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Amsterdam- Dutch children are agog. The days leading up to the festival of Sinterklaas are filled with feverish expectation of the gifts they anticipate on December 5. Every morning, if they've been good, there's something sweet in the shoe they've put out especially. But this year the more traditional among their parents are also in a state of excitement.
Sinterklaas dressed in bishop's raiment with mitre and crook, attended by "Zwarte Piete" - Black Petes - who dash about dressed in tights and velvet knickerbockers dishing out sweets to the children and clowning about. It is the black-faced Petes that are now the problem in multicultural Holland.
For some years now Amsterdam, with its large non-Dutch ethnic population, has had Petes of all colours. There are green, yellow and blue Petes among the traditional black-faced versions. Even broadcaster NOS has done the same on its daily youth TV programme, Jeugdjournaal. The official explanation is that Sinterklaas' boat passed through a rainbow on its way from Spain, and that the colours rubbed off on the Petes.
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