If you have followed the Dutch news these last couple of days you probably have heard from the PIETITIE. The pietitie (real dutch word: “petitie” is in English “petition” but because it’s about zwarte PIET they came up with the word “PIETitie”) is a reaction on all commotion about the supposed racism behind the “Zwarte Piet”. For decades we celebrate in Holland “Sinterklaas” on the 5th of December. This a celebration day is mainly for children and they receive gifts on that day from Sinterklaas. To get a better understanding: it’s kind of Santaclaus but not related to Christmas and instead of reindeers, Sinterklaas has black helpers who are called “Zwarte Pieten”. The problem behind all this is that some people suddenly came up with the fact that the expression “zwarte pieten” discriminates. Even the United Nations is involved too this dilemma at the moment.
I will not go in detail about the topic but the reason I’m writing this blog is because I think it’s really interesting how the page becase so known in such a short time.
Through the Facebook-page which stands for: “The best Dutch Tradition may not disappear” people ask for the maintaining of Sinterklaas, including Zwarte Piet. People start liking the page and especially in the first few days the page was liked 500 times PER SECOND!! This is already declined now into 5-20 times per second, but it’s still going on. Thursday the Facebook-page became “the biggest Dutch Facebook-page ever”.
So many likes: what does this mean?
I think that individuals, by using social media in such a case, have all the freedom and power to let others know that they do not agree, collect supporters and to count the weight of you as a citizen. Also Facebook is an easy platform to use and to get a lot of response, so I think that’s also a reason why it went so quickly. If this page will have a positive impact or result on the dilemma of Zwarte Piet, this can be seen as a good example in the future for other big dilemmas.
http://nos.nl/op3/artikel/566209-meer-dan-een-miljoen-likes-wat-betekent-dat.html
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/22000364/__Twee_miljoen_steunen__pietitie___.html
http://pietitie.nl/
