No consumer market for guilt trips?

[bcholmes]

the_siobhan and I were in the Rijksmuseum looking at the paintings. Many of the pieces on the first floor were about Dutch colonies. Prominent merchants painted in front of prominent locations in the Dutch West Indies. One plaque commented that there was a period when it was considered trendy to have your portrait painted surrounded by one's slaves. I commented to Sio: "It's kind of weird to see this celebration of colonialism." "Yeah," she said.

A few days later, we went on a canal cruise, like good little tourists. More commentary. This canal was used by the merchants. This building was originally a warehouse owned by the West India Company. No sort of commentary about what that means.

Comments

[onyxlynx]

Hmmmm...Tourist Guide for the Guilt Trip...Somebody'll have to write that...

Back in the late-seventies-early-eighties, I was wandering around Montréal and happened across a building whose sign proclaimed it as the "Dutch East India Company." So your merchants may still be around, probably trading commodities and bemoaning the price of whatever and Not Speaking of the Ancestors.