On 26 September 2006, Erna Brodber was presented with the Prince Claus Award by His Excellency, Ambassador Wieck Wildeboer, who had travelled from Cuba to Jamaica for the ceremony.
A tribute was read by Carolyn Allen, the director of the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative and Performing Arts in Jamaica. The Minister of Tourism, Entertainment and Culture, His Excellency Aloun Ndombet Assamba, also used the occasion to emphasise the importance of Jamaican culture for developing the country’s tourism.
This was followed by a speech by Erna Brodber: “(…) So, two hundred years after the 1807 end of the trade which brought me to the auction block in Jamaica, Prince Claus of the Netherlands is helping me to reclaim my reputation! This for me is reparations. Give thanks! ‘There is a natural mystic flowing through the air.’ Indeed! As the Dutch showed the others the value of the sugar cane, which knowledge brought me here, may they also show the others the value of reparations, so that I can continue to stand honourably here. Let the natural mystic flow from reparations to reconciliation, for old world and new, black people and white, Africa and her Diaspora. Our relationships have been adversely affected by the sugar cane and the trade it spawned. We need to face each other, to reason together and together to blow the bad feelings away.”
