Hi U.N., I'm from N.L., sincerely: F.U.

[Nightbat]

For those unaware of a national holiday over here, having come under scrutiny:

http://www.la-viajera.com/2013/10/20...day-tradition/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...nited-nations/

the only thing I agree upon is that "Black Pete"'s image is perhaps outdated, too much reminiscent of those old cartoons
with the stereo-type black person


Now, here's the flipside

St. Nicholas is a Turkish bishop
The "Pete's" are of moorish roots

And St. Nicholas day is a tradition we celebrate every year about the arrival of a large group of foreigners who make us happy



I have yet to meet a child that thinks "St. Nicholas" has its roots in slavery and racism
Even in my memory, has the character never been used to demean blacks, or work under authority of oppression
Even better: it never ever was associated with black people

The holiday is even celebrated in the Dutch Antilles and Surinam (not a lot of white people there)



Now if UN inspector Verene Shepherd doesn't understand why we need to have 2 "Santa Clauses" (Newsflash, Coca Cola introduced Santa 30 years after 'the present tradition' of St. Nicholas)
I see no reason to delve into the history of her ancestors and just narrowmindedly make assumptions that she apparently never got presents from the Saint

then there's also the case of Nowruz, which oddly is placed on the UNESCO List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowruz
including this character
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajji_Firuz



Personally, I fail to see why the UN has a stake in a traditional holiday
I do know some of their members have a stake in the weaponsdeals in Syria
But perhaps this is a more pressing matter

[Vass]

You're dealing with a horse's ass but welcome to the new internationalism. Her quotes on this issue would be hilarious if they weren't so repugnant. She states that she can't understand "why people in the Netherlands do not see this is a throwback to slavery and that in the 21st century this practice should stop."

Putting aside for a moment her comical CV (soft "science" phd of course) the simple fact that she is insisting that her worldview as a race and gender grievance warrior from Jamaica is the right one and the Netherlands must be populated by racists is so recursively and reflexively contradictory to her own premise it's staggering. A gallon of irony was spilled and not a drop was spilled on her.

The real issue here of course is not so funny- the extirpation of traditional culture, religion, and identity, to be replaced with homogenized statist serfdom, where opinions are welcome as long as they're the "right" opinions.

She's a cartoon and good for the Dutch telling her to piss off. Krijg de, klerellijer! (I most definitely got that wrong)

[Sephiroth]

A million or more people die in Africa every year from non-stop war, genocide, and starvation

In middle east countries, it's legal to kill gaysjust for being gay

The so-called "free nations" are slowly becoming one-party dictatorships where you're either with the side in power or screw you

Muslims are conquering and invading Africa, the Phillippines, southeast Asia, China, Europe, and just about everywhere else, and people ar elosing ground to Islam's spread every day (often violently)

There's a million real problems in the world right now that no one's even trying to fix.


And the UN is always dealing with piddly-ass crap that's irrelevant and not bothering anyone except a few uppity over-sensitive complainers.

[Nightbat]

Krijg de, klerellijer! (I most definitely got that wrong)

You almost got that right
"krijg de klere" is an old folksaying that you grant someone cholera

"Get the Cholera" is the literal translation
where "klere" is just basterized dutch for cholera coming from the lower educated people at the time the disease was current
when we emphasize, we often exhault it as "Kolere" (pron. Koh'leh'ruh)


and Lijer/Leier (pron. Lie-er) basterized from "Lijder" (pron. Lie-der) translates to "sufferer" (whereas leider would translate to "leader")

So "krijg de klere" means to go fuck yourself, where a "klerelijer" is the person in question that needs to go fuck himself

And the UN is always dealing with piddly-ass crap that's irrelevant and not bothering anyone except a few uppity over-sensitive complainers.

Ah yes, the loud minority, in this case literal

this whole thing came to be when a TV segment showed a Dutch City counseler, yelling to children "St. Nicholas doesn't exist"
now apart from being a big man stating that to children, the stupid ass himself is a Hindu
So it's kind of ironic that someone adhering to a belief of which no evidence exists tells a bunch of children to not believe in a bishop who actually did exist

[Sephiroth]

Ah yes, the loud minority, in this case literal

this whole thing came to be when a TV segment showed a Dutch City counseler, yelling to children "St. Nicholas doesn't exist"
now apart from being a big man stating that to children, the stupid ass himself is a Hindu
So it's kind of ironic that someone adhering to a belief of which no evidence exists tells a bunch of children to not believe in a bishop who actually did exist

I don't mean to get bitchy, but who gives a shit if santa existed or not? Does anyone give any flying fornications that the easter bunny doesn't exist? No. It's just something fun for children, and assigning inconography to holidays is no worst than children liking any cartoon character.


And for the record, Santa did definitely exist, and threw money in the streets to get men to leave the prostitutes alone on Christmas day.


And here in America we have people bitch about Christmas every year. Many atheists are complaing that the birth of Christ (which they believe never happened) probably happened some time in the summer (but he wasn't born and didn't exist because they say so), so Christmas should not be about Christ. And it's just a consumer corporate-pig holiday based on a pagan ritual of using trees to scare off ghosts anyway, so let's remove the Christ from it, just call it "holiday," and make it 100% about buying shit for the sake of corporate profit. Don't ask me to figure out the logic behind it because I can't while every employee in stores says "happy holidays," every company and even branches of government refer to December 25th as "holiday" (singular tense), and do what they can to strip Christianity from it.

[Nightbat]

Well, being an atheist with a touch of agnosticism, it really doesn't matter what kind of religion the bugger worshipped
It just pisses me off what kind of asshole a person can be just because people believe in something different (in this case, children)
'Sinterklaas' wasn't made for him anyway, it was here before he dragged his sorry greencarded ass into the city politics

but what pisses me off most is that apparently is no room in the Netherlands for,... The Netherlands


Fuck that shit, I might be an unpatriotic asshole, but I'd still like to see some identity left by our grandparents to still be held in honor
piss off with this multicultural acceptance
"Tolerating" does not equal "having everything shoved down your throat and forced to like it or get your balls kicked in for having some sense of national pride"

Pretty soon the only dutch tradition left is smoking marihuana in a coffeeshop

and trust me, cheese, dykes, windmills, whatever stereotype 'dutch' thing you can come up with
"Sinterklaas" is THE most dutch thing there is

And it doesn't involve slaves, racism, oppression, human rights, it's sole purpose for the past 150 years has been to entertain children

[Nightbat]

Apparently Ms. Verene Shepherd has no voice in the UN or Unseco, and has been labeld by the belgian dept. of Unesco
as "Known to be abusing the UN's name for her own agenda"

and speaking of her:



I'm wondering who is holding on to past stereotypes?

[Tetsuo]

The scary thing about Islam is well it is like any religion, there are fanatics. Your average Muslim is not really different from your average Christian. Your zealots on either side are pretty similar too. I personally grew up in a cult and have views that are not right or wrong but I could at least inform people. Why can't we just all get along? Seriously?