Emile

Around my birthday Emile came into my life. Emile is my great-grandfather. During a meditation I asked the name of a new guide that presented itself: Emile. It took me a minute before I realised this must be my great-grandfather coming to my side.

Some nights later, a dream wakes me up in the middle of the night. The dream features my mother, the granddaughter of Emile, and in the dream she instills guilt of freedom and enjoyment in me. It does not take me long to find the connection. This package of guilt has been handed down from generations and is coming from Emile. I go and have a look.

Emile was born in what is Indonesia today and what was, back then, the Dutch East Indies. I am familiar with my colonial heritage. Even after two generations I was still taught some basic Malaysian and Indonesian. And rice dishes inspired by what our Indonesian “Babu’s” would cook for our families were still part of our family traditions. Paintings of the rice terraces that Emile painted are hanging in my mother’s house to this day.

I always suspected some form of guilt or karma must be connected to this past even though the Dutch where not perceived in a traditional suppressor role historically. So, in the middle of the night, I opened this package of colonial guilt, that my family has been carrying for four generations now.

What I found surprised me. Emile and many around him felt deep guilt. But not for the reasons I had been expecting. They felt guilty for leaving their community behind. They felt they abandoned people. He had left years before the country became independent but my grandmother took one of those famous last boats out, after my grandfather was killed, when the war was already officially over. Most probably he was racially profiled. He was blond you see. And some guerrilla groups wanted all blonds dead or out of Indonesia no matter their affiliation or loyalty at that point. My grandmother, with my infant mother, could go, many others, especially those without the blond hair and fair skin, could not. Many feared their lot would be a life of poverty and social downfall, especially if they where visibly of mixed race.

So there I was in the middle of the night googling away about those final months of colonial rule, the war and what happened to all those Indo’s (people with mixed blood) and Indo born white people. How the percentage of their heritage sometimes decided if they could go to “the motherland”, how missing paperwork could destroy any hope and how the boat trip to the “old land” was so expensive that many couldn’t afford it even if the Dutch government offered a loan in many cases. Even after more than 20 years the Dutch government created an opportunity for people to change nationality and become Dutch and come to The Netherlands. Because so many people regretted not having taken the opportunity before.
So there I was, convinced I must have some package of guilt related to white suppression or exploitation of the indigenous peoples of the colony from my past and my mind is blown. The guilt is about abandonment of people, land and customs, much beloved. About family and friends with skin of a different colour that can’t escape to the land that promises opportunity, prosperity and safety.

How: “I have no right to freedom and joy because my brothers have been denied my opportunities” is carried in my cellular memory.

I have never visited the places of my colonial past, the area of the family house, the grave of my grandfather, those rice fields Emile painted, I have avoided it, the whole of East Asia to be frank. Perhaps the guilt in my cells wouldn’t have been able to cope with any poverty and penury, any reminder of what “we” escaped.

I did not abandon anyone, neither did I decide to live on a land my country declared it’s own, those were decisions my ancestors made, with information and viewpoints much different from my own. But denying ourselves freedom, joy and prosperity because others have not been given that opportunity is not doing a favour to anyone, no matter where you stand in the chain of events.

You don’t get to choose the great churning of the wheels of global events that shape your destiny, but you get to choose who you will be in it. I liberate Emile and all those that came after him to be happy and prosperous, so that when the time comes and he is reincarnated, and he or his posterity have the opportunity, they will lend their brothers and sisters a hand, independent of the colour of their skin or the percentage of heritage in their blood. To live all together in freedom and joy just the way they hoped for back then.

Maybe you or your family have escaped war or poverty by choices or global events. Remember, you are not serving anyone by denying yourself prosperity, freedom, joy or anything else. Whoever has fallen into a destiny less prosperous than your own will be helped by your strength, not your weakness.

Don’t live in guilt for being blond, white or male and straight and don’t close your eyes to the discrimination others face because of their colour, gender or anything else. In order for you to build a longer table you need to prosper.

Copyright Maartje Kreuzen 2019