Closing the week 49 – Featuring Sinterklaas & Black Pete: A Racist Dutch Tradition
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Featuring Sinterklaas & Black Pete: A Racist Dutch Tradition
Question of the Month – Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University
Question of the Month: Who is Black Peter?
There are two interesting sociological points to note here. The first is the apparent differences in racial attitudes between the U.S. and Australia. That is, even though many Americans still are rather ignorant of the racial significance and racist legacy of blackface and still wear it from time to time (especially around this time of year, Halloween, as seen in the photo on the right), for the most part, I will presume that most Americans understand that blackface is offensive (or at least the reactions and criticisms to it are much more intense).
With that in mind, it is notable to see that in Australia, this sensitivity and recognition of blackface do not exist to the same level. In fact, despite the Australian government’s recent official apology to the aborigine population for centuries of racism, in general the racial attitudes of the Australian public seem to be a few decades behind that of the U.S. in terms of racial understanding.
This diminished level of cultural knowledge comes through in the responses by Anand Deva in defending his group’s skit with the usual refrain, “It wasn’t meant to be offensive, it was just a joke.” What he and other Australians do defend the skit don’t understand is that whatever the intent, the result was that it definitely came across as racist and offensive.
Secondly, the reason why they don’t understand why it was offensive is because as Whites in a White majority society, they have the position of being able to make fun of non-Whites while claiming that they did not intend it to be offensive. That, my friends, is the quintessential definition of White privilege.
Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet (II) | In Search of Dutchland | Rina Mae
The combination of the small Black Peter and horse-riding Saint Nicholas, represents the triumph of good over bad, Christian over heathen, and later; Christianity over Islam. They’re caught in a relationship of dualism. Val Plumwood describes dualism as: ‘(…) dualism (…) results from a certain kind of dependency on a subordinated other. This relationship of denied dependency determines a kind of logical structure, in which the denial and the relation of domination/subordination shape the identity of both the relata.’ (Plumwood in Gravenberch, 1998).
Zwarte Piet in a wider context of Dutch racism and its colonial history
Zwarte Piet in a wider context of Dutch racism and its colonial history. Through the combination of this academic paper and a video by the same name, I have attempted to problematize Sinterklaas’ “helper,” Zwarte Piet (literally “Black Peter”). Piet, a dimwitted character almost always played by white people with their faces painted black, represents an offensive caricature of a black slave, and, when placed next to the saintly and wise Sinterklaas figure, expresses a binary relationship that reinforces the ideas of white supremacy. Through interviews representing a broad spectrum of Dutch society, I have attempted to trace the historical background and current conceptions of Zwarte Piet to build an argument calling for the removal of a character no longer admissible in The Netherlands’ multi-ethnic society.
The Dutch celebrate ?Saint Nicholas Day? in much the same way that Americans celebrate Christmas?only our elves are replaced by their ?Black Petes.? Every December, white Dutch citizens paint their faces black, cover their heads in curly wigs, and carry on a tradition that has long passed its admissibility in The Netherlands? multi-ethnic society. Inspired by David Sedaris? ?Six to Eight Black Men,? this film provides a first-hand look at one of the most shocking and offensive traditions still in practice today.
On the Resistance against Black Pete
Collectively in Holland is simply decided: resistance against Black Pete does not exist. The Saint Nicolas propaganda machine works intense. We will all celebrate and enjoy this `typical Dutch’ celebration (three quarters of Europe celebrates it). Because “it is great children’s party”.
Islam in Europe: It’s beginning to look a lot like a multicultural Christmas
In the Netherlands, the Christian Democratic party (CDA) is upset that municipalities are removing the Christian cross from Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas), in order to make him ‘multi-ethnic’ and a ‘universal figure’.
Several problems beset the immigrant communities and academic scholarship in Belgium,France, and the Netherlands. The current politicization of higher education—who gets tenure or governmental financial support for what kind of social science research—results in timid criticism of existing public policies. The greatly differential integration models used in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France have resulted in different ways of collecting data and analyzing the ‘other.’ This article addresses how divergent discourses about the ‘other’ have been constructed over time: according to the French assimilationist model, ethnic minorities do not (officially) ‘exist’; the Netherlands, until recently, embraced a ‘tolerant’ multi-cultural model that conceptualized ethnic minorities as ‘units’ that could be measured and classified according to gradual progress and development; meanwhile Belgium, due to its linguistic divisions, has created another hybrid. This article, in dialogue with Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, argues that the social sciences and existing paradigms in these three countries will need to be de-colonized in order to facilitate de-colonization and anti-racist practices in everyday life.
Sinterklaas beyond black and white « Standplaats Wereld
Another friend offered me a different opinion. She said: “You didn’t grow up here, you’ve never left your shoes by the door waiting for the Sint’s gift, you’ve never fed Americo with hay or carrots and you’ve never sung the foolish songs. You’ll never understand its enchantment.” This idea made me look to the Sint with new eyes. My friend is also talking about culture, but not as a closed list of “things”. Culture, here, is alive, is an experience that produces enchantment. Beautiful image! Experience points to openness and change: the same cultural “things” can be a bit different every time they are enacted again and they can be lived and interpreted differently by different people. Enchantment is not accessible to rational thinking but it has to do with shared feelings and memories. It goes far beyond ideas of what is right and wrong, correct and incorrect. Culture, in her view, is not a bag full of trash that we are condemned to carry for the rest of our lives, but a way of experiencing the world, with all its paradoxes, differences, incorrectness and embarrassing histories.
kagablog » unmasking the black face of traditional dutch fun
I too have come to realise that the figure of Zwarte Piet is a negative image that has a dark past. However I also realise that most Dutch people are in favour of this tradition and become sensitive when it is criticised. Unlike Krauss and Bauer, I am Dutch and I grew up with Zwart Piet. To me Zwarte Piet (Zwarte is Dutch for black and Piet is the Dutch spelling for Pete, see image 1.2 for a representation) was part of my own tradition of celebrating Christmas. Piet is a servant of Sinterklaas (Saint Nicolas). Together they mysteriously ‘visit’ the Netherlands at the end of November until December 6; during this time they appear sporadically to check on children’s behaviour and leave treats during the night in shoes which have been placed strategically by a chimney, accompanied by carrots, poems and letters to the ‘good saint’. As a child I loved the celebration: the excitement, the joy, the sweets and of course the presents. Unlike Krauss and Bauer I can identify with this celebration and what it means to Dutch people even though I object just as strongly as they do, to the image of Zwarte Piet.
Hajj
Muslim women search for a space at hajj | ajc.com
One of the main rites at Islam’s annual hajj centers on the bravery and determination of a woman.
American Muslim pilgrim, Kameelah Wilkerson, 34, throws pebbles at a stone wall representing the devil in Mina, near Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, Nov. 29,
According to Muslim tradition, Hagar, the consort of the patriarch Abraham, ran between two hills searching for water for her dying young son after they were abandoned in the desert here. Then God brought forth a spring that still runs to this day. Every year, pilgrims at hajj re-enact her desperate search, jogging seven times between two spots in Mecca marking the hills.
It’s a story that thrills Shahidah Sharif, an American Muslim on this year’s pilgrimage. But something about the rite galls her: While male pilgrims are urged to rush between the two places, women are told by many clerics to do it slowly, because they are “weaker” and will tire or because jogging is considered immodest.
‘Preserving’ journey of faith for life
While many pilgrims were raising their hands in prayer, others were lifting cameras and mobile phones, photographing scenes from Haj. A number of pilgrims were keen to take advantage of their presence in Makkah and the holy sites to document life’s most sacred journey.
Political Campaigns
Reports coming from Iran indicate that the death sentence of Zeynab Jalalian, a female Kurdish political prisoner, has been confirmed by the Iranian Supreme Court.
Zeynab was arrested in May 2008 in Kermanshah and held by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Intelligence Office ever since. On January 2009 Zeynab was found guilty by the Kermanshah Revolutionary Court of being a member of a Kurdish opposition party, in a trial that lasted only a few minutes. She was declared an “enemy of God” and sentenced to death, despite the fact that her legal file doesn’t include allegations of participating in an armed struggle against the Islamic Republic.
Atefeh Nabavi, 28, is the first woman to receive a prison sentence in relation to charges brought against her for participating in protests following the Presidential elections in June, 2009. She was arrested, charged and sentenced for participating in a protest that drew millions on June 15, 2009. She is among the many unknown and ordinary citizens who were arrested for their participation in protests and only because they demanded accountability from officials with respect to their votes.
BBC News – Concert backs ‘Gandhi of Sahara’
Spanish artists, singers and actors have staged a concert in support of a Western Sahara activist on hunger strike on the Spanish island Lanzarote.
Aminatou Haidar, nicknamed the “Gandhi of Sahara” after seeking independence for the disputed region, was refused re-entry to Morocco on 15 November.
Representation of Women
Chloe – El Gatit
On August 26, 2000 the New York Times reported on Asiyah Andrabi, a “conservative Muslim and radical feminist” who “makes her demands for equal rights for women from behind the all-enveloping burqa.” Andrabi, who is also described as a militant fighting for the liberation of Kashmir, seems to compound what the writer evidently sees as the irreconcilable contradiction between feminism and Islam, women’s rights and the veil, Muslim women and militancy. The representation of Muslim women as militant or potentially violent is rare. The idea of Islam as threatening is usually reserved for Muslim men, while women are perceived as an object of pity or empathy. Underlying Laura Bush’s statement is this more familiar paradigm of women as victims of fundamentalist Islamic tradition, implicitly brown women in need of rescue by civilized people throughout the world.
This paper examines representations of Muslim women, looking at the way interpretations of the Muslim woman are often limited to what is seen as the symbolic and ideological aspect of their presence in the texts, and examining the wider question of the veil, which unavoidably enters the realms of religious debate, cultural theory and literary criticism. It will focus primarily on two texts which can be classified as postcolonial: Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album (BA) and Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes: A Love Story. In studying these texts and their representation of Muslim women, I am concerned not so much with the concept of “writing back” which is often a common theme in post-colonial discourse but with the way both writers speak out of and to their respective audiences.
‘Arab women need not apply’ – The National Newspaper
Yuval Steinitz, the finance minister, told a conference on employment discrimination this month that the failure of Arab women to participate in the workforce was damaging Israel’s economy. Eighteen per cent of Arab women work, and only half of them full time, compared with at least 55 per cent of Jewish women.
He attributed the low employment rate to “cultural obstacles, traditional frameworks and the belief that Arab women have to remain in their home towns”, adding that such restrictions were characteristic of all Arab societies.
But researchers and women’s groups pointed out that employment of Arab women in Israel is lower than almost anywhere else in the Arab world, including such employment blackspots for women as Saudi Arabia and Oman.
Syria moving away from equality: report – The National Newspaper
Women in Syria are facing a deliberate campaign by religious conservatives, supported by the government, to cut down their social freedoms, according to a new report published by a leading Syrian rights group.
The Syrian Women Observatory (SWO) said there had been a “backwards” movement in women’s rights in the country during the past two years and that proposed new legislation, if passed, would further erode already limited legal protection.
BBC News – Syrian Islamic revival has woman’s touch
Syria appears to be undergoing a religious revival, most visible in the growing numbers of women wearing the hijab, or Islamic headscarf, and in part led by conservative women preachers.
The most influential conservative female religious figure in Syria, 70-year-old Munira Qubaisia, is said to have at least 75,000 followers, and they are growing in number.
Her preachers, known as Anseh, tend to come from the educated upper classes. They arrive at their meetings in expensive black cars, well dressed and well spoken, with an air of authority that leaves audiences spellbound.
Remember when old white dudes used to sit around in places like 19th century Egypt and pontificate on questions like “why are the Muslim people so backwards?” and “I wonder what that woman looks like under that veil? I bet she’s a real tiger in the bedroom.” This, my friends, is what people much smarter than me (take Edward Said for instance) would call “Orientalism”. But if you think Orientalism died out in the 19th century, watching the new advertisement by Liaison Dangereuse, a German lingerie company, will show you otherwise. The exoticization of Muslim women is still very much alive and well.
In the ad, a beautiful young woman is seen getting dressed. She comes out of the shower (with smoky black eyeliner already magically applied) and puts on some very sexy lingerie. Oh la la. Then she proceeds to walk around her house in nothing but the lingerie and high heels, which is what we women do to feel sexy, obviously. Finally, and here’s the kicker, we see her as she is stepping out of her home and onto the street. She is wearing (drum roll please) a burqa. “Sexiness is for everyone,” the tagline reads.
Morocco budgets money for fund for divorced women (Magharebia.com)
Morocco’s Parliament has voted to push forward with creating a long-discussed fund to support divorced women and their families.
The Family Solidarity Fund, which was planned for in the 2003 Family Code, will finally be set up under an amendment to the 2010 Finance Act.
“The provisions of the Family Code must be enforced, since MPs passed the laws years ago,” said MP and leader of the Party of Justice and Development, Mustapha Ramid, on November 23rd.
The fund will provide money for divorced women and mothers whose husbands fail to pay alimony, and will then recover the money from men who refuse to make payments. For the time being, the fund will be financed with tax money.
Threats won’t stop Moroccan aiding unwed mothers | Top News | Reuters
A decade of social reforms has granted more freedoms to Moroccan women, yet most who give birth outside marriage are still treated like criminals, abandoned by family and friends.
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan rips through traditional views about women in Islam | TwoCircles.net
Director of the New Delhi-based Centre for Peace and Spirituality, editor of the monthly Al-Risala journal and author of almost two hundred books, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is one of India’s best known Islamic scholars. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, he talks about issues related to Islam and women.
You have written extensively on the issue of Islam and women. Contrary to many traditional ulema, you argue the case for gender equality in Islam. How does your approach differ from that of most traditionalist scholars?
The American Spectator : Niqab, the Pseudo-Islamic Face-Veil
Countries from Italy to Sweden are debating the right of women to wear the niqab. Canada is the latest country to enter the fray, with the Muslim Canadian Congress desiring to ban it. Is such a ban possible in the U.S., where its prevalence is evident in certain urban centers, like Philadelphia?
Qantara.de – ‘Gender Jihad’ in the Service of Women’s Rights
‘Gender Jihad’ in the Service of Women’s Rights
The 44-year-old US writer Asra Nomani is viewed as a prominent representative of “Gender Jihad”. For the former Wall Street Journal reporter, there is no contradiction between Islam and feminism. She spoke to Alfred Hackensberger
Internal politics
Fix Your Deen
This book is the result of a lengthy collaboration between scholars of Egypt’s prestigious Al-Azhar University and Islamic Hotline or El-Hatef El-Islami organization. Put simply, far too simply, its aim is to contest the growing number of intolerant and/or simply mistaken legal opinions that often go unchallenged in Muslim communities today. Deeply rooted in the legal tradition of ikhtilaf writings, yet utilizing modern means of communication, The Response applies the wisdom of the classical jurists to the complex realities of the contemporary Muslim world.
What can the present work add to the overcrowded and, it seems, increasingly stagnant debate on “how to live as a Muslim in the modern world”? This book’s importance lies in refocusing our attention on the flexibility and coherence of the works of Sunni Islam’s traditional legal authorities, a point that, while eloquently made in Professor Muhammad Ra’fat ‘Uthman’s introduction, informs the reasoning behind all the legal opinions (fatawa) contained here. Of course, the same kind of reasoning was exercised by the classical jurists, for whom “difference” (ikhtilaf) was perceived as a sign of God’s mercy (rahma).
Sadly, the jurists’ initial courage – their respect for difference, even for ambiguity – is now often forgotten, as the search for a single, monolithic reading to solve all problems regularly results in discussions breaking down into mere polemic.
FT.com / Middle East – Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood split
A senior leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has acknowledged that government repression has widened the rifts within the organisation as conservative voices fearful for its survival battle with reformists over the merits of political participation.
This internal turmoil could be the most critical in the 80-year history of the officially banned party, some analysts say. The Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group, is debating its strategy for next year’s parliamentary elections.
Former Guantanamo detainee now al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula’s Mufti – The Long War Journal
A former Guantanamo detainee has emerged as a leading ideologue and theologian for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – one of the strongest al Qaeda affiliates in the world.
Ibrahim Suleiman al Rubaish was captured by Pakistani authorities in late 2001 and then handed over to American officials who transferred him to Guantanamo. Rubaish was held there until Dec. 13, 2006, when he was transferred to Saudi Arabia and placed in the Saudi rehabilitation program for jihadists. At some point, Rubaish escaped from Saudi Arabia by fleeing south to Yemen.
FREEradicals – Jihadism in Germany: An Update
The BfV speaker at the symposium highlighted the following trends:
* An increasing number of ‘home-grown’ cells
* The rising number of converts involved in jihadist activities
* The increasing attractiveness of jihadism to Muslims of Turkish descent, who – for years – had been considered ‘immune’ to the jihadist messageThe last point was backed up by an excellent speaker from the Hamburg state office, who provided extensive data on the ethnic affiliations and socio-economic characteristics of Hamburg-based jihadists, as well as Germany’s leading expert on Islamist terrorism, Guido Steinberg of the German Institute for Security and International Affairs.
For German policymakers, of course, the ‘Turkish factor’ is the biggest headache. Muslims of Turkish descent represent the vast majority of the Muslim population in Germany. If jihadism starts spreading among German Turks, Islamist terrorism could become a huge political and social issue in addition to being a security problem.
The WIP Contributors: Paint It Black: Women in Iraq Pay for Liberation
For a long time she resisted, but four years ago Amal started to wear the hijab – her bright and shining youth draped in black. She is a 25-year-old Iraqi woman, and she is sad. Amal remembers when her life was freer, happier, and easier, when she didn’t need to cover her hair whenever she sought to step outdoors.
Amal was once my neighbor in Iraq. My childhood friend is depressed, but she is not the only one since most of her sisters – the women of Iraq – have been forced to wear the hijab and more. Cajoled, shamed and threatened, the women of Iraq have been draped in black. Iraqi men have seen to that.
Southern California InFocus – Islam and the Internet
Now fast forward a thousand or so years to our current ‘Internet Age,’ which makes communicating and spreading the message of Islam as fast as the speed of light.
The Internet is the most successful modern-day da’wah tool in the history of Islam. Authentic Islamic information is available with just a few strokes of the keyboard. Translations of the Holy Qur’an are available for download on Islamic Web sites in just about every language known to man.
And every action, word, and deed that Prophet Muhammad lived can easily by accessed on the Internet with just a couple of clicks on the mouse.
Muslim Punk Rock in America: Mashup of Piety, Politics – TIME
In their small but burgeoning scene — there are only a handful of Muslim punk bands in the U.S. and Canada — rebellion is an act of piety. Strident as their sound can seem, it is, in spirit, in harmony with other rebellious voices that are rising amid the breakdown of authority in the Islamic world. Whether they’re the voices of Muslim feminists going back to read the Koran and the Hadith as documents of liberation, gay Muslims working out a theology that embraces homosexuality or even the millions of Muslim youths trusting Islamic chat rooms — which one British Muslim leader has dismissed as “Sheik Google” — over the local imam, they, like Muslim punks, are expressing a growing dissent with the Islamic world’s mainstream theologians.
The call to prayer from minarets rung out yesterday across the entire Islamic world, involved in the last hours of the Feast of Sacrifice (Eid Al-Adha) and the height of the pilgrimage to the holy sites of Mecca, while surprise and in some cases anger spread among Muslim TV commentators and internet users when pan-Arab media announced to the Islamic world the news that the Swiss referendum for a ban on minarets had received support from almost 60% of voters. On the popular site for Islamic news Islamonline, the jurisconsult and rector of an Islamic university in the United States, Taha Alwani, polemically asked ”why the Swiss are afraid of minarets but show not the least concern when they buy oil from Islamic countries, when their companies do business in Arab-Muslim capitals, or when they decide to hold Muslim money in their banks.”
Burka Furor Mirrors France’s Self-doubts: Scholar – IslamOnline.net – News
As the debate rages on in the western European country on burka, a leading Muslim scholar has said that France’s efforts to ban the loose body-covering reflects growing self-doubts inside the society.
“This is a society that has doubts about itself,” Tariq Ramadan told a parliamentary panel mulling a burka ban Wednesday, December 2, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“For me, this commission is born of a real self-doubt, and suddenly they’re looking at one element, at the most extreme slice.
“The problem won’t be solved like that.”
chris uggen’s weblog: in the land of the hideous, the somewhat-less-than-loathsome man is king
OKCupid, an online matchmaking site, offers data on gender and perceived attractiveness that I might use in my spring deviance course (via boing). The figures might help me make a Durkheimian society of (hot) saints point about the relative nature of beauty and a Goffman point on stigma affecting social interaction, while providing another illustration of the taken-for-grantedness of heteronormativity.
Turkey, Islam, and the EU » Contexts
Contrary to the “clash of civilizations” thesis, social scientists have found that Islam and democracy are not inherently in conflict. Controversy over Turkey’s application to the European Union highlights how concerns over cultural difference impact EU policy decisions. Despite claims to the contrary, Turkey is more similar to Europe than many assume.
Soul-Searching in Turkey After a Gay Man Is Killed – NYTimes.com
For Ahmet Yildiz, a stocky and affable 26-year-old, the choice to live openly as a gay man proved deadly. Prosecutors say his own father hunted him down, traveling more than 600 miles from his hometown to shoot his son in an old neighborhood of Istanbul.
Dutch
De ware dhimmi’s « Kattekliek
Na de intocht van een kruisloze Sinterklaas in Antwerpen (zaterdag j.l.) komt het mijterkruis nu ook in Nederland volop in het nieuws. De Amsterdamse Sinterklaas heeft een soort amsterdammertje op zijn mijter. En in het plaatselijk suffertje alhier zag ik, dat ‘onze’ Sint het met een verticale streep moet stellen. Zo is het in veel gemeentes. Het CDA heeft daar deze week kamervragen over gesteld.
Angst om te kwetsen
Wie zit er nu achter deze ‘ontkruising’ van de goedheiligman in de lage landen? De moslims? De meeste gematigde moslims trekken zich niets aan van dat kruis; ze vieren gewoon de traditie van dit land mee. En orthodoxe moslims vinden de goedheiligman, mét of zonder kruis, ‘haraam’ (verboden). Er is wellicht een kleine groep die hier tussenin staat en die wel klaagt. Maar dat is nog niet direct een reden om daar ook in mee te gaan.
Sinterklaas is in het land! « Noodzakelijk kwaad
Nu de dagen lengen is het ook weer tijd voor het Sinterklaasfeest. Maar hoe staat de islamitische medemens daar nu in? Uw verslaggever hield een rondje.
PVV vraagt opheldering over record aan Zwarte Pieten in Amsterdam | Chimsky
PVV-Kamerlid Sietse Fritsma heeft Kamervragen gesteld aan premier Balkenende en integratie-minister Van der Laan over het schokkende bericht dat Sinterklaas met een record aan Zwarte Pieten onze hoofdstad komt terroriseren.
In de vragen gaat hij onder meer in op de desastreuze gevolgen die deze tsunami aan Zwarte Pieten kan hebben op de onschuldige zieltjes van onze kinderen, en vraagt hij om opheldering over het feit dat Sinterklaas en Herman van Veen onder één hoedje lijken te spelen.
Verzet tegen de karikatuur Zwarte Piet
Van een gewelddadige geschiedenis waarin zwarte mensen alleen maar iemands knecht konden zijn, en absoluut geen rechten hadden, hebben we in de 21e eeuw een volksfeest waarin de knecht pérse zwart moet zijn, en geen andere kleur mag hebben. Hoe bizar is dat? En hoe leg je dat uit aan de mensen die gevochten hebben voor de rechten van zwarte burgers?
Zwarte Piet was vroeger blank | Hoax
na de oorlog ging Zwarte Piet steeds onbeholpener praten en kreeg hij kroeshaar en dikke lippen. Volgens historicus van der Zeijden zouden hier best wel eens een verborgen racistische boodschap in kunnen zitten:
“Sinterklaas is ook de spiegel van de samenleving. Na de oorlog ging Zwarte Piet onbeholpen praten en kreeg kroeshaar met dikke lippen. Dat kan best met het koloniale verleden te maken hebben. In de hoofden van mensen is de knechtenrol meer voor zwarten dan voor blanken.”
Moslim: handen af van kruis op mijter van sint – Midden Twente – Regio – TC Tubantia
Past het kruis op de mijter van Sinterklaas nog wel in de huidige multiculti tijd? Landelijk is daarover een discussie losgebarsten. In de Tweede Kamer zijn er zelfs al vragen over gesteld. Erkan Coskunsu (33) vindt het een onzin-discussie. De Hengeloër is zelf moslim, maar hij is heel stellig in zijn reactie: handen af van de sint en z’n mijter! „Dat kruis hoort er gewoon op.”
Al@din: Hoe komt Sinterklaas aan Zwarte Piet? – DePers.nl
Over de oorsprong van Zwarte Piet bestaan verschillende theorieën, waaronder de volgende:
Omdat iedereen veronderstelt dat Sint-Nicolaas uit Spanje komt, wordt aangenomen dat hij de bij Spaanse edelen gebruikelijke Moorse bedienden heeft overgenomen.
Een andere theorie luidt: in de tijd dat Nicolaas in Myra woonde, kocht hij op de slavenmarkt een Ethiopisch jongetje, Piter, afgeleid van Petrus.
Ook zijn er legenden waar Piet de duivel of de dood symboliseert.
Als laatste noemen we de Germaanse god Wodan. Wodan reed op zijn witte paard door de lucht en werd altijd vergezeld van twee zwarte raven. De raven luisterden, net als Zwarte Piet, aan de schoorsteen om Wodan over de goede en de slechte daden van de stervelingen te vertellen.
Statemagazine – statement – Sinterklaasje, kom maar binnen zonder knecht – Article
Gezellig! Het is weer zover, nog eventjes en dan kunnen kinderen weer vol spanning hun felbegeerde cadeautjes uitpakken. Sla de krant open, zet de tv aan of open de deur en je komt ze weer tegen, Sinterklaas met zijn honderden knechten. Niet iedereen zit op hem te wachten. Zo is er in de hiphopwereld een duidelijk tegengeluid te horen.
Het kruis van de Sint | .god.voor.dommen
Het kruis van de Sint maakt weer heel wat los. In Amsterdam (en Antwerpen) moest het verdwijnen van de mijter van de Sint, wat tegen het zere been is van het CDA die er Kamervragen over stelde. Van mij mag het kruis blijven, opdat kinderen ook in de toekomst weten dat mannen in jurken met kruizen en bewuste leugens onlosmakelijk met elkaar verbonden zijn.
Historiën » Sint Nicolaas op bezoek
anaf ongeveer 1850 verschijnt ineens zwarte Piet. Voor die tijd had Sint geen knecht, maar wel een paard. Op de tentoonstelling wordt hier even op ingegaan. Waar kwam Piet ineens vandaan? Was het vanwege de mode in die tijd? Omdat een (zwarte) knecht als exotisch werd beschouwd? Jan Schenkman, een onderwijzer en auteur uit de tweede helft van de negentiende eeuw heeft alle Sinterklaasgebruiken opgeschreven in een boekje. Hij liet zwarte Piet ook duidelijk afbeelden. Dit boekje heeft tot op de dag van vandaag het beeld bepaald van Sinterklaas zoals wij dat nu kennen. Schenkman beschreef het Sinterklaasfeest zoals wij dat nu vieren. Het Sinterklaasfeest heeft echter wel een tijdje onder vuur gelegen.
Nederlandse Islamitische Omroep » Archief » Sinterklaasfeest na vrijdaggebed
In de Turkse Ayasofya Moskee in Hengelo wordt er rondom het vrijdaggebed een Sinterklaasfeest georganiseerd. Aanleiding is de recente discussie in de regionale krant Tubantia waarin rapper Erkan Coskunsu zich positief uitliet over het kruis op de mijter van de Sint. Coskunsu nam contact op met het bestuur van culturele vereniging voor de Islam in Hengelo en vroeg of het feest ook in de moskee kon worden gehouden.
Joost Niemöller » Amsterdam islamiseert… (met update)
Twee mensen blij vandaag in Amsterdam. Stadsdeelvoorzitter Marcouch te Slotervaart met een nu geheel van ieder christelijk kruis gestripte Sinterklaas en Fatima Elitak die vanuit een vergadering twittert over haar grote nieuwe macht. Aan de ene kant islamiseert Nieuw West, aan de andere kant Oost. Het gaat lekker in Amsterdam.
