The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace. Ms Ressa and Mr Muratov are receiving the Peace Prize for their courageous fight for freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia. At the same time, they are representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions.
Maria Ressa uses freedom of expression to expose abuse of power, use of violence and growing authoritarianism in her native country, the Philippines. In 2012, she co-founded Rappler, a digital media company for investigative journalism, which she still heads. As a journalist and the Rappler’s CEO, Ressa has shown herself to be a fearless defender of freedom of expression. Rappler has focused critical attention on the Duterte regime’s controversial, murderous anti-drug campaign. The number of deaths is so high that the campaign resembles a war waged against the country’s own population. Ms Ressa and Rappler have also documented how social media is being used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse.
Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov has for decades defended freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions. In 1993, he was one of the founders of the independent newspaper Novaja Gazeta. Since 1995 he has been the newspaper’s editor-in-chief for a total of 24 years. Novaja Gazeta is the most independent newspaper in Russia today, with a fundamentally critical attitude towards power. The newspaper’s fact-based journalism and professional integrity have made it an important source of information on censurable aspects of Russian society rarely mentioned by other media. Since its start-up in 1993, Novaja Gazeta has published critical articles on subjects ranging from corruption, police violence, unlawful arrests, electoral fraud and ”troll factories” to the use of Russian military forces both within and outside Russia.
Novaja Gazeta’s opponents have responded with harassment, threats, violence and murder. Since the newspaper’s start, six of its journalists have been killed, including Anna Politkovskaja who wrote revealing articles on the war in Chechnya. Despite the killings and threats, editor-in-chief Muratov has refused to abandon the newspaper’s independent policy. He has consistently defended the right of journalists to write anything they want about whatever they want, as long as they comply with the professional and ethical standards of journalism.
Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda. The Norwegian Nobel Committee is convinced that freedom of expression and freedom of information help to ensure an informed public. These rights are crucial prerequisites for democracy and protect against war and conflict. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov is intended to underscore the importance of protecting and defending these fundamental rights.
Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully promote fraternity between nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time. This year’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize is therefore firmly anchored in the provisions of Alfred Nobel’s will.
Democracy is in danger, not only in foreign places where autocrats rule, but also here at home. We are divided between those who would let the people rule and those who would allow rule by the powerful, greedy few. Defending our democratic system takes a new kind of democratic practice. It’s not only the practice of communal celebration; it’s the cultivation of self. President Biden said, “Empathy is the fuel of democracy.” Could that be true? Sherry Turkle, author of the Empathy Diaries, and MSNBC’s Joshua Johnson, a keen cultural critic, discuss how empathy might save us — and where it could fall short.
Charles Adams, a 20-year Minneapolis police officer, built a powerhouse football program at North High, in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods. With a group of cop-coaches, they forged a bond with the community on the way to the state championship. But winning didn’t resolve the conflict of being black and blue, magnified when Adams was called to the front lines in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Jon Frankel talks with Coach and one of his star players about bridging divides and making meaningful connections when cops engage beyond traditional policing. What impacts can these unlikely relationships have on kids and families?
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HUMANITY: BLACKBLUEYOUMAKETHENYOULIE Catherine L. Johnson 2013
I had worked on Wall Street for six years – either walking or taking the subway to the WTC. Watching, watching, watching that day and all the days later – a fleeting image of my dear friend, artist Donna Dennis who lived on Duane Street in Tribeca appeared on the TV.
Donna was handing out bottles of water. Of course.
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11 SEPTEMBER 2001 Catherine L. Johnson 2001
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Four original drawings.
Each drawing: 40″H x 24″W
11 September 2001
Four works on paper created during the week of 11 September 2001. Four original works representing the four cardinal directions, collages of roses : smoke-shattered images made whole.
The series was placed in several ecumenical locations in memorial.
The four pieces were created immediately in the week/wake of our nation’s tragedy of devastation and horror in the backyard of Harold/Esther Stassen’s Sunfish Lake, MN home.
The Wayzata Community Church, Wayzata, Minnesota, installed my art for an ecumenical memorial service on the first anniversary.
I called the ministers at WCC church in July 2002 asking if they thought of offering an ecumenical memorial service marking the first anniversary of 9/11 and I had created four original works immediately as my way of coping and transforming the terror.
We agreed to a face to face appointment. I knew they had to experience the four works.
My proposal was for a high ceremony of remembrance- and the work would be installed in the colonnade at the 4 cardinal directions high above eye level and each would shrouded by drapes of black veil that would fall onto the floor. Haunting. I know trauma sears the nervous system and scars the bone and heart. I know healing occurs in communion with others – sacred listening and intimate acknowledgement which slowly draws out the embedded dark energy. A sacred process of grace love.
The following day, Rev. Bob Stout called me and stated WCC would host an ecumenical service on 11 September 2002 and my work would be a visual centerpiece and a ‘performer’ in the service of remembrance and healing.
I was requested to walk in the processional with the Police Dept., the Fire Dept., and the city and state officials – all the ministers were involved.
Rev. Bob Stout calls me on 11 September 2002 as the first memorial service was occurring at Ground Zero. He asked me if was watching the broadcast. Yes, I replied. He says in a quiet halting voice: ‘the color of the roses given to the survivors are the SAME color as the roses In your work and the wind is pulling up the debris of bone/ash creating a spiral upward as in your work…’ Artists as conduit, a divining rod, an instrument. Art as oracle, a balm.
On the eve of 11 September 2002, the Wayzata Community Church’s sanctuary was shoulder-to-shoulder seated on the pews and standing.
At the end of the solemn hour long service, the four ministers led the congregation out into the spacious colonnade where my four original works were shrouded in black veil set high. Complete silence as the congregation filled the spacious colonnade.
Once everyone entered and had stilled, Rev. Bob Stout nodded. This gesture signaled to the other three ministers to pull down the black veils and the images of roses seemed to rush and rise upward as the black veil fell to the ground. A year of mourning had been marked.
I created 3000 ribbons that appeared as wing-breaths in the days and weeks following 9/11. Nine steps was the”mantra”- the steps to create each ribbon- like the prayers in the Kaddish to commend the spirit to Heaven. Nine is a number that has symbolic resonance as well.
I created ribbons every night at the Dakota Jazz Club with my dearest friend, Jane Matteson for: fire departments, hospital ERs, bereft families, Minnesota Orchestra musicians and conductor (my brother Bill and I met for concerts – Elgar’s Nimrodwas offered and, at the intermission, I brought a basket of my ribbons for the musicians and Osmo Vänskä…when the musicians and Vänskä re-entered the stage, each wore a ribbon).
My first ‘actions’ were initiated at the South YMCA where I was a water fitness and weight training instructor. I set up a table for families at the South YMCA – and each person created one step of the nine steps and, once completed passed it to the person sitting next to them – until completion. The ‘actions’ were soothing and transformed fear into a productive gesture. Families, extended families, participated: a positive action to quiet overwhelming fear ans helplessness. Community actions binds the wounds – together as one, not alone.
Our research on speaking truth to power shows there is often a blind spot among the powerful, preventing them from seeing their impact on the less powerful. We call this advantage blindness. When you have advantage blindness, you don’t feel privileged. You don’t notice a life of special treatment; it’s just normal. You don’t think about your physical safety most of the time; you don’t worry about holding hands with your partner in public; when you get angry, no one asks you if it’s because of your hormones; and people in power generally look like you.
In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary—part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). The footage was never seen and largely forgotten–until now. SUMMER OF SOUL shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present. The feature includes never-before-seen concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension and more.
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Remarkable.
Powerful.
A MUST experience!
The documentary reveals bejeweled prisms of reality lived concurrently with Woodstock, a reality which was deleted by the dominant culture. Two disconnected rivers of life – distinct waters that taste/see/feel as in two cultures.
Questlove’s documentary is the kiss that revives a crypt of I WISH I KNEW freedom – a poignant HALLELUJAH gospel of living ALIVE!!!!! Beautiful!
My guest, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, has made his directorial debut with the new documentary “Summer Of Soul.” Questlove co-founded The Roots, which is, among other things, the house band for “The Tonight Show,” where Questlove serves as the music director. He describes his new film as his chance to restore history.
The historic-but-forgotten event the film documents is the 1969Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of six concerts held in Harlem’s Mount Morris Park, which is now called Marcus Garvey Park. It was free and open to the public. And tens of thousands of people attended, mostly Black and brown. The roster of performers representing different strains of Black and Latino music included Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Nina Simone, B.B. King, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The 5th Dimension, The Staple Singers, Mahalia Jackson, Ray Barretto, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln. The festival was one year after the assassination of Martin Luther King, during the period of the Black Power movement.
The concerts spanned from June 29 to August 24, overlapping with both the Woodstock Festival and the first moonwalk. About 40 hours of performances were recorded on video by Hal Tulchin. A couple of hours were shown on local TV in New York. But Tulchin was unable to produce it into a film or TV series in spite of trying for years to attract funders. The tape sat in his basement for about 50 years.
Just before his death, he signed over the rights to two producers, who brought on Questlove to turn it into the film that is now “Summer Of Soul.” Questlove wrote about the period in Black music just after the festival in his book about “Soul Train.” He has a new book that will be published in the fall called “Music Is History,” focusing on 1971 to the present.
Questlove, welcome back to FRESH AIR. Congratulations on the film.
GRACE #2 Catherine L. Johnson 2017
GRACE #7 Catherine L. Johnson 2017
CROWNS CAN BITE #1 Catherine L. Johnson 2021
‘youDEARPRECIOUS’ #2 Catherine L. Johnson 2021
