Editor’s Note: The Oslo Freedom Forum is the annual human-rights gathering held in the Norwegian capital. This year, it took place in the last week of May. Jay Nordlinger has been touching on sundry matters concerning the conference in this journal. The previous parts are at the following links: I, II, III, and IV. The journal concludes today.

Onstage at the Nye Theater, playing and singing for the Freedom Forum, is José González, who, name aside, is Swedish. His family fled from Argentina, and oppression, to Sweden. He is an “indie folk singer-songwriter,” in the words of his Wikipedia entry. (Classification in popular music — by which I mean non-classical music — is so difficult for me. And people are so touchy about it. Minor differences — or differences that seem minor to me — mean a great, great deal to them.)

González is soft, poised, and self-possessed. He is so smooth as to be almost anesthetizing.

‐Every year, to three people, the Freedom Forum presents a Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent. A quotation from Havel now flashes on a screen: “Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred.”

I’m not a big one on meeting people. What I mean is, I don’t think I have to shake the hands of great men and women. But I must say, I’m glad I met Havel. I was invited to a human-rights gathering at the Czech embassy in Washington. It was really good to be there.

‐One winner of the Havel prize last year was Danilo Maldonado, known as “El Sexto.” He is a Cuban street artist and dissident. A former political prisoner. He was not on hand to receive his prize last year: He was in prison. But he’s here this year, and expresses his gratitude.

I have interviewed him and will write about him in the next issue of National Review.

‐A 2016 winner is Umida Akhmedova, who is a photojournalist from Uzbekistan. Her photos are of everyday life: village life. They are stunning. They are intensely human. They are some of the most engaging, startling, and touching photos I have ever seen.

She was convicted for this photography: of slandering the Uzbek nation. So stupid, in addition to unjust.

I’m going to paraphrase something she says: “In the courthouse, when my trial began, I remembered the name of Solzhenitsyn. Before, he was only an abstraction to me. I thought he was a very good writer. But now I understood him.”

She quotes someone — I’m not sure who — and the quote goes something like this: “Totalitarianism is not thousands of people thrown in jail. It’s millions of people who are made to fear.”

Uzbekistan is peaceful, Akhmedova tells us. And the entire population lives in fear.

‐Tell me something: Is there a brave Iranian who has not been in Evin Prison? All the best go there. Atena Farghadani has. She is an artist, who drew a cartoon insulting of the dictatorship. And she is another Havel winner.

‐The third is a prisoner in Russia: Petr Pavlensky, a street performer, not unlike Maldonado in Cuba. Speaking for him is Garry Kasparov, the chess champion and human-rights champion. He speaks powerfully, as usual.

I’m going to quote something he says about the Lubyanka, the secret-police headquarters in Moscow. Again, this is in paraphrase: “It is Vladimir Putin’s alma mater. We should have burned down this damn building when we had the chance, 25 years ago. But when the Soviet Union fell, we were told that there should be no ‘witch hunts,’ after decades of totalitarian brutality. And today, because of our weakness, the witches are back, and they are hunting us.”

‐I record a podcast with Kasparov — on Russia, Putin, the KGB (presently known as the FSB), America, Trump, and the fate of the world: here.

‐As I’ve noted before, Kasparov is a famous intellectual who looks like an athlete. Maybe a boxer, in particular. He looks ready to pounce, and like he could kick your a**.

That’s an interesting intellectual.

‐In this journal, I have already mentioned Anastasia Lin, the actress, beauty queen, and human-rights advocate. I did a podcast with her, here.

Like the other featured participants in the Freedom Forum, she gives a presentation at the Nye Theater. I’d like to quote a little of what she says.

As I may have told you, she lived in China until she was 13. Then she went to Canada with her mother. In the West, “I realized I had been lied to all my life,” she says. “It is a profound embarrassment to learn that your whole belief system was based on lies, and once I came to understand this, I wanted to find a way to counter that system.”

(Again, I am paraphrasing, but closely.)

As a schoolgirl in China, she had been tabbed a student leader — a proud thing to be. She led her classmates in various official lies. She was an enforcer of a kind.

“The CCP [Chinese Communist Party] tries to make all Chinese complicit in its crimes,” she says.

And how about us in the West? Through our various accommodations and lookings-away, “we have taught the Chinese Communists that they can abuse and kill their own citizens with impunity.”

Yup.

‐I will write about Danilo Maldonado — El Sexto — in the next NR, as I’ve said. In future issues, I will write about Jung Gwang-il, a North Korean defector who now does his utmost to spirit information into his old homeland; and about Denis Mukwege, a doctor in the Congo who is brave, humane, and everything else that is good. Extraordinary people.

‐At dinner, I sit next to a young Norwegian woman who has an interesting job: For the Norwegian government, she interviews minors from Afghanistan who have come to this country unaccompanied. Should they be allowed to stay? She is not the final arbiter, but she must vet them.

This is a daunting responsibility. Virtually all of the migrants are boys. She does not want to exclude those who should be included. Yet she does not want to admit the next Mullah Krekar.

Who’s he? The Norwegian Bin Laden, basically.

‐There is something interesting about the Norwegian political class, the Norwegian political world: It seems so informal to me. Casual. Open and democratic. Let me explain a little bit.

So many of the political players are young, or youngish. I meet ex-deputy ministers, for example. And they seem too young to be ex- anything. You know?

I’m walking along Main Street (more or less) with my friend Kristian Norheim, an ex-parliamentarian (who seems too young to be ex- anything). A youngish woman is ducking into a store. She and Kristian speak for a bit. Then he tells me she’s the deputy minister of something.

Of course.

I recall listening to Nelson Polsby, the political scientist. He told his class about a trip he made to Israel. I can’t give you the year of the trip. During the ’70s? Earlier? Anyway, Polsby went there to study the government, and he was struck by the informality of everything. You had some guys in the desert, simply going about their business.

The cabinet room — or some such room — would be a plain old room with a serviceable table and some wooden chairs. Nothing fancy.

I could do a better job of making my point, or giving my impression — but I trust you understand …

‐In town — in Oslo, that is — I see groups of schoolchildren, of various races, toddling along, holding hands. When you see such scenes, you’re apt to think, “It’s going to be okay.”

But everything hinges on culture, right? On culture and religion, which are related.

Big subject (on which I, like others, have spilled oceans of ink) …

‐On a bus, I see (in English) “Oslo: The City of Peace.” Oh, really? You could make an argument. Anyway, speaking of oceans of ink, I wrote a book on this: Peace, They Say.

‐If you ever get a chance to go into Frogner Park on a sunny spring day, and go down by the brook, and hear it burble, and see the ducks gliding serenely, leaving V’s in their wake — oh, do, please do. It is a slice of perfect earthly serenity, in my opinion …

‐Fun and satisfying — if not perfectly serene — is talking politics with Kristian and his gang. Norwegians, as you may imagine, care about NATO. A lot. And Trump’s threats against NATO — they are unsettling, to people of many stripes.

‐An America-loving man tells me, “I was born in the wrong country.” I have heard this from America-loving people, all over the world, all my life. I wish I could ensconce them in America and deport some of my native-born countrymen …

‐So, I’m sitting in a pub with Kristian, near City Hall, and here comes a parade: military bands — royal guards, presidential guards, what have you — from different countries. I love a parade — a traditional parade, with a band — and don’t see many in the U.S. of A. Here in Oslo, I see some instruments I don’t think of as going on parade: a bassoon? A xylophone? Yep, both.

‐Nearing my Norwegian Air Shuttle plane, I see a woman painted on the tail. Who dat? Turns out to be Grete Waitz, the great marathoner. Farewell, Norway, and thanks for joining me, ladies and gentlemen. See you soon.