Oslo Freedom Forum

On Friday I spent a fascinating day at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Taipei.

It was standing room only when I arrived at the ballroom in the Grand Hyatt a few minutes after 10 am. It was a beautiful day — and a holiday (Mid-Autumn Festival) — but hundreds of mostly young Taiwanese were settling in for a full day of speeches. Most of the speakers were young, too, and all are fighters for democracy in their home countries. Their stories were challenging, sad, even scary, but the effect of so many strong voices for freedom was inspiring and uplifting.

The day began with a lovely performance by Taiwanese singer-songwriter Cliff, a tribute to the Hong Kong protesters performed in front of photos of the Lennon Wall in the Gongguan Underpass that I wrote about in another post. Cliff also launched the afternoon session with the song “Brave Taiwanese.”

Music ended the day, too, as Cantopop superstar Denise Ho performed against a backdrop of images of Hong Kong. Earlier, Denise spoke about the protests in Hong Kong, which she said won’t end until the protesters’ demands are met. Denise was joined on the stage by the Taiwanese NPP legislator and rock star Freddy Lim. Freddy isn’t comfortable with the slogan “Go for it, Hong Kong!” (Xianggang jiayou), he said, because he doesn’t feel he has the right to ask others to put themselves in danger. Instead, his message to the Hong Kong protesters is, simply, “Thank you.”

Freddy encouraged the audience not to give up on Hong Kong. He rejected the argument that the territory is already so compromised by Chinese influence that other nations should limit their exposure to it. Boycotting Hong Kong and passing laws (like one that some in the US have talked about) that would take away Hong Kong’s special status would be a betrayal. Instead, he said, we need to continue to support Hong Kong’s effort to remain free.

Denise and Freddy also showed a new flag inspired by the protesters’ use of sticky notes on their Lennon Walls and introduced a video that’s been making the rounds, a new anthem for Hong Kong.

Between the musical bookends of the day were a series of talks.

Audrey Tang, who is both Taiwan’s first Digital Minister and its first trans cabinet minister, began with this poem, which she said wrote as her job description:

When we see an internet of things
let’s make it an internet of beings
When we see virtual reality
let’s make it a shared reality
When we see machine learning
let’s make it collaborative learning
When we see user experience
let’s make it about human experience
And whenever we hear that a singularity
is near, let’s always remember that plurality is here.

Next up was Esther Htusan, a Burmese Kachin journalist. She described exposing the Burmese government’s faked evidence about atrocities against the Rohingya people — and the death threats that followed. Htusan lamented that Burma has retreated from the democratic trend that brought hope to many in the 1990s.

Enes Kanter, an NBA player from Turkey, appeared via video conference. Why? His Turkish passport has been revoked and he can’t travel. Kanter attracted the ire of Turkish president Recip Erdogan when he used Twitter to criticize Erdogan’s crackdown on dissent. Kanter said he felt compelled to speak out because being in the NBA gives him a platform — and a responsibility to act.

Next up were three Taiwanese political figures who took the stage to describe Taiwan’s long, but ultimately successful, campaign to pass marriage equality legislation: DPP legislator Yu Mei-nu, KMT legislator Jason Hsu, and LGBT activist Jennifer Lu. Hearing legislators from both major parties speaking on behalf of marriage equality was especially poignant for me. That they were standing in front of the word “Unite” only deepened that feeling.

The next speaker, Thae Yong-ho, is the highest-ranking person to defect from North Korea. He defected with his family in 2016 when he was serving as North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the UK. He acknowledged that his defection caused many people to suffer, but he said that after years of internal struggle, “I decided to cut off the slavery in my generation.”

Following Mr. Thae’s talk were two segments on information warfare. First, Molly McKew, an activist who works to expose and challenge Russian media manipulation, described how Putin’s government seeks to undermine confidence in democracy. She said the question of our time is, “Is freedom really worth it?” and urged the audience not to lose faith that it is. She also observed that Putin believes democracy is a historical aberration and he can use information warfare to accelerate its collapse.

She concluded, “The war is in the shadows and not easy to see, but we damn well better show up and fight it, because nobody else will.”

Molly was then joined on stage by two journalists, Melissa Chan and Yuan Yang for a conversation about China’s information operations in the west and Taiwan.

During lunch I browsed the exhibits outside the main auditorium.

After lunch we heard from Venezuelan satirist Juan Andrés Ravell. It’s hard to believe a talk on Venezuelan politics could be funny, but Ravell and his colleagues at the satirical website El Chigüire Bipolar (“Bipolar Capybara”) have managed to find humor in a desperate situation. Ravell also had a serious point to make: satire alone is not enough. The website has begun embedding links to the real news stories that inspire their jokes so that Venezuelans can escape the echo chamber of propaganda that constitutes the “news” in their country.

Next up were two very young activists. Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, a Thai student leader, and Hong Kong activist Johnson Yeung. Netiwit described his journey to activism motivated by his conviction that schools should open, not close, young people’s minds. As he put it, “Education should not produce fearful people.”

The last speaker of the day was Yeonmi Park, another North Korean defector, who told a harrowing story of escaping from North Korea only to find herself in the hands of human traffickers in China. She said, “I am grateful to be here as a free person.”

The Oslo Freedom Forum Taipei ended with Denise Ho’s stirring music. As the crowd made its way to the exits I checked my phone to find an invitation to the “Oslo Freedom Forum After Party.” How could I miss it, right?