{"id":19004,"date":"2015-03-20T01:13:37","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T01:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/belgian-foreign-minister-causes-stir-with\/"},"modified":"2018-11-28T09:06:50","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T09:06:50","slug":"belgian-foreign-minister-causes-stir-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/belgian-foreign-minister-causes-stir-with\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgian foreign minister causes stir with blackened face"},"content":{"rendered":"
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{ Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders has come under criticism for appearing with a blackened face at a charity event, raising questions about Belgium’s sensitivity toward racism.}<\/p>\n

Reynders insisted he blackened his face only as part of a century-old Belgian tradition aimed at raising money for the poor. But human rights groups were outraged Thursday by his action over the weekend.<\/p>\n

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“This man presents an image of our nation abroad,” said Wouter Van Bellingen, head of the Minorities Forum. “This in unacceptable.”<\/p>\n

Reynders posted a picture of himself blackened up on his website, and said on his Facebook page that he likes “being part of folklore at Carnival time … as tradition wants it.”<\/p>\n

He was referring to a late 19th century Brussels tradition in the early days of colonialism when people dressed up and blackened their faces to be anonymous as they collected money for poor kids.<\/p>\n

Belgium has also been criticized for using a character called “Black Pete” \u2014 seen by many as a grotesque black stereotype \u2014 as Saint Nicolas’s helper. The Black Pete controversy has been strongest in the Netherlands, where it is also a pre-Christmas tradition, but closely followed in Belgium too.<\/p>\n

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“That was quite a shock to see a foreign minister do that,” said Andrew Stroehlein of Human Rights Watch. “Do we want this to be the face we present to the outside world?”<\/p>\n

Across Belgium and the Netherlands, celebrations in which Saint Nicholas rolls into town surrounded by a host of “Black Petes” have come under increasing pressure and triggered racism complaints year after year. Pete is usually played by a white person who paints his face pitch black, dons a frizzy wig and gives himself bright red lips \u2014 stereotypes that disappeared from most countries decades ago.<\/p>\n

Even though the tradition of the charity is different, the look of Reynders with a black face, funny hat and frizzy white collar was reminiscent of Black Pete’s looks.<\/p>\n

Belgium is often watched with an eagle eye when it comes to such issues since it is the former colonizer of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi in central Africa.<\/p>\n

“It shows a total disregard and lack of empathy for the situation,” said Van Bellingen.<\/p>\n

Source: AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{ Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders has come under criticism for appearing with a blackened face at a charity event, raising questions about Belgium’s sensitivity toward racism.} Reynders insisted he blackened his face only as part of a century-old Belgian tradition aimed at raising money for the poor. But human rights groups were outraged Thursday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000068068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-19004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000068068,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19004.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19004.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19004.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19004.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19004.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19004.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000068068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19004"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=19004"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=19004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}