Race issue overshadows traditional St Nicholas celebrations

Описание: (15 Nov 2014) Across Belgium and the Netherlands, celebrations in which Saint Nicholas rolls into town surrounded by a host of helpers known as "Black Petes" have come under increasing pressure year by year from complaints about racism.
Pete is usually played by a white person who paints his face pitch black, dons a frizzy wig and gives himself bright red lips - stereotypes that disappeared from most countries decades ago.
The Belgian town of Sint-Niklaas, with a church and statue honouring the saint, has long been one of the focal points of the celebrations that spread across the Netherlands and Belgium at this time of year.
A grand entrance this Sunday is expected to bring tens of thousands of children flocking to the "home of the saint".
Yet even in this bastion of saintly tradition, questions are starting to be asked about Black Pete.
Wouter van Bellingen remembers how, as a black child growing up in mostly white Sint-Niklaas, he used to be taunted with chants of: "Look, there goes Black Pete."
"Kids can be hard when it comes to that," says the former alderman and current director of the region's Minorities Forum.
"I retorted with, 'There goes White Pete.' I always had my answer."
Around this time of year, Saint Nicholas visits hundreds of villages in Belgium and Holland, arriving by steamer or on his white horse to the delight of shrieking children across the two countries.
The Black Petes do everything - from carrying presents to throwing sweets at the children and generally prancing about until Saint Nicholas day on 6 December.
Black Pete has evolved over the years.
Originally, Black Pete was a scary character, carrying a big bag to hold naughty children and a whip to punish the disobedient.
Promoting him in recent years as a happy-go-lucky sidekick full of quirky madness has helped him to compete in popularity with Saint Nicholas himself.
In another modern touch, almost half of the Petes greeting children in Sint-Niklaas' official Saint Nicholas "mansion" - a yearly holiday attraction - are played by women.
At the fun house, which reopened this week for a monthlong run, children squealed as female Petes showed them Saint Nicholas' dining room and sleeping quarters for all of the Petes.
But efforts at softening Pete's image have failed to subdue bad blood between the pro- and anti-Black Pete camps in the Netherlands, where resentments over immigration have simmered for years.
Liberals want to abolish the tradition, while the right-wing firebrand Geert Wilders and his anti-immigration Freedom Party have proposed legislation that would keep Pete black - by law.
Last year, more than two (M) million people endorsed a Facebook petition to keep Black Petes' image unchanged - that's nearly one-eighth of the entire Dutch population, indicating the depth of emotion over the issue.
The Netherlands' highest administrative court earlier this week refused to wade into the increasingly acrimonious national debate, overturning a lower court's decision that Amsterdam municipality shouldn't have allowed last year's festive arrival of Sinterklaas in the city because Pete "forms a negative stereotyping of black people".
The Council of State didn't rule on the issue of whether Pete was offensive or breached anti-discrimination legislation, but said Amsterdam's mayor wasn't empowered to take the issue into account when granting permits for the celebrations.
Opponents of Black Pete were disappointed, but his supporters called the decision a win for Pete and for Dutch traditions.
Another 30, both supporters and opponents of Black Pete, were arrested for disturbing public order.


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