The False Innocence of Black Pete
Writing a weekly column for a Dutch newspaper is a good way to lose heart. Not because whatever topic you choose, you’re bound to receive slews of emails from readers who disagree with you, or because of the amount of hatred people tend to offload in those letters. What gets you down is that some people seem to think that when you contradict them, you lose your right not only to freedom of speech but to your nationality. “That’s not the Dutch way of doing things.”
When I hear this, I often find myself coming back to the James Baldwin passage from the Autobiographical Notes that begin Notes of a Native Son: “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
Although I have lived here for almost five years now, the country that I love most is not the United States of America. I was born in the Netherlands, and most of my family and friends live there. Still, the notion stays the same: precisely because I love the Netherlands so much, I insist on my right to continuously criticize her.
The aim of that criticism is to better the principles by which that country functions, and because I know no single person—and certainly not me—can be the moral center of a country, my hope is that other Dutch people will do the same. I suggest we start by taking a closer look at our family holidays.
Every year, on the December 5, the Dutch celebrate the feast of Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas). The concept of Sinterklaas is different from that of Santa Claus. For starters, Sinterklaas is not a Christmas character; Sinterklaas’s name
