Sinterklaas

To the outsider, the annual arrival of the wise old (white) man and his black 'helpers' stinks of racism. But the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas has been celebrated by young and old since the the 15th Century.

Legend has it the old wise white man St Nicolas of Myra travels to northern parts of Europe every year around December bearing gifts for the good children. He is accompanied by black helpers called "Zwarte Pieten" (Black Petes), who help Sinterklaas on his journey and helps throw candy and gifts at children.

The tradition is to put your shoe under the fireplace on the 5th of December, and surprise, surprise, the next day it will be filled with goodies and candies for those who have been behaving. Sort of like the tradition of Santa Claus, but Sinterklaas comes earlier, and first. Those kids who have been naughty will get coal in their shoes, and those really awful children will be put in a sack by Zwarte Piet and taken to Spain. I remember as a kid thinking that it actually would not be too bad, given the warmer climate and better cuisine there.


Actually, it is all a fable told to children so they would behave themselves. The tradition of giving gifts in fact was started by churches which collected money and goods for the poor to commemorate the death of St Nicolas, but evolved into a cause of celebration and cheerfulness every year. As for the Zwarte Pieten... well, the religious intepretation is that they are supposed to represent the devil incarnate, who Sinterklaas has managed to tame to help him on his long journey of spreading good and kindness. The more 'politically correct' intepretation of their servant-role is that they became black because they have to climb up and down the chimneys, and their faces happened to be covered with soot.

Today was the official arrival of Sinterklaas, and the most famous one is at Scheveningen, not too far from where I live. So with a friend, I went to welcome him as he cruised slowly into harbour on the SS Madrid flying the Spanish colours. Most likely he boarded somewhere down the coast and happened to have a Spanish flag with him. But since the Ambassador of Spain himself was there to welcome this old wise white man from Spain, the flag was a courteous gesture.


On board the steam boat where dozens of Zwarte Pieten, all jumping up and down, waving and singing at the cheering crowd of children on the dock. There were so many other boats all cruising around Sinterklaas' steam boat. Even lifeguards and police blackened their faces with face paint, and stereotypically painted their lips red, reminiscent of those early cartoons portraying those 'savages' in Africa. How exciting, especially to be in the middle of it all and have candies and 'pepernoten' thrown in your face. A mother and son frantically scrambled to the ground to pick up the sweets, even though the ground was wet and dirty from the rain.
Children put on the brightly coloured suits of Zwarte Piet, a custome originating from Middle Ages Spain, while others put on the red robe and mitre of Sinterklaas and paraded the dock happily, most probably unaware of the under-tones (no pun intended).

The air echoed with the sound of fog horns and sweet children's songs.



Welcome, Sinterklaas.

Val op!

"Look out for the police!"

Sometimes you heard things but it takes some time before it registers in your mind. So as I was cycling through the night, and when this lady I didn't know says that to me as she passes by on her bike, it took me some time to realise she was actually talking to me. And it took me even longer to know why, and to be grateful for the warning.

Indeed, less than a minute later was the police. Not one, but two and two more in a patrol car. I connected the dots to the recent news I heard that the police are 'cracking down' on bike riders without lights. A new regulation was introduced that when cycling at night you must have a front and a back light. The front light can be either yellow or white, and the back light has to be red. The lights cannot be flashing, and must be connected to your bike. If you don't conform, you risk a €20 fine, per light.

Thankfully, being the law abiding citizen I am, I did have my lights on. The only infringements were that my front light was green, and my lights were flashing, because it's more visible I thought, since the batteries are almost dead. I cycled slowly and carefully past the policemen. I was lucky, as their attention were focused on giving a ticket to some poor kid who rode his scooter without a helmet.

I cycled on, and home, but thought to myself about the ridiculousness of the new measures, the sight of five policemen gathered at a street corner trying to catch the unwary cyclist for such minor infringements.

Yes… in the light of the increasing wave of intolerance towards foreigners and homosexuals, and in the aftermaths of several school stabbings, and the exposure of the government spying on journalists, the country’s unlit night riders who criss-cross the The Netherlands’ cycle paths pose a serious threat to social stability.

Val op!

"Look out for the police!"

Sometimes you heard things but it takes some time before it registers in your mind. So as I was cycling through the night, and when this lady I didn't know says that to me as she passes by on her bike, it took me some time to realise she was actually talking to me. And it took me even longer to know why, and to be grateful for the warning.

Indeed, less than a minute later was the police. Not one, but two and two more in a patrol car. I connected the dots to the recent news I heard that the police are 'cracking down' on bike riders without lights. A new regulation was introduced that when cycling at night you must have a front and a back light. The front light can be either yellow or white, and the back light has to be red. The lights cannot be flashing, and must be connected to your bike. If you don't conform, you risk a €20 fine, per light.

Thankfully, being the law abiding citizen I am, I did have my lights on. The only infringements were that my front light was green, and my lights were flashing, because it's more visible I thought, since the batteries are almost dead. I cycled slowly and carefully past the policemen. I was lucky, as their attention were focused on giving a ticket to some poor kid who rode his scooter without a helmet.

I cycled on, and home, but thought to myself about the ridiculousness of the new measures, the sight of five policemen gathered at a street corner catching the

Yes… in the light of the increasing wave of intolerance towards foreigners and homosexuals, and in the aftermaths of several school stabbings and even exposures of the government spying on journalists, the country’s unlit night riders who criss-cross the The Netherlands’ cycle paths pose a serious threat to social stability.

Kigali, 1994

"Are you a survivor of the genocide?"
"Sort of."

No one survives a genocide. Not even those alive today.

The above dialogue begins the account of French journalist/director Jean-Christophe Klotz as he returns to Rwanda ten years after to try to piece together the people and places that had captured him ten years earlier in his documentary "Kigali, des images contre un massacre" (Return to Kigali).

Klotz was one of the few journalists who stayed behind when the killings began around April 1994. Most foreigners, including embassy staff, and the majority of UN staff had retreated as the country descended into chaos. But he chose to stay behind, determined to show the world that this is a place not to be forgotten. Being a Frenchman, whose country of origin actively supported and armed the very government that instrumented the genocide, he was putting himself at risk. Yet his determination allowed him to see and shoots scenes and moments that otherwise would have been lost in history. Or better said, lost in a version of history rewritten later to safe the sorry face of the incomplacency of the world.

With the benefit of hindsight, Rwanda will never be forgotten. But in the ensuing three months till July 1994, while close to one million Tutsis (and moderate Hutus) were masscred in their own homes, the 'international community' wilfully chose to turn a blind eye and forget, if only temporarily, that one of the worst excesses of human inhumanity was taking place in a far away land in Africa.

The documentary is a cut and paste of filming taken as the events of the genocide unfolded, and of interviews conducted in the present with those that were there at the time. The journalist visited a church, where more than a hundred women and children sheltered in the belief and hope that the government-sponsored troops would spare the House of God. But they did not. Safe for the priest, and a handful lucky others, all other civilian refugees were murdered, some inside the congregation hall. The image the cross hanging above the ransacked altar, a symbolism portraying Christ who died for the sin of man, evokes a sickening sense of sardony, as sickening as the children outside drowning in the pool of their own red dye.

No where was safe. Not churches, not homes, not even schools, where even children stabbed their fellow classmates to death. Everywhere, in Kigali and throughout the country of barely 7 million, bones and rotting remains were strewn like garbage. Children played football with a skull, as government-sponsored (Hutu) militia-men raided and cleansed the country. "The Beast", the locals called it, wreaked destruction and death wherever its presence was seen and felt. Men were brutally severed and killed with machetes, screwdrivers, hammers and stones, children and babies were split into two and shot, and women and girls (as one put it) like "abandoned pets", were raped and abused. How can it all be put into words? How can you describe something that doesn't make sense, asks the representative of the ICRC (Red Cross).

The "international community" knew, but did nothing. Western correspondents retreated as the last westerners withdrew, citing instability as the reason. But as the cameras and reporters left, the massacres and horrible crimes against humanity did not leave, only intensified. The Canadian UN commander in Rwanda pleaded for intervention, a French envoy called the White House, the Elysée, Westminster and the UN in New York, explaining the situation. But no help came. Instead, they had no alternative to sit down with the very Rwandan government ministers who were clearly behind inciting and initiating the systematic and organised wiping out of the Tutsi population.

The world watched, and stayed silent. As silent as when Auschwitz took place, as one put it. As early as 1993, more than a year before the events, foreign journalists filmed mass graves being uncovered in Rwanda, and confirmed reports of systematic killings. At the same time the former Yugoslavia was experiencing its own massacres and despicable acts of inhumanity. April to July 1994 was only the unstoppable climax of the rampage and insanity in Rwanda. But the world stood by. And thereby is just as guilty for its inaction as those who acted in the name of ethnic purity and hatred. Hatred for "not what they (the Tutsis) had done, but for who they were".

Three months and close to a million deaths later, France gloriously led a UN mandate into Rwanda under Operation Turquoise. Mr Nicolas Sarkozy, then spokesperson for the French Cabinet, trumpeted France's role to end the killings and bring justice. Much bloated and much belated. As French troops moved in, the media swarmed back to Rwanda again. They filmed rows of cheering crowds wielding the French Tricolore and shouting 'Vive la France'. And the media filmed refugees pouring towards UN troop outposts, in dire need of protection and food. The Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), who previously were fighting the government to prevent further massacres, now became demonised as the wrongdoers. Nobody bothered to check the facts, and the streams of refugees were taken for granted as victims fleeing their homes from the rebels. But in fact, many of the refugees were the very Tutsis, some of whom had been involved in the killings, fearing retaliation by the rebels, and now seeking protection of UN forces. Journalism can inform, but is also a powerful tool for political manipulation and deceit.

Suddenly the "international community" which for so many months sat by and wilfully watched hundreds of thousands massacred, were welcomed as saviours from afar, and glorified as the provider of aid and safe-haven. A travesty of the truth. A few months later, in November 1994, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was established, as a shining symbol of the "international community's" resolve to strike justice on those responsible for the "genocide and other systematic, widespread and flagrant violations of international humanitarian law". Justice late is better than justice undone.

But close to a million have been killed, and millions more have been traumatised. And this was in the glorious years of the 1990s when people celebrated the new post-Cold War peace and prosperity.

Could it have been prevented? Yes, if only we had cared a little more. If only we had bothered to find out what, and why as countless fellow men, women and children suffered and died.

Stroll

The tree tops were crowned with the sun, and the golden dusk rays streamed through the forest floors. It was the kind of cold that made your nose water, but thankfully I was wrapped warmly in a thick jumper and my own admiration of the beauty of Autumn around me.

Suddenly a middle-aged man cycled past me, very, very slowly, the scent of his smelly cigar lingering in the air, chocking my nostrils. My Rat senses smelled danger, and I realised why. Almost two hours of wandering around in the woods, my footsteps unconsciously took me into the notorious ‘cruising’ area south of Haagse Bos, along the highway N44. In the Netherlands (and elsewhere), the phenomenon of ‘homo-ontmoetingsplaats’ (‘gay meeting place’, or HOP in Dutch) has resulted in public areas like parks, nature reserves, parking lots and beaches becoming unofficial places where men, homosexual or otherwise, meet to have anonymous no-strings-attached sex for fun (or otherwise). There are even websites dedicated to locating these places, as well as giving you tips on how best to ‘cruise’. Police usually turn a blind eye to what happens in these places, even if it happens just down the road from the Queen’s official residence… even if kids playing football may run the risk of innocently and unexpectedly catch people ‘having a ball’ behind the bushes. Common nuisances include noise (it can get noisy…), pollution (used condoms and tissues…), and even violence, as gay-bashers increasing prowl these areas for victims.

Anyways, my Rat senses told me to get out of the area, and fast! Not only was the man on the bike turning around and looking at me, another guy appeared out of nowhere behind a tree. Thankfully they were all some distance away, and I avoided eye contact to avoid giving them the impression I’d in any way be interested in their sleazy sexcapades. I quickened my pace, and just looked like I was minding my own business. Fallen leaves rustled beneath my feet, and the barely naked trees overhead swayed in the breeze. I didn’t dare look back, for if I’d done that, I’m pretty sure the two behind me would have followed.

Through the dense forest, I could hear the sound of cars rushing by. Thank goodness I was out of the forest, out in the open.

So much for a peaceful and relaxing stroll in the woods.