This is the season I dread. How can that be, when, here in Europe, Christmas is around the corner, children await presents and winter slumb...
This is the season I dread. How can that be, when, here in Europe, Christmas is around the corner, children await presents and winter slumber beckons?
Well, it is because I live in the Netherlands, and Zwart Piete or Black Pete – a simpering, exaggerated cartoon of a Black person – is everywhere. In the Dutch tradition, Black Pete accompanies Sinterklaas, their Santa, on his duties.
Omnipresent character
He is a sidekick and helper, enforcer and lackey. And from late October onwards, his image – fat red lips, buggy eyes, piratical earrings and unyielding, sinister smile – is omnipresent.
At my local bakery, gingerbread cookies shaped as Black Pete, his plump lips a frosted fondant, are on sale. At the department store’s window tableau, an animatronic Black Pete, in flamboyant costume, defies gravity in mid-jig. At the supermarket, Black Pete consumables – chocolates, cupcakes, marzipan treats – proliferate in each aisle.
His presence so oversaturates the country – his wooden image erected at public squares, his Joker-like rictus of a smile strung up with lights in foyers – that he occupies one’s consciousness, and shows up in my dreams.
My induction into this caricature was a decade ago. My eldest daughter, Soraya, was a toddler. Her Amsterdam daycare invited parents to...
