In his childhood, Henk Koobs never experienced a Sinterklaas entry. The fact that Sinterklaas has made his entrance in Reformed Staphorst is, according to him, due to the efforts of the middle class, which has commercial motives. The 58-year-old chairman of the Historical Association Staphorst talks about “a conversation” in the city council in 1964, his year of birth. While entrepreneurs unveiled their proposal, tempers ran high among the council members. The proposal would “mockery with the sacred principles of the Reformation”, a former SGP councilor said.
At the largest primary school in the village, the Christelijk Nationale School, they pay attention to the Sinterklaas celebration – in contrast to Reformed schools. Then Sinterklaas comes to visit with his soot sweepers. According to director Dirk Dreschler (39), the transition from Zwarte Piet to soot sweeper went “without discussion”. In the almost two years that he has been director there, he has never heard complaints from students, their parents and teachers. “We have not deliberately wanted to hold on to things.”
Agony
This Wednesday market vendor Bert (64) will be selling his wares on the market square in Staphorst, but he just as easily strikes up a chat with passing villagers. It is also about what happened on the outskirts of the village four days earlier. “In the West you celebrate Eid, in the South they have Carnival and here, here we do it our way.” He is fed up with the interference with the color of Zwarte Piet.
Demonstrators from the action group Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP) and observers from the human rights organization Amnesty were ambushed at a highway exit on Saturday by mostly black-faced men who then threw themselves into vandalizing and pelting cars with eggs, paint, fuel and fireworks. The atmosphere became so grim that some demonstrators were terrified.
Jan Huls (72), born and raised in Staphorst, stands at Bert’s stall. “I deliberately did not go there. I knew it would get out of hand.” Bert: “This is even being discussed in the House of Representatives. What the hell is it about? Zwarte Piet is a tradition here.”
Action group KOZP was under police escort on its way to the market square in Staphorst, where the arrival of Sinterklaas with Zwarte Pieten would take place that afternoon. A section was also marked out on the square in which the demonstrators could make their protest against Zwarte Piet known as a racist caricature. It didn’t come to that. The mayor decided to ban the KOZP demonstration for fear that the tumult at the exit would move to the square, where there were many children.
Staphorsters find tradition and culture very important
Jan ten Kate Mayor Staphorst
So far, no rioter has been arrested, although the police were present in large numbers. The police announced on Wednesday that it was not possible to arrest rioters on the spot, it writes de Volkskrantbecause police vans would be hampered by tractors and crow’s feet. The investigation into perpetrators of criminal offenses is said to have been in full swing since Saturday. The Justice and Security Inspectorate will investigate the actions of the police, it was said announced Thursday.
Out of all the conversations that NRC with villagers from (the vicinity of) Staphorst, it is unanimous that what happened at the exit has gone much too far. Yet no one steps into the breach for the beleaguered demonstrators.
“You never heard anyone complain about Sinterklaas in the past,” says Albert, a market visitor who also came to browse Bert’s stall with his wife. The couple complains about the arrival of “more and more foreigners”, which they believe is an explanation for the ongoing social protest against Zwarte Piet. They do not celebrate Sinterklaas themselves. “We have no grandchildren.”
Any storefront
There is not a black piet to be seen on the market and in the adjacent shopping street. Only one window, that of the Read Shop, is decorated in Sinterklaas style. The packages are wrapped with paper on which soot sweepers are depicted. “That was pure coincidence, that’s how the wrapping paper came in with the mail,” explains a saleswoman of the bookstore. She gets no complaints from customers.
“We are glad that the children have not been given anything,” says a woman who, together with her daughter and granddaughters, walks towards the market square in a double pram. The women were present at the entry on Saturday, but would rather not have their names in the newspaper. While the girls in the pram are becoming increasingly restless, the women say they find “the fuss” around Zwarte Piet inconvenient and unnecessary. “They add way too many things. Slavery is so far back…” Whether they let Zwarte Piet come home themselves? “No, with Sinterklaas we only do presents.”
The older sister of the girls in the pram is on the CNS, so they celebrate Sinterklaas with soot wipes. There was no ‘active’ attention to the violence at the exit after the weekend. It’s a far-from-our-bed show, says director Dreschler. “Of course children will have said something about that, and there is also room for that, but we have not actively given a stage to this specific situation. Our focus is mainly on education.”
Why is it that anti-racism demonstrators evoke so much resistance in Staphorst, while traditionally not much value is attached to the Sinterklaas celebration?
“This situation is very twofold for the community,” says mayor Jan ten Kate in his office at the town hall. The non-party mayor is assisted by an interim spokesperson, who has been flown in urgently after the weekend to face the mountain of press requests. “For the most part, people disapprove of what happened at the exit,” says Ten Kate. “People also find it annoying that they look bad again.”
He refers to the negative image surrounding the Reformed village in Overijssel, which is thought to be people still living in the last century. The image did not improve during the corona crisis, when church services with hundreds of people continued while the rest of the country was in a lockdown.
He “really does not want to trivialize” and in no way convey the idea that he is “defending” the violence, because that “would not do justice to KOZP and Amnesty”. But according to him, Staphorsters are people who “find traditions and culture very important”. And when “that threatens to disappear, a certain feeling arises.”
As mayor, he was committed to allowing “the party and the demonstration” to exist side by side. An independent investigation must, among other things, answer the question of whether it was right that the demonstration was canceled.
It is therefore the association of entrepreneurs that has been organizing the entry since the nineties, and “the municipality has to participate in that”, says Henk Koobs of the historical association. And he certainly allows those demonstrators to come to Staphorst, but not on the day of the entry or during the evening of the package.
Although Koobs also disapproves of the violence at the motorway exit, he certainly understands its use. ‘Westerners’ should not come and tell ‘us’ ‘what to do’. He understands the Staphorsters’ frustration. According to him, the name of the action group alone evokes a negative reaction: “Kick Out Zwarte Piet, what an aggressive name.”
If you look at photos of Saturday’s Sinterklaas arrival, you will also see Pieten with dots on their faces: Stipwerk Pieten. These have been introduced in Staphorst two years ago, says Mayor Ten Kate. The dotwork is from the traditional Staphorst costume. He has to suppress a laugh when he says that the dots have “a black background”. He calls the fact that the dots are now reflected in the make-up and clothing of the Pieten an example of how “tradition and innovation” go together in the village.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of November 26, 2022