The black make-up on the Piets’ faces stays in place quite well in the rain that is falling from the sky in the village of De Lier, located in the Westland. Sonny van der Heijden (52) suspects that it is not without reason that it is raining so hard today. “It’s been crazy lately. Everyone thinks it’s just normal rain, but it’s not. That rain has been sent. They have been doing that in China for some time, and they are now doing it here too. They knew something would happen today,” he says in a snack bar in the Hoofdstraat in De Lier. By ‘they’ he means the government, and D66 leader Rob Jetten in particular. “He is only after power, much worse than the rest.”
Van der Heijden is not the only one who is excited today in De Lier, where Sinterklaas arrives shortly after two o’clock in the afternoon, with some delay. The Hoofdstraat is filled with Black Petes and many young boys in black coats who come to ‘protect’ the Petes because a demonstration has been announced by Kick Out Black Pete (KOZP). Police officers ask some Petes what is in the gunny bags. There are fears that fireworks will soon be thrown. That morning, police cameras had already been sprayed with polyurethane foam because Zwarte Piet fans did not want to be recognized. The police’s fears that hay bales and slurry tanks would disrupt the parade turned out to be unfounded.
Crowd barriers
Mayor Bouke Arends issued an emergency order that had consequences for the arrival: KOZP could not enter the Hoofdstraat and was kept away from the place where the arrival took place. Crowd barriers largely separated the demonstrators from the rioters, who were able to reach the field where the parade was held. In the meantime, the police stopped as much as possible the eggs and full cans of soft drinks that were thrown in the direction of KOZP, just like flares and other fireworks.
Van der Heijden, who lives in Zoetermeer, came to De Lier especially to show that he does not feel discriminated against by Zwarte Piet. He was born in Suriname and adopted at a young age by two parents in The Hague. He himself has “only good memories” of the party and was never bullied because of his skin color. “No one understands that there is a difference between brown and black. Abolishing Zwarte Piet and sending rain on a day like this is because the rich, powerful elite wants to make part of the people disappear.”
“Black Pete is tradition and those people should just fuck off,” says one of the black-faced Petes, who wants to remain anonymous (“my name is just Piet”). He says that the organizing committee had indicated in advance that they should remain calm and not pick a fight with KOZP.
“If the other party reacts, things will be different here,” he assures. A younger Pete, who also wants to remain anonymous, nods. He is standing here because he has experienced the arrivals since he was four years old and “because it is now time to defend myself against the idiots who come here to demonstrate against tradition.”
Right to demonstrate
At KOZP it is limited to chanting slogans from behind the crowd barriers, so things won’t really go wrong this afternoon. A police cordon keeps both groups apart and no one is injured. However, according to the police, nine counter-demonstrators were arrested, including for possession of impact weapons.
“The police did their best to protect us from everything that was thrown at us, but our right to demonstrate was not protected,” says KOZP leader Jerry Afriyie over the telephone afterwards. KOZP had come that way with about eighty men with signs saying ‘Black Pete is racism’ and slogans with a similar meaning. “We stood where they put us, but we couldn’t get to the parade.” According to Afriyie, it is “tough to see” that “nothing has changed” in De Lier over the past ten years.
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