If you had asked René de Reus five years ago what the Sinterklaas celebration cannot do without, he would have raised his eyebrows in a critical frown. “Black Pete,” he is said to have replied firmly.
Without a thick layer of dark make-up, he believes, the children would see right through the tradition, the magic would be lost and, in short, there would be nothing left. What do you mean Black Pete is racism, he thought. Although the objections to the racist caricature were already discussed extensively and increasingly publicly, he saw it completely differently. Besides, no one around him thought Sinterklaas’s helper was racist, he says. “Our Piets were brown instead of black and they didn’t have those thick lips or earrings. That seemed good enough to me.”
All 85 Petes comply with the NTR guidelines. That is to say: with black streaks of soot, without gold earrings, diverse hair
But everything has changed now, he says under a party tent at the Burcht in Zaandam, on the edge of the center, on the water. Sinterklaas will arrive here on Saturday, with telecom advisor René de Reus (54) as the soot sweeper. “All 85 Piets meet the NTR guidelines.” That is to say: with black streaks of soot, without gold earrings, diverse hair.
De Reus has been organizing the Sinterklaas party in Zaandam together with others for 24 years. It started more or less by chance: he was on a neighborhood council that opened a playground and that involved a Santa Claus. There was something addictive about the cheerfulness that the Sinterklaas festival brings and so De Reus continued with it in the years that followed – it got bigger and bigger. Today the stage is being set up in heavy rain. A truck with 2,400 gift bags is already ready, 1,500 kilos of gingerbread nuts have been delivered and crush barriers are being displayed. Costs: almost half a ton. “Nowadays when I see a Pete with black face paint, I think: he’s out of his mind.”
Black or soot smear?
How come De Reus has changed his mind so radically?
In any case, he is not alone. The number of people in favor of a Sinterklaas party with only Piet’s face painted in black was 38 percent in the last Ipsos I&O poll, while in 2016 this was still 65 percent. Supporters of Zwarte Piet believe that it is a beautiful tradition that they believe is not racist. Opponents see it that way, or, according to the researchers, understand that it is experienced that way.
There has hardly been any Zwarte Piet on TV for years. Those kids don’t know any better
In 2018, the municipality of Zaanstad, which includes Zaandam, was still national and international news because the national arrival took place there. What would it be, black or sooty? In those days, a majority of the Netherlands was still in favor of a black-painted assistant of Sinterklaas, but there were the Sinterklaas news already visible soot sweepers. That year, De Reus organized its own parade with only Black Petes, as a protest against the changing views.
The fact that there were people who did have difficulty with the appearance of Zwarte Piet only came to De Reus when he spoke to “a delegation from the Surinamese community” and with people from the protest movement Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP).
“My argument that other Petes would ruin the party for children was undermined by Jerry Affriyie of KOZP. He said: ‘But there has hardly been any Black Pete on TV for years. Those children don’t know any better.’ And he wanted it to be fun for his own children too. He had a point there.”
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Slavery history
During various discussion sessions under the guidance of the municipality, De Reus’s views shifted further. “We really started listening to each other.” KOZP explained why the entire entourage reflects the painful history of slavery – the earrings, the frizzy hair, the clothes, the meek assistance of an old white man – and this time the criticism was directed at De Reus.
The decision to go along with the spirit of the times at the Burcht in Zaandam and switch completely to the soot sweeper finally came in 2022, after two corona years. The party had taken on a grim edge. “There’s always that threat of protests against Black Pete.” The word “neo-Nazis” was painted on one wall. According to De Reus, it focuses on the organization. They felt forced to hire more security. Anti-Black Pete demonstrators were pelted with eggs during the arrival. The final push was given by the sponsors, who withdrew. And without money there is no happy tradition.
De Reus remembers the tension when he was a soot sweeper for the first time. Would the children accept him as a real Pete? “The fear. I remember entering the grounds and the children shouting at me: ‘Pete! Pete! Pete! No one recognized me. The relief.” The party could continue.
They have “fought and fought for a tradition” for a long time, says De Reus. “But thanks to the good conversations, we eventually turned around. Looking back, it caused a lot of unnecessary stress. Now the party gives us such a good feeling again. If we had known this, we would have done it much sooner.”
Yerseke
He has removed the photos of Black Petes that were still there until 2021 from his social media channels. “That is history.” He shows them on his phone. “Very beautiful, right?” Despite everything, he looks back on it with pride. He knows that Zwarte Piet is experienced as racist, but he also thinks that what he does not mean as racist is not racist.
Yesterday he texted one of the people from KOZP, he shows. Whether they wanted to come to the arrival in Zaandam to celebrate Sinterklaas together. “They can’t because they are busy saying goodbye.” KOZP will stop on December 5 after fifteen years of campaigning. They also texted about Yerseke in Zeeland, says De Reus, where they still wanted to work with Black Petes and where the entire parade was ultimately canceled this week after KOZP announced a demonstration. It is not known how many municipalities still participate in Zwarte Piet parades, but they are by far a minority. “In Yerseke they don’t fully understand it yet.”
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Sinterklaas arrival in Yerseke canceled due to concerns about protests
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