Today, December 5, is Sinterklaas Day in the Netherlands.
It brings back many fond memories, but also prompts many questions.
The very last Sinterklaas I enjoyed in the Netherlands was in the winter of 1956, on the eve of my departure to America.
One final time I would watch St. Nicholas arrive by steamboat from Spain or from some far-off, exotic land. He would get on a splendid white horse and, surrounded by his helpers, the minstrel-like Zwarte Pieten (“Black Petes”), he would visit children throughout the land.
Sinterklaas represents a centuries-old tradition and marks the start of joyful celebrations all over the country. To this day, it is the most anticipated children’s feast in the Netherlands.
Henceforth, Santa Claus would visit me on December 25, dressed in a different outfit, arriving on a sleigh filled with toys, pulled by Dasher and Dancer and other reindeer, including, some say, Rudolph
As a “grown-up” sixteen-year-old, I did not necessarily believe all the legend surrounding the bishop Saint Nicholas and his blackface Zwarte Pieten knechten (servants). Not the part where Sinterklaas and his helpers would leave only a lump of coal for those children who had not been good and especially not the part where de Zwarte Pieten would stuff kids who had been “naughty and bad” into their burlap sacks and haul them back to Spain, or Morocco, or Turkey, or wherever folklore had it that the Zwarte Pieten came from.
Having been a good kid throughout the year, I looked forward to the gifts that Sinterklaas would surely bring me, especially that huge chocolate letter “D” (for “Dorian”), a treat that that would take most people a week to eat, but I would devour in a single day.
I was innocent enough then – and I believe most Dutch people were, as well – that I did not see anything racist or improper in painting black faces and bright-red lips on white Dutch faces, topped off with lots of frizzy black hair and adorned with large, gold earrings.
But times, beliefs, and attitudes change.
Since the 2010s, serious controversies have surfaced regarding the propriety of the Zwarte Piet tradition in the Netherlands.
Dutch human rights groups, activists, news media, city governments, politicians and courts – even the United Nations – have become involved, claiming or denying that the Zwarte Piet tradition is offensive to black people or that it perpetuates a negative stereotype of them. The Netherlands’ colonial past has loomed large over the debate.
Eight years ago, recalling those innocent days of the 1950s, I asked in an article, “Dutch ‘Zwarte Piet’: Innocent Holiday Tradition or Inadvertent Racism?”
I wrote, “Many Dutch see this custom as the continuation of a beloved and innocent holiday tradition and point to the historic tolerant nature of the Dutch toward minorities.”
And concluded:
The Dutch are very pragmatic (and tolerant) people, and I am sure they will sensibly debate this custom before it evolves from inadvertent offensiveness into knowing and stubborn stereotyping of black people.
Today, it would be incorrect to claim that the Dutch have reached consensus on the propriety of continuing this contentious tradition.
In recent years, the tradition has given rise to a growing number of protests, confrontations and even violence on the streets.
After pro- and anti-Zwarte Piet protests spread across the Netherlands in 2018, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte blamed the violence on “extremists on both sides.”
Some cities, schools, companies, and groups have phased blackface out of their celebrations.
In many places, Zwarte Piet has become Schoorstein Piet (“Chimney Pete”) with just soot smudges on his or her face (from scaling down the chimneys) and without the full red lips and gaudy earrings.
In 2020, the same Prime Minister who had blamed the violence “on both sides” stated that while it is not the government’s job to force people to change (on the Zwarte Piet issue), his own perspective had undergone major changes and that causing people “with dark skins” to feel discriminated “…is the last thing that we want during the Sinterklaas celebrations.”
But perhaps most surprising and encouraging for the future are the results of a survey conducted by I&O Research less than a month ago.
The survey found that support for a “traditional” Zwarte Piet has gradually decreased during the past six years across all age groups, most significantly among those in the 18-to-34-year-old demographic.
While one year ago support among those in this group was 34 percent, this year it is down to only 19 percent.
The O&I survey report notes that while many young, native Dutch people find the Sinterklaas festivities nice, they believe that the Zwarte Piet tradition no longer fits our times and must change or be done away with.
That is good news. However, although I have expressed some judgment on this matter, I hasten to add that those of us who live in glass houses – even if separated by an ocean — shouldn’t rush to throw stones.
