The annual Sinterklaas Festival in the Netherands has become a testing ground for the status of ethnic minorities and their attempts to influence what it means to be Dutch. The festival is based on a legend that every December, St. Nicholas travels to the Netherlands from Spain with an army of helpers or “Black Petes”, clownish and acrobatic figures dressed in Moorish page suits. to reward or punish children. In recent years people of colour have pushed back against the racist, colonial vestige with encouraging results.

In the journal The Long View Sandew Hira made an analysis of the movement against Blackface in The Netherlands. He goes into the history of the Sinterklaas festival with the character of Black Pete, the social forces behind the anti-Black Pete movement and the question of strategy and tactics of the anti-racist movement.

The Long View is a quarterly magazine published by Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) in London.