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Dutch royal 'slave coach' to miss key parade

Dutch King Willem-Alexander's "Golden Coach" will have its return to ceremonial duties postponed after a refit, amid controversy over pictures of slaves on the horse-drawn carriage.

  (Agence France-Presse)
The Hague, Netherlands
Wed, September 9, 2020

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Dutch royal 'slave coach' to miss key parade Dutch King Willem-Alexander (center-right) and Queen Maxima (center) arrive at the Ridderzaal in The Hague, on September 18, 2018. (ANP/AFP/Robin Utrecht)

D

utch King Willem-Alexander's "Golden Coach" will have its return to ceremonial duties postponed after a refit, the government said Monday, amid controversy over pictures of slaves on the horse-drawn carriage.

The opulent coach will go on display in the Amsterdam Museum from June to November next year following the six-year refit, meaning it will miss the annual "Prinsjesdag" (Prince's Day) festivities in September 2021.

The gold-plated teak wood coach has been used by the Dutch royals for around a century for the journey from their palace to parliament in The Hague, traditionally cheered on by thousands of people.

But the Golden Coach has in recent years courted criticism, with detractors saying the paintings on its doors, notably showing black slaves bowing to white masters, glorified Dutch colonial oppression.

The government said the carriage would be on "temporary loan from the Royal Stable Department" to the museum after its costly refit, but did not say whether it would return to ceremonial duties.

The decision comes as the Netherlands faces a reckoning with its history as a colonial and slave-trading power, sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.

Read also: Dutch king may stop using carriage celebrating colonial past

"It's a nice, good step," said Urwin Vyent, director of the Dutch National Institute of Slavery History and Legacy. "The royal family belongs to all of us. It is better to use a carriage that everyone feels comfortable with."

King Willem-Alexander said last year that the controversial panel would not be removed during the repair work, and that the carriage as a whole was "part of Dutch national heritage".

The Golden Coach was given as an inauguration gift to Queen Wilhelmina by the residents of Amsterdam in 1898, and the decorations remain very much of their time.

One of the side panels is called "Tribute to the Colonies" in the Antilles and Suriname, and shows a white woman on a throne surrounded by half-dressed, dark-skinned people bowing before her and laying gifts at her feet.

Jerry Afriyie, the head of the Kick Out Zwarte Piet group which campaigns for the abolition of a Dutch blackface Christmas character, said it was time to retire the Golden Coach.

"The king and queen also have a responsibility towards society. If they do drive (the coach), they will show themselves to be insensitive to this," he said.

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