Crying… Tears of blood… Tears of blood… It’s raining blood. Blood falling out of the sky. My face covered with blood. My heart… My soul… Crying!
I wrote this little song on 6 January 2012 and the video was shot on 2 February 2012. I was thinking about abused animals when I wrote it. People should treat animals with more respect, especially large animals. They don’t belong in a small cage (e.g. gorillas) or swimming pool (e.g. orcas) and should be allowed to live freely in the wild. Domestic animals such as cattle and horses should also not be used for entertainment and sports. I don’t like bullfighting and hope this sadistic ‘sport’ will one day be banned worldwide. The matador thrusting a sword through the body of a bull is one of the most gruesome images I’ve seen. I’m glad I saw this on my TV screen and not in real life, but even though my viewing experience was limited to a TV screen, I can’t unsee the horror. I can’t forget what I saw. It feels real because what happened was real. It reminded me of what happened to the body of Christ.
My parents separated in the Summer of 1983. Around Christmas 1984 or Easter 1985, my mother and I visited my father who had come to the Netherlands on holiday and was staying at his sister’s house in Oud-Beijerland. I’m not sure which date is correct as it’s been too long, but Easter 1985 seems more likely to me. In the evening my mother and I went home (in The Hague) and during that night Yeshua (the Christ) appeared in my dream. I was 6 years old and knew very little about him because I did not know the Bible and my mother and I never went to church or said prayers, even though I had a rosary on the wall in my bedroom. I often looked at the male figure on the cross of my rosary and wondered who that dead man with long straight hair was. I knew my parents called him God or the Son of God, but I often wondered why they believed this and why he was crucified. I thought it was so sad and cruel. Well, my dream explained who he was. In this dream Yeshua, my father Ramon and I were together in a small flying machine high in the sky. I looked out the big wide window and saw clouds everywhere and thought I was in heaven! Then I walked to a bench behind me to sit down. Next to me, on my right, sat my father, whom I rarely saw in real life. He sat near the window. On my left was Yeshua, wearing only a loincloth, sitting directly across from me on another bench. He looked very tired and leaned with his back against the wall as he talked to my father, I don’t know what they talked about. Then Yeshua moved forward and stretched out his arms and showed me the stigmata in both hands. I was shocked and felt so sad for him when I saw a hole in the palm of his hands. I could see right through both holes. He was in a lot of pain because the wounds in his hands were still fresh, although I don’t remember seeing blood on his hands. Maybe a little? I’m not sure. I think his hands looked clean. I understood that he was the godlike man who died on the cross and I assumed that the crucifixion must have taken place recently because he was still recovering from the pain. It’s the first childhood dream I can remember.
So this dream taught me about the resurrection of the Christ, but when I was six, I had no idea that people called Yeshua’s rise from death a ‘resurrection’. In my native language (Dutch) this would be translated as ‘opstanding’. I didn’t know this word. For years I believed that the ‘resurrection’ of Christ occurred only in my dream and not in his real life on Earth because I did not know the Bible well, even though my father gave me a children’s Bible when I was a little older. Most of the time I just looked at the illustrations. I was too lazy to read the stories. When I was a teenager, maybe 14 or 15, I finally discovered that the resurrection was a real event in the life of Christ according to the Bible. For the first time I read that Christ’s tomb was empty and that he continued to walk around Judaea showing people the stigmata. I read these stories in school because I went to a Catholic high school. That’s when I slowly started to realize that my 1985 dream was not just a dream. The Christ was really trying to tell me something. It’s not that I didn’t care about this dream because I wrote it down on paper in the Summer of 1990 when I was 11 years old, but I simply underestimated the power of my dream. Perhaps there’s another reason that Christ appeared in my dream. In the summer of 1984, while vacationing in France, I first learned that death exists. I was five years old, and until then, I had thought I would live forever, but then my stepfather told me that life ends when someone dies. It was the first time I became aware of death. The fact that life would eventually end made me sad. So I wonder if Christ appeared in my dream, just a few months later, to tell me not to worry, because there is life after death.
I can’t unsee what I saw in this dream. Yeshua is alive! I can’t pretend he’s not real because I’ve seen him in this dream and many more dreams over the years, but he only showed the stigmata once and that was in my first dream and never again. In this dream from 1985 Yeshua looked like an Arab Palestinian man with long straight black hair, even though he’s not a Muslim and there were no Muslims in Judaea until the 6th century AD and the name ‘Palestinian’ was probably not used around that time. On the other hand, I assume that many Palestinians are mixed, so they probably also have genes from the Jewish and Christian communities of Judaea (the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Nazarenes), so perhaps the historical Yeshua did look like some Palestinian men today. I think the Christ wanted to look recognizable to me, so he appeared in my dream with long straight hair, a short beard and a loincloth, because that’s the man I remembered from my rosary.
But in some other dreams, when I was a few years older, Yeshua looked like a North African man (ancient Egyptian/Nubian/Berber) with short curly black hair (like an afro), although Arab Palestinians can also have curly hair. By the way, there’s also a small community of black Palestinians who often claim to have lived in the Southern Levant (Judaea/Canaan) for thousands of years. Anyway, Yeshua looked different in some dreams, so it took me a while to realize it was the same man. I believe that the Jewish and Christian communities of Judaea and their ancestors, the ancient Israelites of Canaan, are descended from the ancient Egyptians. Judaism started in Egypt. So this might explain why Yeshua looked African in other dreams. I think he decided to reveal his real appearance to me when I was a teenager. For example, in April 1996 I was 17 years old and dreamed that I was on a small island. I was there with a male friend. It was the same type of man that I had met in my 1985 dream. Only this time he looked a bit younger, like a man in his 20s, and he had shorter hair, no beard, and was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. So it felt like I had always known him, even though I had never met him in real life. My friend and I decided to leave the dark forest, so we carried our wooden raft to the beach. I looked at my friend for a moment as we stood on the sunny beach, with our feet in the water. He was a few inches taller and had a brown complexion and black curly hair. I was a little surprised because just a few minutes ago (in the dark forest) I thought or assumed he was a light-skinned man with straight black hair, but then on the beach I realized he was actually a man of color with African hair type. It felt like I could see him clearly for the first time in daylight. Then I turned my attention back to the wooden raft. We were in a hurry, so we climbed onto the wooden raft and sailed out to sea. While we were sailing, the sea suddenly became very wild with huge waves (as high as e.g. the Eiffel Tower), but those waves did not harm us, so miraculously we were able to sail on quietly. Then I woke up. For a long time I wondered who that mysterious friend was, but later in life I realized that it was the Christ himself again. I also learned that he was able to calm a storm on the Sea of Galilee. The wooden raft in my dream might have been a symbol for the cross that Yeshua carried. In 1996 I made a color drawing of this little island surrounded by waves, but I did not save it, so I don’t have it anymore. Eventually, I realized that the racial ambiguity of my island friend could also be a reference to my black (biracial) father, who left me and my mother in summer 1983, and my white stepfather who had raised me from the age of four. I did not have a good relationship with either of them when I was a teenager, so I guess that’s why Christ decided to act as a guardian or a sort of father figure.
Since October 7th (my birthday), so many children have died in the Gaza Strip. According to multiple news sources, thousands of Palestinian children have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war. The deaths of Israeli children on 10/7 is also heartbreaking, even though their numbers are much smaller. I just can’t believe that the ancient land of Canaan has become the center stage for the worst atrocities in the world and in human history. It’s also the least safe place for children. Just like animals, children are the most vulnerable creatures on Earth. They need our protection and deserve a good life. I believe that God loves all children: black, white, brown, gay, straight, bisexual, male, female, androgynous, hermaphrodite, crossdresser, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. People who deny a child a safe environment and support an apartheid regime (Israel) that continues to bomb, injure and maim Palestinian children, both physically and mentally, should be a wake-up call to all of us. We must be more vigilant than ever before and try to stop this suffering once and for all. I consider this an attack not only on the Palestinians, but also on the land and the spirits of Canaan. Being a child in this world, especially in Gaza, is often a terrible and traumatic experience. I’ve seen horrific images from Gaza on the internet. For example, a young girl lying on her back on the ground because her legs were blown off and an 8-year-old boy shot in the head in Jenin, West Bank. The sadism is frightening and intimidating. Now that we’ve seen it, we can’t unsee it. We can’t look away anymore. Sadism is real and it’s a mental illness that destroys all morality and humanity in this world. I don’t understand why all these wars go on and on and on and why many psychopathic war criminals have thousands or even millions of followers. It’s hopeful to see so many demonstrations worldwide in support of the Palestinians, but I still sometimes wonder: Is hatred stronger than love in this world? Is homo sapiens a failed experiment?
So this is my final post for 2023. What a terrible year for humanity! It’s gonna be another sad Christmas.
Ancient Spirits of Canaan and the Levant! I’m calling you! You have inhabited these regions for thousands and even millions of years, long before humans existed. Rise from the clouds, the mountains, the forests and the depths of the seas and unite and let your roar be heard! Get ready for 2024!
Back in 1997 I met a Holocaust survivor. Actually, I wanted to publish this story on National Remembrance Day in Holland in May 2024. Since there’s a war in Gaza right now, I thought it might be a better idea to discuss this topic now. I also believe that God doesn’t want me to wait until next year. Therefore, this article is now being completed.
A long time ago I met a Holocaust survivor. At that time I was an 18 year old student. Early in the morning my stepfather told me the bad news of Diana, Princess of Wales, killed in the most horrific car accident in Paris. I was so shocked and got up from my bed and went downstairs to watch the news on TV together with my parents. It was such a sad start to the day. After the news I went to shower and prepare for my trip from The Hague to Leiden University.
So on 31 August 1997 I was waiting at the bus stop near the intersection of Sportlaan and Savornin Lohmanlaan in The Hague. A much older woman, in her 90s, walked to the bus stop. She walked with a walker. She was a small woman with a sparkle in her eyes and a big bright smile. She had a light complexion and dark grey medium length hair. She soon started talking to me because we were alone and bus 4 (= No. 24 since 2004) was late. She revealed she was Jewish and a survivor of the Holocaust. She was in a concentration camp during World War II and was the only survivor in her family. All her relatives had died in a concentration camp. My heart goes out to this wonderful human being, a stranger, and her family. Honestly, I don’t even know her name. I guess she’s not alive anymore, but I will tell her story to remind people how evil Hitler was. The Holocaust is not a lie. It really happened. I know this. It’s the only time in my life that a survivor opened up to me about the Holocaust. And once you’ve heard a story like this, you will never forget it.
Why did it happen? The Nazis believed that blond blue-eyed Caucasian people were descended from the Aryan gods who used to live on Atlantis, a lost island, according to mythology. The Nazis deemed all other darker ‘races’ inferior. Hitler sold such a big lie to so many people and caused so much confusion, heartbreak and death. Learn from the past! We should cancel his racist worldview. It’s a lie that blond blue- eyed people descend from Atlantis. The truth is there are multiple ethnicities, but there’s only one human race. According to science homo sapiens (= early modern human) comes from Africa. That’s where it all started 300.000 years ago, before they started migrating. All people around the world are Africans originally.
So I hereby declare I feel great compassion for Jewish communities all over the world, but I also feel great empathy for the Muslim communities in the Middle East. It’s known that after World War II the State of Israel was founded by the Zionists in 1948. Back at high school I used to think this was a great thing for Jewish people because of the Holocaust, but now that I’m older and hopefully wiser, I have become aware the Zionists created an apartheid state which is so racist towards Arab Palestinians and black people in the Southern Levant. As an African Surinamese man I just have to be really honest about this topic because I know the history of the transatlantic African slave trade and the history of colonialism. It’s very well known that Western European nations colonized North America, South America, Caribbean islands, Australia and many countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa in the previous centuries. Do you remember when Native Americans lost all their land to Western European settlers? Well, this is the same situation. The hard truth is that the warlike Zionists, who are mostly white people from the continents of Europe & North America, colonized the land of the Palestinians and they look very different from the original Jewish people in the land of Canaan. The original Israelites looked similar to black Africans such as Egyptians. They did not look like people from Western Europe at all. They were not blond like Dutch people. There might have been a few exceptions of Israelites who had a lighter complexion, but generally they looked similar to Egyptians. They even lived in Ancient Egypt for a long time according to Exodus in Old Testament. I think the original Israelites were actually Egyptians, but they were discriminated and oppressed by the other Egyptians because they had converted to a monotheistic faith, probably introduced by Pharaoh Akhenaten who reigned around 1353 – 1336 BC and was a very controversial figure in Egypt. At that time, Canaan was part of the New Kingdom of Egypt. So I think that a group of Egyptians left Akhetaten (Amarna) and went to Canaan where they created their own Jewish culture and Hebrew language over the years. So I think the Bible doesn’t tell the truth. It’s even possible that Moses was an alias for Pharaoh Akhenaten. Based on his statues, I think he was a black African.
Canaan underwent many changes over the centuries and it was colonized many times. For example, Canaan used to be part of the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334 – 2154 BC) and the New Kingdom of Egypt (c. 1550 – 1069 BC), the Kingdom of Israel (c. 1047 – 930 BC) and the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911 – 609 BC) and the Neo-Babylonian Empire (626 – 539 BC), the Achaemenid Empire (550 – 330 BC), the Macedonian Empire (335 – 323 BC) and the Roman Empire (27 BC – AD 330) with Rome as its capital, the Byzantine Empire or also called Eastern Roman Empire (330 – 1453) with Constantinople as its capital. And then finally the Islamic world (624 – present). So many different peoples have lived in Canaan during those empires, such as the Amorites, the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Hittites, the Israelites, the Greeks, the Romans and the Arabs. So this region must have been a multicultural society since ancient times. So why should only one nation be allowed to own the land of Canaan today? Well, this doesn’t make any sense. It’s just not fair! For many centuries Jewish people lived in Europe. Many Jews moved to the USA. The majority of Jews from Europe and the USA are white people whose ancestors come from Europe. Their ancestors converted to Judaism, so they’re not descended from the ancient Israelites. Many Jews from Eastern Europe moved to Western Europe where they mixed with blonde Europeans. That’s why you see many blonde Jews these days. And now after many centuries they want to ‘return’ to Canaan and oppress natives (Palestinians) who have lived in this region since the 7th century and probably even earlier. Jewish people from Judaea may well be the ancestors of the Palestinians. So the Israeli oppression is absolutely wrong and it must stop now! We must free Palestine. For hundreds of years the indigenous Jewish inhabitants and the Arab Muslims had lived together peacefully, but then everything changed when those British Zionists came and colonized Palestine in the 20th century. The Palestinians have lost so much land. I hope the Israelis and Palestinians will find a way to share the land with each other and also with immigrants such as the Eritreans, Sudanese and Ethiopians. Sadly, they are treated like second class citizens in Israel. According to some reporters and many colored residents there’s white supremacy in Israel which means that I would be a second or third class citizen if I lived there. So white Jewish British families, after living in Europe for many centuries, could ‘return’ to Israel and earn all kinds of privileges in the ‘Holy Land’, but a Jewish Ethiopian kid is not welcome there??? Obviously, Zionists would like to turn Israel into a country for white people. This is ethnic cleansing, so be vigilant! By the way, could you imagine that one day milions of African Americans, after living in the Americas and Caribbean for 400 years, would decide to return to Congo and Ghana and try to steal the land from indigenous people there??? It’s just unthinkable because it’s crazy and immoral to do something like that. On top of that, many African Americans don’t even look like their West African ancestors anymore. They would be seen as invaders by the natives.
I love that Israel is the only country in the Middle East region where people from the LGBTQI community are free to be who they really are. I understand this need because I am a gay man myself, but the freedom of LGBTQI and the freedom of Jewish people should not be used for the foundation of an apartheid state that’s racist to Palestinians and other people of color. This is not right! So when I think back to my meeting with the old Jewish woman in August 1997, I wonder what she would think of the current war in Gaza Strip now because I know there are some other Holocaust survivors who have been interviewed on tv and they don’t like what’s happening in Gaza Strip. But I guess she’s not alive anymore. Hopefully, she lives in a more beautiful and peaceful world right now where she has been united with her lost relatives after such a long time and after so many years of deep loneliness and yearning. I also wonder what Yeshua (the Christ) thinks of this current situation in Gaza. Well, even though he himself might have been Jewish, I guess he would still call the Palestinians his brothers and sisters. He would say: ‘Let the children come to me.’ I’m sure he meant all the children, including Palestinian children, black children and white children.
Stop antisemitism and Islamophobia! And stop oppressing and killing the Palestinians! They should have the right and freedom to live wherever they want in the Southern Levant, just like every other person in that region. This has been their land for a really long time, hundreds of years. According to history the Arabs have lived in this region since the 7th century AD and possibly even earlier. Moreover, some Palestinian kids may have Jewish ancestors. So free Gaza and free Palestine! I hope that a two-state solution will become a reality in the near future. Sadly, the Palestinians have lived under illegal occupation since 1948. I was not even born yet. So on October the 7th I celebrated my 45th birthday with family. Well, since that day Gaza’s situation has become even worse. Right now I feel so very disappointed in humanity. Everyday I see horrific images from the war in Gaza. Of course the terrorist attack of Hamas on October 7 was evil and wrong. I feel sad that so many innocent Israeli people lost their lives. Make sure that violence is never the answer to solve our problems because when you do use violence, then you’re not any better than the aggressor/perpetrator. Hamas should release all Israeli hostages and Israel should release the many 100s of Palestinian children, women and men that Zionists have been kidnapping for decades. And what the Israelis are doing in Gaza right now is terrorism too! Western media such as CNN show a very one-sided narrative. They only seem to feel compassion for the loss of Israeli lives. Dead Palestinians get less attention or no attention at all. I read that half of the Palestinian population is under 18 years old. Well, all these innocent children will be traumatized for the rest of their lives. Even babies are being killed right now. It’s insane! It’s a shame that Benjamin Netanyahu compares the Palestinians to the Amalek people from the Hebrew Bible. The Old Testament is a collection of violent warmongering stories that should not serve as moral guidance for people in the 21st century. We should be wiser now and be able to show compassion for one another.
The dehumanization and demonization of Palestinians by Netanyahu is so shocking. He talks like Adolf Hitler. He is a psychopath! I think it is a perfect example of the victim becoming the perpetrator. When a victim was sexually abused as a child, sometimes that child when he/she is grown up will do the same abusive things to other children. It might be an attempt to regain the (sexual) power that he/she once lost as a little child. So the Jews were the victims in the Second World War, but then after the founding of the State of Israel, with the help of Zionists from the UK and USA, they actually became the perpetrator/oppressor in Palestine. It’s so very sad that this big trauma from WWII pushed some Jews in the wrong direction. I think this is not real Judaism because true Judaism is more compassionate.
I live in Holland, so I don’t know everything that happens in Gaza and the West Bank. For daily news about this region I depend on news sources such as Al Jazeera English, BBC News, Sky News, The Young Turks and The Grayzone. I think it’s very touching to see so many protests all over the world and even in the USA. For the first time I see so many people, thousands of people, standing up for the rights and freedom of children in Palestine. There are also so many Jewish people who disapprove of the cruel actions of Netanyahu and his fascist regime. Many Jews oppose Zionism and support a free Palestine. News channel ‘Democracy Now!’ has a great video about a Jewish American protest taking place at the main terminal of Grand Central Station in New York City. So this demonstration was led by the Jewish Voice for Peace. I believe this must be the real Judaism and that gives me some hope for the future of Palestinians. But it’s just so heartbreaking to see that a large crowd of Muslims wanted to attack Israeli citizens in an airplane arriving at an airport in Russia. This is antisemitism! We should condemn this hunting for Jews and try to remember that most Jews are innocent civilians just like the Palestinians. It’s their evil leaders who are creating endless brutal wars for the sheep. Netanyahu should be cancelled! He is a war criminal. The Palestinians have lived in an open-air prison for years. They actually live in a cage because they can’t get out. It’s like a modern concentration camp. They can’t even get water, food or electricity. All communications have been cut off, so they cannot use their phones or the internet. It’s pretty clear Netanyahu wants them to suffer silently without the rest of the world knowing all the details. This is such a major humanitarian crisis, so this region needs a ceasefire now!
The United Nations General Assembly called for a humanitarian truce in Israel-Gaza war. 120 countries voted in favour of a truce and 14 countries (such as the USA and Israel) voted against it and 45 countries abstained, including the Netherlands! Well, I feel so ashamed that my country did not have the balls to vote. Obviously, the government of the Netherlands is afraid to lose their good relationship with the USA if they let them down. The Netherlands is like the lapdog of the USA. Our political leaders preferred an abstention. Well, this is very cowardly. Just remember that many people in the Netherlands oppose the war in Gaza and want a ceasefire now! Suriname is a country in South America and that’s where both my parents come from. My mother and I are African Surinamese immigrants in the Netherlands, although I was born in the Netherlands. But Suriname definitely had the balls to vote in favor of a truce. Thank you, Suriname! That’s great! I’m also happy to see that countries such as Egypt and Jordan prefer a truce. I would also like to give a shout out to Belgium, because the Belgian political leaders had the balls to vote for a truce. Well done, Belgium!
The USA military empire in the Middle East is the great catalyst of wars in that region. Why are there USA army bases in countries in the Middle East? Armies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Qatar and UAE? It’s so confusing! The USA always wants to lecture Russia, but what they have done to indigenous people in the Middle East is even worse. And don’t you forget that one million Iraqi people died in the USA war with Iraq after the American president George W. Bush told the world lies about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003. The USA needs to get out of the Middle East! Stop lecturing people in the Middle East! The people there are descended from the oldest civilizations in the world. They really don’t need the USA to tell them what’s right or wrong. By the way, the USA is not a role model for other countries. I love music from the USA and there are many great people coming from this country and I enjoyed going on vacation to Chicago, Iowa, Orlando, Miami and New York and I’ve met a lot of nice Americans too. They welcomed me in their country. But I do not approve of the politics of their leaders in the Middle East. So in this article I decided to give my unapologetic opinion about the situation in Gaza and the role of the USA in this war. The unconditional support to Israel makes the USA complicit in the massacre and genocide taking place in Gaza right now. Over 8000 Palestinians have died since 10/7. It’s not my intention to hurt the feelings of Americans, but if they are hurt by my article, then so be it. It’s much more important that I speak from my heart and give my honest opinion about the Israel-Gaza war since so many lives of children are at stake now. We have to speak up! So bring George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton (for the mess they created in Libya in 2011), Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Isaac Herzog and Netanyahu to justice at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for all the war crimes they committed in the Middle East!
Last but not least, the current situation in Gaza is a test for the whole human race on this planet. The Palestinians are not donkeys that you can push across the country. They are human beings just like everyone else. To some extent I can imagine what Palestinians are going through because my West African ancestors were treated like servile animals by Dutch colonists in Suriname. So this is a big wake up call. If you condone this war, you might lose your humanity and start crawling on the ground like a wild animal just like the Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar II did when he lost his mind for seven years. This story comes from the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible. According to the last known Uruk tablet from Nebuchadnezzar’s reign he died on 7 October 562 BC.
Written by Ryan Maurice Roemer September-October 2023
I like the elements of nature. Listen to the sounds of streaming water. Beauty is everywhere. The Earth is my home.
In the sky I hear thunder. In the sky I see the lightning. I know how it feels to be accompanied by the thunder.
I like to walk around in nature, watching the trees giving me shelter. Flowers grow everywhere. This world is my home.
In your heart I hear thunder. In your soul I see the lightning. I know how it feels to be accompanied by the thunder.
Song written by Ryan Maurice Roemer. Audio recording on 10 August 2023.
I started writing this song in January/February 1998 when I was 19 years old. I guess I felt the need to romanticize the forces of nature. I wondered how it would feel to be close to forces such as lightning which I considered a manifestation of divinity and the incredible creative power of the Universal Spirit which some people call ‘God’. Well, you’d better be careful what you wish for, because exactly 10 years later on Sunday the 20th of July 2008 I was struck by lightning during my vacation in Suriname. I was 29 when this happened, the most dramatic and wonderful event of my life. Me, my mother, stepfather and half sister went on vacation to Suriname to visit our family there. I had not been to Suriname for almost a decade. The last time was in July 1999. So it felt good to be back in Suriname with my family and on the 20th of July 2008 we decided to visit Colakreek, a blackwater creek in Para (= district of Suriname), which is a very popular recreation park for people in Suriname. My maternal grandmother, uncle, his wife (= my godmother) and two cousins came with us to visit Colakreek. It was a warm sunny day with a clear blue sky. We drove from Paramaribo (= the capital of Suriname) to Colakreek in Para District. When we arrived at Colakreek, we were welcomed by a Native American family who are friends with my uncle and his wife. This family owned a nice bungalow there with two beautiful gazebos in the garden. Me and some relatives decided to sit down under a gazebo right next to the small river. On the land on the other side of the water I saw several groups of people sitting under gazebos. There was a large crowd in the park that day. I guess over 150 people spent the afternoon there and many of them played in the water. Everybody seemed to feel happy and enjoy nature there. It was a hot day, because the sun was shining so brightly, but the tropical trees and gazebos provided some cover. I didn’t want to swim in the water because of the mosquitoes, so I stayed under the gazebo with my mother and grandmother.
After some hours the weather changed suddenly. First it started to drizzle, but then suddenly it started to rain very hard. It was a typical tropical downpour. The hard rain came so unexpected that many people had to quickly seek shelter. I stood under the gazebo near the water, watching some people still in the water. Then suddenly out of nowhere lightning struck the water just a few feet away from me. So I could see the lightning bolt right in front of me and that was an incredible view! It’s the loudest and most intimidating sound that I have ever heard. Of course, everyone knows the sound of lightning, but to hear and see it from so close is very different. I’ll never forget that view and that sound. First I heard the electrical sound from lightning and then I heard the explosive sound from the thunder. I guess it must be similar to a bomb explosion. Everything happened so fast. I let out a cry of terror (that actually sounded kind of funny), because suddenly my arms went up from the electricity. My arms and legs became completely stiff and this lasted for a few seconds. It took a while before I could move my arms and legs normally again. I realized that I had been hit by a spark from that lightning bolt and that I must have had a serious electric shock. I was surprised that the electric shock didn’t hurt at all. I never felt any physical pain. I only felt a soft tingling in the skin around my right chest and shoulder. I told my mother that I had been struck, but she could not believe me. She remained in denial for a long time, so I guess the shock and the idea that her son had been struck by lightning was too much for her at that moment. Then I unbuttoned my shirt so I could get a better look at my right shoulder. I didn’t have any injuries. My skin looked normal, but after a few minutes the red veins under the skin started to become more and more visible. Eventually the veins started to look like a landscape map that stretched from the right chest and shoulder to the top of my back. Now my mother, grandmother, godmother, sister and niece could clearly see that I had been struck by lightning. Everybody was in a state of shock. My mother later admitted that she had seen a flash of lightning right next to me, but at first she thought it had missed me. My godmother started to cry and my grandmother asked us to pray together which I normally never or rarely do, but this time I agreed, because my mom and godmother looked so scared. So we said the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Our Father in Heaven’. My grandmother was a Christian and believed this was a sign from God. We all lay down on the floor, because my family was afraid that lightning would strike one of us again. Only my grandmother stayed in her chair. We could not leave our gazebo, because it kept storming.
My uncle, nephew and uncle’s friends were forced to stay under the other gazebo in the garden at a distance of about 30 meters from us. They wanted to come to our gazebo, but they could not leave because of the dangerous storm. There was thunder and lightning everywhere. My stepdad, who was still standing in an unprotected spot in the garden, had to run quickly to the car parked next to the house so that he could take shelter inside. That’s what he later told us after all the drama was over. He had to hide in the car for a long time, because the storm continued to rage for quite a long time. But after a while, the storm slowly began to subside. When I looked at the water again, I noticed that some unknown people were still in it. Two of them had passed out in the water, for they were closest to the lightning strike on the water. I assume they must have had an electric shock. Their families or friends came to rescue them and pulled them out of the river and carried them to a gazebo on the opposite river side. When the storm finally passed, my stepfather, uncle and nephew were able to come to our gazebo. They were shocked when they saw what had happened to me. My uncle’s friends told us they had never experienced anything like this at Colakreek before. The electricity was also out everywhere in the park. No one dared to go into the water anymore. After a while an ambulance arrived at one of the gazebos on the other side of the river. The ambulance took one of the fainted victims to the hospital. I felt so sad for this young man and hoped he would recover soon. Luckily I had no serious injuries, so me and my family decided to drive back to Paramaribo. My mother told me she believed that Mother Nature wanted to touch me. Those words stayed with me. Maybe she was right. I guess this was her attempt to turn something negative into something positive. While I was in the car I looked out of the window and felt very good like I was reborn. Then I noticed that the red veins under the skin around my right chest and shoulder were already starting to fade. When we finally got back to the city after a long drive, the visible veins on my chest, shoulder and back had completely disappeared. This little miracle happened within two to three hours. I felt so relieved! In Paramaribo we drove past a doctor and she took a look at my skin and asked me a few checking questions and then said I’m okay. She told me I was lucky and that my injury cleared up so quickly because it is in the mildest category. So that was the end of my adventure on that special day.
Exactly one week later, a sunny afternoon on Sunday the 27th of July 2008, I happened to meet my biological father in a supermarket parking lot in Paramaribo. I had not seen him for 11 years. The last time I saw him was in October 1997 when I had just turned 19 years old. So my father and I were right next to the supermarket and talked for a few minutes while my stepdad, uncle and niece were waiting in the car. My dad hugged me and said I’m always welcome. That was the last time I had seen him alive. Exactly 10 years later, on Saturday the 6th of January 2018, my father passed away unexpectedly due to diabetes. Nurses at the hospital were not able to save his life, because they didn’t have enough insulin for him. Healthcare is very bad in Suriname. I didn’t attend my father’s funeral in Paramaribo because I did not have a close relationship with him.
I felt so lucky and blessed after surviving the lightning strike. I knew the Christ had protected me that day (20 July), because I didn’t feel any pain when I was struck by lightning. Yeshua started appearing in my dreams when I was about 6 years old (in late 1984) and he kept appearing in dreams when I was a teenager and an adult. Just a few days before flying to Suriname in July 2008 I looked at a special photo that I had found on the internet. It was a photo of ‘Cristo Redentor’ (= Christ the Redeemer), a statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Of course, I know that the historical Yeshua actually looked completely different from the representation of the statue, but I still found the picture of the statue interesting, because it shows how the statue’s head was struck by lightning on Sunday the 10th of February 2008. The statue looks so indestructible at that moment. I saved that photo on a USB stick before flying to Suriname. So when the same thing happened to my shoulder only two weeks after looking at that photo, I knew this was no coincidence. Being struck by lightning was the most dramatic, the most terrifying, the most beautiful and the most revealing event of my life. It showed me that Christ is real and much more than just a man who appeared in my dreams. Thank you for touching me, Mother Nature. I feel stronger now! Your lightning is part of my DNA now. And thank you for keeping me safe, Yeshua. On so many occasions you showed me that, even though I’m an androgynous gay man who faces a lot of discrimination in this mortal world, I will never walk alone in the universe. You have always been by my side and accepted me as I am, because you love all children of God.
Usually I publish the lyrics of my a cappella songs on this blog, but today I’m going to do something different. Since I have a particular interest in history, I’d like to draw your attention to an important and historical event in the Netherlands (Europe). Recently, the Dutch King apologized for the Netherlands’ role in slavery in Suriname (South America) and some Caribbean islands. Since I’m an African Surinamese man myself, I’d like to respond to this and elaborate on the topic of racism. Where do we go from here as a black and colored community, but also as a multicultural society, now that anti-woke sentiments are rising in our country? Anti-woke conservatives always hate on diversity, feminism and LGBTQI in mainstream media and social media. This movement has become extremely popular. It’s very worrisome. I would also like to discuss the role of so called ‘Christians’ who have been relentless in perpetuating and maintaining the ‘white savior’ complex. What a lot of people don’t know is that African slaves (prisoners!) were not allowed to practice their own religions in Suriname. They were Christianized. All other religions became pagan and nudity became a sin too. So slaves lost much of their African cultures. I will also discuss my own relationship with Christianity, because Christ started appearing in my dreams when I was a child. By the way, English is not my native language, so forgive me if I make language mistakes.
WARNING: In this article I will talk about some sensitive topics in our society. You’re welcome on my blog, but if you are easily offended, then maybe you’d better leave. I’m going to speak my truth, unapologetically.
1: National Slavery Monument, Oostpark Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Photo taken by R.M. Roemer during Keti Koti Festival on 1 July 2017.
Every year we celebrate Keti Koti in Suriname and the Netherlands on the 1st of July. Keti Koti means that the chains are broken, because on this day in 1863 the Dutch government abolished slavery in Suriname. So this year (2023) marks the 160th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, but actually it’s only 150 years ago, because after the abolition in 1863 African slaves were forced to continue working on plantations until 1873. Last year on the 19th of December 2022 Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister, apologized for the Dutch government’s active role in slavery and crimes committed against Africans. Now 7 months later on July 1, on the occasion of 150 years of the abolition of slavery, the Dutch King Willem-Alexander also apologizes for the role his family played in slavery in their (former) colonies: Suriname in South America and some islands in the Caribbean such as Curacao, Aruba, Sint Maarten, Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius. This is a historical moment and a very emotional moment for a lot of people, especially for the descendants of the African slaves, including myself. Finally, there’s an official recognition of this crime against humanity and all the suffering that slaves and their descendants endured for centuries.
2: Monument of 11.0000 names, Oosterpark Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Photo taken by Ryan Maurice Roemer during Keti Koti Festival on 1 July 2017.
This monument depicts the surnames of freed African slaves in Suriname. After slavery was abolished in 1863, they were given names by their former slave owners. My paternal grandfather’s surname ‘Kort’ can be found in the list of surnames. I don’t have any other information about him, because he died when my father was two years old and my father’s parents were not together anymore.
3: Monument of 11.000 names, Oostpark Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Photo taken by Ryan Maurice Roemer during Keti Koti Festival on 1 July 2017.
My maternal grandmother’s surname ‘Roemer’ is in the list of surnames. My grandma’s grandparents used to be slaves working on a plantation in Para. Para is a district in Suriname. My grandma’s paternal grandmother’s name was ‘Roemer’ and her paternal grandfather’s name was ‘Bova’. Her grandpa was a ransomed slave before the abolition of slavery. Bova and Roemer were not allowed to get married during slavery.
My parents come from Suriname. Both my mother and father are African Surinamese, although both of them are also mixed (interracial), but most black people in Suriname are mixed. The point is that we identify as black people. My father passed away in 2018, but my mother is alive and doing well. I know this historical moment means a lot to people of my parents’ generation. My mother still has clear memories of the 100th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Suriname on 1 July 1963. She was almost 10 years old at that time. My maternal grandmother died in 2019, she was 95 years old (born 1924), and when she was a little girl in Suriname, a lot of older black people who used to be slaves in the 19th century were still alive. My grandma’s father (Roemer) was black and her mother was mixed. Of course it was the same situation for my maternal grandfather (Refos, born 1914) when he was a little boy, even though his ethnical background was different, because his mother (Refos) was a mixed woman from Suriname and his father came from China. Even when my mother (born 1953) and father (born 1943) were small children in Suriname, a few freed slaves were still alive, but of course they were very old. So for people of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations, slavery is not that long ago.
My mother migrated to the Netherlands in the 1970s, because she was a student. Actually, a lot of Surinamese people moved to the Netherlands in the 1970s. My father never migrated, but he often came on vacation in the Netherlands. My parents’ relationship already started in Suriname in the 1960s, but I was born in 1978 and raised by my mother in the Netherlands, so I also went to school in this country. Honestly, during history lessons Dutch teachers (who were white) rarely talked about the Dutch government’s role in slavery. Most history lessons were about the first and second world wars. I understand that there was a lot of suffering for many European people during these wars, but when I was a teenager at high schooI I always thought it was strange that the history of my parental country (Suriname) was almost non-existent in Dutch history books. Teachers also never mentioned the role that Suriname played in WWII. My maternal grandmother worked as a soldier when 2000 American soldiers came to Suriname in 1941 to help the Dutch protect the borders of Suriname, especially the bauxite industry, against the German Nazis. My grandmother worked as a truck driver for the American soldiers. The absence of Suriname in Dutch history books made a lot of black people feel invisible in the Netherlands. I can relate to that, because as a black gay man I have often felt invisible in Holland. I often feel that my life, my happiness doesn’t really count in this country. I’m just a ‘nigger’, just a ‘fag’.
In 2013 I made a video about the racist character Zwarte Piet, also called Black Pete or Blackface, who is the servant of Sinterklaas (similar to Santa Claus). I criticized this racist Dutch tradition through satire and published my video on social media. I received a lot of hateful comments from Dutch people wishing me dead. For many years some Dutch people with a lot of power have tried to suppress my video on YouTube, because they don’t want it to get views, but somehow the video still managed to get a lot of views. Since October 2017 I have been shadowbanned on YouTube. They manipulated the algorithm in such a way that my video was not able to get any views anymore. It went from thousands of views per day to zero views. So this is the state of the Dutch society today. This is what might happen. If a black person stands up and wants to give his or her opinion about an important topic, there’s still a big chance that white supremacists will try to silence us. And it seems that the number of white supremacists is increasing, probably stimulated by the popularity of some right-wing extremist political parties. But this is not only happening in the Netherlands. Something is changing in many Western countries. In the past certain groups of people were called ‘neo fascists’ or ‘right-wing extremists’, but today many people refer to themselves as ‘anti-woke conservatives’. It sounds interesting, but what does it really mean? I’ve watched a lot of interviews with anti-woke politicians, reporters and influencers and I’ve come to a negative conclusion. Anti-woke conservatives are (closeted) racists, misogynists and homophobes. They want people like me to fail in society and in fact they would like to return to the 18th century when discrimination ruled the world. Anti-woke conservatives are often narcissists and emotionally disabled and unable to feel empathy for minorities. For some reason they believe that the white ‘race’ is in danger, but it’s really not (if you ask me) or maybe they just want to pretend that the white race is in danger and put fear in the hearts of white children. Fear mongering! They often create the most bizar conspiracy theories and want to make people, especially young people, believe that the ‘wokists’ (a new discriminatory label for people like me) want to oppress straight white men and women. Today you can read the word ‘woke’ all over social media. It’s a new hype! A similar thing happened in Germany in the 1930s when the Nazis started blaming innocent and hard-working Jews for everything that went wrong in society. They became the scapegoats.
But I do understand the frustrations of angry white people in the Netherlands and the rest of Western Europe. They are not happy with the large numbers of migrants coming from Africa and Asia. White people have the feeling that they are losing their countries. Dutch white people are afraid that we will steal their best jobs and they’re also angry that a large proportion of crime, especially in the big cities, is caused by black men (from Suriname / Caribbean) and Arab men (e.g. Moroccans). It’s not my intention to justify criminal behaviour of those young black and colored men, because crime is always wrong, but a lot of them can’t find jobs and feel lost in the Netherlands. Many ‘foreigners’ face discrimination in the labor market. Not only people of color but also white people from Eastern Europe (e.g. Polish people) can’t find jobs. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Dutch respond to migrants in this way, because it’s human nature to feel fear of the unknown, the other, especially the ‘dark’ other, but the truth is population movements have taken place all over the world for thousands if not millions of years. Animals do the same thing, e.g. elephants, birds and fish travel thousands of miles by land and sea, always looking for food, a better place to stay. Nobody leaves their home without a reason. Many people are war refugees, so they were forced to leave their countries, but some other people are just looking for adventures and want more land. That’s what Western Europeans did in the Americas and Australia. They stole all the land from the indigenous pre-Columbian peoples and Aboriginal peoples. The Arab Muslims (from the Arabian Peninsula) did the same thing when they conquered Egypt, Morocco and the rest of North Africa, as well as large parts of West Asia. We live in a world that continues to change due to population movements. Probably, you won’t like that, but there’s not a lot you can do about it, so you just have to accept that people will always keep moving around the world. It’s the nature of the beast. Nothing will stay the same forever. Our society will never be the way it was 100 years ago, because everything changes. People are afraid of change and many of them are unable to adapt to new times and new situations.
So who are the wokists according to the anti-woke conservatives? Well, they want you to believe that the so called ‘globalists’ want to create a new world order and want to educate people about diversity, gender and sexuality. In other words, empowerment for minorities such as black people and other people of color in the Western world and also more visibility for members from the LGBTQI community and more opportunities and equal pay for women. People who used to be discriminated a lot in the past and are still facing a lot of discrimination today. It makes you wonder: Is it really such a bad thing to empower these marginalized groups of people and make them more visible? Do you really have to ban books educating children about the existence of LGBTQI people on this planet? Most children know a gay or bisexual aunt, uncle or cousin in their families and yet these anti-woke conservatives don’t want any gay characters in children books and movies, because they want to ‘protect’ children. Oh, really??? For example, when I was a small child, I knew that my favorite aunt was a proud lesbian or bisexual black woman, because she openly lived with her black girlfriend in the 1980s and 1990s. But there are so many other LGBTQI people and black/colored people who just want some respect, freedom and visibility. We exist! Don’t you want them to achieve a little more autonomy and financial independence? Are we allowed to be happy and fully enjoy our humanity? We just want to be seen as human beings and we want more equal opportunities. It’s not our goal to discriminate or oppress white people and straight people. Because the anti-woke conservatives pretend that white people and heterosexual people are now the new victims. God gave this world, this planet, to all of us. We all have the right to enjoy the fruits of life. Listen, you anti-woke conservatives! Nobody wants to hurt you! Stop being such a cry baby! And stop fear mongering! You straight white men and women still get the best and highest paid jobs in this stupid hierarchical world.
Even more bizar is the fact there are many black people and other people of color who are interested in the ideas of the anti-woke conservatives. I guess it won’t surprise you, but there’s a lot of racism within the black and colored communities. There are plenty of black and colored people who don’t like interacting with each other, simply because they have an aversion to other black and colored people. In other words, they don’t like their own ethnicity. They are not proud of their African roots and natural looks and try everything they can to change that, so called ‘acting white’. That’s one of the reasons why the emancipation of black and colored people is going so very slow, because a lot of them don’t support each other. The darker your skin is the more rejection you will experience in the black and colored communities. Dark-skinned black women in particular have to deal with racism the most in their own communities. Black men reject dark women all the time. They always look for light-skinned women as partners for marriage. It’s a very painful topic for many women and we don’t really talk about it in our communities, but it’s there and we all can see it, because it’s so obvious. In recent years I’ve seen the word ‘colorism’ a lot, but I don’t like this word, because I think it’s an understatement and it downplays or hides the existence of racism in black and colored communities. These black men are not colorists. They are racists! Just call it what it is. Many of them don’t help dark-skinned black women raise their children and they don’t help them move to more expensive neighbourhoods. They only help light-skinned women and they prefer light-skinned children too. Even my own father, every time he came to the Netherlands for a holiday, he spent more time with his light-skinned cousins than with me. By the way, they had good hair (straight and wavy). I remember…. when I was a toddler I started crying when my father played games with my much older cousins in the living room of his sister’s home, because he didn’t look at me and didn’t seem to be interested in playing games with a toddler. Eventually, my mother broke off their engagement in 1983. Now that I’m older I do understand that my father was probably conditioned to prefer light-skinned people, because all his half brothers and half sisters were white. He was the only biracial child of his Portuguese Surinamese mother (De Freitas, born 1906), the only child with a black father. After some time my mother married a Dutch white man (Elting, born 1950) in June 1985. During my childhood I didn’t have a good relationship with him, partly because it was difficult for me to accept a white man as my stepfather, but he has always been there for me when my black father wasn’t. My stepfather was there for me at important moments such as learning how to ride a bicycle, learning to swim, helping me overcome my fear of deep water, learning how to skate on ice and him talking to the school principal when I was bullied at high school. He is still a part of my life today.
Another reason that a lot of black and colored people have joined the anti-woke movement is because there’s a lot of homophobia in families of African, Asian and Middle Eastern descent. The Bible, the Quran and the Torah in particular have fueled a fear of LGBTQI in many people. So I have to confess that as a black gay man I almost never received emotional support from other black and colored people. Also black and colored gay men have not been supportive to me. There’s no unity or harmony in the black and colored communities in Holland according to my opinion. Probably because there are so many different ethnicities and cultures within these communities. But the African Surinamese and African Antillean communities in particular have been torn apart. They don’t really work together like the Moroccans and Turks do, because these two population groups often create their own companies in the Netherlands. But black people (including myself) often continue to work for a boss, because we are afraid to start new business. I don’t have a bad job and I can get by just fine, but I work for the Dutch government and I feel like I’m just a little pawn in a huge bureaucratic machine and I see that many other black people are in the same position. Why can’t we come together and create a new business? Black people are often so insecure, confused and messed up mentally and emotionally, which hinders our creativity and productivity, partly because of the slavery and colonial past, but also because of our discriminatory religions suppressing the power of our souls and our obsessive search for white beauty and a ‘white savior’. But is Christ really white? Or is that a lie?
Despite some discriminatory texts against gay men in the Bible, I still believe in Christ, because he started appearing in my dreams, as far as I can remember, when I was a 6 year old child in 1984 or 1985. In the first dream I can remember, Christ showed the stigmata in his hands to me. At that young age I did not know the resurrection story, because my Catholic parents never read the Bible to me and we never visited churches, so all I knew as a 6 year old boy was that Christ died on the cross, because I had seen that image on my rosary. So even though I did not know the resurrection story, the resurrected Christ still appeared in my dream. That’s very special to me. I think he wanted to come close to me, because he wanted to prove that he’s real and probably because he was concerned about my well-being. I know it was really him, because there’s simply no one like him. His presence is so divine. I’ve never seen such a humble man who is so majestic at the same time. I have seen Christ in many more dreams, but honestly, in a lot of dreams I didn’t recognize him, because he looked so different. Based on those dreams, I think this must be his true appearance. So I’m pretty sure what the real historical ‘Yeshua’ or ‘Yehoshua’ (maybe his original Hebrew name?) looked like and I can tell that he looks different from the bearded white man with long dark or blond hair that you see in biblical illustrations, paintings, documentaries and movies. Surprisingly, in most of my dreams he had short dark (curly) hair, a (light) brown skin color and often no beard or only a stubble beard. It wasn’t until I grew up that I finally realized that the colored man with short dark curly hair was also Christ! I guess that’s what the real historical Yeshua used to look like. Actually, that’s what some dreams revealed to me in the early 2000s. It made me realize that internalized racism was also present in me. Because of my brainwashing, I couldn’t recognize the short-haired and brown-skinned Yeshua as Christ in my own dreams for so many years!!! Nevertheless he was always very kind, respectful and supportive to me. That’s how I know that he loves LGBTQI people. When churches tell you that Christ disapproves of gay people, you should know that’s a lie made up by hateful priests! For centuries demonic entities have tried to change and suppress the true identity and the true loving message of Christ. The truth is he loves outcasts and will always support them.
Christ was of Middle Eastern descent…. or maybe not? Because the Middle East is a name coined by Western European colonists in the late 19th century. So, which ethnicities lived in the Southern Levant (Judaea) over 2000 years ago when Christ walked there? I assume that North Africa was originally inhabited primarily by black people (in the 2nd millenium BC and earlier) and the Arabian Peninsula was mainly inhabited by non-Muslim Arab people, so I guess the Southern Levant was a meeting place where black Africans and brown Arabs met. Most inhabitants spoke Semitic languages (e.g. Aramaic) and possibly also Classical Greek and/or Latin (= the languages of the southern European colonists). Let me remind you that ancient Egypt (originally called ‘Kemet’) and Canaan, which were inhabited and ruled by black Africans for a long time, changed a lot after it was conquered by the Assyrians (from Mesopotamia), the Macedonians (from Greece), the Romans and then by the Islamic Arabs. I think all four ethnicities looked quite similar with (light) brown skin and black hair (curly, wavy or straight), although Assyrians and Arabs were probably a bit darker than Macedonians and Romans. The Southern Levant (Canaan) was originally part of ancient black Egypt, for example during the New Kingdom of Egypt (1570 – 1069 BC), before being conquered by Assyrians, Europeans and Islamic Arabs. So I conclude, around 2000 years ago, the people of the Southern Levant (Judaea) must have been a mixed (multi-ethnic) population group, with brown, dark brown or light brown skin and mostly black hair, which could be kinky, curly, wavy or straight. I assume that Yeshua was not part of Egyptian culture, although according to the Gospel of Matthew he may have lived in Egypt for a while, but based on my dreams I think he did bear a strong resemblance to the ancient Egyptians. I’ve been to Egypt (Luxor) in 2019 and I think Yeshua could definitely blend in with the current local mixed population there (Egyptian, Nubian and Arab). I also believe that the ancient Israelites in Canaan were descended from the ancient Egyptians. They had brown skin and black hair (kinky or curly), like most North Africans at that time. I’m inclined to think that they are the ancestors of Yeshua. So I strongly believe if Yeshua walked on the Earth today, a lot of people would not pay attention to him, simply because he doesn’t look like a white man from Europe. Millions of so called ‘Christians’ would reject him simply because of his skin color and kinky or curly hair texture. Many black and colored people would also reject him, because they don’t like that hair type. All of them are racists, but that’s just my personal opinion. Finally, I would like to point out that in the Ethiopian Church, which is one of the oldest Christian institutions in the world, Yeshua has always been seen as a black African.
The King of the Netherlands apologized for Holland’s slavery past. What will this mean for the future of black and colored people in the Netherlands? Of course an apology is just a ceremonial formality. I do appreciate it, because it has a lot of meaning, but it will not change our lives. So what’s next? First of all, it’s important to know that excessive force against black and colored people still happens today, especially police violence which is often the result of racial profiling, and many of them are really innocent. That’s why the Black Lives Matter movement is so important today, because it tries to raise awareness in the hope that something will change. Even though this movement comes from the United States of America, it also matters for black/colored people living in Western European countries. Don’t listen to anti-woke conservatives trying to demonize the Black Lives Matter movement and claiming this movement was created by the so called ‘globalists’. That’s not true! Secondly, I think the best thing black and colored people can do is look within themselves. Deal with the racism in your own heart, because during slavery times a lot of slaves copied the racist ways of thinking from their white masters. In 1873 there came an end to physical slavery for black people in Suriname, but there’s still a lot of mental slavery among black people today. Will black and colored people be able to set themselves free from mental slavery??? Because in their minds they still think and act like slaves, but that’s just my personal opinion again. They often suffer from a low self-esteem. So I’d like to say to them: Look at yourself in the mirror! You are beautiful and smart. As long as your minds are not really free, you are still slaves, sadly. And my message to all black, white, colored and mixed people: Set your mind free! Learn to think with your heart. Everything you see in this world is only temporary. Physical beauty is only temporary. Material success is only temporary. Fame and fortune are temporary and followers/subscribers are temporary too. We don’t need 10.000 friends or subscribers. Nothing lasts on this mortal planet. Thank God! We should be grateful that death exists, because this is a very nasty world to live in. So my message to people is: Love your soul and take care of it! It’s like giving water to a flower. Prepare for the afterlife (if you believe there’s something more)! Free yourself from all the lies that your families, friends and local churches or mosques told you and all the burdens that they placed on your back and shoulders. I know your cross is heavy.
The moral of my story is that nobody wishes to be a beast of burden. Over the centuries this has happened to so many people who were captured, dehumanized and forced to live and work as slaves. This already started thousands of years ago. Even in the postmodern era, there’s still a lot of modern slavery such as trafficking in women and children. But trauma also happens to intelligent animals today, such as gorillas, elephants, horses, donkeys and giraffes. They have feelings too! There’s so much animal abuse. Animals that are forced to live in cages in a zoo or forced to perform in top sports and circuses or used for heavy physical work. A lot of those magnificent animals don’t even know what freedom feels like, because they were born in captivity. Luckily, I know what freedom feels like and I know it’s a human right, but it’s also a privilege, because not everybody is allowed to be free. That’s why we should never take freedom for granted. It’s something we must protect at all costs! Stay vigilant, because there are many anti-woke conservatives who are old-fashioned racists and some of them anonymously post very racist comments on social media, expressing their believe that the white race is far superior and that slavery should never have been abolished. So even today there are some white folks who think that way. That’s scary. How is this possible? I guess there are a lot of angry white people on social media today, because they are losing their white privilege in a world that’s changing. So is there a chance that history (slavery) will be repeated? Well, only time will tell. And how could we prevent that history will be repeated? Read the warnings on the wall and raise awareness in people, especially young people, because they are the future. Let them read books that tell the truth. But most of all, teach children to show compassion for people who are weaker. My African ancestors were not free for a long time, because they were not seen as fully human. So what does it take to be seen as human? And why are only humans allowed to be free and animals not? Why are their feelings less important to some people? Why are creatures with a lower IQ not allowed to be free? They still have feelings and need love. Just because you’re more intelligent doesn’t mean you have the right to enslave less intelligent beings. People with the highest IQ could use their intelligence for so many good causes and yet they often choose to use it for bad things such as selfishness, greed and lust for power, and sowing division and war. Well, that’s just monstrous, barbaric and cowardly. Those sadists must have a very low EQ. What could you do when you meet that type of person? Stand up to him or her! Do not ever accept toxic behaviour! Protect the weak, the homeless, the disabled, the ones who are not able to speak up for themselves. Back in 2004 I visited a zoo in Berlin (Germany) and saw some gorillas in a cage behind glass. A gorilla and I looked at each other. Somehow I got the feeling that I was looking at a human being. It was her eyes, her body language, the way the mother gorilla held her baby in her arms, and I just felt so sad and ashamed that she had to live like this. I’m able to express my feelings with words, but she can’t. So I wonder: How did she feel?
Ryan Maurice Roemer, 9 July 2023 Art History graduate, Leiden University
In loving memory of my maternal grandmother (Heligonda Roemer) who died on the 9th of July 2019. She was 95 years old and a devoted Christian woman. I think the King’s apology would have meant a lot to her.
Ryan Maurice Roemer 