Dept of International Development

Author: Marie Geurtz – International Peacebuilding, Security and Development Practice programme participant

In many countries Christmas is the main holiday in December, but having grown up in the Netherlands there is one festivity that I associate with December much more: Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas is a fictionalised version of a 3^rd century bishop. On November 18^th 2023, Sinterklaas- or Saint Nicholas- arrived in the Netherlands on his steamboat once again. His arrival is a huge production every year, all towns, no matter how big or small, manage to drum up some volunteers to dress up as Saint Nicholas and his helpers. They arrive on a steamboat after which they parade through the town, handing out candy to everyone. From the moment of his arrival until his exit on December 6^th, the whole country is celebrating. Saint Nicholas and his helpers visit schools to hand out candy; kids leave their shoes in front of the chimney, sing a song in honour of the Saint and the next day their shoes are filled up with little presents or sweets. All this culminates in Pakjesavond on the evening of December 5^th, when Saint Nicholas goes by every house and leaves presents at the front door, which families then unpack together, similar to Christmas morning in many other countries.

I remember one year, when I was about 5 years old, I went to the parade in honour of Saint Nicholas’ arrival with my mom. I got so excited that I ran through the entire crowd in order to catch a glimpse of Saint Nicholas’ red coat and mitre. When I tried to get back to my mom, I realised that I was lost. In my memory, I was lost for hours but for the sake of accuracy, I should mention that I was walking around aimlessly for maybe ten minutes before one of the Saint’s helpers found me. He calmed me down as I was quite distraught at this point, put me on his shoulders and brought me back to my mom. Ever since, I have a more positive association with the helpers than with Nicholas himself. Now that it is around that time of the year again, my thoughts dwell on Sinterklaas, and what the celebration tells us about Dutch society, norms and values.

Helpers or servants?

The helpers are a big part of the holiday, but up until this point I have purposely omitted their name, because it reveals the true nature of the Sinterklaas festivities. They are known as Zwarte Pieten (Black Pete) and are dressed up in Moorish clothing and blackface. The predominantly white actors paint their faces black and put on black curly wigs and bright red lipstick as they slip into the role of the Saint’s helper. Even using the word helper here is not very accurate, since a better translation of the Dutch word Knecht, which the Black Pete’s are called, would be servant. Dutch children therefore grow up with this culturally accepted, and even encouraged, superior/inferior relationship between a noble white man and his black servants.

There are different theories as to why Black Pete has historically been portrayed as black. During the 20^th century, versions of this story started to suggest that Black Pete is a former slave freed by Saint Nicholas who chose to stay by the Saint’s side as his partner. Another theory is that the black colour on Pete’s skin is actually soot because he enters people’s homes through the chimney in order to deliver presents. Although this theory fails to explain the need for wigs, bright red lips, and Moorish attire. There are many more aspects to Black Pete and his relationship with Saint Nicholas that highlight the discriminatory nature, such as the portrayal of Nicholas as wise, and Black Pete as silly or unintelligent.

Challenging Institutionalised Racism in ‘Traditional’ Culture

When I was a kid, this status quo of Saint Nicholas and Black Pete was relatively unchallenged. It took until the latter part of the 2010s for people to start questioning the ideals that this holiday upholds and the coloniser/colonised relationship between Nicholas and Black Pete, and for people to listen to black Dutchmen and women that expressed how the discriminatory tradition affected them negatively. During the late 2010s, there was a clear divide between those who were anti- or pro-Black Pete, i.e. people who wanted to revise the depiction of Pete and those who defend the traditional depiction respectively. This frequently resulted in violent protests. Nowadays most cities, TV-programmes, and stores have done away with the traditional depiction of Black Pete. The newer version is called soot-smudge Pete. Black face paint is no longer required, as these Pete’s only have a few soot smudges on their face from going through the chimney. There is still a lot of objections against this newer version as people see it as a threat to Dutch cultural heritage. Although, those using this argument might not be thinking it all the way through; exactly which part of Dutch heritage and history is being upheld by this tradition?

Before 2020, the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, was an avid supporter of Black Pete. It took the brutal murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests in the USA for him to recognise that Black Pete might be in ‘bad taste’. He did acknowledge that racism exists in Dutch traditional culture and society, but fails to recognise that this means that everyone is part of the problem. He refused to use the term institutional racism to prevent making, ‘‘decent Dutch people with good intentions feel like they are being called racist’’. As if good intentions absolve people from their contribution to discriminatory practices, such as Sinterklaas, but also islamophobia and homophobia, sexism, the list goes on. The fact is that racism is not always intentional or explicit, quite often it is part of a structure or system, pervasive in laws, policies, and beliefs that allow for unfair treatment of people of colour. Such issues and institutional racism remain largely unacknowledged by Dutch government officials.

Holding Each other To Account

This is all a long way of saying that Dutch people are not as tolerant as they perceive themselves to be. For a long time, the Netherlands has been known for its social tolerance, with weed, sex work, and euthanasia being legal, at least to some degree, and it being the first country to legalise same-sex marriage. As a result, the Dutch view themselves as an example for the rest of the world but in reality; we are far less open-minded than we think, as this article has pointed out. Maybe it is because of the emphasis on social tolerance that we rarely hold each other accountable for our prejudices and racism, or the inequalities that our traditions uphold.

It is time to change that. Worldwide, all societies need to question their taken-for-granted cultural practices and how they might uphold established inequalities. We need new cultural practices that value diversity, dignity and respect above tradition.