Do Nguyen Mai Khoi, a rare female singer in Vietnamese art who dares to engage in activities to fight for the basic freedoms of the people has just been awarded the Four Freedoms Award by the Roosevelt Institute for her achievements in recent years.
“Too surprised because Khoi found this award very big. It is known that the recipients of this award in the past are all famous people, activists, and even famous leaders,” Mai Khoi expressed her feelings to VOA.
The Roosevelt Four Freedoms are awarded each year to those who have demonstrated the principles that President Roosevelt proclaimed in his historic address to the United States Congress on January 6, 1941. These are the four essentials of democracy: Freedom of speech and expression, freedom of belief, freedom to desire, and freedom from fear.
To date, recipients of the Roosevelt Institute’s Four Freedoms have included many great names of all time, including South African President Nelson Mandela, American presidents such as Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Senator J. William Fulbright…
“This award is a great motivation for Mai Khoi to continue my path of fighting for freedom of expression, freedom of expression, and freedom of the arts. Khoi finds that in Vietnam not everyone knows the meaning of these rights because the education system in Vietnam does not adequately provide this knowledge to the people,” Mai Khoi said.
Self-identifying as a “female warrior” who is very suitable to participate in the “battlefield” for freedom of expression and speech for the Vietnamese people, Mai Khoi said:
“When Khoi decided to join this ‘battlefield’ of freedom of speech, Khoi found myself very suitable to work in this field because music is a very powerful tool and it helps a lot in expressing myself, my opinions and feelings. Therefore, it helps Khoi work on the path of freedom of speech and expression in a very favorable way.”
In Khoi’s eyes, “anyone can become an activist” if they are willing to commit, learn, and learn to expand their knowledge. As for Khoi, “with music, it’s like having more wings” thanks to its power transmission.
“Freedom” has been expressed by Khoi’s efforts in composing, choosing songs, choosing costumes, performing, speaking, or performing in public.
The Vietnamese press once gave her the nickname “Vietnam’s Lady Gaga” with her rebellious, slightly goofy personality, daring to go against the crowd to do what she likes. However, she is also considered a kind artist, less concerned with money and fame than with creative freedom and dedicating artistic quintessence to the public.
It’s okay too. If her rebellion did not spill over into politics, perhaps the career and life of the capable singer would be like many other artists, admired and surrounded by the public.
But the turning point began when Khoi herself ran for election as a member of the National Assembly in March 2016 while being a singer with a sizable fan base. Just two weeks later, Khoi was “attacked” by the police on her music show.
“They came and stopped Khoi’s concert, then they reported it to the Cong An Nhan Dan newspaper, causing Khoi’s shows to be canceled. And since then, I was banned from appearing, banned from acting in the country,” Khoi said.
That year, Khoi continued to participate in a march against the Formosa Company, which caused an environmental disaster in Ha Tinh that caused hundreds of thousands of households to lose their livelihood, and the region’s tourism industry was almost destroyed when revenue down to 90%.
As a natural consequence in a one-party country, the level of repression of Khoi by the authorities has increased, and even the boarding house is under pressure to evict her and her husband from the house.
Followed by losses, from fans to friends and colleagues. The art world also secretly excluded her from the “friends list.”
“Gone! They are very afraid to communicate with Khoi. When Khoi was still in Vietnam, they even whispered to each other, ‘Now that I’m near Khoi, it’s annoying to hang out with Khoi and be photographed once and I’ll be monitored by security.’ They almost avoid Khoi, very shy to meet, afraid to take pictures together, that kind of thing.”
But the biggest loss for female “warrior” Mai Khoi was the two times she said she was “seriously attacked” since participating in the battle for freedom.
“Khoi was seriously attacked twice. My audience turned their backs on me. It was a huge wound. Previously, Khoi knew that there were many viewers who loved Khoi. But when Khoi participates in activities, they don’t dare, and then for many other reasons such as they disagree with me, they turn their backs, they are no longer Khoi’s fans, do not follow Khoi anymore. I lost a huge fan base in that episode. But in return, later on, I also have a lot of people who love me because I have embarked on this path.”
The second “attack“, according to Khoi, was when she protested President Donald Trump because he did not address human rights issues when he came to Vietnam in 2017. A lot of people have moved from loving her turned to opposing, criticizing, “reprimanding” and denying all her long-term struggle efforts. This “injury” time, for Khoi, is probably much more painful because there are many people “on the same line” with her in the fight for democracy and human rights for Vietnam.
Mai Khoi is one of the dissidents that US President Barack Obama met during his visit to Vietnam in 2016. In order to make the meeting, she had to go into hiding before to avoid being stopped and arrested by the authorities.
In 2018, Amnesty International included Mai Khoi on its list of “12 inspirational human rights activists to watch.”
After being detained for 8 hours at Noi Bai airport, Hanoi, and having all copies of her new album Dissent confiscated after a European tour in late 2018, Khoi was sorted out. live in America.
Acknowledging the limited status of activists when leaving the country, Mai Khoi said her main direction of activities while abroad is to “encourage and inspire everyone to become activists.”
“If I live in the country, I can have more opportunities to meet people and build a movement more easily. When I am abroad, the campaigning work is more convenient, but to connect and build a movement, it must be in the country. People need the inspiration to be good activists and Khoi used music to do that. Khoi saw every day that many young people were inspired by Khoi and they began to want to become activists in the service of their society.”
The Roosevelt Four Freedoms award was given to Mai Khoi right at the time she was working on a musical project called “Bad Activist” in the genre of narrative music.
Asked why she called herself “bad“, Khoi just laughed and said: “It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. The point is whether I’m bad or good, I’ve become an activist.”
And that “bad activist” continues to walk alone on the path of inspiring music, awakening people who have never known the basic freedoms they have…
Thoibao.de (Translated)
Source: https://www.voatiengviet.com/a/6451870.html
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