When it comes to law, regulations and advocacy too many times individuals, groups, organizations and businesses that support or are African descendants are under-informed, under-represented and under-funded. It is a direct effect from the hundreds and hundreds of years that our people, culture and humanity was systematically abused, eroded and destroyed. When we do get advocates who could support us, they usually cannot afford to choose sides. Their business will often not be economically sustainable for too long if and when they exclude the dominant demographic as their clients.
The Study Group BV v Adyen NV
Currently, TBF is helping a small BIPOC company in the Netherlands The Study Group BV, with their Unfair Trade Practices case against Adyen NV., a Dutch Fin.Tech, a well-known payment platform. This public multinational company has allegedly not abided by the standards of Good Trade Practices, but quite arrogantly assumes that they are untouchable and hence refuses to admit to their administrative and legal errors in their management. This has resulted in a David against Goliath situation where since October 2023, TBF is involved. Through the 1st Caribbean Congress om September 2023 in Theater Zuidplein in Rotterdam, with Keynote speaker Dr. Umar Ifatunde Johnson, we were able to broaden our network.
You can read one of the entries of the blog of The Study Group by clicking on the following link:
Advocacy in action – TQTB (thequickandthebrave.com)https://www.thequickandthebrave.com/blog-advocacy-in-action/
It has a total of almost 30 chapters that function as a case study for those who want to learn from other people’s mistakes. In this case, Adyen NV made an undeniable mistake, to treat a back owned business as a 2nd class business, by not extending the same rights to them as United Nations and European Union principles and regulations stipulate. However, if there is no national enforcement of international laws, Dutch entrepreneurs will again imagine themselves Pirates of the Corporate world as was the case during the Trans Atlantic Slave trade. This blog falls under the protection of the Dutch Whistleblower Protection Act, that was last updated on February 18th 2023, now including almost anyone who has a socially important matter of mall practice to expose.
Defender of the People
The BEULAH Foundation (hereafter: TBF) is working on changing that within the Dutch Kingdom. Founding member of TBF, Gisele Sint Jago, had been working in education for more than two decades, when she decided to start studying law:
“The main reason why I decided to study law, was to understand the legal lingo and procedures better. Turns out, it is an actual armor. Knowledge of law helps you to understand how the Government and judicial system works, how to use it as a defense mechanism against injustice and how to maneuver in our society, whether you are the client, consumer or the entrepreneur. It provides you of the tools to act on and further liberate your mind from mental slavery, if you so choose to.”
Founder
Sint Jago was born in Curacao in 1968, raised in Holland since 1975 and remigrated to one of the six Caribbean Islands that are still colonized by the Dutch in 2004. “My parents Marcelino Wilson Sint Jago r.i.p., and Beulah Delenita Philips, r.i.p., were born in Bonaire and Saint Martin. Soon thereafter, in or around the year 1936, both my paternal and maternal grandfathers moved their family to Aruba to work at the Lago-refinery in San Nicolas, where they lived, worked and raised their families until they retired. The love for the wellbeing and my loyalty towards the people of our Caribbean Islands is literally embedded in my genes.
Activism
On January 31st 2023 I was invited to attend a special lecture that was organized for Princess Amalia at the University of Aruba, where she is a Master of Laws student. The King and Queen of the Dutch Kingdom, the Governor of Aruba were also present. The Secret Service, Press, UA staff and her peers were all present. Though the royals also visited the highschool she was working at on the day before, she knew that the right place to express her discontentment with the way the apology for the atrocities of the Dutch Trans Atlantic Slaverypast, needed to be addressed.
TBF was also against the date of the apology by the Dutch State from the minute it was announced on November 3rd 2023, because of the fact that we as a people were, against, not heard nor listened to. The Dutch Government refrained from an official State-General (hereafter: SG) response on the report “Chains of the Past”, the final report on Dutch Slave History, for a period of 17 months and 18 days. As a comparison, the SG replied officially to the report about the ‘Child Allowance Affair‘ within 29 days, and the SG’s official reply to the report on the Decolonization War between the Netherlands and Indonesia, from 1945-1950, was carried out on the same day! As always, the Netherlands did what suited their agenda and did not extend equal treatment to our Afro-Dutch demographic in that process, though article one of the Dutch Constitution states that under equal circumstances equal treatment should be provided. I responded to the apology by giving an interview with the press in Curacao on december 23rd, On January 8th 2023, I wrote an extensive letter with my grievances and evidence to sustain my arguments to the State-office of the SG and the standing committee for Internal Affairs and Kingdom Relations (hereafter: committee). I received a standard reply from both, but was in fact dismissed.
Protest
A couple of days later, I received the letter from the University that I was selected to attend the special lecture on the 31st, but that the topic and program was still to be announced. It wasn’t until around the 18th of January that I started to hear the buzz through the grapevine about the King, Queen and Heir visiting our Islands.
It wasn’t until the 27th of January, after seeing the callousness with which the Prime Minister disregarded the request to put into law that Slavery was a Crime against Humanity, that I decided that I had to make a decision… was I going to remain silent about the fact that our opinion, advice and our voices are still not heard, or do I protest. And if I protest, how do I protest. I had three options: 1. Attend the ceremony and then speak with the press afterwards. 2. Decline the invitation as a form protest. 3. Speak up in the name of all our enslaved African ancestors, who never even had the chance to lay their eyes upon the Royals, Nobility and Admirals who decided on their fate.
I obviously chose the latter. Spent my weekend doing further research to write the Manifest and the rest is history.
It wasn’t until much later, that I understood what the agenda was to choose the date of the 19th:
- 10 year anniversary in 2023 as King of the Netherlands
- Visit of the Royal family to the Caribbean
- Protests against Duke and Duchess of England
- UN Universal Periodic Review, deadline of March 24th
It makes perfect sense to create the best conditions for the periodic report and for the royal visit, but if the report on Dutch slavery had been attended to with the same due diligence as the other reports, there would have been at least 16 months for everyone to do research, form their opinion and get an opportunity to actually be heard. Hence, if that is not what you want, you leave the report in a drawer for over a year and a half.
Gisele Sint Jago, LL.B., B.Ed.
