On December 5, 2025, the action group Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP) and the underlying anti-racism organization Nederland Wordt Beter will stop their work. Jerry Afriyie, leader of the organization, says: Wednesday on X. On the website of Nederland Wordt Beter it can be read that the foundation has been aiming for some time “to close itself down in 2025”.
In the first few years, Nederland Wordt Beter set itself three goals to be achieved by 2025: a national commemoration of the history of slavery, a Sinterklaas celebration without Zwarte Piet and structural education about the colonial past and slavery. According to Afriyie, everything is going “according to plan”. “We are not there yet, but we are well on our way. The Netherlands has taken many steps since 2010.” For example, he is happy with the national commemoration of the history of slavery on July 1, which is receiving increasing attention.
He also finds it positive how public opinion about Zwarte Piet has changed. While before the establishment of KOZP in 2010, Petes were still painted black as standard, since 2019 there have only been soot-wiped Petes at the national arrival. In 2021, an inventory among 210 municipalities showed Het Parool that most individual municipalities also use soot wipers (123). In 10 municipalities only Black Petes were visible; in 32 municipalities they occurred in combination with soot sweeping Petes.
Not a second later
“We have seen a lot of change, but we want to see it take root,” says Afriyie. “So that entry committees no longer have any doubts after 2025. We want to remove every doubt, every growing pain in the near future.”
In the coming months, the action group will mainly focus on places in the Netherlands where Zwarte Piet still appears. “When we started, it was like: 'You're being bullshit, there's nothing wrong with Black Pete.' Now many people know that Pete has to change, but some are still in a mourning process for the loss of Black Pete. Where necessary, we will protest in the near future, but we will certainly continue to engage in dialogue and exchange experiences.”
KOZP protest actions regularly encounter considerable resistance and violence. In the first year that KOZP took action, Afriyie and co-founder Quinsy Gario were violently arrested by the police in Dordrecht. The National Ombudsman later ruled that this was unjustified and disproportionate. In 2021, peaceful demonstrators in Volendam were pelted with eggs, food scraps and fireworks. A year later the same thing happened in Staphorst, where a bus carrying demonstrators was crushed and someone tried to push a burning torch into the bus. Last December, demonstrators were again pelted in De Lier.
Afriyie says he does not feel that the pre-set deadline is now coming too early. “In the coming months we will certainly ensure that we leave the house in 2025 with what we had in mind. If that means that we have to work for it 48 hours a day, then so be it, but the door does not close a second later than the plan.”
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