The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) today releases the first set of videos from the 2011 Oslo Freedom Forum. Engaging and provocative presentations and panel discussions are now available via YouTube. HRF invites viewers to share these videos with friends, create discussions in the comment sections, and embed them wherever possible.
Justin Hardy - Healing Kashmir
The first set of set of videos includes nine discussions from this year’s conference:
- A panel discussion exploring the 'Dawn of a New Arab World,' featuring voices from Libya, Tunisia, Sudan, and Bahrain, and moderated by BBC correspondent Philippa Thomas, with a special introduction by Egyptian internet activist Wael Ghonim.
- Ghanaian economist George Ayittey on 'Defeating Dictators'
- Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams on 'Why Peace is About Action, Not Kumbaya'
- Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish on 'How to Transcend Hate'
Jody Williams - The Power of One
The full program will be released over the next two weeks, including talks and conversations from Mona Eltahawy, Shirin Ebadi, Alejandro Toledo, Zoya Phan, Leymah Gbowee, Barbara Demick, James Fallon and Belisario Betancur. Updates and announcements will also be shared on Twitter and Facebook.
Maryam al-Khawaja - Dawn of a New Arab World
Talks from the 2009 and 2010 conferences are live at www.OsloFreedomForum.com—
Thomas Glave - Ending Anti-Gay Violence in Jamaica
Founded to address today’s most challenging humanitarian issues, the Oslo Freedom Forum brings some of the world’s most remarkable individuals together from academia, advocacy, business, media, politics, social entrepreneurship, and technology to collaborate on how best to make an impact on the world around them.
Mona Eltahawy - Evolution of Censorship
About The Oslo Freedom Forum
The Oslo Freedom Forum was founded in 2009, by HRF to bring humanitarian issues to the top of the global agenda. The three-day annual forum highlights the stories of human rights advocates from around the world through engaging presentations in order to raise awareness, bring focus to closed societies, prompt inspired discussion, and empower an international community to affect change.
Wael Ghonim presents live from Cairo via satellite
John Peder Egenæs of Amnesty International Norway
Global media liaison:
Martha Pulido
Office: +1 212 377 358
Mobile: +1 646 441 1468
Martha.Pulido@evins.com
Office: +1 212 377 358
Mobile: +1 646 441 1468
Martha.Pulido@evins.com
2 comments:
Jody Williams' presentation, "The Power of One" caught my attention, but mostly by its title - and the call to take action individually. "Waiting for the other people is not a strategy for change."
To *really* change the world, significant numbers - one by one - need to come to understand that (or even just begun to wonder if) the nature of human beings does not automatically lead to the conclusion that individuals must be ruled by others in order that there be orderly interactions between them, including the effects of their property and/or what takes place on it.
Society, just like any other natural system can be naturally self-regulating by means of interactions between its members, if only humans seek to discover and are allowed to implement the methods by which such self-regulation can be effective, rather than continuing to embrace social systems that need to be constantly held in an unnatural (and very unoptimal) state of balance by the operations of their rulers and other influencers. Individual self-order without rule by others is the social system whose members are humans, who have become fully adult. Just as people can become physical adults, so can they become social adults - if only they are allowed (and even required in the sense that they will not achieve their desires unless they do) to socially mature sufficiently.
A society of self-responsible individuals voluntarily interacting for the maximization of the lifetime happiness of each, all at the same time is not "utopia" - an impossibility based on facts of reality. Instead it is a very real possibility once fully understood and embraced by even a relatively small number but used as the basis of their interactions with *all* others, who will gradually come to appreciate, understand and reciprocate - or be shunned.
Excellent observation, this: "if only humans seek to discover and are allowed to implement the methods by which such self-regulation can be effective, rather than continuing to embrace social systems that need to be constantly held in an unnatural (and very unoptimal) state of balance by the operations of their rulers and other influencers. Individual self-order without rule by others is the social system whose members are humans, who have become fully adult. Just as people can become physical adults, so can they become social adults - if only they are allowed (and even required in the sense that they will not achieve their desires unless they do) to socially mature sufficiently."
I agree.
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