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Yannick Coenders (10002052) Research Master Social Sciences 16 July 2015, Amsterdam Supervisor: Sébastien Chauvin Second reader: Walter Nicholls
Inside the chimney
An exploration of racial dynamics in the struggle over a Dutch tradition
Abstract
In this paper I investigate how Dutch primary schools deal with ongoing criticism targeting the blackface figure Zwarte Piet, a character omnipresent during the annual Dutch
Sinterklaas festival. Many primary schools celebrate this festival exuberantly, often with an appearance of one or more Zwarte Piet(en). Given the extensive media attention criticism received in recent years, these schools were faced with a decision regarding the figure. By analyzing this process of decision-making and its outcomes, I explore the dynamics of race as an absenced presence in a self-described ‘post-racial’ nation. Based on a nationwide survey amongst primary schools (n=983), nine semi-structured interviews with teachers, parents and school heads and four days of observation during the festival, I argue that regardless of the decisions schools make regarding Zwarte Piet there is a felt need to deal with the issue by erasing any reference to conflict. This is evidenced by the way in which contradictory
changes to Zwarte Piet are silently implemented and by the rhetorical strategies with which non-change is defended by a majority of schools. Furthermore I contend that the framing of the issue around ‘black sensitivities’ leads it to become a progressive virtue to change Zwarte Piet and it provided a rationale for those not changing as long as they can imagine their school or community as being void of black complaints.
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1. Introduction
In 2010 the Dutch Center of Folklore1 published a book titled dit zijn wij (this is us) (Schouten, 2010). Based on a survey, it lists the hundred most important Dutch traditions. The most popular being the annual gift-giving festival ‘Sinterklaas’ (St. Nicholas day). Celebrations of the festival start from the second or third Saturday of November when the fictional character of Sinterklaas together with his Zwarte Pieten arrives on a steamship from Spain into The Netherlands. Up until the 5th of December when the festival culminates in the celebration of Sinterklaas’s birthday, the main characters of the festival - Sinterklaas and the Zwarte Pieten - are omnipresent. They appear in songs, books, films, television series and as live characters on all kinds of occasions. The character of Sinterklaas evolved out of
representations of the catholic patron St. Nicholas. The earliest St. Nicholas effigies
originating from The Netherlands stem from around 1470 (Boer-Dirks, 1993). The character of Zwarte Piet only became part of the by then profane festival from 1850. The figure
appeared in a popular children’s book written by primary school teacher Jan Schenkman titled Sint Nicolaas en zijn knecht (St. Nicholas and his servant). (Schenkman, 1850; Boer-Dirks, 1993; Helsloot, 2008). This early version of Zwarte Piet was pictured on four drawings in the book as a black boy in page clothing. The appearance in the book was inspired by seventeenth century paintings of colonial traders, nobilities and colonial administrators who were often – as a way of demonstrating their wealth – depicted together with a black servant or slave (Boer-Dirks, 1992; Brienen, 2014). It was only in the 20th century that the character became known as Zwarte Piet (Helsloot, 2008).
Current representations of the figure share many similarities with blackface characters from American and British nineteenth and twentieth century minstrel shows. Its colonial roots, appearance (e.g. the blackface, big red lips and afro wig) and role (e.g. submissive, dumb, bad, low proficiency in Dutch, always frolicsome) led to (national and international) criticism for at least the past 50 years, targeting the racial stereotyping of blacks (Helsloot, 2005). Analogous to pedagogical insights the role of Zwarte Piet has changed over the years from dumb and frightening to joyful and athletic and its complexion often changed from black to brown. However despite these changes the character’s role and appearance still embody colonial representations of blacks. Moreover many blacks in The Netherlands have experiences of being associated with or being identified as Zwarte Piet (cf. Essed, 1984).
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Although the figure of Zwarte Piet has been criticized frequently in recent decades, only in the past few years this critique gained massive media attention2 resulting into a heated public debate in which protesting Zwarte Piet is often framed as an attack on Dutch culture. This frame is however not new, Van Dijk described three ways in which Zwarte Piet is often defended against criticism: 1. Its associations with racism are simply denied. One of the strategies to do so is by explaining Zwarte Piet’s blackness as coming from chimney soot.3 2. It is being defended as an unchangeable Dutch tradition. 3. The festival is framed as a
children’s festival4 and their innocence, joy and supposed incapability of discriminating proves that it cannot be racist (Van Dijk, 1998).
In this paper it will become clear that Van Dijks’ description of these defense strategies still proves to be highly relevant. In it I will explain how primary schools, as places in which Sinterklaas is often celebrated exuberantly, dealt with the struggle over Zwarte Piet. I chose to locate my research at schools, because I expected it to be impossible for decision makers and organizers – such as school heads, teachers and parents – to neglect the debate and being forced in some way or another to relate to it and negotiate whether Zwarte Piet must be altered or not. My interest is in the way in which race plays a role within that process of decision making. I will thus explore the dynamics of race in a racial struggle. A struggle that challenges Dutch self-conception as a post-racial nation in which race is irrelevant. In 2013 Rob Wijnberg – liberal commentator and chief editor of online newspaper De Correspondent – commented on activist criticisms targeting the display of racism that was part of the
Sinterklaas holiday:
“but for those who are just like me racial skeptics (and I dare to say that they make up a substantial share of the Dutch population), it is a rather harsh allegation to
maintain that Zwarte Piet is racism: by doing so you blame many not to see something for which we are – after a process of enlightenment that took centuries – consciously blind (and for which we want to be blind).” (Wijnberg, 2013)
2 This was partly triggered by a video on the internet that was posted in the fall of 2011 showing the violent
arrest of poet and dramatist Quinsy Gario at the national entrance of Sinterklaas on 12 november 2011. Together with artist and poet Kno’Ledge Cesare (Jerry Afriyie), they silently attended the entrance wearing t-shirts with the text Zwarte Piet is racism. For the police this was enough reason to arrest both of them. Other reasons for increased media attention were a lawsuit against the municipality of Amsterdam aimed at preventing the entrance of Sinterklaas with his Zwarte Pieten.
3 According to this narrative Zwarte Piet has to climb down chimneys to bring children presents.
4 Note that the holiday is also celebrated at high schools, companies, student organizations, amongst adult
friends etc. Instead of getting presents from Sinterklaas, people in generally make poems and give each other presents. Within these celebrations Zwarte Piet and Sinterklaas feature less prominent, although they are not absent as they feature e.g. on decorations, candy and in songs.
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I contend that Wijnbergs’ perspective on race and racism, in which believing in race is the sine qua non for labelling acts or representations as racism, is as he rightfully remarks shared amongst many in The Netherlands. This ideology of colorblindness after WW2 became hegemonic in Western Europe and limited an historical understanding of racial inequality by making race an absent presence5 (Lentin, 2005; 2008; Stoler, 2011; M’charek et al, 2014). The ongoing struggle over Zwarte Piet should not only be seen as a struggle against racism but also as a struggle over the definition of racism itself, the recognition of race as socially relevant in Dutch society and the inclusion of colonial history in the historical narrative of The Netherlands. By pointing to an artifact of its colonial past, it has been challenging Dutch innocence (Essed & Hoving, 2014), which Wekker describes as “the strong Dutch attachment
to a self-image that stresses being a tolerant, small and just ethical nation and that
foregrounds being a victim rather than a perpetrator of (inter)national violence” (Wekker,
2014: 166).
To investigate the ways in which primary schools deal with this struggle, I conducted a nation-wide survey consisting of mainly open ended questions amongst all primary schools in The Netherlands (N = 983 / response rate = 15%) . Additionally I conducted nine
semi-structured interviews on two primary schools in Amsterdam and I did four days of
observations during the Sinterklaas period at one of these schools. By acquiring knowledge about what decisions schools took regarding Zwarte Piet and what sorts of considerations were involved when these decisions were taken, I claim that it is possible to get a grip on how the previously described post-racial stance is challenged and how it is able to survive. While alternatives versions of Zwarte Piet show a tension between acknowledgement and denial of its colonial heritage, the silent implementation of these alternatives at those schools willing to change demonstrates a desire to depoliticize the issue and obscure the racial struggle that triggered the change. And although during the controversy there seem to be windows of opportunities for blacks to have their experiences understood in relation to racial inequality, the believe in Dutch innocence seems to be able to survive the upsurge of racial contestation. This could be due to the emphasis on (black) feelings rather than structural inequality. This opens up the possibility to change Zwarte Piet as a means to demonstrate a progressive stance by being responsive to the sensitivities of ‘others’, rather than to counter racism.
Alternatively, these feelings can be left unaddressed and not changing anything can be justified by claiming that blacks are absent from ones surrounding. This could explain the
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geographical variety in levels of openness to alterations of Zwarte Piet between areas, as I will demonstrate in chapter four. Following that in chapter five I will explore if changes were made, what about Zwarte Piet then has been altered. In chapter six I will elaborate on the decision making process that led either to changing or not changing Zwarte Piet. In the discussion section I will then return to the ways in which the struggle over Zwarte Piet is in generally depoliticized by schools and reflect upon the risks involved with addressing racism by referring to feelings. However I will first provide a theoretical framework and a more detailed description of the methodology used.
2. Theoretical framework
Culturalism
The ongoing struggle over Zwarte Piet takes place in a political context in which the
compatibility of ethno-racial minorities with what is imagined as “Dutch society” was one of, if not, the main public debate taking place in The Netherlands. Similar to other Western-European countries this debate is mainly framed around the ‘threat’ of Islam and the supposed loss of national identity caused by it. Although Islam has been a topic of debate from the 1990s onwards, it was after 9/11 that politicians – claiming to defend ‘the nation’ against the presence of non-western deemed Islamic values – became increasingly popular. In this debate overt conservative ideas on migrant integration and diversity increasingly gained currency across the political landscape and started to outweigh progressive ones by setting them aside as being too ‘politically correct’ and ‘unwilling to engage with inconvenient truths’. Several social scientists started providing analyses of this new political reality (cf. Schinkel, 2007; Duyvendak, 2011; Uitermark, 2012; van Reekum, 2014). A reality far away from the imagination of The Netherlands as a country characterized by tolerance and open mindedness. According to many, the current discourse on immigrant integration and diversity is characterized by culturalism (cf. Schinkel, 2010; Uitermark, 2012). Contrasting it with racism, Willem Schinkel explains it as a mode of othering “that is an equivalent to racism
and amounts to the normative observation based on a supposedly cultural distinction, instead of a natural one, as in the case of racism” (Schinkel, 2010: 269). Culturalist discourse
became increasingly important in migration, integration and citizenship policies and was by Mepschen et al. labeled as “the culturalization of citizenship” (Schinkel, 2010; Mepschen et al., 2010). As these Dutch scholars focused mainly on public and political discourses relating
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to Islam and Muslim migrants, they perhaps unwillingly adopted some of the terminology adopted within these public debates. Islam was debated within a clash of cultures-framework and Dutch Muslims were debated as having to integrate culturally in order to become ‘good citizens in a moral sense (cf. Schinkel, 2010; Uitermark, 2010; Van Reekum, 2014).
Although I agree that this clash of cultures framework works to exclude some from what is imagined as ‘the nation’ while presenting others as natives, I contest that it should be
separated from racism. I argue that the conservative racism denial that starkly separates race from culture in order to be able to dismiss accusations of racism, is too often taken at face value by many scholars. This leads to the impossibility to understand these dynamics as racial rather than cultural. Contrastingly the struggle over Zwarte Piet is more often recognized as being about race (cf. Duyvendak, 2013), despite the many similarities it shares with ongoing debates over Islam and Muslims. Namely, both issues are set within a clash of cultures framework in which conservatives perceive Dutch culture as being threatened by ethno-racial minorities. While I do recognize the value of current critical scholarship on culturalism, I claim that culturalism must be understood in relation and as an inherent part of the racial dynamics I will explore in this paper.
The absenced presence of race
Omi & Winant define race as a concept that “signifies and symbolizes social conflict and
interests by referring to different types of human bodies.” (Omi & Winant, 1994: 55).
Although they ultimately locate race in bodily difference, their emphasis on power relations helps to understand race as an ongoing social process embedded in historically shaped societal structures. Amongst others Goldberg reminds us that the way in which the presence of Muslims in Europe is dealt with, shows that race is not just about skin color and supposed biological differences based on outdated scientific beliefs, but that it can also be about religion or ‘culture’ (Goldberg, 2006). The fact that mainstream Dutch sociological scholarship could not or would not see race as something that was ‘happening’ in The Netherlands (Essed & Nimako, 2006), is not surprising given the absent presence of race in the Netherlands and other Western-European states after WWII (Essed & Trienekens, 2008; Stoler, 2011; M’charek et al., 2014). M’charek et al. take this absent presence as ideological. Race is something that can be ‘stopped’, by disbelieving it and recognizing it solely as an
“object of a problematic past of colonialism, scientific racism and nazi genocide” (M’charek
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claiming to be consciously blind to race he simultaneously acknowledges it as a hidden reality.
After WWII a political choice6 was made to replace race with culture (ethnicity) as a way of understanding social relations in the aftermath of the holocaust (Lentin, 2005; 2008). Racism was understood as an unmodern ideology, from which Europe needed to get rid of in order to come clean with its past (Lentin 2005; Hesse, 2011). However, switching the terminology of race with that of ethnicity did not reduce the experience of actual racism, nor did it avoid the essentialism of racial categorization (Lentin, 2005). In fact it made addressing racism rather difficult and gave way to a racism denial drawing upon cultural victim-blaming explanations of inequalities. Barnor Hesse argues for a comprehension of race and racism as a colonial practice of differentiating subjects imbedded within European modernity (Hesse, 2007; 2011). Understanding racism through the horrors of holocaust and not through colonialism, opened up the possibility to understand racism as an ideology in which the ‘belief in race’ could be taken as unmodern and something belonging to an unenlightened past (Goldberg, 2006; Hesse, 2007). Therefore it is important to remind ourselves of the way in which colonialism and racialization are interwoven even before race became “scientized” (Hesse, 2011). It is precisely the figure of Zwarte Piet and its history that reminds us of that
connection.
Given the history of Zwarte Piet it is peculiar how the colonial roots of the figure seem to be unremembered. Not only are the interconnections of race and racism with colonialism ‘forgotten’ as shown in the previous paragraph, also the centrality of The Netherlands within colonialism has become unimaginable. National and colonial history in The Netherlands are separated and seen as different objects, indicative of the removal of colonialism from national history is the absence of this history in primary school history textbooks (Weiner, 2014). Given a national discourse that represents The Netherlands as an innocent nation that is post-racial, characterized by its aversion to violence caused by a traders’ mentality of tolerance and openness to diversity (Bijl, 2012; Essed & Hoving, 2014; Van Reekum, 2014), Zwarte Piet can only be incorporated as part of a national holiday by being separated from its colonial traces. The accusation of racism made by anti-Zwarte Piet activists by pointing to Dutch history of colonialism therefore faces violent resistance when it is not ignorable, as it reconnects The Netherlands to an unsettling history and an unrecognizable present (Helsloot,
6 Although this choice was presented as scientific progress, by claiming that race was a pseudo-scientific
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2012). Moreover protesters breach the norms of feeling happy during this festival, which spoils the fun for others, as we will now examine.
While racism is that which is not Dutch, the Sinterklaas festival is precisely what is ought to be a celebration of Dutchness. Case in point being the placement of the holiday on the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in January 2015.7 The initiative of
placement was taken by a lobby group founded in response to a court case in which the court ruled Zwarte Piet to be a negative stereotype of blacks.8 The inventory meant to protect cultural heritage from getting ‘lost’, was used as a way to officially safeguard the festival. A festival that has become in Sara Ahmed’s terms a “happy object” (Ahmed, 2012). According to Ahmed, happiness is thought of to be achieved by coming into contact with such
predefined objects. She explains how happiness is something we are obliged to wish for and is taken to be our own responsibility, as we should know where to find it. In the case of the Sinterklaas festival, it is imagined that everyone in The Netherlands should be celebrating it, leading everyone to become happy objects. Thus, when ethno-racial minorities complain over racism in a national holiday instead of celebrating it like ‘everyone else’, their unhappy feelings are taken to spoil the happiness of others. Instead of that what they are unhappy about, they themselves then become the subject of scrutiny (Ahmed, 2010: 583). It is
questioned why they are not able to let go of their attachments to their experiences of racism (Ahmed, 2012:143), instead of achieving happiness by joining in as they should be doing. In The Netherlands the norm of not spoiling the happiness of others’ is often embedded in the phrase ‘gewoon gezellig’ (Breedveld, 2014). ‘Gezellig’ being a descriptor of a pleasant atmosphere and ‘gewoon’ meaning normal or regular.9 Gewoon gezellig is not only used as a way to describe a setting, but also as something a person should be doing and as what a person should be. Doing or being gewoon gezellig generally means blending and joining in, in order to prevent being regarded as an antisocial killjoy (Ahmed, 2010; Breedveld, 2014). The struggle over Zwarte Piet is a struggle over the logic of happy white Dutchness (or perhaps whiteness) and its ability to displace racism to an unDutch space inhabited by ‘unhappy minorities’. By emphasizing the relevance of race, it challenges the ideology of color-blindness as the default framework of ‘not being racist’ (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Bonnet, 2014). As I want to stress that the recent protests against racism and Zwarte Piet in The
7 See http://www.volkscultuur.nl/archief_27.html#link212 (visited on 8 August 2015). 8 See http://sintenpietengilde.nl/ontstaan/ (visited on 8 August 2015).
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Netherlands are not new, the absent presence of race must somehow be quite resilient and in effect has to be an absenced presence of race. Whether or not the act of making race absent happens deliberately, I think it is important to understand how it is made to constantly re-disappear.
3. Methodology
In order to get an understanding of how often and by who Zwarte Piet was changed, into what the figure changed and what considerations played a role when the decision was made to change or not change the figure, I used a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. I combined a nation-wide school survey mainly consisting of open-ended questions with semi structured interviews at two schools located in Amsterdam. At one of these schools I
additionally did observations in the week leading up to the 5th of December.
After obtaining a list with all 6537 primary schools in The Netherlands from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science from 201410, I assembled email addresses for all of these schools resulting in a database of 6456 email addresses.11 After spreading the survey around three times in February and March 2015, 983 schools had responded resulting in a response rate of 15%. The survey consisted of a few multiple choice questions about whether Sinterklaas was being celebrated, what kinds of Sinterklaas related activities the school participated in and whether it had changed in the past 5 years. Following that, were a few open ended questions regarding what had changed and what considerations played a role in that change or what considerations played a role in not changing. I mainly used data from the open ended questions together with voluntary responses in the comment box at the end of the survey. I coded all questions and comments in SPSS on whether Zwarte Piet was altered, the kind of alteration made and the considerations and reasons given for the alteration. As independent variables I used region, denomination and co-presence of Caribbean-Dutch minorities to investigate the role of each of them in whether Zwarte Piet had changed. From December until January I held nine semi structured interviews with school heads, teachers and parents from two schools located in Amsterdam. As Amsterdam seems to be the
10 List acquired from www.data.duo.nl (List is not available anymore as it has been replaced with the version of
2015).
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city in which the debate seems to resonate most12, I thought it would be a good place to inquire how it impacts different schools. My aim was to investigate a school that did not have Zwarte Piet prior to recent struggles, a school that was in the process of changing Zwarte Piet and a school that decided not to alter Zwarte Piet. Unfortunately I did not manage to get interviews from a school that did not change Zwarte Piet. Both of the other schools are located in different parts of Amsterdam. School A is a Christian school. It is located in Amsterdam Southeast in a district with the highest proportion of Caribbean-Dutch minorities in Amsterdam (OIS, 2015). The pupils are mainly Surinamese-Dutch other ethnic groups are Antillean-Dutch Ghanaian-Dutch and Nigerian-Dutch, the staff is except for one teacher completely black.13 School B is a non-religious public school located in Amsterdam West. The school is ethnically mixed, whilst the teaching staff is mainly white.14
All of the interviews are between half an hour and an hour and a half. In it the way in which the school celebrated Sinterklaas was discussed as well as the alteration or absence of Zwarte Piet and how the process leading up to alteration or non-appearance went into practice. I coded the interviews in Atlas TI on the factors that played a role in the decisions that were taken to alter Zwarte Piet on the one school and not to have it at all at the other. I additionally investigated how parents and children had responded to either the alterations or the non-appearance of Zwarte Piet. At school A I also did four days of observations in the days leading up to 5 December and on 5 December, to investigate whether and how the absence of Zwarte Piet impacted the celebration of the Sinterklaas festival.
12 Caused by the lawsuit against the municipality of Amsterdam.
13 As I did not have any statistics of ethnic composition per school this is based on interview data and own
observations.
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4. Where: locating change in the Randstad.
In this chapter I will present survey findings regarding to whether schools altered Zwarte Piet. I examine this across three variables: region, school denomination and the co-presence of Dutch-Caribbean ethnic minority inhabitants of the school’s municipality. Each of these three variables will be approached separately, in addition I will consider response rates as well. The response rates could be very informative of to what extent the struggle over Zwarte Piet is seen as important. Although in the period in which the survey was conducted the issue was politically highly sensitive, many feel like it has been blown out of proportions and it should not have received any attention at all. I therefore expected a high non response rate, especially in areas and amongst schools where Zwarte Piet has less often been changed. In the next chapter I will get into more depth on how Zwarte Piet has been changed amongst the schools that changed the figure. However it is already useful to note that I consider change to be anything that schools define as a decision that alters the appearance, name or character of Zwarte Piet in such a way that it deviates from what is by them considered to be ‘normal’. This leaves open the possibility that the figure has just been altered on one occasion or that in the case of multiple Zwarte Pieten just one or a share of them were altered.
Regional variety
As comparative regions I used Corop-areas devised by the CBS (Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics). These areas consist of multiple municipalities and fall within the boundaries of existing provinces. Functional relations between a core and its catchment areas form the basis of each of the regions. As the number of schools per municipality is often too low to make valuable comparisons, I deemed these regions most accurate to inquire interregional variability. In map 1 the response rates per region are shown and in map 2 amongst participating schools, the percentage that altered Zwarte Piet is shown.
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Map 1 response rates per corop region Map 2 alteration rates per corop region
With the exemption of the Rotterdam region response rates in the Randstad15 were higher than in most other regions. Interestingly a few survey-respondents from schools outside of the Randstad, specifically mentioned it being an issue belonging to the Randstad. In response to the question whether they considered changing Zwarte Piet, a respondent from a school in Overijssel (eastern part of The Netherlands) stated:
“Yes, the discussion, that was mainly staged in the Randstad, forced us to maintain the tradition in its current form, because of the absence of racism or discrimination in any form whatsoever. It is ridiculous how it is possible that a limited number of people can turn a children’s holiday into an issue for adults and disregard children’s interests.”
The respondent imagines ‘a limited number of people’ turning Zwarte Piet into a political issue, as living mainly in the Randstad. Complaining over racism and discrimination is thus presented as something that would not occur in the area of the respondent’s school. Many of
15 Most urbanized area in the Western part of the Netherlands comprising the four largest cities (Amsterdam,
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the groups protesting Zwarte Piet16 indeed do locate a lot of their activities in Amsterdam, as well as in other Randstad-cities. Moreover a court case that got a lot of coverage was filed against the municipality of Amsterdam in order to declare the license given for the public entrance of Sinterklaas with Zwarte Pieten illegitimate.17 The low response rate in Rotterdam may be explained by the political climate that starkly differs from other large cities in the Randstad. Uitermark (2010) found that contradictory to Amsterdam culturalist discourse dominates within the local political landscape of Rotterdam. Although Uitermark did not found the discourse to directly have affected policies, the higher popularity of these
sentiments18 may perhaps explain the increased reluctance to participate in the survey as well as to alter Zwarte Piet. Inconsistent with the other findings is the area of the most
southwestern region Zeeuwsch-Vlaanderen. The response rate there is higher than in any other region (33,3%), while none of the schools altered Zwarte Piet. Many of these
respondents took an activist stance in their responses and seemed to interpret the survey as part of the struggle itself and as a way of marking their position. 11 out of 20 schools in this region were connected through a school network sharing a common board. Their
interconnections and commitment to not changing as well as the higher response rates in areas where Zwarte Piet more often changed, suggest that those more invested in the issue were more likely to respond.
In order to be more precise about the types of areas in which schools more often altered Zwarte Piet, I examined the relationship between the level of urbanization and whether schools reported to have an altered Zwarte Piet using Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. I found a positive correlation (see table 1). The direction of the relationship is unsurprising because the places with the highest level of urbanization are mostly located in the Randstad.19 If we separate areas outside the Randstad from areas within the Randstad20, the results are more telling. Within the Randstad the relationship gets stronger, while in other areas the correlation is quite weak. Meaning that the level of urbanization is a better predictor
16 Or at least those that are quite visible in media and through their activities. Examples of such groups are :
Zwarte Piet Niet, Zwarte Piet is Racisme campagne, New Urban Collective and Stichting Nederland wordt beter.
17 A court case won in the first instance by the complainants. After amongst others the mayor appealed the
decision was however annulled by the State Council (highest court in Dutch administrative law) on 12 November 2014. See: www.raadvanstate.nl – case number: 201406757/1/A3.
18 Evidenced by the success of the right-wing local political party ‘Leefbaar Rotterdam’ that positions itself
against the social democrats.
19 From the 10 municipalities with the highest level of urbanization 9 are located within the Randstad. 20 The following corop-regions were selected as being in the Randstad: Agglomeratie ‘s-Gravenhage,
Agglomeratie Haarlem, Agglomeratie Leiden en Bollenstreek, Delft en Westland, Amsterdam, Groot-Rijnmond, Het Gooi en Vechtstreek, Oost-Zuid-Holland, Utrecht, Zaanstreek, Zuidoost-Zuid-Holland.
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for the alteration of Zwarte Piet within the Randstad than elsewhere. As previously noticed this may be caused by the concentration of anti-Zwarte Piet activities receiving media attention in the large cities in the Randstad. It could also be caused by higher levels of cosmopolitan attitudes associated with urban centrality in international networks. Increased sensitivity to international critique and the attached value to living in an (ethnically) diverse society21 could explain this higher alteration rate.
Table 1
Role of level of urbanization in ZP alterations
r= N= Sig.
General 0,371 983 <0,01
Randstad 0,412 369 <0,01
Outside Randstad 0,098 614 <0,05
In general I found a slightly positive correlation between response rates and alteration rates: r = 0,297, which suggests an overrepresentation of schools that altered Zwarte Piet within the sample.
School type
Since in The Netherlands private schools are eligible for public funding, there are more private than public primary schools. These private schools are mainly of different Christian faith groups. I composed five categories22, in which I separated Roman Catholic from other Christian schools. As Sinterklaas is originally a Roman Catholic festival, one might expect Roman Catholic schools to be less willing to change and keep the tradition unchanged because they perceive it as theirs. Alternatively schools may be more willing to remove or replace Zwarte Piet as it is a non-religious element in a festival that celebrates a Roman Catholic saint.
21 See Calhoun (2002) for some interesting reflections on the relationship between multiculturalism and
cosmopolitanism.
22 These categories are: Public, Roman-catholic (under this label I also categorized public/Roman Catholic
combination schools), other Christian (under this label I also categorized combinative denominations such as: public/protestant, Roman Catholic/Protestant and interconfessional), non-confession private schools (under this label I also categorized anthroposophical schools) and other religions (Islamic, Jewish and Hindu schools).
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In table 2 the response rates are shown and in table 3 amongst those schools that participated, the alteration rates are shown.
Table 2
Response rates per denomination
Denomination Percentage N Public 14,8% (312) 2113 Non-religious private 19,7% (74) 375 Roman Catholic 15,3% (304) 1987 Other Christian 14,3% (288) 2016 Other religious 10,9% (5) 46 Total 15% (983) 6537 Table 3
Alteration rates per denomination
Denomination Percentage N Public 11,9% (37) 312 Non-religious private 13,5% (10) 74 Roman Catholic 6,9% (21) 304 Other Christian 6,9% (20) 288 Other religious 40% (2) 5 1,4% (90) 6537
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While there is not a lot of variation in response rates across different denominations,
alteration rates do differ between Christian and non-religious schools. I found no difference between Roman Catholic and other Christian schools. When controlled for region, we can see that a Christian denomination becomes a better (although still weak) predictor of alteration (see table 4) outside of the Randstad, while inside the Randstad correlations found are weak. Table 4
Role of denomination (Christian or non-religious) in ZP alterations
r= N= Sig.
General -0,092 958 <0,01
Randstad -0,076 365 -
Outside Randstad -0,115 613 <0,01
Presence of Caribbean-Dutch minorities
Criticism targeting Zwarte Piet is often made in relation to Dutch history of colonialism, practices of slavery in the Dutch former colonies in the Caribbean and anti-black racism. Those publicly voicing criticism often are migrants or their offspring from (former)
Caribbean colonies. This group of migrants is often perceived as black. Therefore examining the correlation between the presence of Caribbean-Dutch minorities with response and alteration rates may tell us something about the way in which race plays a role in the way the issue is dealt with. As I was not able to obtain statistics regarding the ethnic composition per school or per postal zone, I used data obtained from the Central Bureau of Statistics on ethnic composition per municipality (CBS, 2014). Therefore the picture might be not as accurate as when I would have been able to use data per school or per zip-code. However while school demographics are in generally representative of zip-code demographics (which is considered to be their catchment area), this is less often the case in ethnically very mixed neighborhoods (Karsten et al., 2006). This is caused by free school choice that allows parents to register their children at schools outside of the zip code district they live in. Therefore municipal statistics on ethnic composition are still beneficial in the context of this study.
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I started by examining the relationship between the presence of Caribbean-Dutch minorities in the municipality of the school with response rates and alteration rates using Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. The results are presented in the tables 5 and 6. Table 5
The role of the presence of Caribbean-Dutch minorities in response rates (per region)
r= N= Sig.
General 0,002 6537 -
Randstad -0,037 2170 -
Outside Randstad -0,002 4367 -
Table 6
The role of the presence of Caribbean-Dutch in alteration rates (per region)
r= N= Sig.
General 0,286 983 < 0,01
Randstad 0,297 369 < 0,01
Outside Randstad 0,079 614 -
While there is no relationship found between response rates and the presence of Caribbean-Dutch minorities in the municipality, alteration rates and the presence of Caribbean-Caribbean-Dutch minorities are positively correlated. This correlation is weaker outside the Randstad than within the Randstad.
In order to control for the earlier correlation found between the level of urbanization and alteration rates, I used partial correlation (table 7).
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Table 7
Presence of Caribbean-Dutch minorities x alteration rates (controlled for level of urbanization)
r= N= Sig.
General -0,041 977 -
Due to the high correlation between levels of urbanization and presence of Caribbean-Dutch minorities, the statistical relationship between the presence of this group and the alteration rates disappears when it is controlled for level of urbanization. It suggests that location is a much better predictor of whether Zwarte Piet is altered than the co-presence of black minorities. However as we have seen in the first paragraph of this chapter the presence of
“the limited number of people complaining” (and they may be thought of as predominantly
black, given the representation and the actual composition of protester groups) can be imagined to be attached to a certain location (in this case the Randstad). It would allow schools outside the Randstad to literally distance themselves from the issue by thinking of “people complaining” (who are probably often imagined as being black) as being elsewhere (in the Randstad). Some respondents explicitly took such a stance. A respondent from a school from a town near Utrecht replied the following to the question whether there were considerations involved in not changing anything about the celebration:
“The authenticity of the Sinterklaas festival. The Zwarte Piet issue does not really play a role in our surroundings, as we are an almost entirely white school.”
The school does not see the need to change Zwarte Piet because it does not play a role in the schools surrounding and the ethnic composition of the school. A stance that suggests that both the level of urbanization as well as the absence of black minorities matter
simultaneously. Whereas this respondent is able to imagine his or her school as white, in more urbanized areas this may not be the case. Moreover if cosmopolitan attitudes are more prominent in urbanized areas, it may be desirable to imagine oneself in a multicultural environment. An environment in which it can be a virtue to be more attuned to the sensitivities of racial and cultural others.
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In the following chapters I will examine amongst schools that changed what has been
changed and what was taken into consideration when this change came about or if there were considerations that led to not changing anything. We will then see that the co-presence of blacks matters a great deal, at least on school level.
5. What: making Piet less black.
23 Exploring alternativesIn the survey I asked questions about whether the way in which the Sinterklaas holiday was celebrated in the school had changed in the past five years. If yes, the follow-up questions were what elements had changed and what the considerations were when the decision to change was taken. If the answer was no, the follow-up question was whether there were considerations involved that played a role in not changing any elements to Zwarte Piet. Amongst the schools that reported to have had elements changed, 54 out of 97 mentioned to have altered Zwarte Piet. Amongst the schools that reported to not have any elements changed there were still respondents that later on in the survey reported to have made alterations to Zwarte Piet.24 I added these to the 54 other schools, resulting in a list of 90 schools that stated to have altered Zwarte Piet. Note that schools that mentioned changing other elements, may also have made alterations to Zwarte Piet but did not mention them.25 I will thus focus on the sorts of alterations made to Zwarte Piet rather than the number of schools that changed Zwarte Piet. I coded the kinds of alterations made and made a frequency table. Table 8 shows that there are multiple alternatives to Zwarte Piet. While colored Petes seem to be more popular than the other alternatives that contain a change in the complexion
23 Refers to an op-ed from actor Erik van Muiswinkel (2013) on the website of national newspaper NRC
Handelsblad. In the popular television show Sinterklaasjournaal Erik van Muiswinkel plays the role of ‘chief Pete’ (Hoofdpiet). In the op-ed he responded to the controversy over Zwarte Piet with a call to make him less black and less a servant.
http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2013/10/22/hoofdpiet-maak-mij-minder-zwart-en-minder-knecht/ (visited on 2 August 2015).
24 This could have been caused by how the question was phrased “where there considerations that played a role
in not changing any elements (e.g. Zwarte Piet or religious elements)?” In the follow up question to schools that responded “yes” to having elements changed Zwarte piet was not explicitly mentioned. Also some of these schools had altered Zwarte Piet, but more than 5 years ago.
25 Some might have thought of the changes to Zwarte Piet as very small compared to other changes they had
made such as combining the celebration of the festival with other schools or dramatically decreasing the amount of activities in the run up to the celebration.
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of the Petes, none of the changes seems to be prevailing as a new direction into which Zwarte Piet will evolve.
Table 8
Frequencies of mentioned alterations
Alteration Frequency
Colored and/or rainbow Petes (different colors)26 26
One or more attributes removed (wig, red lipstick and/or earrings) 16
White Petes (own skin color or white painted)27 14
Songs altered (not singing of songs containing racist lyrics or replacing lyrics)
13
Brown Piet (no black but brown paint)28 13
Chimney Petes (not fully black but black dirt marks on face sup. from chimney)
12
Role (changed nature of character, e.g. less submissive) 11
Name changed ( from Zwarte Piet to Piet) 7
Themed Petes (e.g. Michael Jackson Pete, sustainable energy Pete) 6
Some of the schools mentioned having made multiple alterations simultaneously such as having changed songs and introducing a colored Pete. Although some just mentioned one alteration, it may very well be the case that they made others as well. For example if a school introduces a colored Pete, removing some of the attributes such as the painted lips and the afro wig as well seems logical. The introduction of different Petes however does not rule out the simultaneous presence of Zwarte Pieten. This was for example the case at school B were I conducted four interviews. In that school Sinterklaas was accompanied by one chimney Pete
26 Colored refers to different Petes having different colors, rainbow refers to Petes having multiple colors
simultaneously.
27 Sometimes this is unclear, none of the schools explicitly referred to using white paint, they just mentioned
having white Petes. Multiple schools mentioned that their Petes had their own skin color.
28 I counted the schools that marked this as a conscious alteration, however it must be noted that Zwarte Pieten
in popular media, public events and at other schools often already are (dark)brown and not black, interestingly brown is seen as less offensive than black.
21
and two Zwarte Pieten. Not all of the changes made to the appearance of Zwarte Piet were related to the struggle over the figure. For example some of the themed Petes were introduced to complement the curriculum that centered around a particular topic.
In Chart 1 the popularity of the alternatives to Zwarte Piet in the sample is shown in and outside of the Randstad.
Chart 1
Share of mentioned alteration per region
Within the sample, amongst schools located in the Randstad colored Petes are more popular than any of the other alternatives. Whereas at the schools outside of the Randstad none of the alternatives stands out as remarkably more popular than others. This may indicate that in the Randstad there is a higher level of like mindedness on how to change Zwarte Piet (once it is agreed upon that it should change).
Brown Petes from the chimney
At the schools I visited: school A did not have any Zwarte Pieten nor was there a Sinterklaas present during the celebration, while school B replaced one of the three visiting Zwarte Pieten with a chimney Pete during the last celebration. In addition they had removed what
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
coloured Petes White Petes Chimney Petes Brown petes
In Randstad Outside Randstad
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they felt were offensive decorations, used altered lyrics to some of the songs and changed the name of Zwarte Piet to just Piet or Piet with an adjective (e.g. fast Pete).
Using a chimney Pete to replace Zwarte Piet is a way of reestablishing the story that Zwarte Piet gets his skin color from climbing down chimneys. As this story was already in place to explain the blackness of Zwarte Piet, this alteration instead of uncovering the roots of Zwarte Piet makes the already existing cover up story more ‘realistic’. Attributes that add to the stereotypical colonial depiction of blacks such as the afro wigs and the big red painted lips were removed. However when one of the teachers showed me the pictures of the Zwarte Pieten and the chimney Pete on her PC we had to zoom in to distinguish the chimney Piet from the Zwarte Pieten.29
Some schools changed their Zwarte Pieten in response to the controversy, but very slightly. They therefore chose to have their Zwarte Pieten painted brown instead of black.30 At both of the schools I visited decorations that featured brown Petes were thought of as more benign than the black ones with red lips and earrings.The reasoning behind this is that the brown ones are thought of to be less stereotypical than the black ones. It is unclear however how a brown Pete fits into the Chimney narrative. 31 On the one hand the Chimney Pete is supposed to be less reminiscent of black people than the Zwarte Piet in order to bury its racial history, while on the other hand the brown Pete is supposedly less offensive because it is not as stereotypical as the black one and provides a more realistic depiction of blacks. The latter, probably unintentionally, confirms that Zwarte Piet was already a depiction of blacks. It shows how different strategies to mitigate Zwarte Piet’s racial associations contradict each other. Moreover it demonstrates a tension between simultaneously denying and complying with its colonial heritage. Behind it may be a logic that takes the complaints of blacks as being unsatisfied by the fact that they are misrepresented by a ‘wrong’ complexion, rather than being made involuntarily part of the festival. Choosing for brown Petes instead of Zwarte Pieten may also be a way of making a change that remains hidden for children, as
29 The photo was taken during the entrance of the Petes and Sinterklaas when they walked up to the podium of
the common room where they were welcomed by the school population. The photo was taken from the point of view of the audience standing in front of the podium. The chimney Pete’s face was not fully covered with black as was the case with the Zwarte Pieten. However to me the chimney Pete seemed like a Zwarte Piet that failed to apply its makeup correctly.
30 See footnote no. 28
31 School A had decorations featuring light brown Petes in the first year after foundation. Also here this was
presented as less problematic than having Zwarte Pieten. However the school did not simultaneously present the chimney story to the children, thus acknowledging the blackness as racial.
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many children are already familiar with Zwarte Pieten that are actually brown.32 In the next chapter I will demonstrate the importance schools attach to letting any sort of changes they adopt pass by unnoticed by the children. However before doing so I will elaborate on the difficulties that altering the figure entails.
The process of change
At school B the Sinterklaas festival is celebrated exuberantly, which means that in the weeks going up to the celebration it features in schoolbooks, games, themed lessons, songs,
decorations and handicraft exercises. In most of these Zwarte Piet is represented, therefore altering the figure involves much work. The principal showed me two full bags of accessories from the common rooms that featured the bad kind of Zwarte Piet33 that they got rid of. In addition she told me that all of the teachers had done the same thing in their respective classrooms. Although they made an effort to make the children familiar with altered lyrics of Sinterklaas-songs, it proved to be quite hard as habits got in the way for themselves as well as the children. Therefore they opted mostly for songs that do not contain lyrics that refer to Zwarte Piet as black or submissive. A teacher explains:
“(…) and we just noticed that the familiar songs like for example ‘Zie ginds komt de stoomboot.’ And I’m 48, so I sing that song for like 40 years. So I study the new lyrics and then I teach it to the children and then we start singing and then the old lyrics automatically pop up, so unintentionally I kept singing it wrong. But what we tried is just to pick songs from which we didn’t need to change the lyrics you know.” 34
While it might have been easier to just get rid of Zwarte Piet entirely (if one wants to address the complaints), it would probably not have prevented a recurring association of Zwarte Piet with the festival. My observations at school A proved this. There Zwarte Piet has, since the early 90’s when the school was founded, only been part of the festival in the first year when it was visible on decorations. At school the festival is not referred to as Sinterklaas but as Kinderdag (children’s day). 35 Although not being physically present, the holiday revolves around the figure of Sinterklaas. But while Zwarte Piet is abandoned the figure remains
32 See footnote no. 10
33 The black ones with earrings and red lips.
34 ‘Zie ginds komt de stoomboot’ is a song about the arrival of Sinterklaas on a steamship, in it is a phrase that
refers to Zwarte Piet as Sinterklaas’s servant.
24
unavoidable: he appears in books about Sinterklaas36, references to the chimney, songs that refer to attributes that relate to Zwarte Piet37 and in the games that children play amongst each other. When I visited the school on 4 December I was in a class with four and five year olds, two five year old boys were playing Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet. The one was dressed up as Sinterklaas, while the other played the role of Zwarte Piet carrying a bag with fictional presents behind him. In the meanwhile the teacher was in another part of the classroom giving instructions to the four year olds. I asked her about the role-play and the boy playing Zwarte Piet later during an interview:
“He does not see it [Zwarte Piet] at school but outside of school, that’s why he does it. (…) That day I saw it too, but it was actually the first time they did that you know. Before I never seen that, because that was really... I have two mitres and two togas38 .
But with that boy I saw he was really playing the Pete, with the bag on his back, but I didn’t forbid it, because what are you going to tell a child? You can forbid him to do it here and he will do it at home anyway.”
Not only is Zwarte Piet unavoidable in Sinterklaas-related activities, the school also shares a building with two other schools. In these schools Sinterklaas enters with Petes. As the school staff takes the figure of Zwarte Piet to be harmful to the children they coordinate the time of the entrance of Sinterklaas and the Petes with the other schools. So that when they arrive the children are kept inside and the curtains are closed to make sure the Zwarte Pieten are out of sight. Even when one of the other schools opted for colored Petes, small conflict arose when these Petes came into school A’s building, because as the principal explained this was not according to previously made arrangements. However when I asked him whether he would be open to other kinds of Petes if Zwarte Piet would be abandoned in the future he responded positively:
“If it were to be the case that large groups say those colored Petes are alright. I would weigh out if there is equality and I feel that with all colors [if Petes are not just black]. Then it would be a possibility for us to participate, I have no objections to if you distance it from slavery and if you distance it from emphasizing black people and
36 These are scanned by the teachers on not having Zwarte Pieten, but references to Petes still do appear in the
stories or in images (e.g. a child on the cover wearing Pete clothing). If Petes were referred to as black or in a submissive role, the book was deemed unfit.
37 E.g. Zak van Sinterklaas: a song about the bag of Sinterklaas mostly carried by Zwarte Piet. One of the
teachers would have their children sing it while they enacted carrying a fictional bag of presents on their back.
25
the blackness, if you distance it from that. Then a new situation arises in which people will have no more associations with inequality or submissiveness, then I’m up for everything.”
While the principal embraced the idea of having colored Petes as a signal of equality and as a way of abandoning the figure of Zwarte Piet, he only challenged the whiteness of Sinterklaas during the interview when it was seen in relation to Zwarte Piet’s blackness. This was the case amongst all of the respondents from School A, none of them mentioned Sinterklaas being white in itself as problematic. Replacing Zwarte Piet with Petes of all colors while leaving Sinterklaas’s whiteness untouched, could be interpreted as replacing one racial minority with all of humanity under the supervision of a white man. The neglect of
Sinterklaas’s whiteness symbolizes the debate as being about the blackness of Zwarte Piet and how that affects blacks. Both schools - while positioning themselves differently
regarding to Zwarte Piet – perceive it mainly as an issue important to black people rather than whites. Spotlighting blacks and focusing on their feelings potentially leads schools into a variety of trajectories on whether schools decide to change Zwarte Piet. I will discuss some of these as well as discuss other considerations that came into play when decision were made on whether Zwarte Piet should be changed in the next chapter.
6. How:
“We didn’t want to change anything if it would oppose a children’sholiday.”
Honoring Dutch tradition
I imagined when this research project took off that all schools in some way or another would be confronted with the controversy over Zwarte Piet and would have to make decisions on how to deal with it. In the last few years starting from October up until the 5th of December debates on Zwarte Piet received a lot of media attention. I thus assumed that also those schools ending up not having an altered version of the figure, must have went through a decision making process after being confronted with these public debates. Therefore in the survey, I posed the question whether - for schools that did not change – there were
considerations involved that led to not altering anything to the Sinterklaas celebration. Surprisingly, almost half of those schools (350 out of 798) responded with “no” or a similar negation of the question. That could either mean that these schools really did not feel any
26
need to consider change, but the “no” can also be meant as a vote against (considering) change. Nonetheless adding this result to the high non-response rate, suggests that there might have been a lot less going on at the schools that celebrate Sinterklaas than one would suspect based on the intensity of public debates and the extensive media coverage the issue got. The degree in which “no” was responded to whether the issue was considered does not differ within or outside of the Randstad, nor does it correlate with levels of urbanization. However based on the face that schools responded with “no”, we cannot draw the conclusion that the issue did not play a role for them at all. If we turn to those schools that did alter Zwarte Piet, public debate is most often mentioned as a consideration (38,9%) and even if this reason is not explicitly mentioned, other considerations such as pressure from parents (13,3%) or following the Sinterklaasjournaal39 (15,6%)40 are reasons that may be set in motion by the ongoing struggle over Zwarte Piet. If changing is so often driven by public debate, it might suggest that those responding with “no” must have actively ignored it. Interestingly in contrary to the “no” response, mentioning the public debate as a reason for either changing or not changing Zwarte Piet does correlate with the level of urbanization, although weakly (see table 9). As mentioned in chapter 4 this may be tied to higher levels of cosmopolitan attitudes that could explain a greater desire to keep up with ‘the developments’ of multicultural society and therefore an increasing engagement with public debates
regarding topics that relate to it. Further on in this chapter I will demonstrate how this was the case at school B where the fear of not being aligned with the latest developments, superseded the felt need to change Zwarte Piet itself and how that effected the changes made.
Table 9
Role of level of urbanization in giving the public debate as a consideration for altering or not altering ZP
r= N= Sig.
0,131 949 <0,01
Whilst 43,9% just replied with “no”, other schools did give explicit reasons for not altering anything. From these schools the most frequent reason given was the desire to stick to
39 The Sinterklaasjournaal is a daily television show, I will elaborate on its content in the final paragraph of this
chapter.
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tradition. This reason was mentioned by 17,2% of the schools that did not alter Zwarte Piet. Many respondents from these schools emphasized that it was a Dutch tradition that should be guarded and protected as intangible heritage. By tradition many do not refer to the figure of Zwarte Piet itself but to the Sinterklaas tradition as a whole, a respondent from a school in The Hague stated:
“The [this] school maintains the opinion that celebrating the Sinterklaas holiday is a Dutch tradition and that it should stay that way. Therefore no modifications to the color of Zwarte Piet.”
The appearance of Zwarte Piet is thus seen as an inseparable part of the tradition and
changing it would endanger its endurance. In this case the tradition is defined as being Dutch and its Dutchness is made dependent upon leaving Zwarte Piet unchanged. If Dutchness is what is at stake, it is interesting whether the unDutchness of tampering with Zwarte Piet is brought into existence by wanting to change it or if it is tied to the ethno-racial perception of the opponents of Zwarte Piet as already being unDutch. In the remainder of this chapter I will reflect more on how black minorities play a role within different lines of reasoning justifying either changing or not changing Zwarte Piet.
Doing it for the children41
According to all of the respondents from school B none of the children made comments about the chimney Pete. This may be due to the very slight change, making this Pete hard to
distinguish from the Zwarte Pieten. It also may be caused by the fact that the Chimney Piet was part of the television series the Sinterklaasjournaal that aired in 2014. However more interestingly, the alteration was seen as having passed by successfully because the children did not seem to notice it. If they would have noticed it might have caused for confusion which - according to one of the heads - potentially jeopardizes the essence of the festival:
“Because actually we didn’t want to change anything if it would oppose a children’s holiday.”
While at school B the children had to be guarded against ‘too much’ change, for some schools that participated in the survey protecting the children was the main reason to not change anything. Many of these schools judged the debate to be an adult issue in which the
41 Reference to a documentary “we’re doing it for the children” made by the Cultural Media Collective-
Creation for Liberation in 1982. In the documentary racism is connected to Zwarte Piet and it explores reactions of people confronted with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AujLZhuiPMU
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interests of the children – who often were described as innocent and incapable of
discriminating others - were neglected (see the first quote in chapter 4).42 Some of the schools reported to have followed the advice of their pupils to not change anything about the
celebration, consider the following quote from a school in a large town in the Randstad area:
“Within our pupil’s council the Sinterklaas holiday has been discussed. The pupil’s indicated that the celebration is only really a celebration with a real Zwarte Piet (who is besides painted brown). Parents and teachers are also in favor of the traditional celebration of Sinterklaas”
Of the schools not altering Zwarte Piet 8,1% mentioned the children or it being a children’s holiday43 as a reason for not changing, making it after “no” and the “it’s tradition”-argument the most frequently used response to whether there were considerations involved that led to not altering Zwarte Piet. In some of these responses non-white children were explicitly mentioned (20 out of 71). This was done in three different ways sometimes mentioned together: 1. By emphasizing the diverse population, the school was presented as
multicultural. 2. Not changing Zwarte Piet and keeping it traditional was explicitly stated as a way of getting recently migrated children accustomed to Dutch culture. 3. Children with a minority background were used as a way of defending the tradition as being harmless, because they allegedly enjoyed the celebration just as much as the other children. The latter can simultaneously be a strategy for a school to present itself as non-racist because it took non-white children into consideration before deciding not to change. A respondent from a school in Utrecht gave such a response:
“We experienced that it is actually Zwarte Piet making the celebration fun. We do not want to take that away from the children. Moreover, the children do not relate it to slavery etc. I asked the pupils from other countries/cultures and they unanimously agreed that Zwarte Piet was fun.”
If Zwarte Piet is connected to racism, one may expect the children to be the first
consideration that schools take into account when they decide to change it, as they would be the ones primarily affected by it. However for schools that decided to make adjustments to Zwarte Piet, parents more often played a role than children. Only one respondent from these schools mentioned to have considered children before changing it. In this case it was
42 Often these interests revolved around the children having ‘fun’ and ‘gezelligheid’. 43 See note no. 4
29
explicitly stated that the children considered were Surinamese. In the following paragraph I will demonstrate how being responsive to the feelings of Afro-Dutch played a role in changing Zwarte Piet at both of the schools I visited and how spotlighting these feelings endangers engagement with the causes of these feelings.
Parental worries
While children were more often mentioned by schools as a reason not to change, 7,8% of those schools also mentioned considering the parents. The decision to not make any
alterations to Zwarte Piet was frequently done after seeking advice from the parent council or another advisory board in which parents were represented. Other schools reported that they did not see the need to change, because parents did not complain over it. Finally there were a few schools that reported being pressured by parents to not change.
From schools that did alter Zwarte Piet 13,3% mentioned taking parents into consideration before doing so. In these cases complaining parents were often identified as a main cause to change. Parents also played an important role at the two schools I visited. Both the head and the deputy head at school A emphasized that parents from the start on addressed the issue of Zwarte Piet and asked for the figure not to appear during the celebration. The deputy head explained:
“From the beginning we had a parent group, who from their background and their roots [Surinamese], they really aimed at preserving the self-esteem and self-respect of the children. They often had experienced when they were younger that they in this period [the period leading up to the 5th of December] were treated rudely and all kinds of slurs were used directed at them. So they proposed: ‘we would like it if Sinterklaas wouldn’t appear here.’ Because of that, it is mostly such a difficult period with all kinds of fuss and they experienced it in their childhood. And we as heads found it also, actually we agreed. Because we also were of the opinion like this thing is not good.”
At school B there was one father who addressed the issue in 2013 and again in 2014. When I interviewed him, he also emphasized the importance of his racial identity and experiences from his own childhood. He told me that when he grew up as a black child in a small white village, he was often confronted with Zwarte Piet during the Sinterklaas period. Every year again his peers teased him by calling him Zwarte Piet.
30
It is understandable that blacks addressing the issue, do so from their own negative
experiences and feelings. While this can work – as in the case of school B – to stir up change, this may come with a cost. Namely blacks (or other racial minorities) may also serve to prove that it is not a problem, if they do not share these feelings (as was the case with schools that used the approval of ethnic minority children and/or parents as a justification for not
changing anything). In addition, if blacks are thought of as not being present in a school or in a community the school feels attached to, there might be no reason to change or even deal with it at all. Furthermore by making it a matter of black feelings, blacks run the risk of becoming the matter at stake themselves rather than the issues they bring to the fore that caused their negative feelings.44 Finally, if critiquing Zwarte Piet in such a way helps causing change, it is done so in order to cater to feelings. The question remains whether colonialism and slavery will then ever be addressed. While Zwarte Piet has the potential of reconnecting this past to a national historical narrative, a focus on black feelings may prevent this from happening. This past remains then to be solely related to blacks and their history rather than
Dutch history.
Staying aligned
After the issue in the last few years became more publicly debated the father mentioned in the previous paragraph, took the opportunity to address the issue at his daughter’s school. Whilst the head that I interviewed already in 2013 agreed with him that change was necessary, she told me that they did not do anything yet out of idleness. In 2014 this father became a member of the advisory committee attached to a school network, of which school B was a member. When I interviewed him he told me that in the committee he addressed the issue and warned them that they were at risk of “lagging behind the developments.” According to him the responses were reserved, the board felt that each school should decide for themselves how to deal with the case of Zwarte Piet. However he also noticed that all of the schools took the Sinterklaasjournaal as leading of the direction the tradition would take. Being unsatisfied with the schools making themselves dependent upon the plot of a television show, he
discussed the matter with both of the heads of his daughter’s school and asked them to take a stance. They agreed the school should take a position in the debate. Though by the time they were up to make a decision, it was the president of the school network that suggested a solution. She copied a guideline used by a network of schools in Amsterdam Southeast and
