Black Pete & Sinterklaas: UN experts encourage respectful national debate on Dutch tradition: “As Dutch celebrations of the arrival of Saint Nicholas or Sinterklaas began across the Netherlands last weekend, the debate over whether the portrayal of his servant, Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), perpetuates a negative stereotype of Africans and people of African descent has heightened significantly. A group of United Nations independent human rights experts, who were instrumental in raising the matter, today called on the Dutch Government to take the lead in facilitating the growing national debate, in order to promote understanding, mutual respect and intercultural dialogue.”
Read more on http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14013&LangID=E
Rita Izsak, UN Independent Expert on minority issues: “Earlier this year, some of us received a letter from Dutch Afro-Descendants who shared with us their pain over the Black Pete figure. So a few of us, UN human rights experts (namely on Culture, Racism, African Descendants and Minorities), decided to address the government of the Netherlands and share this concern as we always do with such complaints coming from affected communities. This letter was somehow found and then shared on the Internet, this is how I started receiving many direct comments. In this letter, we referred to what we heard from the people of African descent residing in the Netherlands: that in their opinion, the Black Pete celebrations perpetuate a stereotypical image of Africans and people of African descent as second-class citizens, fostering an underlying sense of inferiority within Dutch society and stirring racism.
Now the biggest question is of course, what we do with this. It is clear that some people are hurt and want changes. It is also clear that others do not see anything wrong with this celebration and do not want to open a debate on it. But societies that want to maintain peaceful coexistence and harmony among its citizens from various backgrounds, need to face such controversies and hold dialogue where everyone’s voice can be heard and listened to, and come to a solution that pleases its people.”
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