Social rights in a post-colonial welfare state: Revisiting ‘universality’ and ‘inclusivity’

Exclusion by design (1919–1970)

The development of the Dutch welfare state was spurred by the introduction of ‘universal’ suffrage in 1919 (Hoogenboom, 2003). But this ‘universal’ suffrage only applied to the European part of the Netherlands. Although citizens of Suriname had Dutch nationality, they did not obtain the right to vote in (European-)Dutch elections in 1919; nor was universal suffrage introduced in Surinamese territory. Since 1848, the Dutch constitution had explicitly excluded overseas territories from the civil and political rights that it guaranteed. In Article 2 of the constitution of 1917 this exclusion was formulated as follows:

The constitution is only binding for the Empire (‘het Rijk’) in Europe […]. Where the Empire is mentioned in the following articles, only the Empire in Europe is meant. ⁵

In the European part of the Netherlands, universal suffrage increased the presence of Social Democrats in parliament. Fearing a socialist revolution, the other parties were prepared to support an expansion of social protection (Hoogenboom, 2003). An act mandating a moderate and means-tested disability and old age insurance for employees was passed in 1919, as well as a voluntary old age insurance scheme for non-employees (that is, self-employed, with an income threshold). In line with the Dutch constitution, the new insurances would not cover colonial territory. Dutch citizens living in the colonies were excluded from the social rights introduced in the metropole.

Parliamentary records of the time show almost no discussion of the inclusion/exclusion of colonial citizens, with one telling exception. In the first draft of the new voluntary old-age insurance act (‘ouderdomsverzekering’), eligibility had accidentally been proposed to ‘anybody’ with Dutch nationality. ⁶ This would have included Dutch citizens in the colonies. An MP from the Catholic RKSP party pointed to this ‘technical error’ during the parliamentary debate on the proposed act, remarking that he:

Could not imagine that it was the intention to grant an entitlement to old age pensions to all Dutch subjects in the colonies who had been equated with Dutch nationals [met Nederlanders worden gelijkgesteld] by law […], but who had never set foot in the Netherlands. ⁷

The MP uses a linguistic strategy often used in prejudiced discourse, appealing to the ‘common sense beliefs’ of his audience (Wodak, 2011: 367). Although Surinamese citizens had full Dutch nationality, the MP refers to them as ‘equated with Dutch nationals’ – as if they were not truly Dutch. That these subjects in the colonies would obtain social rights was deemed unimaginable. No one in parliament objected; the MP was thanked for his attentiveness and, without further discussion, ‘anybody’ was replaced by ‘state residents’ which, in line with the constitution, meant residents only of the European part of the Netherlands. Inclusion thus became conditional on Dutch nationality combined with residency in European territory. ⁸

Beyond this, there was no discussion about the inclusion or exclusion of citizens in the colonial territories. We interpret this silence as an indication of a taken-for-granted, racialized undeservingness – that colonial subjects should be excluded from metropolitan social rights, just as they had been denied the political and civil rights enshrined in the Dutch constitution. ⁹ This interpretation is supported by Bot’s analysis of the constitution of the time, with its designer J.R. Thorbecke defending the exclusion of colonial subjects by maintaining that they were fundamentally different from European-Dutch people (Bot, 2022: 3). No disability or old age insurance was introduced in colonial Suriname. The colony was governed by a Governor appointed by the Dutch King, together with a Colonial Chamber (Koloniale Staten) partly appointed by the Governor and partly elected by the two percent of Surinamese citizens who had voting rights ¹⁰ (Oostindie and Klinkers, 2001). The Surinamese public budget was controlled by the government of the Netherlands in Europe. Following the abolition of slavery in 1873, a system of indentured labour by people from colonized territories in British India and the Netherlands East Indies was introduced to replace enslaved workers on the plantations. This system, in place until the 1930s (De Kom, 1934 [2020]), entailed neither labour rights nor social security.

In 1946, one priority of the Catholic/Social Democratic post-war government was to develop a universal old age pension. As negotiations would take a long time, an ‘emergency provision’ was proposed for the elderly who were most in need. This provision confined eligibility to ‘male, as well as […] unmarried female Dutch citizens, who had reached the age of 65 [emphasis added]’ and who lacked other financial means. Eligibility thus depended on nationality as well as residency in European territory. ‘Those who did not have their residency in the empire (het Rijk)’ were ineligible, which constitutionally still meant the European part of the Netherlands. ¹¹ The ministers explained that:

The undersigned believe that they may make a permanent connection with the motherland a condition for obtaining the old-age benefit. Therefore, the draft does not suffice with the requirement of possession of Dutch nationality, but also stipulates that the person concerned must be domiciled in the Netherlands. [Emphasis added]

Only those with a permanent connection to the ‘motherland’, meaning the European part of the Netherlands, were deemed deserving. As in 1919, this was not contested in parliament. We interpret this silence again as an indication of the self-evident exclusion of racialized citizens residing in colonial territories. It is an example of the most effective form of silencing where ‘the silencing process itself, and thus the very existence of [the] excluded […], are also concealed’ (Thiesmeyer, 2003: 2).

Eligibility for pension benefits also depended on ‘having had residency unintermittedly for a period of 6 years […] in the Empire [het Rijk], the Dutch-Indies, Suriname or Curacao’. While residency in the European part of the Netherlands was required for eligibility, one may previously have lived in Suriname (or any other part of the Kingdom). Given the previous emphasis on connection to the ‘motherland’, we tentatively interpret this provision as applying to European (white) Dutch people who had worked in the colonies and then returned to the European part of the Netherlands. Later government remarks support this interpretation, as we show below.

Following the independence war with Indonesia, which lasted from 1945 to 1949, the Dutch government was keen on maintaining good relations with its remaining overseas territories. A series of ‘conferences’ with delegates from the Netherlands, Suriname and the Dutch Antilles were thus organized to negotiate new relationships. This resulted in a Statute for the Kingdom which gave the overseas territories an ‘equal place’ within the Kingdom. It stipulated that each ‘land’ (territory) organizes its own political system and has sovereignty in areas that are only of internal concern (landsaangelegenheden). Only a few areas such as foreign and defence policy remained ‘Kingdom affairs’ on which all territories decide together. A 1954 report of a parliamentary discussion states that ‘many MPs […] thought they could say that the colonial period is over for the parts of the Kingdom in the West.’ ¹²

The Statute did not alter jurisdiction over social policy since overseas territories had never been covered by the social protection developed in the European part of the Netherlands. While the Statute may have given the territories more autonomy to develop their own social policies, this is not discussed in the documents shared with the Dutch parliament, with a single exception: at the last conference meeting, the head of the Antillean delegation declared that the Statute’s adoption ‘will bring the political calm necessary to direct all forces to broadening our country’s economic base and expanding its social provision’. ¹³ The Surinamese delegation did not broach the subject in the documents available in the Dutch parliamentary repository. Nor is there evidence of extensive social provisions subsequently being introduced in Suriname. Much of the contemporary political debate on the pension gap thus revolves around the legitimacy of the Statute: did Surinamese representatives have the negotiating power to make a case for social rights? One present-day activist writes that he felt let down by both the Dutch government (which he accused of deliberate deceit) and Surinamese leaders who ‘failed to protect their rights’ at these negotiations. ¹⁴

Shortly after agreement on the Statute, an act formally establishing universal old age pensions for the European part of the Netherlands (replacing the earlier emergency provision) was proposed in 1955. The act (Algemene Ouderdomswet, AOW), which entered into force in 1957, provided a flat-rate universal old age pension, covering all ‘ingezetenen’, that is, residents of the European part of the Netherlands. ¹⁵ Although only residents with an income would pay contributions, full benefits would be awarded to anyone who had been a resident for 50 years between the ages of 15 and 65. ¹⁶ Even those who had not directly contributed financially – because they had no income, as was the case for most married women at the time – were deemed deserving of social rights if they had lived in European-Dutch territory. Nationality was removed as a criterion for eligibility.

The new old age pension also covered non-resident Dutch nationals working for the Empire (‘het Rijk’). The ministers explained: ‘This provision concerns in particular […] the Governors of the Overseas Territories and the officials assigned to them’, ¹⁷ that is, primarily white European-Dutch citizens working in the colonies. A decade later, when changes were made in the legal text, the responsible ministers emphasized that it was never ‘the intention to bring […] categories of the national [read: non-white] population of Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles under the scope of Dutch national insurance schemes on the sole ground that they are employed by the Central Government in Europe’. ¹⁸ Only a very select group of (white) Dutch nationals were deemed deserving of an exception from the strict residency in European territory requirement due to their ties to ‘the motherland’. As in 1919, the exclusion of colonial territory from the coverage of social rights remained completely uncontested in the deliberations leading to the 1957 public pension act. Possibly, the Statute of the Kingdom that had just been negotiated legitimized this silence, for it had stipulated that social affairs were within the jurisdiction of individual lands, thereby releasing the Dutch parliament from potential responsibilities.

The public old age pension would later be linked to the minimum wage. Since then, those elderly living alone in the European part of the Netherlands receive a pension equal to 70% of the minimum wage, while those who are married or cohabitate each receive 50% of the minimum wage. Most people who were previously engaged in formal employment are also part of a near-mandatory occupational pension scheme, while those with another or no employment history rely entirely on the public pension.

Decolonization and its aftermath: the (non-)issue of social rights (1970–2007)

In the 1970s, a series of protracted negotiations took place between the governments of Suriname, the Netherlands and the Dutch Antilles (all part of the Kingdom at the time) that eventually resulted in Suriname’s independence in 1975. In these negotiations, social rights were marginal compared to the more controversial subjects of migration, nationality and development aid.

The parliamentary records show only one discussion of pension rights, a few months prior to Suriname’s independence. In a letter to President Arron of Suriname, the Dutch minister specified the rights for different groups of public pension beneficiaries. ¹⁹ He stated that for

Those who remain in the Netherlands and retain Dutch nationality […] nothing will change upon the independence of Suriname. They can, like European Dutch citizens, build up a full pension. ²⁰

This discourse of fairness and non-discrimination in the metropole helped conceal the fact that nothing had changed regarding the colonial pension gap. The key residence requirement remained uncontested, and it excluded colonial territories. People would only continue to receive benefits for those years in which they had lived in the European part of the empire. ²¹ Only by paying a voluntary contribution for the years not spent in the European part of the Kingdom could people obtain full benefits. In practice, a 30-year-old moving to the Netherlands in 1974 would have to buy 15 years of pension rights that ‘European-Dutch’ citizens automatically – and in some cases freely – gained. Yet, we found no discussion of this inequality in the parliamentary records, nor further contestation by Surinamese politicians.

On the few occasions when the pension rights of Surinamese-Dutch people were discussed in this period, the discourses of ‘fairness’ and ‘generosity’ served to legitimize the Dutch welfare system. In debates on the 1987 ‘minority policy’ (referring primarily to immigrants from the former colonies and ‘guest workers’ from Turkey and Morocco who arrived in significant numbers in the post-war decades), the state pension was presented as fair and inclusive as all inhabitants of the Netherlands – regardless of nationality, gender or ethnic background – had the same rights. ²² The territoriality principle (eligibility based on 50 years of residence) was praised as non-discriminatory: whoever contributed to the Dutch welfare state received something in return. Politicians did not consider that many of the ‘minorities’ would never make it to 50 years of residence and would have reduced pension benefits in their old age. Nor did debates in this period suggest any awareness of the specific implications of post-colonial migration for people’s pension rights. In the aftermath of decolonization, almost one-third of the Surinamese population (nearly 130,000 people) settled in the Netherlands. They were seen as part of a broader category of ‘foreigners’ and ‘minorities’ rather than as Dutch citizens from other parts of the (former) Kingdom. Politicians spoke of ‘Surinamese’ [Surinamers] until the 1990s despite these citizens’ long-held Dutch citizenship.

Breaking the silence: towards a political questioning of the law (2008–2023)

In the early twenty-first century, many Surinamese-Dutch people reached retirement age and faced a pension gap due to the years they had not resided in the European part of the Netherlands. In 2020, the government estimated that 39,500 Surinamese-Dutch citizens were receiving incomplete benefits. ²³ This figure notably only includes people who spent part of their life in the Netherlands. The government’s calculation followed the territorial logic that self-evidently excludes colonial Suriname: the elderly living in Suriname who never left the country were not thought of as having a pension gap.

After a long period of silence on the subject, left-wing and Christian parties called on the government in 2008 to accommodate former fellow citizens of the empire [rijksgenoten]. While these parties differed in their views on public and private responsibilities, they agreed that the information provided to people in the past was insufficient, reflecting many of the arguments advanced by activists. Since 2017, growing numbers of activists have been contesting the pension gap through petitions, media performances, open letters and exchanges with politicians that show up in the parliamentary records.

The arguments of activists scrutinized the pension gap on different grounds: the legal grounds of exclusionary policies, their legitimacy, and the justness of the outcomes. First, they claimed that former colonial citizens should have the same rights as other Dutch citizens ²⁴ – a point supported by the use of the term ‘het Rijk’ in the original public pension act. While the constitution stipulates that the legal term refers to the European part of the Netherlands, the literal translation of the term is ‘the Empire’. Activists thus argued that ex-colonial citizens were denied the rights the legal order should have granted them. ²⁵ These arguments have been rejected by Dutch courts, which ruled that citizens outside the European part of the Netherlands were never entitled to public pension benefits as social rights were the responsibility of individual countries within the Kingdom.

The position maintained by the Dutch government and most politicians until 2020 was: the law [of 1957] is the law that we implement and we do not question it. In this they were following the advice of the Council of State (an advisory body on legislation that also acts as the country’s highest administrative court), which concluded that there is no legal basis for reparation. ²⁶ It reasoned that the Dutch state was not responsible for ex-colonial citizens from Suriname as the Surinamese government was responsible for the social citizenship of its inhabitants. Reparation would pose financial risks for the Netherlands and set a dangerous precedent. The Council of State also claimed that the most distressing cases of poverty due to the pension gap were sufficiently addressed through the options of applying for additional means-tested benefits. ²⁷

In opposition to this more narrow legal perspective, activists have disputed the legitimacy of excluding ex-colonial citizens by examining the conditions under which the law was drafted. They pointed at the historical normalization of racism, a term that most Dutch politicians tend to avoid:

In 1957, a small number of white Dutch people lived in Suriname. That was the reason for the Netherlands to underhandedly ensure, when the AOW [public pension act] was introduced, that the residents of Suriname would not claim AOW. It was not a money issue. The Netherlands was and is a rich country. The government leaders of the 1950s regarded black people in Suriname and the Netherlands as inferior. ²⁸

Activists also challenged dominant political narratives by questioning the equality that the Statute of 1954 was supposed to ensure between the ‘autonomous’ countries of the Kingdom. The activist in the above passage remains suspicious of how Suriname became responsible for its own welfare system, which effectively excluded the Surinamese population from the growing welfare system in the wealthier metropole. The passage also reveals the tensions between constructions of autonomy which the leaders of Suriname were striving for (Oostindie and Klinkers, 2001) and holding the Netherlands responsible for enduring inequalities between the colonies and the metropole (Pronk, 2020). The post-colonial lens employed in activist discourse sheds new light on understandings of ‘contributions’ and ‘deservingness’ in welfare states. Looking at the centuries-long exploitation of land and people in Europe’s colonies, it can be argued that formerly colonized citizens are par excellence entitled to Dutch welfare benefits (Bhambra, 2022b). Activist groups saw the pension gap as a great material and symbolic injustice, as a continuation of second-class citizenship. They thus sought to delegitimize the political silence that concealed the long-shared past in the Kingdom of the Netherlands and that framed the Surinamese as any other group of ‘immigrants’. ²⁹ Activist discourse sought to re-frame the pension gap as a reflection of colonial and racist citizenship hierarchies, which scholars have also pointed out (Bhambra, 2022b: 74):

Only those who can demonstrate historical belonging to the nation are deemed to be legitimate beneficiaries of welfare entitlements. Others, with a history of belonging to the wider political community of empire which contributed to the resources of the nation, are presented as being outside the ‘web of generalized reciprocity’ and therefore without claim or entitlement.

The main activist demand has remained consistent over the years: the Dutch government should count the years that people resided in the non-European parts of the Kingdom (until independence) as years of residence in the Netherlands. In this way, the ex-colonial elderly would receive the same amount of money as Dutch citizens who had lived all their lives along the North Sea. Most of this activist claims-making has focused on fighting pension inequality for elderly people living in the Netherlands and not in Suriname. We interpret this not as a lack of transnational solidarity per se, but as a pragmatic choice by activists in light of the (initial) resistance in Dutch politics.

Since 2020, we see clear growth in parliamentary support for reparation of the pension gap for ex-colonial elderly people. A 2021 expert advisory report, requested by the government, provided crucial input into the debate. ³⁰ Activist claims were widely present in the report and now increasingly feature in parliamentary debates. Sylvana Simons, the first Black woman leading a Dutch political party, also of Surinamese background, issued a motion questioning the current inequality:

The pension gap was caused by the fact that, during colonial rule, inhabitants of the Kingdom in Suriname were not recognized by law as residents of the empire [‘Rijk’], but such recognition was an important condition for the fundamental rights of Dutch citizens, including the right to pension benefits. ³¹

Other parliamentary voices have also been calling for changes in policy in line with the claims of Surinamese-Dutch activists. Many parties are no longer content with the government’s stance that there is no legal necessity for reparation and have challenged the dogma of ‘the law is the law’. D66, a progressive liberal party, considers the status quo ‘unjust’. 50PLUS, a party representing the elderly, goes further, stating that ‘the letter of the law does not equal the spirit of the law’. ³²

In 2023, the government decided to grant a specific group of Surinamese-Dutch elderly people a one-time compensation of up to €5,000 for lost income due to the pension gap. The compensation was presented as a gesture to a group of elderly people who ‘every day carry a great and long-lasting sense of injustice with them’. ³³ The amount hardly compensates for real missed income, which could easily be as much as €80,000 (own calculations). It is a recognition but no reparation, for empire and its relations of extraction are not accounted for (Bhambra, 2022b), nor are equal social rights retrospectively granted to former colonial citizens. However, political discourse has changed over the past few years, with prominent politicians publicly reflecting on the impact and continuities of the colonial past. On the occasion of the National Remembrance of Slavery in 2023, the Dutch King apologized for his ancestors’ involvement in the slavery system. ‘They acted within the framework of what was permitted by law’, the King stated, adding that ‘you cannot always listen to the law of the time. At some point comes the moral duty to act.’ ³⁴ While these statements suggest a move away from official silence towards a post-colonial questioning of laws and responsibilities, it remains unclear what they mean in practice for tackling enduring inequalities.