REPORT GUEST LESSON

1. What was the date of this lesson? 16-11-2015

2. Who was the guest speaker? Arjan Verhagen
3. What did he tell about himself? Where he lived in his live.
4. What were the subjects he talked about? A little bit about himself,
where he lived in Europe, Africa, apartheid, the Big 5, USA,
Australia
5. Give a short summary in your own words of each subject
A little bit about himself: He was born in Leidschedam in 1960. He
have 4 children.
Europe: He lived in three different countries in Europe and in four
different places namely: Leidschedam and Amsterdam (The
Netherlands), Versailles (France) and Bonn (Germany)
Africa: When he was 21 years old he leaved the Netherlands and
he went to South-Africa. Then he lived 10 years in South-Africa
and he had work in South-Africa too.
Apartheid: In the time that he lived in South-Africa there was
apartheid between the black and the white people. There were
different areas for white people and black people and you need a
kind of passport to have permission to come into that area. But
because he had black friends so officially need a passport and
otherwise youll be arrested.
Big 5: There are two different Big 5s. One that you see in South-
Africa, Namibia and Mozambique (Giraffe, leopard, elephant,
rhino, buffalo) and the other one in the region above Mozambique
(Giraffe, leopard, elephant, rhino, hippo).
USA: After 10 years in South-Africa mister Verhagen went to the
USA where he lived in Los Angeles.
Africa: Mister Verhagen went one last time to South-Africa. He
lived her 8 years and then he went to Australia. In 1995 he came
back to the Netherlands.
'Blackface': Dutch holiday tradition or
racism?
(CNN)You know the story. Every December jolly St. Nicholas visits the children of
the land -- accompanied by his servant, Black Peter, a goofy, singing, candy-
giving Renaissance-clad figure in blackface, giant red lips and a curly wig.
What? That doesn't ring a bell?
It would if you lived in the Netherlands, where the visit of Sinterklaas and Zwarte
Piet on December 5 -- the eve of St. Nicholas' birthday -- is a longstanding
tradition. But it's a tradition that's been called into question in recent years,
including by Roger Ross Williams, the director of the short film "Blackface," which
looks into the character and his past.
"It was shocking to me. The arguments of the Dutch is that it's a children's
holiday and that it's a tradition," says Williams, an African-American whose short
film "Music by Prudence" won an Oscar for short subject in 2010. Many don't see
the racist aspects of the character, he adds.
When he announced his documentary, he was insulted online, told to "eat a
banana, black monkey" and other epithets. He hasn't been alone in raising
hackles; his film shows one black protester being hauled away from a crowd
welcoming Zwarte Piet because, in the protester's words, "I made them feel so
uncomfortable that they had to get the cops."
The issue of racism is a complex one in the famously liberal Netherlands. (Indeed,
its liberalism was a huge attraction for Williams, a gay man who is married to a
white Dutchman and now lives in Amsterdam.) The country profited greatly from
the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries; one of the roles of the Dutch West
India Co. was to transport slaves from Africa to the Americas. The Dutch didn't
ban slavery in its territories until 1863, though it was illegal in the Netherlands.
Though the story of Zwarte Piet is said to date back hundreds of years, it was
popularized in a 19th-century children's book. The character is Sinterklaas'
Moorish helper, and his arrival from Spain with Sinterklaas -- who rides a white
horse -- has become a yearly celebration, complete with Sinterklaas' boat pulling
into a Dutch harbor and a welcoming parade. Children and adults dress up as
Zwarte Piet at parties.
"It's just tradition. It has nothing to do with racism," says Ronald Livius, a
commodities trader who grew up in the southern Netherlands and now lives in
Switzerland. A former Atlanta resident, he says that the Surinamese members of
the Atlanta Holland Club who played Zwarte Piet had "absolutely no issue doing
so."
Williams, the filmmaker, dismisses this as "Dutch innocence."
"They'll say that Black Pete is not blackface, but you're literally blacking up your
face ... and (adding) hoop earrings and an Afro wig," he says. "It's pretty obvious
to us, but it's like a whole country in denial."
There has been some reconsideration of Zwarte Piet. There's a Facebook page in
opposition, and some fans have tried to recast his blackface as chimney soot.
Still, resistance has been strong. A U.N. committee asked the Netherlands to get
rid of the character, but the Dutch government "dismissed" its request, The New
York Times reported in August.
The right-wing party of Geert Wilders, one of the country's most popular
politicians, proposed a "Black Peter Law" last year that would ensure the
character would remain as he is.
And when Emily Raboteau, an American who spent a holiday season in
Amsterdam, tried to explain to locals why she had issues with Zwarte Piet, they
ignored her.
"You're being racist," she said her Dutch neighbors told her. "We love him."
"I was arguing with a wall," she wrote in an essay for Virginia Quarterly Review.
For his part, Williams has been asked why he doesn't focus on race problems in
America. He says he has, but that's not the point -- he lives in the Netherlands
now.
"This is something that's upsetting and disturbing to me, and I'm not going to
look the other way," he says. "I can't look the other way."