ABSTRACT
The manner in which the Dutch decolonisation process was handled is commonly regarded as leaving a lot to be desired. The Netherlands suffered the loss of Indonesia, despite long negotiations and military actions; the intended ‘model decolonisation’ of Suriname was never achieved and the attempts to grant independence to the six islands of the Netherlands Antilles as a whole were in vain. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Kingdom of the Netherlands still includes two Caribbean countries, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba: islands that still feature regularly, and unfortunately, to a large extent, in a negative context in the Dutch media.
