The Oslo Freedom Forum is an annual human-rights conference, launched in 2009. I am writing you from the third such conference. (Aren’t you impressed with my math?) From last year’s, I wrote a multipart journal. I propose to do the same this year. You can follow along with the conference, at the Freedom Forum’s website: here. At this site, they have livestreaming, in addition to biographies and other useful, interesting information.

As you may have heard me say before, the Oslo Freedom Forum is something rare under the sun: a genuine human-rights conference. A conference at which human rights are discussed. Often, “human rights” means condemnation of the United States, Israel, and maybe a couple of other free and democratic countries. Often, “human rights” conferences resemble the U.N. Human Rights Council. You know how it goes.

But the OFF is different: Whether the country in question is Zimbabwe, Cuba, Burma, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, or Belarus, issues of human rights are aired.

Have you heard me say this before? When I was growing up, “human rights” meant, by and large, South Africa, Chile, and the Philippines. That is, people talked about South Africa under apartheid, Chile under Pinochet, and the Philippines under Marcos. They were far less likely to talk about the Iron Curtain countries, Indochina, African and Arab states, and the rest of the big wide world.

The Oslo Freedom Forum is the brainchild of Thor Halvorssen, the go-getting, indefatigable head of the Human Rights Foundation, and other enterprises. He has a big view of human rights: a view that includes even property rights. How ’bout that?

I arrive at the Oslo airport about 7 o’clock — 7 p.m. The sun is shining brightly. You’ve heard of “darkness at noon”? Places like Norway can give you, during certain periods, brightness at midnight.

What’s more, the weather is positively balmy: Norway might as well be Martinique, so soft and warm is it.  Strange. And nice.

I arrive on May 8, which is Liberation Day, and also Veterans Day. This is an important day for Norway — not as important as May 17, Constitution Day, but still grand. A day to wave the flag, and the Norwegians do, many of them.

“Liberation Day”? Liberation from what? The Nazis, I should specify.

Reporters aren’t supposed to talk about their encounters with cabbies. It’s the most clichéd thing in the world. As longtime readers know, I don’t care: Many a time, I have enjoyed reporting on a conversation with a cabbie. Here I go again.

As in Minneapolis and other cities, you may well be picked up by a Somalian cabbie, here in Oslo. They have made something of a specialty of cab driving. This particular driver is a young man who, as far as I can tell, glides easily between Norwegian and English. He is full of charm, wit, and charisma. He says that Norwegian society, and Norwegian business, is “closed,” very closed. It’s hard to get ahead. Not just for foreign-born people, but for Norwegians, too.

I think, “What would happen if he could find his way to New York? Given his assets — the charm, the brightness — would he meet with success, and fast?”

I have often had thoughts like this, about the young. I remember having them in India, particularly. It’s such a cliché to say, “All a person needs is an opportunity.” But, damn, it’s often true.

This cabbie is not the most politically correct person in the world. He believes in physical differences among peoples. He talks about the great long-distance runners who have come out of Somalia. And he says, “God created the Somalian to run.”

He also talks about the hellish condition of his home country. “The Americans came to help us. But bad people ran them out. Someday, my country will be free. This badness, this evil, can’t last forever.”

He’s right — isn’t he?

In the evening, I hear church bells, and they’re playing something unexpected — takes me a second to place it. They are playing “Love Me Tender.” Beautiful song and all, but — is it a sign of the secularization of society?

Among the materials greeting Freedom Forum participants is a letter from Bill Clinton. “William Jefferson Clinton,” says the stationery, at the top. Above the name is the presidential seal. (At least, I think it’s the presidential seal.) The letter is signed “Bill Clinton,” in that distinctive hand. The last two paragraphs of the letter are,

The Oslo Freedom Forum is a unique gathering of the best minds, bravest hearts and strongest pillars of the human rights community, and the cross-boundary partnerships fostered here are some of the most valuable in the world. I applaud the speakers, organizers, attendees and supporters for their hard work and untiring dedication.

My best wishes to all of you for an inspiring and productive conference.

Very nice. Could the same sort of letter have been scared up from George W. Bush? I’m sure. But many of the participants, I tell you, would have freaked.

Before the formal beginning of the conference, Thor Halvorssen holds a press conference, flanked by about ten of the speakers to come. Thor first talks about someone who could not come: Ali Abdulemam, a journalist and former political prisoner in Bahrain. He was invited to come. But, shortly after the invitation was issued, they “disappeared” him — the authorities did.

Thor notes that there is another Bahraini activist here — here at the press conference — and she is a young woman named Maryam al-Khawaja.