inherent in our origins. This can sometimes lead to an overcompensation, resulting in the complete denial of one part of who we are. Some of the terms that carry painful connotations and are frequently employed include:
Terms Neutral/Academic Meaning Pejorative/Derogatery Connotation
Halfbloedje Mixed-race individual Implicitly emphasizes ‘partial’
Kleurling Person of color Historically used as a Dutch racial slur
Bounty Phenotypically brown, socially ‘Betrayer’ of racial/cultural heritage – acts ‘white’
assimilated to white norms
Indo Mixed Indonesian-Dutch heritage Carries connotations of colonial hierarchy
Mulat Mixed European-African heritage Used derogatorily to emphasize inferiority
These words express insult, hurt, and a sense of inadequacy, which makes them unacceptable.

Dutch slavery was by no means a ‘peculiar institution’; it has profound and extensive roots reaching back to the earliest periods of recorded history across many regions of the world.
In the he five-part magnum opus on the Dutch East Indies Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën (1724–1726), the Calvinist preacher François Valentijn likewise aptly characterized the enslavement
of human beings ‘the world’s oldest form of trade.’
Throughout much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Dutch were highly active participants in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades, and during the seventeenth century they even dominated the Atlantic slave trade. For nearly two hundred years, they constituted ‘the hub of a massive slave trade, the largest in the history of Southeast Asia.’
This project constitutes an initial effort to ‘un-silence’ the history of the world’s oldest trade, thereby addressing historiographical imbalances, reorienting research, and investigating the organizational structures, the white-controlled system, and the quantitative aspects of Dutch slavery and the Indian Ocean slave trade
The term ‘Dutch’ comprises three components:
1.The Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) – a semi-official institution or chartered enterprise granted delegated state authority;
2.VOC- functionaries – these individuals acted in a private capacity;
3.European colonists or free citizens in territories under Dutch jurisdiction.
These (in)trusive conversations are frequently deeply uncomfortable, though I engage in them daily in my professional practice. This transgenerational trauma is present, but it has seldom been examined or spoken about.
With clients, I bring this topic often to the table, allowing emotional – and sometimes even physical -release to occur. Discussing the taboos, the silence or the secret, within a family or household is crucial. I often invite family members or partners to participate in the sessions.
This can be a challenging experience, even for the client, to engage in conversation with a family member who often has never previously consulted a trauma therapist.
Nevertheless, this approach is healing and provides relief within a safely contained setting. For many, it is often the first time they are given the space to express themselves verbally, emotionally, and culturally.
This occurs trans generationally, in the context of what has been silenced for generations and can be indirectly traced back to slavery. Rooted in African and diasporic perspectives, this context encompasses the profound and painful history of proud, vibrant communities who were violently uprooted from their ancestral lands.
Transported as if they were mere livestock, traded as commodities, and subjected to brutal mistreatment. Exposed in markets, they were dehumanized, families were torn apart, and their voices were forcibly silenced.
Opening up discussion on this subject constitutes the initial step toward healing.

It allows for engagement with what may be addressed, alongside deeply felt pain, and facilitates a breakthrough toward openness, illumination, gentleness, understanding, love, clarity, hope, and transparency.
Interesting is the viewpoint of descendants of white ex-colonizers, frequently articulated as:
‘All of this occurred long ago; I was not personally involved in this trade, would never have engaged in it, and bear no individual responsibility for it.’
Yet they, too, must confront this history, for if the dehumanizing legacy continues to impact the descendants of the enslaved, it likewise bears relevance for the descendants of slave masters and colonizers. It immediately reminds me of my clients from the 𝐓𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐞 (Dutch childcare benefits scandal), targeted and ethnically profiled. Systematic exclusion and discrimination on the basis of skin color, name, or social context persist daily in the present. This is exactly what I encounter both in my professional practice and in my personal life.
I argue that this collective, horrific history, which continues to operate across all levels of the white system from a profound white blind spot, must be confronted and addressed openly and unflinchingly -respectfully, yet firmly.
Descendants of the colonizers and slave masters must also engage with their own history in this context. Behind this appalling past, there is still a comma, not a full stop. Its effects remain palpable every day, both in my professional practice as in my personal life, affecting my cherished clients as well as myself and my family.
Traditional solutions
The traditional solutions of these issues are embedded within the traditionally white-dominated system. Since December 2020, mental health services have operated under the National Quality Framework for Mental Health Care (Landelijk Kwaliteitsstatuut ggz), which prescribes how institutions and practitioners should organize care and identify the appropriate providers. It is at this juncture that significant challenges emerge.
Current statistics
The productivity demands in Dutch mental health care (GGZ) are high. Staff manage excessive caseloads, administrative duties, and work pressures, often resulting in physical or sychological complaints and subsequent absenteeism. Market mechanisms fail to support alternative, culturally sensitive client intake, and the mismatch between practitioners and clients in this sector further intensifies clients’ difficulties.
Recent data indicate that in December 2023 there were 97,450 waiting spots nationwide. In more than half of these cases (56.8%), waiting times exceeded the maximum acceptable threshold of fourteen weeks (Nederlandse Zorgautoriteit, 2024).
Afzien van behandeling
Long waiting lists in mental health care (GGZ) serve as a barrier to accessing support for mental health problems among both youth and adults (Leijdesdorff et al., 2021; Polacsek et al., 2019).

Long waiting periods for a first consultation in mental health care (GGZ) can deter patients from initiating treatment (Krendl & Lorenzo-Luaces, 2022; Leijdesdorff et al., 2021; Rens et al., 2020; Ruesch et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2023).
Worsening of symptoms
Time on a waiting list does not alleviate distress. Evidence from meta-analyses of depressive and social anxiety symptoms in waitlist control conditions indicates that no symptom reduction occurs during the waiting period. (Furukawa et al., 2014; Steinert et al., 2017).
Research across multiple studies indicates that being on a waiting list can lead to a deterioration of patients’ symptoms. (Bureau Lenz, 2023; Cuijpers et al., 2021; Dijk et al., 2023; Jennings et al., 2023; Leijdesdorff et al., 2021; Punton et al., 2022; Reichert & Jacobs, 2018; Rens et al., 2020; Samartzis & Talias, 2019; Stichting FWG, 2023; Yang et al.,2022).
Historically, studies investigating the migration patterns of Africans and their descendants in the Atlantic world have predominantly concentrated on the forced migration inherent to the slave trade or on post-abolition systems of contract labor.
Until recently, considerably less scholarly attention has been devoted to west-to-east migration, and our understanding of voluntary movements of people of African descent within the Atlantic world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries remains limited.
Some research has been conducted on the nineteenth-century ‘Back to Africa’ movement, particularly focusing on the emigration to Liberia supported by the American Colonization Society, as well as the migration of Black people from the New World to Sierra Leone.
The first immigrants to settle in the colony were poor Black individuals—people who had remained loyal to the British during the American Revolution and were relocated to England, before establishing themselves in Africa in 1787.
These destitute men and women were portrayed as vagrants and were regarded as undesirable by a large part of British society. Humanitarians such as William Wilberforce (1759–1833) and Granville Sharp (1735–1813) believed that a return to Africa would improve their living conditions.
Ironically, they argued that African-American colonists would bring the democratic ideals of liberty and equality, which would negatively affect the Black people in their colony. However, only a small number of African Americans actually settled in Sierra Leone.
In 1816, a New England slave trader Paul Cuffe, transported thirty-eight colonists to Sierra Leone. This would mark the first migration of African Americans from the United States to Africa.
Sierra Leone and Liberia provide excellent case studies for examining issues of emancipation and freedom, and for understanding how these concepts were internalized and defined by those who experienced them in the nineteenth century.
Migration held profound significance for Black people from the New World, particularly in relation to their ancestral homeland in Africa.

Advocates of emigration frequently emphasized the supposed necessity of ‘civilizing’ and Christianizing African populations, believing that the only means to end the transatlantic slave trade was through the dissemination of Christianity across the continent.
African Americans saw it as their particular duty to ‘uplift’ Africa. However, these migrations also had a negative side. They shared the coercive characteristics of many other Atlantic crossings, imposed by both Europeans and Africans.
African Americans left the United States with the awareness that they had little opportunity to fully participate in that society, and in this sense, their departure was ‘forced.’
Nevertheless, in a sense, they made a conscious choice to participate in this reverse migration. Unlike their ancestors, who had been shackled on slave ships, migrants from the New World boarded the decks of ships not knowing what awaited them on the other side, yet with bodies and minds that were free (‘Back to Africa,’ Nemata Amelia Blyden, 2004).
We now share a collective responsibility as scholars, researchers, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and members of our communities:
– to work together –
and it is only by embracing cultural sensitivity and inclusivity that we can fully address the complexity of these traumas.
For me, authenticity, mutual respect, integrity, and the pursuit of sustainable healing are of central importance, both professionally and personally.
Each individual bears personal responsibility for exploring and processing their own trauma, a process that often spans years. Yet, those who have achieved healing are able to contribute meaningfully to collective restoration.
Efforts in recovery, education, empowerment, and the cultivation of connections—both within and between these complex and deeply committed communities—are essential to fostering lasting impact.

Haarlem © Hadassah Vorm,
December 2nd, 2025.