An Open Letter Regarding Amos Yee
NOTE: This open letter was originally written in 2017 at the height of Amos Yee’s arrest in Singapore. My most recent thoughts on Yee were added in “Done With Amos Yee.”
“Because we are free, we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere.”
To The Concerned Parties:
President Donald J. Trump,
Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The Department Of Homeland Security (DHS),
The United States Citizenship And Immigration Services (USCIS),
America, for all its faults, remains a beacon of freedom to those here and abroad. We are afforded liberties that many nations do not have: a decent respect for human rights, a democratic constitution that includes the separation of powers, and a rich diversity which is as multicultural as it is multiethnic. So it only seems fitting that America be a home, a sanctuary, of dissidents, artists, and intellectuals threatened by authoritarians, theocrats, and murderers. We have not been shy to this role, having accepted the Cubans from the Mariel Boatlift, who sought better lives from Fidel Castro’s oppressive regime. We took in the South Vietnamese escaping persecution, or worse, by the Vietminh. Even today, this role continues, as we took in (after some regrettable consternation) the lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who used his self-taught legal career to help the victims of China’s one-child policy. So it is in recognition of this honorable tradition that I ask, no plead, as an American citizen, to accept Amos Yee from Singapore as soon as possible.
Yee, as you might already know, is currently detained in jail by the Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) not long after landing in a Chicago airport. His application for asylum is currently in limbo. I realize that these matters take time, but I want to further emphasize the urgency and seriousness of Yee’s case. Turning him back would be a mistake that would stain the conscience of our national heritage.
Despite his youth, Yee is a gadfly who pricks the conscience of his nation. After the death of Singapore’s authoritarian founder, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, he did not hesitate to critique him in a video using his signature irreverent humor. While one can certainly praise Yew’s economic feats, Yee rightly brings up concerns about Yew’s lawsuits against critics and neglect of income inequality. While democratic leaders were praising Yew’s legacy, Yee brought attention to his hypocrisy. What is the American experiment, if not a critique of bad governance? For doing this, he was imprisoned under the guise of “wounding” religious feelings (he negatively compared Yew to Christ), which revealed that Singapore has no respect for what we refer to as First Amendment principles. For Yee, the experience was traumatic, as he expressed suicidal tendencies while detained. Thoughts that few would want minors to construct.
When released, however, Yee recovered and returned to his stinging critiques, with his new target being the religion of Islam, which once again got him arrested. While some observers may not appreciate the crude way in which he does this, criticism of religion is an American tradition that goes back to Mark Twain and Thomas Paine. Indeed, though our Founding Fathers were men of God, they did not believe the Church to be above rebuke. After all, they built a wall of separation between Church and State. Discussion of religion, whatever form it takes, ultimately helps the layman, the priest, and the apostate, to navigate matters of faith, secularism, and tolerance.
Yee understandably grew sick of this repeated persecution, so he sought asylum here, which brings us to the current situation. As you can see, Yee has been attacked by Singapore’s tyrannical authorities for doing little more than expressing his free speech, a right that America has long championed and enshrined. Yee’s free speech rights have been defended by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations. I can only hope that America follow suit.
In a letter to President Jimmy Carter, Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov requested that he protect Russian dissidents, writing, “It’s very important to defend those who suffer because of their nonviolent struggle, for openness, for justice, for destroyed rights of other people. Our and your duty is to fight for them.” Carter, who tried to make human rights the cornerstone of his administration, replied by writing, “We shall use our good offices to seek the release of prisoners of conscience, and we will continue our efforts to shape a world responsive to human aspirations in which nations of differing cultures and histories can live side by side in peace and justice.”
Let us make good on that promise.
#FreeAmosYee
Joseph Nikolas Erobha
Originally published at http://sansuthecat.blogspot.com on January 19, 2017
