{"id":6049,"date":"2015-11-19T10:03:23","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T09:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=42571"},"modified":"2026-02-10T17:07:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T16:07:49","slug":"sint-nicholas-is-fine-but-without-black-pete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2015\/11\/19\/sint-nicholas-is-fine-but-without-black-pete\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Sint Nicholas is fine, but without Black Pete’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Isabel Awad is a communication researcher at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (ESHCC). Together with a number of colleagues, she wrote a glossy about Black Pete. The work will be presented at the university on 19 November. As an outsider \u2013 Awad was born in Chile \u2013 she was \u2018shocked\u2019 when she first experienced the event that marks the arrival of St Nicholas in 2007. Nevertheless: \u201cIn many respects, the St Nicholas celebration in the Netherlands is nicer than the Chilean Christmas celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isabel Awad\u2019s family did not celebrate a day dedicated to St Nicholas in Chile. \u201cWe only have Christmas in Chile. It\u2019s like in the United States. There\u2019s Santa Claus and there are many presents. I think that we adopted the style from the US. But Christmas in Chile is actually very different, because the country is in the Southern Hemisphere. Christmas therefore occurs in the middle of summer. Cotton is used to create the impression of snow and Santa goes around in his winter clothes while it\u2019s 35 degrees Celsius.\u201d<\/p>\n

Children stay up until midnight on Christmas Eve, because that is when the big moment takes place. At that point, it is actually like St Nicholas in the Netherlands: parents distract their children and then \u2013 hey presto! \u2013 the presents are suddenly there. And there are many of them indeed. This was also the case when Awad was growing up. She can still remember the toy house she received when she was around six years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not actually a very nice way of celebrating. It\u2019s mainly about presents. In Chile you have to give something to everyone \u2013 your colleagues, your adult friends, everyone. It\u2019s very materialistic. The St Nicholas celebration in the Netherlands is very different, because it\u2019s well and truly a celebration for children. I therefore think it\u2019s a lot nicer than the Christmas celebration in Chile. It is more spiritual. It has more meaning. Many Dutch friends give a nice present and a poem to one specific person. Although Awad is critical of the Black Pete element, she values the St Nicholas celebration. \u201cI don\u2019t go to Chile for Christmas, I prefer the St Nicholas event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stunned<\/h3>\n\t
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\n\t\t\u2018I was very disappointed when I learned that faces painted black were also part of the celebration on campus\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Awad never saw a Black Pete when she was growing up in Chile. She also never saw faces that had been painted black. \u201cChile has a lot of minorities. There is also racism, though not against black people, because there are hardly any black people in Chile. There was no slavery in Chile like there was in many other Latin American colonies. It is only in the past few years that an \u2018Afro-Chilean\u2019 group has emerged as a result of very recent immigration from the Caribbean region.\u201d Awad is also a member of a minority group in Chile. \u201cMy family originally comes from Syria and Palestine. My great-grandparents immigrated to South America a hundred years ago.\u201d In Chile her family is now regularly identified as \u2018Turkish\u2019, since, at the time that Awad\u2019s great-grandparents made their journey, the Middle East was still part of the Ottoman Empire.<\/p>\n

Born in Chile, Awad lived in the United States for six years, where she conducted her doctoral research into cultural diversity in the news media. \u201cMy research in the US was about the Latino community in San Jos\u00e9. It covered issues of racism and the representation of the other<\/em>.\u201d Sometimes, though only rarely, she encountered references to the \u2018blackface\u2019 phenomenon. \u201cBut it was always in a context in which the phenomenon was being criticised.\u201d She arrived in the Netherlands in 2007 to work at the University of Amsterdam and, from 2009, at the ESHCC.<\/p>\n

Awad first saw Black Petes on yellowed postcards. \u201cThe postcards got my attention, but I had no idea how mainstream or popular Black Petes still were.\u201d She found out during the arrival procession of St Nicholas in Amsterdam in November 2007. \u201cA friend with two children invited me to the event. At the time I had no idea what the whole St Nicholas thing was about. I love kids, though, so I was more than happy to go and see the event for myself. I was therefore one of the many people standing on the side of the street waiting for St Nicholas. I was stunned when I saw the group, especially because of the way everyone in the crowd seemed to be thinking that it was all okay. I saw a white bishop on a horse. The contrast between this elderly white man seated high on his horse, this almost regal figure, and the comical, clown-like buffoons accompanying him on foot, their faces painted black, could not have been greater. It was truly shocking to me. There were also children that seemed to have shoe polish on their faces. I heard from my friends that children sometimes point at black people and say \u2018Look! Black Pete!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Just Pete<\/h3>
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Roetveegpieten op de Erasmus Universiteit in 2014<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMichelle Muus<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

Awad did not discuss the matter on the spot. She did so later, however. \u201cI also discussed the matter with many Dutch people. It was nice to come across many Dutch people in Rotterdam who were also critical. A serious debate was going on in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Awad got involved in this debate. She said that when her daughter was born in 2011, she could no longer avoid the issue. \u201cI would like my child to be able to participate in traditions like St Nicholas. She loves the celebration and the \u2018spice nuts\u2019. At first I thought that it was great that I could take her to the St Nicholas event here at Erasmus University.\u201d Awad took her daughter for the first time when she was two years old. \u201cShe wasn\u2019t really aware of what was going on because she was so young. But it wasn\u2019t the kind of celebration that I wanted to be involved in. I was very disappointed when I learned that faces painted black were also part of the celebration on campus. I\u2019d really like my daughter to absorb the Dutch tradition, because she\u2019s growing up here. But I don\u2019t want her to be part of the tradition\u2019s racist element. Since she\u2019s now four, she\u2019s just starting to become aware of what it means. I\u2019ve explained to her that there are more colours than black and that she should therefore no longer say Black Pete.<\/em> She still says it sometimes. When she does, I say: \u2018No, it\u2019s just Pete\u2019. She then remembers what I explained. The whole thing makes no difference to her in other respects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chimney sweeps<\/h3>
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Before taking her daughter to the St Nicholas celebration at Erasmus University for the second time in 2014, Awad sent an e-mail message to the organisers. She asked what the party would be like that year. \u201cI was informed that it would be like it had been every year and that there would be Brown Petes instead of Black Petes. I didn\u2019t understand that at all. Together with my colleague Jiska Engelbert, I later wrote a letter to EM.<\/em>\u201d The two ESHCC academics are very clear in the letter: \u201cWe would like to express our deep disappointment about, and distance ourselves from, Erasmus University\u2019s response to the current St Nicholas debate, particularly with respect to the racism underlying the Black Pete character.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the party featured a few Chimney Sweep Petes in addition to Black and Brown Petes. \u201cThat wasn\u2019t a real solution, obviously. I decided not to go in the end. It was a real shame. I may go this year. More discussion is possible now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter proved to be the starting shot of a year-long study into the Black Pete phenomenon. Together with her colleagues in Rotterdam Jiska Engelbert, Alex van Stipriaan and Jacco van Sterkenburg, as well as Chris Peters of the University of Groningen, Awad also wrote a letter on the subject, which was published in\u00a0de Volkskrant<\/em>, a Dutch daily newspaper. In addition, the Erasmus University scholars spent their free time working with their colleague Janelle Ward and research assistants on a plan to give the academic community a leading role in the Black Pete debate. Together with media and culture professionals based in Amsterdam, the Rotterdam researchers produced a glossy of over 200 pages. The purpose of this publication is to show how many different kinds of Black Pete there already are in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Dutch identity<\/h3>\n\t
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\n\t\t\u2018I\u2019d really like my daughter to enjoy the Dutch tradition, because she\u2019s growing up here. But I don\u2019t want her to be part of the tradition\u2019s racist element\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Despite the experience that she now has in the subject, Awad is always surprised by the tone in which the Black Pete debate is conducted. In her view, a number of the replies to the letter that President Pauline van der Meer Mohr published in EM <\/em>in an attempt to get the debate going at Erasmus University are striking examples of this tone. \u201cThe contents of the letter were hardly radical. Some of the replies were therefore mind-boggling. I simply didn\u2019t expect that kind of thing.\u201d She has no conclusive explanation for the vehemence. \u201cI think it has something to do with the wish to defend a narrow, essentialist perception of Dutch identity against external influences, as if that identity is something immutable and incapable of change. My own view is that identities are always evolving and that the issue must be seen from different perspectives. I know people who say: \u2018It\u2019s only a children\u2019s celebration, so what\u2019s all the fuss about Black Pete?\u2019 But I rarely encounter the people who are so uncompromising in their tone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, she believes that it is possible to involve everyone in the debate, also those who are in favour of retaining Black Pete. \u201cI don\u2019t think that the university is in an ivory tower. If anything, we\u2019re doing our very best to engage everyone in the debate and we welcome participation. It\u2019s in any case good that the academic community is trying to get involved in this debate. Doing nothing means failing as a university. It\u2019s not possible to simply wash your hands, absolve yourself of any responsibility and sit on the fence to see how things pan out. That kind of indifference is inexcusable in relation to important social debates is inexcusable for an inistution which counts a legion of historians, sociologists, philosophers, communication experts and marketeers at its disposal, people who have something meaningful to contribute in this discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Post-war invention<\/h3>
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The group of \u2018Black Pete scholars\u2019 at the ESHCC is convinced of one thing: the debate should no longer be about whether <\/em>Black Pete should change, it has to be about how<\/em> Black Pete should change. \u201cPete has never stopped changing. My colleague Alex van Stipriaan prepared a historical overview for our glossy<\/a>. The current Pete took shape after the Second World War. The character of course has a historical background, part of which dates back to the reality of slavery in the context of the Atlantic slave trade. That\u2019s problematic. At the same time, however, the character has always changed and will continue to change. There is of course momentum for such changes right now. The Saint Nicholas tradition in itself is a beautiful one. It\u2019s much more about family than Christmas in Chile, but without the Black of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

See also<\/h2>