Albert Verlinde (62) is happy that a lot has been said about the controversial comments by Johan Derksen (75) about Member of Parliament Habtamu de Hoop (26) of GroenLinks-PvdA, and that Albert had to laugh about it. “I take the positive out of it. And then I think: there has been a lot of talk about it,” Albert said on Wednesday evening on the carpet at the presentation of the Musical Awards. “This was unfortunate. But yes, it is live. It is also difficult to reverse.”
“As far as I’m concerned, everyone belongs.”
Johan said in a broadcast of Today Inside that Habtamu is not Frisian, just as Johan himself is not Surinamese. Habtamu was born in Ethiopia and raised in Friesland. Albert was a guest on that broadcast and had to laugh at Johan’s comments. The 62-year-old musical producer previously shared that he had been awake at night about the criticism he received afterwards.
“I am still very happy that this program is available,” says Albert about the SBS program, in which he was a guest again on Tuesday evening. “Because we at least talk about it with each other. And I think a major problem these days is that every party is digging in. So I prefer to sit at the table with parties that think differently about it and enter into discussions with each other.”
Albert emphasizes what he said earlier: the laughter was a reflex. “There was a bit of pretending that it had been thought through,” he says. “What bothers me is that I have spoken to a lot of people who are like: when do we belong? How long do I have to live here? What do I have to prove to belong? That touched me the most. We have it’s about people. As far as I’m concerned, everyone belongs. Black, white, all colors of the rainbow.”
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