World's leading authors and artists campaign against Trump's Muslim immigration ban

Sixty-five of the world's leading authors and artists have written a joint letter criticising Donald Trump's immigration ban and have urged him to reconsider it.

کد خبر: ۶۷۰۲۰۰

تاریخ انتشار: ۰۴ اسفند ۱۳۹۵ - ۱۰:۲۹ 22 February 2017

Sixty-five of the world's leading authors and artists have written a joint letter criticising Donald Trump's immigration ban and have urged him to reconsider it.

Telegraph Reported that the letter, which was organised by the PEN America advocacy group, was signed by Zadie Smith, Martin Amis, J.M. Coetzee, Patrick Stewart Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Franzen, Siri Hustvedt, Jhumpa Lahiri, Azar Nafisi, Anish Kapoor, Orhan Pamuk and Philip Roth, among many others.

It calls on the president to "to rescind your Executive Order of January 27, 2017, and refrain from introducing any alternative measure that similarly impairs freedom of movement and the global exchange of arts and ideas".

Mr Trump's planned measures against illegal immigrants and the banning of citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States have drawn protests, such as an event last week that activists called "A Day Without Immigrants", which sought to highlight the vital importance of immigrants in everyday American life.

Here is the letter in full, published by the New York Times:

President Donald J. Trump

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,

NW Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

As writers and artists, we join PEN America in calling on you to rescind your Executive Order of January 27, 2017, and refrain from introducing any alternative measure that similarly impairs freedom of movement and the global exchange of arts and ideas.

In barring people from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days, barring all refugees from entering the country for 120 days, and blocking migration from Syria indefinitely, your January Executive Order caused the chaos and hardship of families divided, lives disrupted, and law-abiding faced with handcuffs, detention, and deportation. In so doing, the Executive Order also hindered the free flow of artists and thinkers — and did so at a time when vibrant, open intercultural dialogue is indispensable in the fight against terror and oppression. Its restriction is inconsistent with the values of the United States and the freedoms for which it stands.

The negative impact of the original Executive Order was felt immediately, creating stress and uncertainty for artists of global renown and disrupting major U.S. cultural events. Oscar-nominated director Asghar Farhadi, who is from Iran, expecting to be unable to travel to the Academy Awards ceremony in late February, announced that he will not attend. Syrian singer Omar Souleyman, who performed at the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, may now be prevented from singing at Brooklyn’s World Music Institute in May 2017. The ability of Adonis, an 87-year-old globally celebrated poet who is a French national of Syrian extraction, to attend the May 2017 PEN World Voices Festival in New York remains in question.

Preventing international artists from contributing to American cultural life will not make America safer, and will damage its international prestige and influence. Not only will such a policy prevent great artists from performing, but it will constrict the interchange of important ideas, isolating the U.S. politically and culturally. Reciprocal actions against American citizens, such as those already taken by the governments of Iraq and Iran, will further limit the ability of American artists to move freely.

Arts and culture have the power to enable people to see beyond their differences. Creativity is an antidote to isolationism, paranoia, misunderstanding, and violent intolerance. In the countries most affected by the immigration ban, it is writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers who are often at the vanguard in the fights against oppression and terror. Should it interrupt the ability of artists to travel, perform, and collaborate, such an Executive Order will aid those who would silence essential voices and exacerbate the hatreds that fuel global conflict.

We strongly believe that the immediate and long-term consequences of your original Executive Order are entirely at odds with the national interests of the United States. As you contemplate any potential new measures we respectfully urge you to tailor them narrowly to address only legitimate and substantiated threats and to avoid imposing broad bans that affect millions of people, including the writers, artists and thinkers whose voices and presence help foster international understanding.

Sincerely,

Anne Tyler

Lev Grossman

Jhumpa Lahiri

Norman Rush

Chang-rae Lee

Jane Smiley

Janet Malcolm

John Green

Mary Karr

Claire Messud

Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket)