[UA] Fwd: Them Freaky Dutch

Wed Dec 1 20:45:00 PST 1999

--- register at washingtonpost.com wrote:
> Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 23:38:42 -0500 (EST)
> From: <register at washingtonpost.com>
> Subject: A washingtonpost.com article from chadu at yahoo.com
> 
> You have been sent this message from chadu at yahoo.com as a
> courtesy of the Washington Post
> (http://www.washingtonpost.com).
> 
> Freaky!
> 
> To view the entire article, go to
>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5074-1999Dec1.html
> 
> Dutch Reconsider Holiday Tradition
> 
> <p>AMSTERDAM – Sinterklaas, the Dutch inspiration for Santa
> Claus, does things differently. He travels to the Netherlands
> by boat, not by flying reindeer. He lives in Spain, not the
> North Pole. He is white-bearded, but not necessarily fat or
> jolly. Perhaps of greatest importance to his clients,
> Sinterklaas always delivers three weeks early – on the eve of
> St. Nicholas, which this year is Sunday.</p>
> <p>These are among the many Christmas traditions here, but
> much more remarkable is that Sinterklaas is always accompanied
> by one or more dark-complexioned helpers known as Zwarte Piet,
> or Black Peter.</p>
> <p>Black Peter has for centuries terrified Dutch children as
> the ultimate boogeyman of nightmares and parental threats. He
> is Sinterklaas's dark alter ego, his enforcer and his bagman.
> If you have been a good child, Black Peter will give you
> goodies from his bag. If you have been a naughty child, Black
> Peter will put you in his sack and take you away – to
> Spain!</p>
> <p>This tradition, and the crude black face that the Dutch
> paint on to impersonate Black Peter, has made some Dutch
> people uncomfortable in recent years. In a socially
> progressive, increasingly multicultural country, a new look at
> a cherished tradition has elicited soul-searching.</p>
> <p>A few years ago, community and cultural activists began
> demanding that Black Peter be eliminated, or replaced by White
> Peter. Joop Lahaise of the Anti-Discrimination Forum here told
> the Reuters news agency that people have complained that
> "Black Peter is a stereotype of a black person and he
> represents all negative traits." But such is the persistence
> and race-blind appeal of this icon that he appears to have
> survived the onslaught.</p>
> <p>"For a couple of years we tried having yellow, blue and
> green Peters, but there was so much protest, and then so
> little interest, we dropped the idea," said Henk Ferdinand van
> der Kroon, mastermind of a vast operation that sends teams of
> Sinterklaases and Black Peters to private homes and office
> parties during the weeks leading up to Dec. 5.</p>
> <p>Jan Prinowees and Herman Tebbes were doing their
> Sinterklaas and Black Peter routine in front of a Foot Locker
> store on Amsterdam's busiest pedestrian shopping street the
> other day. Children of all colors flocked to their call and
> readily took bounty from Black Peter's bag of candies and
> "peppernuts," little spice cookies.</p>
> <p>"People say, 'Why Black Peter?' I say, 'Why <em>not</em>
> Black Peter?' " said Marvin Tuur, 31, a bartender born in
> Suriname, the former Dutch colony in South America where the
> population is almost entirely black-skinned. Tuur said the
> Sinterklaas-Black Peter tradition is still very strong in
> Suriname. "A White Peter wouldn't work," he said. "What's
> scary about that?"</p>
> <p>Dutch novelist Nelleke Noordervliet insisted that it has
> been generations since Black Peter was even scary. "He's not
> fearsome at all. He's the friend of the children. It's
> Sinterklaas who is strict and just and god-like, while Black
> Peter has evolved into a kind of clown."</p>
> <p>Noordervliet said, "There are PC [politically correct]
> voices that say we ought to have White Peters and not Black
> Peters, that it stigmatizes the black community, but they are
> very lonely voices."</p>
> <p>There have been some ugly incidents in recent years,
> including attacks on Sinterklaas by young teenagers in some of
> Amsterdam's Moroccan immigrant neighborhoods: jeering
> jostling, candy-stealing from Black Peter's bag and
> shoe-throwing to knock off Sinterklaas's bishop's miter.</p>
> <p>Police are now staking out many public appearances by
> Sinterklaas and his Black Peters, van der Kroon said. "The
> police don't want any incident with St. Nicholas. It's the
> jewel in our tradition," he said.</p>
> <p>In Muslim communities in Dutch cities, the problem is not
> really Black Peter. It is Sinterklaas, perceived as a
> Christian infidel and a Westernizing threat by some
> parents.</p>
> <p>Although he has become a secular, even commercial figure,
> Sinterklaas still bears the mark of his religious ancestry. In
> this Calvinist country, he wears a catholic miter and clerical
> robes. The 4th century St. Nicholas came from Myra, in
> present-day Turkey, and was known as the patron saint of
> children as well as sailors.</p>
> <p>According to a 14th century legend, when Dutch sailors saw
> statues of St. Nicholas guarding harbors in Spain, they
> brought home the incorrect news that he was a Spanish saint.
> Moors, black-skinned Arabs from North Africa who ruled all or
> part of Spain for more than 700 years, are thought to be the
> inspiriation for his helpers.</p>
> <p>Although Black Peter seems to be firmly ensconced in the
> Dutch Christmas firmament, according to Sinterklaas
> enthusiasts a far more sinister force is at work: Santa Claus.
> The globalizing power of the American-style Santa is eroding
> the traditions, abetted by Dutch merchants understandably
> eager to extend the shopping season another three weeks and
> children just as eager to get a second round of presents on
> Dec. 25.</p>
> <p>"Father Christmas," as van der Kroon calls him, "is just a
> decoration in a shopping mall" – and will never catch on in
> the Netherlands. He said Sinterklaas Central, his
> organization, had offered classic Santas for hire and gotten
> no response – except from Japan.</p>
> <p>Sales personnel tell a different story. "Nobody pays much
> attention to St. Nicholas eve these days. It's all Christmas,"
> said a clerk at the huge Bijenkorf emporium on Amsterdam's Dam
> Square. Several floors below, however, more than a hundred
> children gathered wide-eyed around Sinterklaas and his three
> (female) Black Peters.</p>
> <p>On Sunday evening, families and friends across the
> Netherlands will gather to repeat the homespun rituals of
> Sinterklaas's impending arrival. The emphasis is not on the
> gift, known as the "surprise," but on its creative wrapping
> and mostly on the poem that every gift-giver must compose (as
> Sinterklaas's ghostwriter) for the recipient.</p>
> <p>The poem is meant to be humorous and telling – a chance to
> tease and embarrass loved ones. "It gives us the opportunity
> to tell the truth in a gentle way to your family and friends,"
> said Noordervliet. She's written poems that draw attention to
> her husband's eating habits, and wrapped his gift in a
> papier-mache reproduction of French fries.</p>
> <p>"When our eldest daughter was 16 or 17, she had a boyfriend
> we didn't approve of," Noordervliet recalled. "She was always
> saying how wonderful everything was at their house, how nice
> and friendly his family was. In my poem, I mocked her
> attraction to her future parents-in-law, which they of course
> did not become."</p>
> 
> 


=====
Chad Underkoffler [chadu at yahoo.com]
http://www.geocities.com/chadu/index.html
"Pardon me while I have a strange interlude."
     -- Groucho Marx
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