November 24, 2004
de sint
The Sint arrived in the Netherlands on November 13th to begin his annual tour of the country and assesment of the local youth before pakjesavond or 'parcel evening' on December 5th. On that evening, if you've been good you'll receive gifts. If you've been bad you will be tossed into a sack by the Sint's companion, "Black Pete" and carted off to Spain. Now, ironically, these days most Dutch pay a significant amount of money to be carted off to Spain at regular intervals, but obviously there was a time when this was a more terrifying prospect.
The whole 'Sint' thing is quite challenging for many foreigners, especially if you come from a country with a culture of political correctness. The Sint you see is accompanied by a Morrocan boy, "Black Pete" who is variously described as his slave or helper. As if that wasn't confronting enough he is usually depicted by someone 'blacked-up' as a caricature of a little Morrocan helper.
And so it is that at this time of year you can quite regularly find yourself confronted by the site of a benevolent looking old Bishop reminiscent of Santa Claus, accompanied by a bevy of "Black Pete's", blacked-up 2-meter-tall-helpers, strewing bitter cookies and sweets before them. Even after nearly-four years this still induces mixed feelings!
The problem I have with the Sint and his Black Pete's is that for me the stereotype's they represent always come looming large before them and I still haven't found a way to digest all this baggage, together with the event as a harmless children's celebration and end up with something I feel totally comfortable with. Even at a superficial glance the recipe includes this;
1. The Sint - White, is the 'owner' of Black Pete, benevolent, Christian, Holy, Master, reassuring, European
2. Black Pete - Black, foreign, mischevious or controlled 'evil', slave/servant, does the dirty work, may get out of control, scary, African
Hmm, so lets see, this gives us:
Europe/Africa
White/Black
Christian/Muslim
Master/Slave
Good/Evil
It's a recipe for something hard-to-swallow and an especially interesting one in these times with so much unrest between the white-Dutch and Muslim communities in the Netherlands. "Black Pete" seems to be a particularly Dutch invention and no matter how long he has been helping the Sint and how often he returns to the Netherlands he remains the outsider. His role is to depict the 'other' as it loomed large in Dutch imaginations three hundred years ago or more ago. Shame then that he also happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to so many immigrants who have settled in the Netherlands and that as recent events have shown, Europe is still haunted by pretty much the same nightmares.
Posted by Faith | TrackBack