How does a former colonial power deal with its colonial past, generations after the loss of empire? This is the central question in this chapter on the remembrance of colonialism in the Netherlands. The following is not an analysis of recent historiography rather the focus is on public history. What changed in the ways the colonial past was discussed in the public arena, if at all, and what changes in society contributed to such changes? Of course, decolonization mattered, as did globalization. But the specific thesis underlying this contribution is that the formation of post-colonial migrant communities in the Netherlands was fundamental to the ways in which colonial history was inserted in the national ‘canon’ of history.

The decolonization of the Dutch colonial empire proceeded unevenly and with highly divergent results in Indonesia and the Caribbean. In all cases, decolonization sparked substantial migrations to the metropolis. Today, the highly diverse post-colonial communities in the Netherlands number over one million Dutch in a total population of 16.5 million. The resultant post-colonial communities enacted a strong and often contradictory impact on the ways colonialism and decolonization are remembered in post-colonial Netherlands. The chapter proposes that post-colonial identity politics and the urge for recognition in the national ‘memory culture’ may be understood as an indication not only of frustration over a painful (post)colonial past, but equally of successful integration and in some ways as an attempt to cling to a fading ‘colonial’, pre-migration identity. Some of this is typical of post-colonial communities and identity politics elsewhere in Western Europe and beyond, some is typical of the Dutch case.

Decolonization and post-colonial migrations to the Netherlands

On the eve of World War II, the Dutch colonial empire consisted of one huge colony – the Indonesian archipelago – and two tiny ones in the Caribbean. An enormous demographic disparity characterized this empire.