Albert Heijn has apologized for an advertisement that responds to the ‘broccoli hype’ around the Dutch Eurovision song. “It was never the intention to offend anyone,” the supermarket chain said in a response the AD.
Last week there was a commotion within the Surinam-Dutch community about the advertisement, which referred with a broccoli joke to the Surinamese phrase ‘Yu no man broko mi’ in the song Birth Of A New Age from singer Jeangu Macrooy.
For many Dutch people the phrase in Srananongo ‘Yu no man broko mi’ sounds like ‘just do broccoli’. The literal meaning of the Surinamese saying is: ‘No one can break me’, which refers to the slavery era.
Slavery era
According to Mitchell Esajas, chairman of The Black Archives, the supermarket chain jokingly ignores the meaning of the song. “It is a pity that a company like Albert Heijn makes jokes about something important in Surinamese culture out of commercial interests,” he told the NOS.
Sranantongo originated in early colonial Suriname as a means of communication between African peoples. When the Netherlands began to attach increasing importance to the overseas territory, the Dutch language became dominant and Sranantongo was banned.
“Sranan has been banned for a long time,” said Esajas. “The song and video clip have a certain cultural significance and it is therefore very nice that there is room for this on the stage of the Eurovision Song Contest.”
‘Mama apple juice’
Albert Heijn apologizes and has since removed the post from all channels. “Albert Heijn more often responds to current affairs. We saw that in this song something different was heard than intended (a ‘mama apple juice’) and responded with a wink”, the chain told the AD.
Jeangu Macrooy, born in Suriname, will be in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Ahoy on Saturday 22 May. Macrooy wrote the song first Grow for the Dutch entry, but when the show was canceled due to the pandemic last year, he made a new song: Birth Of A New Age.
That sounds like this:
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