It is kind of my Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, and Stanley Cup, all wrapped up into one. I am speaking of the Oslo Freedom Forum, the annual human-rights gathering in Norway’s capital. I published some notes yesterday (here) — notes about this year’s forum. Today, I’ll furnish a second and final round.

Let me begin by pasting a fairly lengthy excerpt from an old piece — a piece I wrote in 2022, about China and the Olympic Games. This excerpt will be a prelude to a point I’d like to make about the Oslo Freedom Forum — more specifically, the organization that stages it, the Human Rights Foundation (based in New York).

Here goes:

Some years ago, I decided I would boycott products from China. I had heard too much testimony about slave labor in China. For example, I had interviewed Charles Lee, a Falun Gong practitioner who had been imprisoned. While in prison, he was tortured, of course — this is routine in police states — and he was also made to work. He manufactured Christmas lights, for the U.S. market. He also made Homer Simpson bedroom slippers. You put your foot where Homer’s mouth is.

The economic rise of China is one of the great stories of modern times. The Chinese were desperately poor, and now they are not. . . .

I wish the Chinese, and everyone else, nothing but prosperity. But on the matter of my personal boycott: How could I determine which products came from free labor and which from slave? Which came from legitimate business, so to speak, and which from a gulag camp?

Telling no one, I started a private little boycott. It was a matter of conscience. A day or two later, it rained. I needed an umbrella. I went to one store. All the umbrellas were made in China. I went to another store. Same. Dripping wet, I went to a third store. Same. I bought an umbrella.

I was disgusted, in buying that umbrella — disgusted at myself, disgusted at the situation.

Why all of this prelude? The Human Rights Foundation offers an excellent thing: a Uyghur Forced-Labor Checker. Is the product you are buying “clean”? Genocide-free, if you will?

HRF has any number of good ideas.

• I have long wanted to meet Sam Rainsy, the opposition politician in Cambodia. And now I have. I guess I should say he is from Cambodia, not in Cambodia, because he lives in exile. Back home, he would be in prison, or buried.

In remarks to the Freedom Forum, he pays touching tribute to his wife, Tioulong Saumura (a daughter of Nhiek Tioulong, a leading Cambodian politician from the 1930s to the 1960s, roughly speaking). They have both been through a lot.

Hun Sen has ruled Cambodia since 1985. Well, his son, Hun Manet, is in charge now — but nominally? You know how these family businesses work.

• I speak with a young man from Mali. We talk about the long reigns that African dictators have (and other dictators have too, obviously). He recalls Yoweri Museveni’s campaign for the presidency of Uganda in 1986. Museveni said, “The problem with Africa is that our leaders stay too long” (I have paraphrased). You know he is still there? Still ruling, still dictating? He has confirmed what he said, almost 40 years ago.

Speaking with the young Malian, I recall George Washington — and another George, King George III. The American artist Benjamin West mentioned to the king that Washington was planning on returning to his farm after two terms as president. The king said, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

How rare that was, what Washington did. And what a good example he set.

• As in Soviet days, Russian dissidents are some of the bravest people on earth. One of them, Yevgeniya Chirikova, speaks at the Freedom Forum this year. She is in exile. In her talk, she denounces the Kremlin’s assault on Ukraine in no uncertain terms.

Other Russians have done the same thing, over the last two years, and more. Many are in prison — including my friend Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was a regular guest at this forum.

I think: “Russians risk a lot — sometimes everything — to denounce Putin and his assault on Ukraine. And I know Americans who won’t do it at all.” Which is nauseating.

• Among the attendees is Bill Browder — an honorary Russian dissident. He is the man behind the Magnitsky acts, those acts that permit governments to sanction individual human-rights abusers, rather than whole peoples. They are named for Sergei Magnitsky, Browder’s lawyer, tortured to death by the Russian authorities.

I tell Browder, “You have made the name ‘Magnitsky’ famous all over the world.” He informs me that it has even become a verb: When you apply a Magnitsky law against a human-rights abuser, you “Magnitsky” him.

Good.

• One of the most moving presenters at the Freedom Forum this year is Zhala Bayramova — whose father, Gubad Ibadoghlu, is a political prisoner in Azerbaijan. That country is cursed by one of those hereditary dictatorships: The current dictator, Ilham Aliyev, took over from his late father, Heydar, in 2003.

• Raqib Hameed Naik is the founder of the India Hate Lab. “Its objective is to document, study, and analyze hate speech, disinformation, and conspiracy theories that target India’s religious minorities.” (I have quoted from IHL’s website.)

Let me relate a quick memory of Thomas Sowell. He is a longtime India-watcher, and I brought up the subject in conversation once. I mean, the general subject of India, which is one of the world’s most fascinating places.

He says there are “fictitious countries” in the world. He counts India as one. What he means is this: The popular image of the country is at odds with the reality of the country. India is known as peaceful, gentle, spiritual, etc. There is that side, of course. India is a vast, diverse, and magnificent country. But there is also a great deal of brutality within.

This brutality relates to caste, ethnicity, religion, skin color — a host of things.

• Jack Dorsey is a speaker here. (He co-founded and ran Twitter. He has been the mover behind a number of projects.) Dorsey paid us a visit once at National Review. He is a thoughtful guy, a cerebral guy — and so he is here. He does not just invent and run things. (That would be enough, in my book. More than enough.) He thinks them through. You can learn from him. I don’t quite understand his field — the general field of digital technology and entrepreneurship. But I admire those who are versed in it, and excel in it.

• Among the musicians who perform at the forum this year is Carlos Vives. A Colombian, he is a huge star, an international star, who has won a thousand Grammys and sold a zillion records (or whatever they are calling records these days). Needless to say, I had never heard of him. But I have now — and he wows the crowd.

His performance is overamplified, of course. Overamplification is a fixed fact of our age, and a bane. (I know: “Get off my lawn.”)

• Gabriela Montero, I am well familiar with. She is a Venezuelan pianist, and composer. She is famous for her improvisations — audience members call tunes, and she improvises on them. She is also a firm foe of the Venezuelan dictatorship.

Recently, she composed a piano quintet, called “Canaima.” Canaima is a region of Venezuela. In the Oslo Concert Hall, she plays her work with the Calidore String Quartet.

A bold and admirable lady, politically. And a bold and admirable musician. She is here with her husband, Sam McElroy, a baritone from Ireland. Together, they founded a concert series in Easton, Md.

Pianist from Venezuela, singer from Ireland — creating and flourishing in Maryland. What a world. Often beautiful.

• Joshua Roman is a cellist from Oklahoma, born in 1983. For the Freedom Forum, he plays maybe the most basic cello piece there is — and by “basic” I mean “pure,” “fundamental,” “foundational”: the prelude from Bach’s G-major suite. He then talks to the audience about his — well, struggles. He has had “long COVID.” It made it very hard for him to carry on. To continue his career. To get out of bed. His message: Don’t give up. Maybe I am oversimplifying. But that is a very good message.

He then starts to play something else. I think, “Oh, damn — it’s ‘Hallelujah.’” I am not keen on this famous, much-loved song. But Roman has clearly made a good arrangement of it. He is playing nimbly, inventively, underneath.

Underneath what? Well, the thing is: He sings. And he sings very, very well. Naturally. In tune. Better than a great many full-time singers sing. Accompanying himself on the cello, all the while.

I have never heard “Hallelujah” better, and probably never will. What an artist, this fellow, and an inspiration.

Thank you, my friends. God bless you, and the cause of freedom.

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