Habtamu de Hoop: 'I think many friends would be helped by our politics, but they will never vote left'
The youngest member of parliament Habtamu de Hoop (GroenLinks-PvdA) is Frisian, whatever Johan Derksen may claim. His adoption is 'a beautiful story' and also entails a responsibility, he thinks. 'I felt that I had to do something with this happiness.'
Habtamu de Hoop was just able to grab one beer in the party tent on the Terp last night. A debate in the House of Representatives had overrun, he arrived later than he wanted in his familiar Frisian Wommels. The village festival lasts three days, green-yellow-red flags flutter on the facades, streamers are strung in almost all gardens – the uniformity betrays a lively, close-knit village culture.
Tomorrow, at the matinee, everyone will be dressed in a farm theme. The group of friends from De Hoop will be playing farmer golf. The men will be dressing up as farmers, with a red farmer's handkerchief and a flat cap. The women will be playing holes , a tuft of grass with a ring around it. 'Uh yeah', says the 26-year-old, laughing. 'That doesn't make any sense of course.'
During the week, the GroenLinks-PvdA MP, like most politicians, spends the night in an apartment in The Hague. On Thursday evening, he gets in the car to Friesland, his home. The Afsluitdijk marks the border between the two lives he leads.
'In the village I'm not a politician,' he says, walking along the handball fields, a sport he's been playing since he was young. 'People don't really care. I can be 26 here. If I had walked home drunk last night, no one would have said anything. No videos or photos would have been taken. It's a safe environment, which is what you need in this line of work.'
If he is called to account for his position, it is often by people from outside. 'Hey,' shouts a man unloading a van from a construction company, 'you are from the House of Representatives!'
Earlier that morning, on the farm where he grew up, he calmly observed how his parents welcomed their visitors with coffee. How his mother strung together story after story, about the adoption of their sons, agricultural policy, her work in healthcare. How father De Hoop, a dairy farmer, added a sentence here and there, the large Frisian Staby Fimme lying at his feet.
I noticed how calmly you listened to your parents.
'That is often the dynamic. My mother, a lovely woman, talks quite a lot. My father complements that. I am also someone who likes to sit back and watch what happens. Because I have been a presenter and am in politics, people often think that I always want to do the talking, but I like to listen and choose my moments carefully.'
He has been a member of the House of Representatives for over three years now. The day after he was sworn in in 2021, the infamous April 1 debate took place, about the 'function elsewhere' for Pieter Omtzigt. 'Then I thought: is it always like this here?' After that, the corona crisis intensified, the unstable Rutte IV cabinet took office and the PVV eventually won the new elections. 'I have not yet experienced a normal political period.'
De Hoop is often the youngest. He was the youngest councillor in Friesland when he joined the municipal council of Súdwest-Fryslân for the PvdA at the age of 19. In the same year he started as a presenter of the youth programme Het klokhuis . He was 22 years old when he was elected to the House of Representatives. He is still the youngest there.
He immediately stood out with his maiden speech , which went viral. In it, he tells how he was abandoned as a baby of a few weeks old in a cafe in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. 'I do not know who brought me into this world,' he says. 'But there is no doubt about who gave me the loving upbringing that allowed me to stand here today,' he says about his parents, the farming couple who adopted him in 1998.
He told his story in a C&A suit that he had already worn at his high school gala. He was still waiting for his first salary as a member of parliament, all his savings had been spent on the election campaign. 'I had not expected that that maiden speech would do anything', he says. 'I did not make it more sweet or dramatic than it is. I think people feel that it is really my story.'
Recently he went viral again – this time against his will. In the programme Vandaag Inside an interview with him was shown about the preservation of the Frisian language. 'He's talking nonsense', Johan Derksen said in response. 'He's not Frisian. I'm not Surinamese either, am I?'
Normally Derksen, a professional wimp, gets away with a lot. But not now. Unadulterated racism, was the verdict in public opinion. Prime Minister Rutte responded, as did almost the entire House of Representatives, from left to right. Even PVV member Harm Beertema, a member of parliament until last year, wrote on X that Vandaag Inside had 'hit the bottom' with this.
De Hoop actually did not want to respond, but after much insistence he recorded a video. 'Well Johan, I am Frisian, I grew up on a farm', he said. He explained that he played handball, skated, drove a tractor and shoveled shit, 'because the less pleasant chores are also part of it'. His response was liked almost a hundred thousand times on Instagram. That evening he made an impression with a calm performance on the talk show Sophie & Jeroen . 'We are going to hear a lot more from this boy', said Powned chairman Dominique Weesie at the same talk show table.
Yet it is a double whammy, says the MP. 'I have written private members' bills and amended Article 1 of the Constitution, which now prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability and sexual orientation. I have not been invited to a talk show table for that once. But when I went viral with that maiden speech, or during the fuss with Johan Derksen, all doors opened. I deliberately said no to many requests, because I first wanted to show that I can simply be a good MP. I realise that I have quite a unique life story. If that can be a means to tell my substantive message - yes, then I want to use it. But I want to make sure that it is only about me personally. It remains a struggle.'
In the House of Representatives you do public transport, traffic and public housing. All subjects that are far removed from the culture wars. Is that deliberate?
'No, I didn't think: I don't want to do anything with cultural themes. My heart really lies with socio-economic subjects. I got the Affordable Rent Act through the House and also arranged a 'draft discount' in it: people with poorly insulated houses will get a discount of up to 368 euros on their rent next year. These are very concrete differences that you can make as a Member of Parliament.
'With public transport I can build a bridge between the region and The Hague. In the past five years, 1,500 bus stops have disappeared in the Netherlands, including in our village. The loss of public facilities leads to a lot of frustration, people feel like they no longer have a foundation under their feet.
'The great thing about living and public transport is that people who have nothing to do with politics, who don't really follow what's happening in The Hague, do find these topics important. Simply because they notice it in their own environment.'
What disappointed you about working in The Hague?
'It's hard to be part of politics, something people have an aversion to. The corona period was very bad because of that. I also have uncles, aunts and cousins who thought it was all nonsense, who went to Forum voor Democratie, and therefore also started to doubt my integrity. First in apps, but then I was tagged in Facebook messages. It became very personal. Fortunately, things are fine now, but I did stay away from Christmas dinner that year.
'I also notice that personal relationships in The Hague have become much more tense recently. In the past, the tone was: tough on the content, not on the person. That is different now. With Dilan Yesilgöz you can see the disgust when she says the name Frans Timmermans, I think that is idiotic. I don't really care which party someone belongs to, I also have a good relationship with PVV members. Harm Beertema, with whom I was on the education committee, said bizarre things every now and then, but we did have a beer every two weeks.'
Left-wing voters may also think: why would you pursue normal relations with MPs from a xenophobic party?
'In politics you need good relationships. With GroenLinks-PvdA we have 25 seats; we do have to work together with other parties to get things done. If I can't have a beer with people I disagree with, I don't have the credit to get things done. Of course I find certain statements Harm Beertema made terrible. But he is a former teacher, in the field of education I am convinced that he had the best intentions for children. Most members of parliament are there with the best intentions. I want to continue to see that in colleagues.'
Where is the limit then?
'I find that difficult. I haven't achieved that in recent years. I also think it's good to keep some distance, to not feel the weight of what someone says or does. The work then becomes very complicated - maybe it's a coping mechanism.
'Now that the PVV is co-governing, things will be different. I had a good relationship with Beertema, but I have no confidence in the PVV members who are in the cabinet and have made openly racist statements. I will not sit down with them.'
How should the left position itself towards this new cabinet?
'Keeping on the record that this is not a normal political situation, a cabinet with the PVV. We also need to offer a substantive alternative, show that migration is not the real problem. The PVV has no story on the subject of housing: not left, not right, not in favor of market forces or public housing. The only thing that party can do is point to migration, as a diversionary maneuver. The same goes for BBB.
'Migration always puts pressure on social services. You can brush it off, but people feel it. Only: it's not about the migrants, but about scarcity. Far too few homes are being built. It's our job to tell the socio-economic story. That there needs to be a renewed focus on public housing, that a lot of land is in the hands of people who already have a lot of fucking money, that homeowners are saving homes while tenants pay far too much.'
Migration is not just a socio-economic issue. People see their neighbourhoods changing. So there is also a cultural side, and that is precisely what makes voters move.
'If you put the most vulnerable people together in a neighbourhood – yes, of course that has disruptive effects. It has little to do with colour. If you ask passers-by on the street what they think is the biggest problem at the moment, they will mention the housing market, that they or their children cannot find an affordable house. Then they associate that with migration, because there are parties who tell them that. I have set myself the task this period to refute that, to show that it is essentially about inequality.'
As a municipal councillor in Súdwest-Fryslân, you went to the Black Lives Matter protest in Leeuwarden in the summer of 2020. There you advocated for a change in Black Pete. That was a sensitive issue.
'I really had a fantastic PvdA faction, but then I was asked if there weren't more important issues than Black Pete. Someone even said: I used to have a bit more weight, I was also bullied about that.
'I always talk about Wommels with a lot of gratitude and have never been discriminated against here - at least never consciously and not that I have noticed. That does not mean that you can't like certain things. When I said that Black Pete is discriminatory, the reaction was: what do you mean, you always say that you have never been discriminated against? They don't understand that those can be separate.
'There weren't that many black politicians in Friesland who could raise this issue. I did go to that Black Lives Matter demonstration and also gave an interview to Omroep Fryslân. That was well received, people around me also said that I had made them think. Precisely because it came from me, they emphasized, and not someone who 'always whines' - their words.
'With many black people who speak out, you see that tension: you have to say what you don't like, without making it emotional. Otherwise your contribution is quickly ridiculed. Look at how people talk about Akwasi and Sylvana Simons. I am grateful to them for their fight, but there is so much hatred towards them.'
Among the 'blocking Frisians', the people who blocked the highway in 2018 to prevent Kick Out Zwarte Piet from demonstrating at the arrival in Dokkum, were also family members of yours. What was that like for you, as a black boy in a white environment?
'That gave me a stomach ache. I didn't speak out about it at the time, I thought it was too exciting. There was a lot of support for it in Friesland, and people around me thought it was a cool action. I deliberately avoided the subject at the time.'
What do you learn from the right-wing bubble?
'It helps me to have a lot of people with different opinions around me. I think a lot of my friends would be helped by our politics, but they will never vote left. They associate left with woke, which is a very powerful frame. While it's about justice, standing up for minorities. I think everyone tries to do that in their own little environment. I want to show that it's cool to be left, the shyness has to go.
'I am almost always surrounded by people who disagree with me, so I have to work harder to be right. I am used to that. In politics I also try to find the language that appeals to more moderate or right-wing voters, because yes, it is the language that I speak and hear in my own environment.'
But that language also means: don't whine about a subject like racism.
'I do, you know. I always go against the flow, I'm not afraid of that. After Johan Derksen's statements in Vandaag Inside, I consciously did not use the word racism. My reaction was how I felt, let that be clear. But if I had called it racism, then it would have been said that I 'pulled the racism card'. I chose to address this in my own way.'
That night you were on the talk show Sophie & Jeroen . I sensed relief from the other guests at the table, such as Powned chairman Dominique Weesie, that you didn't make too much of a problem of it.
'I don't agree with you, because I did problematize it. I said: I can manage on my own, but there are many other people who feel like they don't belong here, especially since the elections. And that Derksen's comment confirmed that: you can do it as well as you want, you still don't belong here. That made me angry. I wanted to stand up for those people.
'I myself was watching Vandaag Inside that evening , because I had been briefly interviewed by their reporter Merel Ek that afternoon. What's going on here, I thought, but I left it at that and went to sleep. In the morning my phone had exploded. Spokesperson called: you have to respond. 'I don't feel like doing that at all', I said. 'I have an important debate coming up soon, I have to prepare for it.'
'In the end, I quickly wrote the text of my response on a piece of paper in my office and recorded the video in one go. After the debate, I was bombarded with calls asking if I wanted to respond on TV. Gradually, I started to get the feeling: it's not for nothing that people feel so much pain about this. OK, I thought, I'll just go and sit on the talk show. I'm a role model, even if I don't want to.'
Prime Minister Rutte also shared your reaction video to X. 'And Johan, tie this in your ears!', he wrote in Frisian. I was bothered by that 'Johan', by the old-boy tone.
'The Prime Minister has never stood up for a Member of Parliament like this. Of course, it's Mark Rutte, this is his style, you can have your opinion about that. But the fact that he did that, yes, I thought that was very special.'
At the same time, he did not dare to really upset Johan Derksen.
"He's not the only one, right? I honestly consider it a sweet thing."
Every year on December 8th, De Hoop celebrates his adoption day, the date his parents picked him up in Addis Ababa in 1998. The family then goes to an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. At Christmas, they always watch the videos that his parents made in Ethiopia at the time. His brother was adopted a few years after him.
The greatest gift his parents gave him, says De Hoop, is that they have always been open about the adoption. 'They told me from a young age how it is: we are your parents, but know that this is your history. Because of that, there was nothing exciting about it. They made it clear early on: this is your family, this is your safe haven.
'As a child I always got really angry at people who asked: yes, those are your adoptive parents, but who are your real parents? I found that such an insult. My parents made sure I had food on my plate in the evening, they took me to soccer practice. They are my real parents. I protected them, I didn't think it was fair.'
A few months ago, a majority of the House of Representatives voted for a gradual ban on adoption from abroad. How was that for you?
'Complicated. I don't talk about my adoption that often, because I don't want to detract from the sad side of it. My story is very beautiful, but there are also people with different experiences. They have said to me: if you tell your story, I can no longer express my sadness. By definition it is personal, they are all personal experiences. I shouldn't make it a general story. A lot has gone wrong, you can't ignore that. At the same time, I think that if there is no possibility of adoption, there will always be child trafficking and who knows what. So it is better to regulate it.'
In 2019 you went back to Ethiopia with your family. Weren't you afraid of turning everything upside down?
'No, I always look at it very soberly. I have never been that concerned with my adoption, perhaps because not much was known about me. Still, my brother and I felt the need to see something of our native country. Our parents' 25th wedding anniversary was a good opportunity to go there.
'That trip was impressive and confronting. There is so much poverty, the people on the streets are completely fucked. In the same place, skyscrapers shoot up like mushrooms. Addis Ababa is a world city, while you just stumble over poverty.
'The second day we went to the place where I was abandoned, we also visited the orphanage. We were shown a book with all the names of the children who lived there. Thousands and thousands of names, I have never seen such a thick book. On my page there were 25, half of them had a cross. That means they died there, or a little later. That's when I realised how vulnerable it all was.'
For you it was even the moment when you thought: I have to enter politics.
'Yes, I felt that I had to do something with this happiness, a kind of reciprocity. At the time I was still presenting Het Klokhuis , wanted to become a presenter, maybe even have my own talk show one day. It was fun, but I missed the content. I felt like an actor: you have an editorial team, get a script, good luck with it. As a municipal councillor I had more the feeling that I sometimes made a difference. Then I started studying public administration and a year later I was already asked to join the House of Representatives. That's how fast it all went.'
It also sounds like a heavy burden. Why should you put in the extra effort and I don't?
'You have to commit yourself too. I would like more people to realise how lucky we are here in the Netherlands. I have many friends who say: I voted, I did my duty, I'll see in four years. While you are an active citizen every day. I'm not saying that you have to go into politics, but there are many more ways to make your social contribution. I think that we pay too little attention to that, that everyone looks very individually at how they can get the most out of their own lives. Solidarity, community spirit, looking around you and thinking: what can I do? That is not something of politics, but of society.'
That seems like something you learned from your parents.
'My parents have always been volunteers everywhere. I used to find that annoying sometimes, when they were back at the club while I was playing football. They were socially active, but not necessarily involved in politics. They have a social heart, but have also always had a farm. The practical things you encounter as an entrepreneur and farmer naturally play a role in the choice of vote. They were fine with me becoming active for the PvdA, but would have found D66 or GroenLinks more difficult. Elite parties that are against farmers, that is the association. Because I have become politically active, their perspective has broadened. Now they will of course vote for me.'
Were you immediately convinced when you were asked to join national politics?
'Not directly. I was 22, I realised that it was a bit early. I hadn't even finished my studies yet. Then prominent people started calling and I felt flattered. I think it's important that young people are in the House of Representatives and I thought: then I'll have to do it myself. And yes, I'm quite competitive, I want to show that I'm the best, so I went for it completely.
'I haven't regretted it for a second, but I now also experience that it is difficult to be in my twenties with this work. I have to admit that it is not possible to do it all: see friends, go out, the outlet that everyone my age needs.'
When did this realization dawn on you?
'Last year. The first period I was mainly busy proving that I was a good member of parliament, which I was no less because of my young age. Then I am also a person of color, not all of them get a chance, so I felt responsible. If I didn't do well, that would reflect on others.
'In the last elections I got twenty thousand preferential votes. Then I felt: okay, it's really good enough. Now I can take a bit more rest. The House of Representatives is more of a glass house than a cheese dome. Everything you do is seen. There is little distinction between work and private life among politicians. That is very unsafe.'
Is there sufficient attention for this in a faction?
'We work closely together, but we also remain competitors. You can act as collegial as you like; in the end, in elections, it all counts how high you are on the list. Unhealthy, but hey: if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen . I can handle it, but it's good to be aware of it, so that you can arm yourself against it. I myself keep as big a distinction as possible between work and private life and I try to find ways in which I can still have fun moments as a 26-year-old, without it affecting my work.'
You can't really go to a festival and go crazy.
Laughing: 'No, that's what village festivals are for.'