Martin Bosma

Dutch broadcaster NOS recently decided to stop using the Dutch word "blank" to describe white or Caucasian people, instead opting to call them "wit" or white in English. This decision resulted in an uproar on social media, and even parliamentary questions posed by right-wing populist party PVV.

Colloquially, the word “blanke” is an adjective that goes beyond “white” to give a connotation of “purity” or “untainted”.

The PVV's legislative proposal to make municipalities only participate in Sinterklaas events in which Zwarte Piet is wearing blackface makeup, could count on almost no support from both the lower house of Dutch parliament and the Dutch government today. Most parties in parliament were against the law and Minister Ronald Plasterk of Home Affairs stated that the bill goes against the Dutch constitution.

If the PVV wins the parliamentary elections in March and Geert Wilders becomes prime minister, Amsterdam should become a republic, D66 alderman Simone Kukenheim said on Saturday. Wilders responded to this call on Twitter with a Photoshopped image showing D66 leader Alexander Pechtold protesting with what Wilders calls "Hamas-terrorists". 

The lower house of Dutch parliament is electing a new president on Wednesday. And with four candidates with controversy clinging to almost all of them, it seems to be building up to be a tense election.

The parliamentary influence of Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) has reached its low point since March 2014. Throughout the last year, only nine motions by PVV were accepted, just three percent of the motions submitted by the party, according to a Trouw newspaper analysis of data from parliament.

The independent human rights experts who looked into Zwarte Piet on Tuesday called on the Dutch Government to take the lead in the ongoing debate about whether it’s time the tradition undergo a change.