3rd of October 1795 was the day the Dutch chose to have Tula and the rest of our liberation warriors executed after they revolted against the Dutch slavery system on the 17th of August.
I first learned about this some years ago from Joceline Clemencia during one of her interviews. I was a bit ashamed to not be aware of the physical dissappearance of our heroes. At times fogged by daily life I have forgotten to honour this day to the lives of our ancestors who valued sacrifice over submission but its process and step by step I’m learning to remember and commemorate.
One of the main reasons you forget about the killings of our freedom fighting warriors easily is because we have a cultural self-esteem deficient media. Sunday is the only time a few hours are dedicated to our rich culture. Elia Isenia is one of them and Glen Thomas once a while.
I would pay good money to hear a radio documentary about how exactly Tula and his thoroughbred warriors were confronted with death. I guess the intellectuals that organize 3rd of October as a day of solemn remembrance with a march starting from Fort Amsterdam the governors palace to Rif where the bodies were dumped in the sea never thought of this idea yet.
The new emancipation minded government also dissappointed by not giving this historic date any attention and they have the authority to do a national broadcast of one hour per day.
Eyebrows raised why during moments of vanglorious emancipatory the minister of education, culture, sports and science Mr. Lionel Janssen refuses to use this hour to spread the message about our heroes?
Could it be he lacking a cultural connection or is being doubtful of the educative value the root of this grave disrespect?
We accostumed the previous government grinding soullessly their cultural ignorance to uplift Dutch values like Queens Day but many of us expected a change to rename a school from Peter Stuyvesant to Dr. Alejandro Paula is not enough.
You need to incorporate that freedom fighting theory and practice into your school curriculum. It means breathe life into your political sweet talking words and verbs.
Same fact flavouring for our highly influential intellectuals who desire to rehabilitate Tula. If a group effort to fund one hour for tv/radio or two print pages in one/two of our newspapers remains unsuccessful there must be something so ridiculously wrong to remain in the realms of incapability of putting a little spotlight on the history of Tula on the 3rd of October.
Really if a Dutch European lady like Els Langefeld manages to publish one article a month about life of the enslaved in Curacao (which by the way if you agree or not with its content should be translated to Papiamentu) this clan of prominent cultural historic thinkers could smoothly arrange this every week without any problem.
Media owners don’t see the potential in history or culture. Last week we had culture week. The next one is next year, Tula, culture is not bringing any advertising money. Politics, breaking news broadcasts is.
Don’t you all think the younger and new generation hasn’t suffered enough of cultural education sabotage?
Triunfo di Sablika 