2013 SPRING NEWSLETTER
THE MOVIE, KAZAKHSTAN, GERMANY, AFRICA, INDIA, VIETNAM, CHINA, LITHUANIA, NEPAL, KOREA, ALBANIA, THE BALKANS, POLAND, FRANCE, JAPAN, ITALY, SLOVENIA, SLOVAKIA, ARMENIA, ESTONIA.
THE MOVIE
Animator Keith Baxter (L) (Disney, DreamWorks, and Universal) has teamed with Producer Matthew Parker (R) (Codex Media) and a team of libertarians in Hollywood to prepare for the full length feature film. For a copy of the business plan and investment potential, please contact me or Matthew Parker.
KAZAKHSTAN
Exciting news from Pavel Koktyshev (below right), “I am definitely interested in publishing JG in Kazakh and Russian as well! Sorry for the long response time but now I have some news for you! We are going to organize a Gala dinner at our Economic Freedom conference in the end of April to raise some money to start translation. And I found a very enthusiastic composer from my city, Lyudmila Melnikova (below left). She is a member of the Union of Composers of Kazakhstan, a member of the Union of Journalists of Kazakhstan and we are both going to make a musical. She is a renowned professional in making music for kids. Her CDs are distributed all over Kazakhstan and Russia. And we want to ask your permision to make a libretto from your book. We will communicate on this project with you constantly to be sure that the meaning is correct. Now I am really enthusiastic!”
Background of Pavel Koktyshev and his interest in The Philosophy of Liberty:
“I am director of the free market think tank ‘Institute for Public Policy’ in Kazakhstan. I am finishing my bachelors degree in International Relations this year and 2 years ago I started to work with CAFMI in Kyrgyzstan to organize some seminars and lectures in Almaty (close to Bishkek). 6 months ago we decided to establish our own think tank and our friend Mirsuljan helps us a lot. In a fact the first time I saw the animation “Philosophy of Liberty” 1 year ago. And I made a presentation based on this animation at my university political science class. As I remember I got an ‘A’ grade from the teacher and applause from my classmates.
“It helps me a lot during my work at the first free-market think tank in Kazakhstan ‘Institute for public policy’. I also recommend this animation to any freedom fighters and activists to get courage and motivation to find the moral basis about why freedom is important. Because in such countries as Kazakhstan when too many people and media argue for moral reasons of using violence of state over individuals and the greatness of ‘effective dictatorship’ we need to oppose it with the very clear message that freedom matters.
“For me your ‘Philosophy of Liberty’ is some kind of ‘Mendeleev’s table of chemical elements’ because it shows all elements of the ‘Philosophy of freedom’ and freedom itself. The great importance of this animation is to show basic values and natural roots of freedom for modern society. I use it when we organize seminars with students and I show it to our volunteers and interns because it puts values in the right order for them. I also watch this short movie to put my thoughts in a right order. It helps me a lot to keep in mind my basic values.
“Our think tank is a value based organization and we promote values and the ‘Philosophy of Liberty’ in a not free country and such clear brilliant arguments for freedom are extremely important. We used the Russian version of this animation and in the next few months we are going to translate this presentation into Kazakh language because we start to work with Kazakh speaking youth (Kazakhstan mostly is bilingual country but increasing number of the population are only speaking Kazakh) and we would be grateful to work with you on translation of ‘Philosophy of Liberty’ and other materials to promote freedom in Kazakhstan.”
GERMANY
The new German book and audiobook editions of “The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible” are out!
Translation: Steffen Hentrich (below right, Second German edition, 2013), Michael Mehnert (First German edition, 1998), Book Design, Artwork: Olivia Güthling Proofreading: Simoné Okaj-Braun, Dr. Sabine Cohen-Friedlaender, Project manager: Kay Heinz Ehrhardt, Audiobook narrator: Boris Eichler (below left) Publisher: Liberal Institut, Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation for Freedom eBook download (epub, mobi [kindle], Acrobat-pdf]).
A hardcopy and a audio-CD can be ordered for free at the book homepage: www.abenteuer.freiheit.org Feel free to ask Steffen other questions about his translation and the production of the second german edition. Steffen Hentrich, Referent/Senior Research Fellow, Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit, Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation for Liberty, Liberales Institut – Liberal Institute, Reinhardtstr. 12, D-10117 Berlin, steffen.hentrich@freiheit.org, www.freiheit.org,
Weblog: www.freiheitdenken.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifnf
AFRICA
International award received for the play “A Letter From Jonathan Gullible,” written by Adedayo Thomas (seen below with Linda Whetstone). The play has toured 5 countries: Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Kenya, and Ghana.
See the full story in The Nation, February 24, 2013:
“The stars of the University of Ibadan (UI) shined in faraway United States last Friday. The university’s chapter of African Liberty Students’ Organisation (ALSO) won the 2012 Event of the Year prize with its drama titled A letter from Jonathan Gullible. The award ceremony was organised by Students For Liberty (SFL) in Grand Hyatt Hotel, Washington DC. Several students’ groups dedicated to promoting the ideas of liberty on campus converged for the yearly conference of the body last weekend. In a keenly contested challenge, UI students beat their colleagues from the Arizona State University and Slippery Rock University both in the US. The UI students put up a stage drama to propagate the ideas of free enterprise, liberalisation of the Nigeria’s economy, market-based solutions to Africa’s challenges, good governance and classical liberalism. These principles of a free society were the basis of a two-week road show project in universities in Nigeria, Benin Republic, Togo, Kenya and Ghana using the drama written by Adedayo Thomas to promote liberty.
“The students used the theatre as a powerful communication tool to propagate the ideas in five Nigerian institutions including the UI and Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education. The expansive auditorium of the University of Cape Coast was filled to capacity when the drama was taken to Ghana. The play was staged to mark the convocation of the university. Over 1,000 people came to see the play. A student of Economic commended the UI students for the delivery of the drama, saying: “This play explained to me all I am here to learn for four years in one hour.” The drama tour was led by Thomas, a playwright, and Assistant Director of Outreach, AfricanLiberty.org, Olumayowa Okediran. Others in the tour included the ALSO president of UI chapter, Odunola Oladejo and Tosan Akinwole, a student-journalist. Some of the characters in the play included Akin, Sylvester Obieje, and Olabisi Ariyoh.”
Also, Kofa Africanus organized a very successful Liberty and Entrepreneurship Camp in Ghana! Thanks for inviting me to speak via Skype conference call. See his full report for the Winter session at the end of this newsletter. The next camp is already scheduled for June 2-7, 2013…and needs your support! I strongly recommend this program!
INDIA
Thanks to Barun Mitra of the Liberty Institute of New Delhi, Krzysztof Haładus (Poland) for the illustrations, and Sieg Herzog of the Friedrich Nauman Foundation (Germany), the Hindi edition of Jonathan Gullible has been launched. This makes more than 70 published editions in 48 languages. I’m losing track. Later this year: Dutch (2nd), German (2nd), Estonian, Finnish, and Armenian. The guys at of Li and FNF are wonderful!
I was fortunate to participate in the Asia Liberty Forum organized by the Asia Centre for Enterprise, the Centre for Civil Society, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, and the Atlas Foundation for Economic Research.
From Kris Haladus, “Dear Ken and JG’s Family! I am really happy that the illustrations, I have ordered in Poland could developed the book and make it still more attractive four young readers, published in Romania and India until now!
Thanks publishing the English edition with these illustrations at the end of 2011 and Ken’s efforts in looking for US distributor, we hope that this English Edition will find a lot of new readers in US soon. I also still hope to have an opportunity in future, to participate in creating a movie and/or a computer game, based on JG Adventures, which again could multiply the number of its customers! My greetings and best wishes for all of you around the world!”
From Manan Vyas, Founder of The Indian Economist, “It is with great pleasure I announce that we have published the first chapter of this amazing book on our website today. We have created an entirely separate section that we shall utilise for the sole purpose of publishing chapters of the book. Here is a link to the same: http://theindianeconomist.com/category/adventure/ We shall be publishing one chapter every alternate day.”
VIETNAM
Last summer, JG became the first free market book launched in Vietnam. Many thanks for a wonderful visit with my friends Cong Minh Nguyen (above left), translators Mai Huyen Chi and Thu Huong Ngo (below second from left), Nguyen Phuong Loan (publisher below third from left), Hans-Georg Jonek (Friedrich Naumann Foundation, below fourth from left), Nguyen Duc Thanh (right, Director Vietnam Centre for Economic Policy & Research, Vietnam National University), Dinh Minh Tuan, and many others.
CHINA & LITHUANIA
Last July, the Shanghai Austrian Economics Summit, an ISIL Asia Regional Conference, and Post Conference Tour were all a great success! As was the CYCLE 2012 Casey Youth Conference on Liberty and Entrepreneurship in Lithuania.
The back cover of the new, second Chinese edition shows more than 50 of the JG publications:
NEPAL
Last summer I was hosted by the wonderful team of Samriddhi, The Prosperity Foundation of Nepal for a dozen lectures at schools, universities, and conferences. At each event we were able to feature the publication of the Nepali edition of JG. My thanks to Robin, Dependra, Manish, Manu and the entire team of Samrridhi. And I am grateful to Charu Chadha for her first serialization of JG in The Boss Magazine many years ago. Charu is now the founder of 360, the latest and best of business magazines.
KOREA
Hana Lee, Cha Joon Young, Casey Lartigue [L-R above], Eric DeokJin Song, Kim Chung-Ho, and the team at the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE) in Korea has produced two fascinating new video renditions of the Philosophy of Liberty in with English and Korean narration.
Hana writes, “[Eric] contacted you to see if CFE could remake the video using our own score. He felt the score’s undertones were too serious to appeal to the Korean audience. He had also asked for ‘retranslation’ of the script because he wanted an easier-to-understand script, as the original translation into Korean used very difficult language.
As for the Jonathan Gullible book, our team manager Eric says he has a photocopy of the Korean version, but it was difficult to find an original version in Korea as the publishing company is no longer in business.
His attempts to contact the translator were also unsuccessful. Last summer, CFE also created two short story series inspired by your Gullible project, entitled ‘Bee Adventure’ (http://www.cfe.org/mboard/bbsList.asp?cid=mn1310466448 ) and ‘Dduduloo’s Faraway Land.’ (http://www.cfe.org/mboard/bbsList.asp?cid=mn1310466433 )
They are written in Korean. Originally the stories were intended to be expanded into a graphic novel or child-book format, but for now the stories exist in their text form only. I am hoping we will soon begin a translation into English as well as creating a cartoon or other visually appealing version in both Korean and English.”
Fortunately, I was able to meet with these terrific teams in Korea: Korea Hayek Society, True Individual Value Alliance, and the Center for Free Enterprise. An effort is underway to republish the original Korean translation, if we can only find K-mee Jung.
ALBANIA
Very great news from Kozeta Cika in Tirana, holding her Albanian translation of Ayn Rand’s Anthem above: “The book is already in the main bookshops of Tirana and in the libraries of three Economic Faculties we have here, one state and two private. I have also engaged with spreading copies some university professors who, I hope, will help with its popularity.”
Kozeta translated the first Albanian edition of JG in 1998 and it has long been in demand and out of print. Many thanks, Kozeta!
BALKANS
Yadranko Brkic has just completed the Macedonian animation of The Philosophy of Liberty! “I just wanted to give you a little update on the video Philosophy of Liberty. As part of our Freedom and Prosperity libertarian network (www.slobodaiprosperitet.tv/en), we have recently began working on providing content in Macedonian, and as our first such publication in Macedonian, we decided to translate the Philosophy of Liberty. POL has not been translated into Macedonian until now.”
The full interview by Yadranko about the story of the book and animation for free market fans in the Balkans. Says Yadranko, “Our organization is Sloboda i Prosperitet TV (in English: Freedom and Prosperity TV): a libertarian network of alternative media in western Balkans. It is a regional hub for individual freedom/free market enthusiasts, bloggers, clubs, nongovernment research organizations from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Montenegro. Right now I am not sure which of them will be featuring the interview on their websites, but they will surely be seeing it via our website, YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Twitter.
“Some notable and most active organizations that will pay attention to the interview and possibly seek direct cooperation with ISIL are: Center for Liberal Democratic Studies, Katalaksija Internet magazine, Libertarian Club Libek, and Trzisno Resenje from Serbia, Adriatic Institute and Association Iustitia from Croatia, Campaign for Freedom and Prosperity from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Svetilnik: Society for Promotion of Freedom from Slovenia, most of which already have ties to Atlas Institute, CATO, and Friedrich Naumann Foundation. And since one of the goals of this new Sloboda i Prosperitet TV regional project is the initiation and stimulation of regional cooperation, we are planning a series of interviews with all of these organizations in the coming months, where we will begin the conversation about brainstorming ideas for planning, financing, and organizing joint Summer camps with ISIL in western Balkans in the future. And that’s where I believe our recent interview will come in most handy.”
NEW ENGLISH EDITION FOR YOUTH
The New English Edition for youth is now available from Aspekt Publishing Co. It has more than 40 beautiful illustrations and carries an audio CD with every copy. A perfect gift from publisher Kris Haladus in Poland.
FRANCE
Louise Zizka and Jacques De Guenin translated JG many years ago and it has had some rough treatment with publishers in France and Belgium. At last, Marie Akila Robin, Jean Robin, and Editions Tatamis have produced a gem. See Jacques making the formal publication presentation on video.
Writes Akila, “Jonathan Gullible in French is finally between my hands, right now! Yes we have received it yesterday and it will be officially in stores and online stores on October 25. The result in French is outstanding and looks on the cover very much like the English commentary edition. I am very happy with the result. Jacques De Guenin is very glad of my initiative in finding a French publisher. We have invited him for a conference to talk about the book and The Philosophy of Liberty.
“This conference is one of a series of conferences that Jean and I are organizing for the Enquête & Debat within the Saint Paul Cultural Center in Paris every Monday evening. For example, a week ago we invited the libertarian philosopher Alain Laurent who published for the first time Atlas Shrugged, titled The Strike, in France translated by Sophie Bastide-Foltz. Jacques De Guenin’s conference is planned for Monday November 7th. It will be filmed by us and put online on various French websites to create a buzz about the book and libertarian ideas in France specifically in this time of economic and social crisis.
“I will send copies of JG to French speaking libertarian think tanks and organizations here in Europe and the francophone world. I will also see about private schools and the media. If you have contacts who can speak about the book I can send a copy to them as well. That’s all for now. I will keep you updated of any news related to JG. Have a good day and my best wishes for your little family.”
JAPAN
Hiroshi Yoshida [right] has accomplished a remarkable addition to the Philosophy of Liberty: a Japanese audio narration.
Says Yoshida-san, “The voice was given by Ken Sasaki, and he gave his voice to The Road to Serfdom. His profession is not only voice actor but also programming. We have already had 500 visitors since the PoL gained a voice!”
It would be marvelous if we could arrange audio narration for all of the 40 language versions!
ITALY
From Maria Stefania Gelsomini, “I’m so happy to tell you that my article was published just today (Saturday, August 27) on the newspaper Il Giornale: a whole page dedicated to you, to J.G., and to the ISIL World Conference in Vulcano!! Another article of mine, on the same subject, will appear on the newspaper Il Resto del Carlino, next monday, when the Conference will start. Aloha!”
Many thanks, Maria! One day I’ll visit to thank you in person.
The ISIL World Conference in Sicily was a great success. Next summer the ISIL conference will be at the Shanghai Austrian Economic Summit in China.
SLOVENIA
Celebrations are in order for Breda Sturm, illustrator of the new Slovenian edition of JG. “Dear Ken, I have great news! My illustrations of JG have been selected for the exhibition of The 46rd Golden Pen of Belgrade (46. Zlatno Pero Beograda) – The 11th International Biennial of Illustration 2011. http://www.ulupuds.org.rs/Aktuelnosti.htm” Congratulations, Breda!
SLOVAKIA
I was actually pleased to learn that there was a highly critical review of the Slovakian play by Matus Posvanc and Martin Bican that is being performed in the schools of Slovakia. Matus explained it this way: “”We were blamed that we are brainwashers as communists were in the 1950s in our country. Just 2 points to this. First we try to influence young people about freedom. If brainwashing about freedom is bad, we fully confess to that. Second, the people who comment in the media concerning our show did not know anything about it. They did not even see it. So we consider this article as just a propaganda against our work and our ideas. We will try the best to continue with the play. We will see what happens.”
Bravo, Matus and Martin! When statists begin to criticize, then you must be having great success!
ARMENIA
From Armenia, Inessa Shahnazarova writes, “I am happy to inform you that Jonathan Gullible is now translated into Armenian! I have just finished reading it in my native language and I can’t express my emotions! And I am very happy with the quality of the translation. We are currently looking for funding to publish the Armenian edition. I hope we will be able to do it by the end of 2012. For now I consider uploading a sample chapter in Armenian into our website, Armenian Youth for Liberty. We are very grateful to Artem Sarian who helped us with the sum that the translator asked.”
In response to Inessa’s report above and my expressions of sincere gratitude, Artem responded, “I am happy to help. After all that is the least I can do for my former motherland. They need liberty badly especially in light of the all human rights violations that took place there within last several years. That is the reason why I started the entire discussion on the POL and ended up financing the JG translation. I am simply happy to help.”
Sadly, the Armenian publication has not yet found a publisher. Artem Sarian and Arman S. Mkryan translated the Armenian edition of the Philosophy of Liberty!
VIETNAM, THE NETHERLANDS, ESTONIA, FINLAND
From Fred Meijroos of www.succesboeken.nl, The Netherlands: “We are ready to translate Jonathan Gullible into Dutch and get it again on the Dutch market.”
From Paul Vahur of Estonia [above center]: “We are working on this project. Just last week I was doing some fundraising and so far it has been going well. I hope to sort this out next week. Will let you know if there is any progress.”
From Petri Kajander of Finland [above right]: “I’m now considering putting the book in production so if you have any changes now it’s the time to tell me about them!”
“GULLIBLE” EXPLAINED
My close friend of many years, Blase Harris, recently wrote to his niece about the meaning of Jonathan Gullible. Explained Blase, “‘Gullible’ refers to people who want the good for the other, but understand neither the cause nor the solution of the politically caused suffering in the world. Jonathan is ‘gullible’ in that he is taken in by solutions that do harm to the very people he wants to see helped, but Jonathan is sweetly sincere and comes to understand how the foundational principle of non-initiation of the use of force can be applied to whatever problems arise in a society that values freedom for all individuals. I highly recommend it.” As always, Blase, incisive and profound. Mahalo!
SUSAN WELLS AND A DRUG WAR CAROL
Susan Wells is well known to fans of JG for her screenplay of JG. For those interested in her graphic novel spoof of the drug war, please see her website. Perfect for the holiday season!
