Murdered Surinamese workers remembered musically

This is a music video from Suriname, with historic photos of Mariënburg plantation workers and their families.

Translated from Starnieuws in Suriname:

07 May, 19:00

The artist Ruben Jitan has a new CD, Bahadoerôn of Marienburg. It contains four songs about the life of the Hindustani immigrants. 24 of the workers were murdered in cold blood on the former plantation in Marienburg, district Commewijne. …

Bahadoerôn stands for heroes and is dedicated to the 24 people who were murdered on the former plantation Mariënburg on July 30, 1902 by Dutch colonial forces.

As I wrote earlier on this blog:

“Well”, said an ex Marienburg worker, “24 is only the number of the mortal victims whose name is known. So, probably more. After the massacre, the dead bodies of the victims were buried in a mass grave. Then, quicklime was thrown over the dead bodies to erase the evidence of the army’s violence. The bodies have never been found again.”

The name Bahadoerôn was chosen because these 24 immigrants fought against the bad treatment which they received from the colonialists then.

…

Jitan sings the four songs. Three of the songs were written by Wilhelmina Ganga and one by Shabie Hussain. He says that in these four songs he sings about love, the difficult living conditions of the ancestors, their struggle for their existence, their identity and about the treatment they received.

Aryan Soewarto

See also here.

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