I made this blogpost more than a decade ago regarding my views about my country of origin Surinam. This was back in 2012. What I noticed back then was the hegemony of China on the daily lives of the Surinamese people. They had taken over everything in terms of business and industry. Not with force, but with debt, 4 billion of dept. Debt to also keep former coup leader-turned druglord-turned president Bouterse in power.
After my recent trip in 2022 I noticed the same but to a lesser degree, as now illegal settlers from mostly Brazil and Jamaica have taken over. Mining for gold in the pristine Amazon rainforest, destroying it’s eco system to the core.
As I’m more of a visual artist than a writer, my political views will be better expressed by visual means. This image here is me trying to do just that, it’s a crude generalisation of my views regarding my country of origin, Surinam.
It represents a flag consisting of 3 parts; the big red stain is China, then Surinam and emerging beneath the tear is the Dutch flag. What I’m trying to show here is that China is economically exploiting Surinam while it’s former colonizer, the Netherlands, is the very fabric keeping the country from falling apart.
So a former colony fought off it’s colonizer while still being largely dependent on it, which is now again being colonized once again by a new superpower because they still can’t manage on their own. See the irony ?