Opening Night at Winternachten celebrates the power of perseverance, and supports writers in captivity. (Why sometimes a cardboard TV can help)

'Writing and reading, like sex, are a form of fusion. Literature is the practice of impurity'. Pakistani-American author Mohsin Hamid can formulate. In his Free the Word speech at the opening of Winternachten in The Hague, the man, who with The Fall of a Fundamentalist wrote an international bestseller, championing impurity. 'Purity,' he told the assembled literary audience, 'tears rather than connects. It is precisely by admitting impurity that every organism, and therefore every society, grows.'

True, beautifully spoken words, and necessary too, because the world seems to be in the grip of purity movements. Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East, nationalists in Western Europe and the US: the yearning for an existence free of foreign taint is gaining ground everywhere. It is mainly writers who suffer as a result. Farah Karimi, general director of development organisation Oxfam Novib, noted in her speech that freedom, and especially journalistic and literary freedom, is under pressure in more and more places. Intolerance, practised by terrorists and religious fanatics, is still less devastating than repression by governments in this regard. Globally, the number of imprisoned and murdered authors is increasing alarmingly.

Sadness

The presentation of the Oxfam Novib PEN awards, traditionally part of the opening of Winternachten, was therefore no cause for celebration this year either. There is not that much to celebrate about the award for an Ethiopian journalist who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2012 for allegedly sympathising with terror. Eskinder Nega thanked PEN and Oxfam Novib in a personal letter that was heartbreaking in all its simplicity.

Milagros Socorro, the Venezuelan journalist who also received a PEN Award, was able to attend. Her sadness over the deteriorating situation in Venezuela almost splashed off the stage. Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal, seasoned in difficult interviews, could do little more than stand by and comfort.

Bus TV

Still, there was a bright spot here too. Not that there always has to be, but still, you like to send the assembled guests into the drinks with an optimistic feeling. Well, that was possible. In Venezuela, Milagros Socorro turns out to be one of the initiators of ElBusTV and it is brilliant in all its simplicity. Venezuelan journalists, rendered jobless in the creeping wave of censorship sweeping through the Venezuelan media world, tell the news to bus passengers right in the time between bus stops.

It is a form of peaceful guerrilla journalism. In these times of digital mass communication, this initiative of minimal reach is an example of creativity with maximum impact. Quite a reason for celebration.

Winternachten, this year in The Hague for the 27th time, may rarely open festively, but in the end it is always a celebration of the power of human imagination and creativity. On to the next 27 years, and certainly the next three days (and nights).