Action group ‘Heroes of Never’ sprayed paint on statues and buildings in Rotterdam last night. There are red handprints on the facade of a building on the Witte de Withstraat. The statue of Piet Hein in Rotterdam-Delfshaven contains the words ‘killer’ and ‘thief’.
The action group writes in a statement that the red hands are for the colonial violence of Witte de With, a 17th-century seafarer who, among other things, led expeditions in the Dutch East Indies.
The group is against the glorification of the period in which the Netherlands founded colonies, traded slaves and robbed art and want “wrongful heroes”, such as Piet Hein, to be rejected. “The robbery killer statue is a shameless display of colonial nostalgia.”
The red hands were sprayed on the building of Kunstkwartier Rotterdam. In 2017 there was already a discussion about a name change for the art center, but that has not happened yet, can be read at Rijnmond.
‘Extremely sorry’
Minister Van Engelshoven of Culture calls the defacing of images “extremely regrettable”. Prior to the Council of Ministers, she said she does not support the reversal of images as happens in some countries. “That does not help in conducting the discussion.”
“You cannot erase history by removing an image,” Van Engelshoven continued. “We just have to make sure that that history becomes all of us.”
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