Twan Huys looks back: “The Dalai Lama is a stubborn old man”
For some 30 years Twan Huys, host of College Tour and Buitenhof, has been working in journalism. At Room for Discussion, he looks both to the past and to the future. “We have been asking Geert Wilders to come to College Tour in vain for 15 years.”
“The king of interviews.” This is how Room for Discussion (RfD) on Wednesday afternoon applauds Twan Huys, the experienced presenter of College Tour and Buitenhof. Where normally Huys asks the questions, Wednesday afternoon he himself is the interviewee. But even that role fits him like a glove. He is visibly at ease on the RfD's Chesterfield couch, speaks easily, and is not afraid to acknowledge past mistakes.
Take that time he interviewed the Dalai Lama for College Tour. Well, “interviewing” is a bit of a stretch here...It was actually more like listening to a monologue, says Huys. His questions and those of students in the room were received by the Dalai Lama as interruptions rather than expressions of interest. “I respected him too much,” Huys now acknowledges. A mortal sin for journalists. Putting people you interview on a pedestal. Never do it, says Huys.
Stubborn man
But this mistake is sometimes quickly made, he also knows. When requesting an interview with the Dalai Lama, he was told that he had to understand that he was not going to talk to just anyone, but to no one less than “his holiness himself,” while, in fact, he is also just “a stubborn old man. Like so many,” Huys comments.
Before speaking on Dutch television to the Dalai Lama or Pakistani peace activist Malala Yousafzai— “so young, but one of the wisest and most eloquent people I have ever spoken to”— he reported on the war in Bosnia, among other things. “Before I got there, I had no idea how risky and dangerous it would be. It was terrifying.”
Yet he wouldn't have missed it for anything. “Life can be boring,” Huys believes. He explains, “I know exactly what I did this morning or last week.” So he'd rather interview others, or put himself in situations that are exciting, as he did in Bosnia at the time.
Geert Wilders called him a “PVV hater”
After these outpourings, the conversation shifts remarkably often to people whom the “king of interviews” Twan Huys has not, or still has not, interviewed in his long journalistic career. He lists a few. “Joe Biden, the Pope, Vladimir Putin, Geert Wilders—“and, what's her name...”—Taylor Swift.” All of them he would like to interview. Regarding some, he pauses a little longer.
Regarding Wilders, for example, who is currently in an extremely difficult coalition-forming process in The Hague. For the past 15 years, Huys and his editors have relentlessly tried to convince the PVV leader to come to College Tour, each time with no success. Wilders was also absent during the program's political debate leading up to the last parliamentary elections, after which he tweeted (now X) that “PVV hater Huys” refused to invite him. Should he bother responding to that? Huys just saw it as a great opening remark for the debate.
Then there's Putin. Russia's president was recently featured in an interview with American ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “Fascinating,” Huys finds. “Nothing about Mariupol.” Would he have done better, asks one of the two interviewers from Room for Discussion somewhat sarcastically. “Yes, I really wonder what contract Carlson had to sign.”
Marrying Mark Rutte
Mark Rutte, on the other hand, did speak to Huys, for the first time 13 years ago on College Tour. However, the outgoing prime minister, who is reportedly about to become NATO chief, does not have fond memories of it. The stumbling block turned out to be a male student's question asking if the then-prime minister would marry him.
Shortly before that, a female student had asked the same thing. Both times the prime minister's answer was no. “Rutte found that line of discussion unacceptable,” Huys says looking back. He even thought it was staged. According to Huys, this was definitely not the case.
After that, the VVD member hardly ever joined Huys in Buitenhof—remarkable for a prime minister, says Huys. Coincidence or harbored resentment? Could be both, Huys laughs.
