Racism is not a joke, the hassle about the UN investigating on "Zwarte Piet" is

When autumn approaches, the Netherlands get prepared for Sinterklaas. Wikipedia describes it as a large traditional ancient winter holiday celebrated in the Low Countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as some parts of Germany, French Flanders, Lorraine and Artois. The rest of the world usually mixes it up with Santa Claus but apart from the presents, this is something completely different. Sinterklaas is earlier in December (5th) and he is supported by a legion of Zwarte Pieten (Black Pete's) where Santa has his elves and is associated with Christmas.

Almost as traditional as the festival itself is the repeating discussion about the alleged racist tendencies in Sinterklaas given the fact that his helpers are all black. Some claim the roots for this go back to slavery while others are of the opinion that Zwarte Piet is black due to his work in chimneys (since that's how the presents get delivered to the children).
What made this years discussion different from last year is that it escalated to international levels by a UN investigator expressing her advice to the Dutch government to abolish Sinterklaas altogether. In the Netherlands this was all over the papers, several times it was an item in the evening news and international media picked up on it. But what was the fuzz al about? When assessing the facts, this turn out to be a storm in a teacup.

The original letter from Verene Shepherd dates back to the 17th of January of this year. Apparently someone raised his/her concerns with the High Commissioner  for Human Rights of the UN and this ended up at the desk of the Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on people of African descent being Verene Shepherd. After describing the complaint and some general remarks, she has 5 questions for the Dutch government. The worst you could say about the tone-of-voice is that it seems to anticipate on the answers when posing judgement but it seems a polite letter altogether.

On behalf of the Dutch Government Roderick van Schreven (Ambassador, Permanent Representative) replies on all 5 questions in 3 pages: there is no outstanding request to have Sinterklaas on the UNESCO World Heritage list, some complaints have come to the attention of Dutch authorities as well and the Dutch Government is "fully committed to combating discrimination" and legislation to that extend is in place and functions well. Again a very civilized letter apart from the fact that "an answer within 60 days" as requested has not been achieved, the letter dates 10th July 2013.

Two polite letters, one from January and a response in July of this year created an avalanche of opinions (in October!) including the nowadays regretfully unavoidable social media hype and obscenities in the direction of Verene Shepherd.
It took me less than 15 minutes to find and read the letters that started all this. Fact finding is not that difficult especially if the relevant information is available on-line. A lot of the emotion in our small country could have been avoided and the time wasted could have been used for writing some beautiful poems with the Sinterklaas-presents.

I hope people of all race and colour enjoy a happy Sinterklaas!

ERegoS