You know it’s rather sad how many people in the Netherlands (also Belgium) and even some part in the world who’s always looking for an excuse to justify their so call tradition of “Black Piet” or “Black Peter” whatever they call it. It’s about the slave of Santa Claus, but … matter of fact is their are in DENIAL or just IGNORANCE . I think this is a bit of DOGMATISM

(Explain Dogmatism: Dogmatism is the more general interpretation of a belief or attitude that someone is unable to revise his opinions based on new information. The term “dogmatism” implies that someone in his beliefs and an unthinking conformist way without the foundations of uses in question to ask. Dogmatism is seen as incompatible with a scientific and / or rational mindset in which self-correction is an intrinsic part of it.

Example: There was a boy that deeply convinced for for many
years that he was a corpse, he could not let go of that
idea. So he goes to the doctor and explains his
problem. The doctor asked the boy whether a corpses
can bleed. “No,” said the boy, so the doctor makes a
little cut in his finger and it began to bleed.
The boy said, “You see, corpse do bleed)

what i mean is if you try to explain it that it is racism, its like talking to a brick wall. Show them pictures and they change their view in something positive like example: “that’s because they must go through a chimney? unless the chimney is a shapeshifter machine they are a spitting image of a picture of how black people looks like during the slavery “dark black and thick big red lips”. Thats why i use this example of Dogmatism.

If officials didn’t denied people to learn about slavery in high school many people wouldn’t be ignorance. (though maybe a small group of people will) I think they will learn from the past and their atitude, the way they think will all change big time. But maybe they are ashamed of their History because Black History is a big part of the Dutch history. That’s why they think it’s best to let people live their life’s in ignorance about their history and hope this part of history will vanished from peoples mind. But i believe every bad things that was done in the past and never was justify will return in the present in a different shape. Until we are aware of what happened: “The knowledge of knowing what happened in the past will only be repeated in the present or the future but in a different shape, but when you are aware of the knowledge of what happened in the past you will never do it again” not even in the present or in the future

Racisme is still shown openly but in a different shape. Take for example: When you watch the TV like movies or commercial
8 out of 10 Black people are characterize as someone who’s dum, aggressive, a drug addict, a criminal and even their image like the Dutch/Belgium slave Black (Peter)Piet of Santa Claus.

It’s sad that we have so many example of history to learn from it but we ignore it. We had the history of slavery because their were black (a history that exist for 400 years and still exist in the present time, but occasionally shown on tv ) and than we got world war 2 because they were Jewish (still shown on tv’s many times) from 1945 till now….. so on…..so on…..so on.

I wonder ….. did we really learn from our history or are we to proud to admit we didn’t. Do we stay ignorance or in denial or just play dom and do nothing……..while history repeat itself in a different shape.

At least, I’ve been to churches in Turkey and Cyprus, where Muslims have prayed, lit candles, etc., and said that the buildings were “house(s) of God”.

So, the remains might have some significance to the community in Demre/Turkey; but yeah, the potential for tourism will not have gone unnoticed.

I’m not sure how the backstory goes for the elves, but we have three backstories for Black Pete (the one about the chimney was an attempt at making it more political correct, but again: the kids don’t care about that). Over here Santa Claus seems to be able to “sell” himself to kids without the need for elves while Black Pete is equally important (not one without the other).