Femke Halsema

Halsema was born in 1966 in Haarlem in a Dutch social democratic family. They moved to Enschede, a town in the east of the Netherlands, close to the German border (Twente). Her father W. Halsema was a sports teacher and director of the municipal service for physical education, sports and recreation (Dienst lichamelijke opvoeding, sport en recreatie) of Enschede.[1] For a long time, from 1982 until 1994, her mother Olga Halsema-Fles was an alderwoman responsible for social affairs and employment for the Labour Party (PvdA) in Enschede. Her mother was also a member of the Dutch Social Insurance Advisory Board (College van Toezicht Sociale Verzekeringen).[2]

Halsema and her mother are of Christian descent. Halsema's mother Olga Margaretha Bertha Fles was born in 1941 in Velsen-Driehuis near harbour town IJmuiden north of Amsterdam.[3] Olga Fles' parents Cornelis Nicolaas Fles and Truus Corbee married in 1939 in the Noorsche Kerk, Nederlands Hervormd, a Dutch Protestant church in Hilligersberg, near Rotterdam.[4] Olga lived with her husband Willem Halsema and son in Haarlem until 1966, where Femke was born. Then the family moved to Enschede and Olga became wethouder (alderwoman) of Enschede's municipal council.

In an interview with the Reformatorisch Dagblad (RD), a Dutch Protestant Christian Reformed newspaper, in 2002 Femke Halsema presumed members of her maternal family to have been "assimilated Jews", because two nephews of her maternal grandfather Cornelis Nicolaas Fles were named Abram and Izaak, whom she supposed had been tailors. Halsema referred to some families with the surname Fles in the region (Twente) Enschede being Jewish.[5] But Halsema's own family is not related to them.

Olga Halsema-Fles’ family originates from Leiden, with a few ancestors residing in Rotterdam, amongst whom Abram and Izaak Fles, her uncles.[6] Both Abram and Izaak Fles belonged to the Nederlands Hervormde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church). As such they were registered in the Rotterdam municipal archive. They worked as civil servants, married and died in 1961 in Rotterdam.[7]

Abram, Izaak and Jacob are common first names in Dutch Protestant churches, chosen from the Hebrew Bible, next to New Testament names. Abram and Izaak Fles belonged to the Nederlands Hervormde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church), just like their father Izaak, a brother to Halsema's great-grandfather Cornelis Fles, and their grandfather was. Halsema's family tree in the maternal line shows, that all ancestors in this family Fles since the start of the 18th century were baptised in Leiden, a historical stronghold of Protestantism in the Netherlands. Before, in the 17th century all ancestors were baptised in Roman Catholic churches as was their first known forefather Johannes Fles (Flessinghe), born ca. 1640 in Sarbrug (Saarbrücken, Germany), who settled in Leiden, in Holland.[8]

Several Jewish families surnamed Fles have lived in Amsterdam, Enschede en Rotterdam. They suffered heavily from the Nazi persecution of the Jews under the German occupation of the Netherlands. Most of these families were deported to Auschwitz and Sobibor and murdered. Very few returned or survived in hiding. But the family of Amsterdam's Mayor Halsema does not share in these traumatic events.

Dutch historian Bart Wallet included Femke Halsema in a chapter on contemporary Dutch Jewry in an entirely revised edition (2017) of “Geschiedenis van de joden in Nederland" ("History of the Jews in the Netherlands").[9] But after some genealogical research in 2020 Wallet published an article in the Dutch Jewish internet magazine Jonet "Waarom Femke Halsema toch niet joods is" ("Why Femke Halsema is not Jewish after all"), admitting his mistake, indicating he will correct this in the next edition of this book.[10] The article was reprinted in the Dutch Nieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad (New Israelitic Weekly).[11]

In 1983, Halsema graduated from the Kottenpark-college in Enschede with a Havo-diploma. Between 1984 and 1985 she attended the Vrije Hogeschool (teachers program for Waldorf schools) in Driebergen. In 1985 she started training as a Dutch and history teacher in Utrecht. In 1988 she left her training without graduating. After that she worked for a year in a Utrecht café. She then started studying general social sciences at Utrecht University, specialising in criminology. During these studies she had a number of jobs related to her specialisation. Between 1991 and 1993, she was an intern at the working group "police and immigrants" at the Ministry of the Interior and she was a student assistant for professor Frank Bovenkerk.[12] In 1992, she worked as an "supernumerary lecturer in scientific methods and techniques" at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Utrecht University, teaching statistics to first year students.

After Halsema graduated in 1993, she joined the staff of the Wiardi Beckman Stichting (WBS), the research institute of the Labour Party. She was seen as a rising talent in the Labour Party.[13] In 1995, she published the book Ontspoord. Opstellen over criminaliteit & rechtshandhaving ("Derailed, essays about crime and law enforcement") for the WBS. In 1996, she travelled through the United States as a fellow for the German Marshall Fund. In 1996 she became an editor for the De Helling, the magazine of the research institute of GroenLinks. In the same year, she started combining her work at the WBS with work for De Balie, a political and cultural centre in Amsterdam, where she met Kees Vendrik, who before that worked for the GroenLinks in the House of Representatives. For De Balie, she led the project Res Publica about the meaning of the Constitution of the Netherlands for the modern society. She also joined the programme committee of the Labour Party for the 1998 election. She also published the book Land in zicht: een cultuurpolitieke benadering van de Ruimtelijke Ordening ("Land ho, cultural-political essays about spatial planning") with Maarten Hajer. She was asked to be a candidate for the Labour Party in the 1998 election.[14]

In the autumn of 1997, Halsema left the Labour Party and the WBS. The direct cause was the authoritarian way in which the police had handled the protests against the European summit that was working on the Treaty of Amsterdam. The social democratic mayor Schelto Patijn had put 500 people in preventive detention.[14] Her dissatisfaction with the course of the Labour Party had grown. In her view the party was unable to renew its social democratic manifesto and use the rising economic tide to invest in the public sector.[14] After leaving the WBS, she continued to work at De Balie and also was a columnist at Het Parool and for IKON radio. She also works as an editor at the publisher Van Gennep.

In the 1998 election, she was a candidate on the list of GroenLinks after being courted by Paul Rosenmöller.[15] She was the third candidate on the list, making her the highest new candidate and practically guaranteed her a seat in the House. The seventh was her former De Balie-colleague Vendrik. GroenLinks more than doubled its seat total from five to eleven. In her first period in the House, Halsema was spokesperson justice, asylum seekers and home affairs. She became well known due to her opposition to the tougher migration law proposed by Job Cohen.

In the 2002 election, she was given the second place on the list. The party lost one seat. Halsema became vice-chair of the parliamentary party and among others spoke for the party in the first debate with the First Balkenende cabinet. In November of that year Paul Rosenmöller unexpectedly announced that he would leave politics. He asked Halsema to succeed him, and she immediately agreed. Ten days before the party congress she was announced as the only candidate for the party leadership and became top candidate for the 2003 election.[16] The party lost another two seats. In addition to the party leadership she was spokesperson on areas of culture and media, healthcare, spatial planning and the environment. As party leader she had a more prominent position and put forth a number of private member's bills, including one concerning judicial review and another that sets a fixed price for books (together with the leader of the Democrats 66 (D66) Boris Dittrich).

Halsema in 2010

Between October 2003 and January 2004, Halsema was on maternity leave. She got twins. Marijke Vos, the vice-chair of the parliamentary party took over as party leader. After her return to the House of Representatives, Halsema started a debate about the course of the left in general and GroenLinks in particular. She claimed that her party was the last "left liberal party in the Netherlands".[17] She called for increased cooperation with the Socialist Party, the Labour Party and GroenLinks, aiming at a left-wing majority government after the 2007 election. She asked Labour Party leader Wouter Bos to speak out in favour of such a cabinet, but he refused in order to allow for a possible coalition of the Labour Party and the Christian Democratic Appeal. In January 2006, she was elected "Liberal of the Year" by the Youth Organisation Freedom and Democracy, the youth organisation of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), because of her new political course, in particular where it came to reforming the welfare state.[18] In June 2006, she was the only candidate for the top spot on her party's list.[19] During the campaign, she published Linkse lente (Left-wing Spring), a book co-authored by Michiel Zonneveld, which blends her political vision and personal biography. In the 2006 election the party lost another seat.

In 2007, she took over the private member's bill of Wijnand Duyvendak, who worked together with Niesco Dubbelboer of the Labour Party and Boris van der Ham of D66, to allow for a non-binding corrective referendum. In April 2010 the party congress voted against including the referendum in the party manifesto.

In the run-up to the 2010 elections, Halsema's political profile rose: she was given the Thorbecke prize for political eloquence.[20] and she was elected by Intermediair as the best candidate for Prime Minister.[21]

During the 2010 election, GroenLinks went from seven to ten seats. The party, under Halsema, negotiated with the VVD, the Labour Party and D66 to reach agreement on a new "Purple Plus"-government, but the negotiations failed.[22]

On 17 December 2010, Halsema announced that she would leave parliament and that Jolande Sap was elected as the new leader of GroenLinks. She formally left parliament in January 2011.

In 2016, she made public in her political memoire Pluche (Plush) that after the 2012 election she was asked to consider becoming minister of Development Cooperation by Lodewijk Asscher, the Labour Party leader, but the VVD vetoed this.[23]

On 27 June 2018, she was appointed Mayor of Amsterdam and began serving a six-year term on 12 July 2018. She is the first woman to hold the position fully as Guusje ter Horst and Kajsa Ollongren held the position previously in an ad interim manner (for 14 days in 2001 and 21 days in 2017 respectively).[24] Also, Halsema was a first GreenLeft member to become Amsterdam's mayor.

In the Netherlands, protests were also taking place on the Dam on 1 June 2020 for George Floyd. Halsema was criticised because of the crowd gathering and the 1.5 meter (5') safety issue from COVID-19, it was impossible to manage the 1.5 meter rule between the protesting citizens which was a must for safety reasons. Halsema was criticised on the Dutch news by a lot of people in the medical field for not taking action and lack of responsibility.[25] In Den Haag and Rotterdam, there were also protests but where the 1,5 meter safety measurement had been followed and the second protest became too crowded and further protests where cancelled and stopped.[26]

On 1 July 2021, Halsema apologised for the city's involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.[27]

Halsema during a preview of her theatre-lecture Een Vrij Land in 2018

After she left politics in January 2011, Halsema worked as freelancer: she has been active as an administrator, member of advisory committees, in science, as an author and television creator.

Immediately after her political career, Halsema joined De Volkskrant, for which she wrote number of articles and columns in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, she was involved in De Correspondent, for which she also wrote articles for two years.[28] In 2016 she wrote her political memoir Pluche. In 2017 she wrote the Essay Nergensland. Nieuw Licht op migratie ("Nowhereland. A new light on migration"), where she proposed a utopian alternative to the international refugee question.[29] In 2018 she wrote the essay Macht en Verbeelding ("Power and Imagination").[30]

In 2011, she became professor by special appointment at Tilburg University occupying the Leonardo Chair for half a year.[31] She taught at the Tilburg School of Humanities. In 2012 she became a temporary professor at University of Utrecht, occupying the Peace of Utrecht Chair. She researched the meaning of social media for human rights and democracy.[32]

In December 2012, she led an inquiry into the behaviour of administrators at the school board of Amarantis. She succeeded Martin van Rijn, who had become junior minister of Health. The committee Halsema found that the board had acted within the law but that their behaviour was not desirable.[33] After that she led a committee on the governance code for the semi-public sector at the request of the Minister of Economic Affairs Henk Kamp[34] The final report of the committee concluded that a governance code would not lead to the desired culture change in the semi-public sector. The committee focused its attention on the old boys network and political cooperation.[35] In 2015 she was asked by employees and students at the University of Amsterdam to lead the committee concerning the financial policy of the University. After a month she returned the assignment. The committee felt that elementary conditions were not met for independent, careful research.[36] Since January 2018, Halsema at the request of the Council of the Judiciary chair of the quadrennial review committee.[37]

Since 2011, Halsema has been President-Commissioner at WPG Uitgevers, which is among other responsible for the publisher De Bezige Bij, Vrij Nederland and Voetbal International.[38] Since 2015 Halsema has been chair for the Trade Organisation for Healthcare for the Handicapped (VGN).[39] Because of that office she is chair of the Executive Consultation for Healthcare (BOZ), a partnership between employers' organisations and patients' organisations in the realm of healthcare.[40] In addition to this she has a number of functions in the public and private sector: between 2012 and 2014 she was chair of the Advisory Council of ASN Bank.[41][42] Since 2015 she is a member of the board the Start Foundation, a fund for people who have "distance to the labour market".[43] And since 2016 she has been a commissioner at Independer.[44] Additionally, Halsema has been a member of the executive of a number of non-profits: between 2011 and 2017 she was chair of the board of Stichting Vluchteling.[45] Since 2017, she has been chair of the board of Aidsfonds/Stopaidsnow.[46] She chairs the board of Adelheid Roosen's theatre company[47] and of IDFA.[48]

In 2014, Halsema made the six-part documentary series Seks en de Zonde ("Sex and Sin") with Hassnae Bouazza about women in the Islamic world. She interviewed activists Veena Malik and Souad al-Shammary for this. Together with Gijs van de Westelaken, she developed and produced the TV-series De Fractie ("The Parliamentary Party") about politics in The Hague. Recently she has been working with her partner Robert Oey on a documentary series on terrorism.[49] In the Spring of 2017, she made a theatre tour with her theatre-lecture Een Vrij Land ("A Free Country").[50]