The well-attended live magazine in collaboration with Museum Bronbeek, on Saturday 26 October, offered a varied programme including a mini-lecture by Fridus Steijlen on how the emancipation of Moluccan women was given an early impetus through women’s participation in the Gerakan Pattimura, a progressive Moluccan youth organisation. The position of women was not the only theme within the organisation; so was the question of how Moluccan cultural values could be preserved. Partly for that reason, Dutch women married to Moluccan men were also admitted to the movement, so that cultural values would not be lost in these mixed families.
-
-
-
-
-
-
During the programme Francy Tomatala, Dinah Marijanan and her daughter Rachelle looked at the history and the future of the emancipation of Moluccan women in the Netherlands. In their view that emancipation has taken a great deal of effort, but the new generation of Moluccan women is increasingly self-assured while remaining loyal to its origins.
The programme also gave the floor to two women who married Moluccan men in the 1950s and 1960s. In ‘Help, my husband is Moluccan!’ Annie Matulessy from Brabant and Hilly Tuhuteru from Drenthe talked about how both sides tried to adapt to the norms and values of the time. Or as Annie Matulessy put it: “In the camp (Lunetten) my children were lighter-skinned than the others. When we moved, the children were again among the few with a dark appearance.”
-
-
Lenie Wenno-Sapulette, author of ‘Het kookboek van Malukufood’, also spoke about how in the early 1950s, just after arrival, people had to adapt in culinary terms because not everything was available yet. At the same time food was a comfort, and cooking together on special occasions created a social bond across all layers and generations of the Moluccan community. Right up to the present day.
The day closed with a poem as an ode to all women, delivered by author Coby Nuruwé. She will shortly publish her new book ‘Ibu’, a collection of poems and thoughts on motherhood.
(photos 1 to 6: Elles Tuhusula; photos 7 and 8: Ating Ririassa)
-
-
With thanks to Museum Bronbeek!
