RUTHFULLY YOURS

The protests have revived calls to take down symbols of colonial oppression that have long been controversial and tackle the persistent discrimination and racism in several European nations, including the U.K., Germany, France and Spain. Across Europe, statues have been defaced, street names questioned and historic pageants pilloried on an exceptional scale.

An inspiration, aside from the U.S. protests, was the announcement by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Thursday that the state will address its past in the slave-owning Confederacy by removing a large statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond.

In Belgium, which controlled and exploited the Congo for decades, calls are increasing to remove statues of King Leopold II, who established the colony as his personal territory in the 1880s and was responsible for the death and mutilation of millions of people there.

A bust of Leopold II in Ghent on Tuesday was covered with a cloth and painted in red with the words, “I can’t breathe,” Mr. Floyd’s last words before he was killed by a Minneapolis policeman who knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.

Statues of the king in other Belgian cities were burned or covered with red paint symbolizing blood. The Brussels City Council on Monday will address a petition that gathered 45,000 signatures in four days, demanding the removal of all statues of Leopold II.

In the Netherlands, an early colonial power whose trading companies were instrumental in carrying African slaves to America for more than two centuries, the prime minister has acknowledged racism as a problem following massive antiracism demonstrations.

“It’s not just an American phenomenon,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. “It’s also a Dutch problem. There is racism here, too. There is discrimination here, too.”

Mr. Rutte on Thursday abandoned his yearslong support for the traditional Dutch Christmastime character known as Black Pete. The mischievous sidekick to Santa Claus, clad in a Renaissance-era costume, is usually portrayed by a white boy in blackface, curly black wig, red lipstick and big golden earrings—a costume reminiscent of the slave trade.

The character, also common in the Dutch-speaking Flanders region of Belgium, has become increasingly controversial over recent years. Mr. Rutte and many others have rejected charges that it is racist.

“I was part of the group that said Black Pete is black” and so not racist, Mr. Rutte told Parliament on Thursday. “But I’ve met many people with dark skin color who said they feel incredibly discriminated against. And that’s the last thing you want with Santa Claus celebrations,” he said, adding that it wasn’t up to the government, but to society itself to change the tradition.

In 2014, Mr. Rutte described Black Pete as “an old children’s tradition” when asked about his support for it. “It is not Green Pete or Brown Pete, it is Black Pete, so I cannot change that.” He complained of spending days cleaning his face after playing Black Pete.

In recent years, Black Pete has become a rallying point for far-right groups who protest, sometimes violently, against anti-Black Pete demonstrators each December.

Changing racist attitudes will be a long process, but having the prime minister publicly change his mind is an important step, said Linda Nooitmeer, who chairs the National Institute for the Study of Dutch Slavery and its Legacy.

“When the prime minister acknowledges there is institutional racism, it’s a big thing,” she said. “This may inspire European leaders and citizens to look at their own history and their position during slavery.”

In Spain, Afroféminas, a feminist organization participating in Floyd protests, is calling for the abolition of a blackface festival in Alcoy in southeastern Spain. Every January, thousands of teenagers paint their faces black and their lips bright red and dress up as royal pages for the Three Kings Parade. The procession winds through the city, commemorating the Three Wise Men who followed a star through the desert to reach Jesus’ birthplace.

“Blackface is still being put on in so many public schools,” said Afroféminas Director Antoinette Torres Soler. “As a black mother, if I point that out, it means I’m drawing the antipathy of all other fathers and mothers.” She said she remains undeterred.

In Portugal, Parliament on Friday approved three draft resolutions to tackle racism. The Left Bloc party, which tabled one of them, asked for a national strategy on the issue, particularly in schools. Students from Portuguese-speaking African countries are much less likely to go to university than Portugal-born students, it said. Portugal was for centuries a colonial power, closely controlling the slave trade between Africa and Brazil.

In Berlin, the racist street name “Mohrenstrasse” was covered with a “George Floyd-Strasse” sign in recent days. Mohr is an old German word for black person, and also means simpleton. The street was named Mohrenstrasse in 1707, with one historic reference attributing it to a black slave acquired by Prussian Prince Philipp Wilhelm von Brandenburg-Schwedt. The Prussian state had three colonies in West Africa in the late 1600s and early 1700s.