11 Dec #12 Sinterklaas kapoentje..

Maybe you have heard of the Dutch tradition Sinterklaas, that we celebrate on the 6th of December each year. Last week it was Sinterklaas week in the Netherlands. The celebration is about a tall old man with a beard, Saint Nicolas, who comes from Spain on his boat, with his helpers, the Zwarte Pieten (black peets). Sinterklaas gives the children presents and the Black Peets help him with doing that.

This is the simple version of the story, and when you read this, you think: wooow this is racism. Yes, it is. I know. And it is weird, that we are being raised with a tradition that is based on racism.

That must be the weird thing about traditions: you take it for granted, as it is, don’t question it.

But since last year, there has been a lot of discussions around the Sinterklaas tradition. People argued that this tradition comes from our history with slavery and that it is not ok to still tell this story to children. People got offended.

I totally agree; it is not right to tell children a story like this. But the difficult thing about tradition is that you also have a emotional value in society that you don’t want to dismiss.

When I talk about this topic with people of my age, they all mention how their parents didn’t tell anything in the story that they interpretated as being racist. Of course do kids don;t know what that is, but of course while telling the story my parents didn’t think about any racism in it.

Even though I was raised with this story and not seeing any differences between people in the story, I do believe that when some people in society are offended by someone elses tradition, you should be critical and open to yourself and question those things that you valued. It is not realistic to ignore whatever makes you feel comfortable while others are being hurt by it.

This year, at the city theatre of Amsterdam where I work, the Sinterklaas celebration had a Black Sinterklaas and a White Peet. Mess around with the normalities, I like it.