This, then, was Surinam, a fertile agrarian country the Dutch traded for rocky Manhattan, purchased by the English from our red men for us$24,- in green stamps or the 17th century equivalent acountry with a current population of some 325,000 people, the least of whom are a handful (2%) of their red men, Amerindian. From open windows come the songs of India and over the blaring taxi radios, American rhythm and blues- and Nina Simone’s Mississippi, Goddam! Vlnr: Anita Chang, 21 Chinese Grace Karamat Ali, 19, Hindustani Rinia Roethof, 20, Creole Yoke de Haas, 16 Dutch Ingrid Mitrasing, 19, Hindustani.Ī Creole farm woman living in the districts, teaches Dutch to an English-speaking Amerindian neighbor lawyers enhance their cases with Martin Luther King’s I Had A Dream a Chinese celebration attracts black, white and brown guests as well as yellow. A “Miss Ebony” contest is held at their request.ġ965 winner, Anita van Eyck, 18, a KLM ground hostess, is typical light-skinned Surinamer. Her mother is Jewish, father Portuguese.īrown beauties like model and schoolteacher Gladys Brouwn, 18, have never won “Miss Surinam” title. “Miss Surinam” of 1966 was Linda Hasselhoef, 17, clerk in the draft department of banking company. with a three-hour break for lunch, but for government workers who quit at 2, there is no afternoon. With nearly a hundred years of free and compulsory education, illiteracy is an estimated five percent. Dutch is the nationality and the official language, although the vernacular Sranang Tongo, or talki-talki, is more universally used. The annual rainfall is 88 inches, currency, the Surinam guilder humidity (81%) illegitimacy (34%) unusually high. Bicycles (45.000 of them) weave precariously in and out of lefthand horse, motor traffic through the narrow streets of Paramaribo, the capital city no stranger can pronounce. Ocean-going ore vessels ply the deep rivers that slice through jungles covering 80 per cent of the land. I found a small tropical country throbbing with life, brilliant with the colors of nature, a rainbow of people whose bloods and lives are hopelessly and handsomely intertwined. I also went to Surinam in search of Eldorado, one rich in human values, not silver and gold. Much better known as Dutch Guiana, it was discovered exactly 300 years ago by Alonzo de Ojeda, a Spanish conquistador in search of Eldorado, fabled city of riches.Įuropean-Chinese Maryika Schneider, 22, Torarica Hotel Receptionist, has Dutch-German-English-French father and Surinam-born Chinese mother. There are less than 5,000 Europeans in Surinam, 400 Americans including one Negro family. “We don’t want to fight with our brothers with whom we were born, played and lived together.” Seven-and-a-half-hours as the jets fly from New York, tucked inconspicuously between French Guiana and Guyana on the northeast coast of South America is Surinam. Lachmon, Hindustani chairman of parliament. “Guyana is an example of what not to do if we would preserve the country we all love,” says Mr. Sounds of dissension, they hope, are so much propaganda in an election year, for the stakes are too high and their leaders too wise to let politically inspired prejudices destroy them. Optical clerk in Paramaribo hospital, wears modified kottomissie, slave dress revived as national Creole costume for holiday wear. Anjisa, or hat, can be tied in various ways to convey messages, express mood.Ĭonscious of the bloody riots that flared between the same two groups in neighboring Guyana, Surinamers now stand at the crossroads, pondering which path they will take the one leading to racial revolt or continue as a multiracial society and an example for the world?Įven the 45 admit that a Guyana situation is possible- but not probable. With the coming election, Surinam’s racial paradise is threatened by a power struggle between the two dominant groups: the Creoles, mixed blood (no matter how dark) descendants of African slaves who head that bauxite-rich nation, and Hindustanis, the east Indian descendants of contract laborers who have passed the Creoles economically, are catching up with them educationally and overtaking them numerically. Don’t all of the people live together in harmony?” “Yes.” “Wouldn’t you call that unique in a world torn by racial strife?” “Perhaps so,” mused the man who takes his way of life for granted.įorty-five of the next 50 people I interviewed agreed that they live in a peaceful coexistence under a flag made up of five stars representing the five races of mankind that in Suriname, East meets West and the twain is an elliptical orbit on the flag joining the stars together. “Isn’t Suriname a multiracial country?” I asked. “Why come here for a story?” queried the sixth ‘Black Dutchman’ I met. Surinam: Multiracial Paradise At The Crossroads
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