Читать книгу We Slaves of Suriname - Anton de Kom - Страница 10

We Slaves begins with a poetic ode to Suriname, interlaced with autobiography. This is directly followed by the historical narrative, from the beginnings of colonization to manumission (the release of enslaved people by their “owners”) in 1863, the new wave of immigrants, and, lastly, De Kom’s visit to and banishment from Suriname. It almost seems more like a collection of essays than a well-crafted story, and in a few places, De Kom directly addresses “the white reader,” as if he knows some readers will respond to what they read with skepticism.

What are we to make of this blending of genres and the autobiographical approach? Note how De Kom links the history of slavery in Suriname to his own individual self: “the right to use and abuse one’s living chattels, to buy and sell our fathers and mothers” (p. 54, italics DvO). This turns history into autobiography. In the African-American literary context, the form is practically traditional. Take, for example, W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk (1903), which sheds light on African-American culture from many different angles – history, economics, anthropology, biography, fiction, autobiography, and cultural history – emphasizing each time how the alternative perspective can overturn received ideas. Du Bois underpins every one of his claims with detailed historical accounts and facts. Each chapter is rooted in his now-famous concept of double consciousness: “One ever feels his twoness, – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body” (p. 11).

That same inner struggle, and the rewriting of the experience of double consciousness, come to the fore magnificently in We Slaves. Having grown up with the conventional Dutch history of Suriname as enshrined in the Winkler Prins encyclopedia, De Kom rewrote it by reinterpreting history and fictionalizing it from the perspective of the enslaved Black people. For example, he tells the story of Flora, Séry, and Séry’s daughter Patienta, taken captive on a 1711 expedition. The child is torn from Séry’s arms by “rough white hands.” Séry trembles with fear but “no scream came from her lips; she simply gazed at Ensign Molinay with fire in her eyes and then rose to her feet, displaying her pride to the white soldiers, defying them all without the slightest fear” (p. 95). The story is told from the women’s perspective, with Séry’s gaze fixed on the eyes of the white colonizer, rather than from the point of view of the soldier. Then De Kom quotes a long passage from a classic work of history accepted by scholars as authoritative, J. Wolbers’s Geschiedenis van Suriname (“History of Suriname,” 1861), choosing to italicize some phrases, such as these from a report quoted by Wolbers:

Notwithstanding all the torments with fire and blows, we [Dutch soldiers] were never able to compel her to answer, for notwithstanding all this she remained as stubborn as ever, and by pointing at the sky, grasping a long lock of hair on her head, slapping her mouth with her fingers, and running her hand over her throat, she let us know she would rather have her head cut off than disclose any information, whether by speaking or by pointing the way. (p. 96)

De Kom concludes that in this episode “defenseless Surinamese women fell into the hands of supposedly civilized Dutchmen who murdered them” and concludes with the words, “Brave Séry. Brave Flora. We will always commemorate and honor your names” (p. 97).

This rewriting and reversal of the narrative focus, shifting the center of attention from Molinay’s failed expedition to the women’s heroism, serves a crucial literary purpose. De Kom first situates us in Séry’s perspective, looking through her fiery eyes, and then makes her central to a documentary historical narrative. Instead of being presented with stereotypes of enslaved Black people, we read about named individuals in old, historical Dutch.

In his manifesto of the Harlem Renaissance (The New Negro, 1925), Alain Locke writes that Black authors should portray an African-American as a fully fleshed literary character, and no longer as “more of a formula than a human being” (p. 3). He urges them to avoid stereotypes like those in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in favor of realistic characters that do not let themselves be defined by others but instead define themselves. That is exactly what De Kom does in this passage, presenting the women as the decision-makers, in control of the situation, even though they die.

De Kom employs another literary strategy also found in the work of Du Bois, using white history (such as Wolbers’s work) as documented fact, as evidence for the truth of his own narrative. For example, De Kom keeps insisting that his book gives the “facts.” He repeats this many times: “Once again, we would like to start by presenting a few facts by way of example” (p. 70). This is a rewriting of what is already in the archive.