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Two Ibsen women on 2016

Let me name two women among a dozen voices that moved the world a little closer to the light on the National Theater stage two cold November days. 




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

It must be borne in mind that the fable of the rulers' infallibility! ”Ibsen editor Hovstad says in En folkefiende under the National Theater opening performance in 1899. In 2016, Ibsen's triangle is equally relevant: "infallible" leaders, passive citizens and solitary whistleblowers. And in the middle of this: What is the calling and role of art? Ibsen was the perfect setting for the conference "Public Calling" – about the vocation and role of art in engagement and expression.

The conference is well described elsewhere in this month's issue of New Time. But I remember two women particularly well: The first was Edward Snowden's lawyer Jesselyn Radach. She just had to stop at the Ibsen statue on the way to the National Theater. She knows En folkefiende out and in. Radack's role is precisely to influence public opinion outside the courtroom, create pressure in public space – something she has done with great success: She saved Snowden's role model Thomas Drake from being convicted of the espionage clause. But when "American Taliban" John Walker Lind was subjected to judicial abuse, Radach's ethics advisor himself became a warning. Soon after, she was out of work. Obama has unearthed World War I antiquated spy law to stop her and other whistleblowers. One spy paragraph against internal reporting of offenses?

Systematic suppression. Mindy Thompson Fullilove was the second to leave indelible tracks. The Columbia University psychiatry professor described the government's decades-long, systematic suppression of African Americans in the United States. We learned words like redlining: neighborhood planning with mapping of black and poor areas that provided for cementing poverty and purging from white areas. Blacks had to be prevented from "infiltrating" good residential areas. The fight for narcotics was replaced by a devastating "war on drugs" that has led to 25 percent of the world's detainees sitting in US prisons today under Clinton prison policy. One in three blacks will have been in prison during their lifetime. Fullilove called this "state terrorism against the black population. " And we learned the word food deserts Strategies that removed affordable and healthy grocery stores from black areas, and left only the junk food stores. Fullilove showed historical images from art schools and music and organizational life where investments in art, education, playgrounds and offers for blacks had drawn marginalized groups to community participation: The offers had been systematically depleted or removed because awareness could lead to incitement.

Ibsen is alive. Two women among about twenty voices who moved the world a little closer to the light on the National Theatre's stage these days. Everyone deserved a place in the column. A glittering chair of the meeting, the Indo-British lawyer Radha D'Souza must be mentioned. Fantastic that all posts will eventually be available via Fritt Ords and KOROS websites. Ibsen is truly alive.

John Y. Jones
John Y. Jones
Cand. Philol, freelance journalist affiliated with MODERN TIMES

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