Perception of Dutch society towards statues of colonial past. A discourse analysis of news articles

Various acts against statues of historical figures have created a discussion about how Dutch society should deal with heritage and works of art which carry a story that glorifies dark pages of a nation's colonial history. Moreover, since the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020, the tensions between different groups in society have been increasing. The urgency to find a solution regarding controversial statues is therefore also increasing. As there are various stakeholders with different ideas on how to conserve (or not conserve) controversial statues, this research aims to get a grasp of the various positions in the debate by answering the following research question: How are statues which are connected to national colonial histories looked upon by various stakeholders and how should these be preserved by Dutch society, according to the current dominant discourses in news articles? The research question will be answered properly through a discourse analysis on a set of news articles published by Dutch news outlets between 25 May 2020 – the day George Floyd died – and 1 March 2021. News articles are used as these are seen as the building blocks of public debates. First, it is found that academics, politicians and passers-by are heard most often in the articles reviewed. On the contrary, protestors are barely asked to shed their light on the events occurring. In addition, if protestors are heard, their ideas are reported as the secondary definition. Moreover, from the articles analysed, eight different repertoires are distinguished: (1) the nationalists; (2) the trivialists; (3) the relativist; (4) the pragmatic contextualist; (5) the idealistic contextualist; (6) the artistic defacers; (7) the museologists and (8) the radical anticolonialist. The earlier three repertoires are a part of the colonial discourse, while the latter five are embedded in the post-colonial discourse. From the colonial discourse, it is argued that no changes should be made towards the statues, for different reasons represented by the three repertoires. However, from the post-colonial discourse, it is advocated that the public sphere should change, reasoned from more or less radical repertoires on how this should be done. This post-colonial discourse is the dominant position in the public debate. However, from this discourse, the modest repertoires are most widely represented.