UN ruling on Dutch festival fuels Facebook frenzy to save ‘Black Petes’

A FACEBOOK page seeking to preserve “Black Petes” – blackfaced clowns who are part of the Netherland’s Sinterklaas festival – has received a million likes in one day.

The popularity of the “Peteition” page reflects Dutch attach- ment to a tradition under threat from people who claim it is racist. “Don’t let the Netherlands’ most beautiful tradition disappear,” the page says.

On Tuesday the chairwoman of a UN Human Rights Commission panel investigating whether the festival has racist elements condemned it flatly.

“The working group does not understand why it is that people in the Netherlands cannot see that this is a throwback to slavery, and that in the 21st century this practice should stop,” Verene Shepherd said.

In the festival’s story as it is told to children, Sinterklaas, or Santa Claus or St Nicholas, arrives by steamboat in midNovember accompanied by lots of helpers – “Zwarte Pieten,” or Black Petes, who have black faces, red lips and curly hair.

Opponents say Pete, referred to in song as a “servant” to the elderly saint, is an offensive caricature of black people. Supporters say he is a positive figure of fun whose appearance is harmless. Children are told he is black from going down chimneys.

“Message for the UN: isn’t there a war somewhere that you could better be concerned about?” Dutchman Peter Udo wrote in a comment on the Facebook page. That comment drew more than 2,000 likes.