Chapter 7
Wie Eegie Sanie

Wie Eegie Sanie (Our own things) is the name of a nationalistic cultural movement founded around 1950 by Surinamese students living in Amsterdam. In the multiracial society of Surinam, it is difficult to determine precisely what ‘our own things’ are. They might be something quite different for the descendants of Javanese immigrants than for maroon descendants in the bush. The name might best be interpreted as the expression of an ideal: we want to have ‘our own things,’ our own Surinamese culture, our own identity as an independent nation. The movement was clearly a reaction against the imposition of the Dutch language and culture. As such it had much in common with the reaction in 1932 of the Martinique students in Paris, who wrote a flamboyant manifesto, Légitime Défense, which might be regarded as the birth of the new cultural ideal centered on the concept of ‘négritude.’1 But compared with Légitime Défense, Wie Eegie Sanie represented a much more balanced reaction. Its spokesmen always stressed their essential openness to influences from other cultures. They even accepted Dutch culture as part of their cultural heritage, but they wanted to shape their own national culture, in which all Surinamese people could participate.

In order to understand this kind of reaction against the language and culture of a colonial power, one has to remember that the typical colonial society lacks an indigenous elite. The most prominent people in the colonial society are those born in Europe, who have a different set of cultural values. But at the same time they function as the colonial elite and therefore exert a normative influence in society. They are followed and imitated by other groups. Acculturation therefore seems an inevitable phenomenon in colonial society.

The generation of Wie Eegie Sanie was raised under these conditions,

and to say that they were greatly encouraged to assimilate to the Dutch way of life is an understatement, as we have already seen. Students with the best results at school (which also means the most acculturated pupils) were given the chance to go to Europe to complete their studies in Holland. There they discovered that their acculturative efforts were not nearly so greatly appreciated as at home. Especially among fellow students the soulless imitation of Western habits was scorned, and non-European behavior was applauded as something new and original. What might have been a reason for pride back home became a badge of shame and disgrace.

Mr. Bruma, explaining the cause of Wie Eegie Sanie in a public speech, goes even further. He considers language and culture as an agreement or civil contract between people. We agree to call a cat ‘cat’ and a dog ‘dog.’ If now these same people are forced to ignore their agreements, they feel themselves guilty of treachery. This makes them unhappy and calls forth resistance. Wie Eegie Sanie tries to free every individual from biases against his own language and cultural values, not in the belief that it is better than any other but that it is equally valuable. This movement teaches self-respect as the essential basis for mutual understanding between different groups.

Vidia Naipaul, comparing the situation in Surinam with that in other West Indian countries, writes:

The Dutch have offered assimiliation but not made it obligatory. This tolerance and understanding of alien cultures is greater than the British, and the very reverse of the French arrogance which makes the French West Indian Islands insupportable for all but the francophile. And one cannot help feeling it unfair that the Dutch should have their own cultural offerings spurned by their former colony. Suriname has come out of Dutch rule as the only truly cosmopolitan territory in the West Indian region. The cosmopolitanism of Trinidad is now fundamentally no more than a matter of race; in Suriname diverse cultures, modified but still distinct, exist side by side. The Indians speak Hindi still; the Javanese live, a little bemused, in their own world, longing in this flat unlovely land for the mountains of Java; the Dutch exist in their self-sufficient Dutchness, the Creoles in their urban Surinam-Dutchness; in the forest along the rivers, the bush-Negroes have re-created Africa (Naipaul 1962:170).

Naipaul may have underestimated the fierce cultural reaction in some French West Indian islands, as shown for example by the group that published Légitime Défense, and by the work of Aimé Césaire

and his contribution to the négritude movement (see Kesteloot 1965). It remains a fact, however, that Wie Eegie Sanie is an exceptional movement, unparalleled in the Caribbean, and for which there is as yet no fully acceptable explanation (but see Voorhoeve and Renselaar 1962).

The language problem has been one of the most important issues in Wie Eegie Sanie. Surinam Creole was regarded as the only true national language because it lacked roots elsewhere. Moreover, it already served the very useful purpose of a contact language between ethnic groups, more so than Dutch or any other indigenous language. So they decided that Creole should become the national language. They started to use Creole on all occasions and indeed succeeded in turning it into a respected language.

One of the most convincing arguments of Wie Eegie Sanie has been the achievements of Creole poetry. Members of Wie Eegie Sanie had started to write poetry in Creole in Amsterdam, and in 1952 the Frisian cultural periodical De Tsjerne devoted a complete issue to the new Creole literature.2 At that time only a few acceptable poems existed in Creole. We reproduce in this chapter some of those first poems. Following chapters will show how rapidly Creole found acceptance as a means of literary expression.

[naar vertaling]

Eddy Bruma

Chr. H. Eersel

Jo Rens

Trefossa

[naar origineel]

Eddy Bruma

Chr. H. Eersel

Jo Rens

Trefossa