The Hague - The Dutch see themselves as tolerant pragmatists, especially adaptable if social harmony or commercial interests demand it. But that self-image has taken a battering in recent weeks as a growing chorus of voices inside and outside the country protest against a Christmas tradition that many Dutch see as harmless fun but critics say is racist.
According to the folklore, Saint Nicholas arrives in the Netherlands in mid-November accompanied by his servant Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) – a part usually played by a white man in “blackface” with a curly wig and large, red-painted mouth.
Now the Dutch are being forced to confront the possibility that their enormously popular Christmas tradition might point to a latent racism that many thought was anathema to their culture.
Few debates have stirred such emotion among the cool-headed Dutch. Millions flocked to “like” a Facebook page backing Black Pete after an independent expert who reports to the UN Human Rights Council criticised the tradition.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte has rejected depictions of the Netherlands as insular and xenophobic.
“I do not recognise ourselves in that portrayal,” he said, when asked whether the Netherlands no longer tolerated outsiders.
But that is the point that has been exposed by the debate, according to Quinsy Gario, an artist who has campaigned against the Black Pete tradition for years. “We’ve lied to ourselves about our tolerance for so long that we don’t recognise discrimination any more,” he said.
He said the children of the many immigrants to the Netherlands were becoming increasingly vocal about confronting signs of racism that their parents may have chosen to ignore.
“You have third- and fourth-generation people who see it as their own country and they want to take responsibility for their own and their kids’ sake,” he said.
The furore over the revered tradition, which some art historians say has its roots in a 17th-century fashion for well-to-do Amsterdam families keeping a black house slave, has exposed the sensitivity of race in the Netherlands.
Wealthy and fast-growing in the years after World War II, the Netherlands was a major destination for economic migrants from southern Europe, Turkey and Morocco in the 1950s and 60s.
Out of a population of around 16 million people, more than 3.5 million are foreign-born Dutch citizens or the children of non-Dutch immigrants, according to the official statistics agency.
Some Dutch blame the influence of outsiders, from Muslims to interfering EU bureaucrats, for the erosion of Dutch culture and social benefits.
Andre Krouwel, a political scientist at Amsterdam’s VU University, agreed an intolerant streak has been exposed. “It’s evidenced by the strength of anti-Muslim parties compared to other countries like Germany,” he said.
Most big-circulation Dutch newspapers leapt to the Netherlands’ defence when Verene Shepherd, a Jamaican academic who heads a UN working group of independent experts on discrimination against people of African descent, said in October that the tradition of Black Pete was racist.
The daily Algemeen Dagblad gave over its front page to portraits of black and Asian Dutch citizens, all of whom said they supported the tradition.
But in an opinion piece for the Volkskrant newspaper, Roomyla Choenni, a Dutch consultant of Surinamese descent at an IT firm, said Black Pete “keeps alive an atmosphere of everyday racism”.
“In many people’s eyes, the Netherlands is meant for white people, preferably with blue eyes and rosy cheeks,” he wrote.
Many of the Africans who work at the international courts in The Hague as judges, prosecutors, lawyers and court officers – services which contribute to the region’s economic growth – admit they have experienced racism.
When one African judge told a taxi driver she worked at one of the courts, he asked her if she was the cleaner, the judge said.
Another senior court official said she spent months trying to find a place to live when she first arrived.
“Each time they saw it was an African, I was told the apartment was not available any more,” she said.
Polls show that the main opposition in the Netherlands to the tradition of Black Pete is in cosmopolitan Amsterdam. The local council in the south-east part of the city, where many immigrants live, voted to ban the festivities this year.
But the majority still want Black Pete. In a survey by pollster Maurice De Hond last month, 91 percent of a representative sample of Dutch people said the tradition should not be changed to suit the tastes of a minority.
Rutte said the debate was inevitable given the number of immigrants now in the Netherlands.
“It’s unavoidable that when you have a huge inflow of people, then you get tensions,” he said. “Initial reactions from society are for no big changes… (but) traditions can change over time.”
But many Dutch eyes have been opened, Gario said. “People are starting to realise that some people here are staunchly, obtusely racist.” – Reuters