WASHINGTON – NRI authors and artists Jhumpa Lahiri and Anish Kapoor joined scores of other writers to oppose the controversial travel ban by US President Donald Trump, asking him to “rescind” his last month’s executive order.
“In barring people from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the US 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,” about 70 eminent American writers and artists wrote to Trump.
They called on the US President to “rescind” his 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 doing so, 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, the writers and artists said in a letter dated February 21.
Its restriction is inconsistent with the values of the US and the freedoms for which it stands, said the top US artists and writers under the banner of PEN America.
Among those notable signatories to the letter include Chimamanda Adichie, Margaret Atwood, Rita Dove, Jonathan Franzen, Khaled Hosseini, Azar Nafisi and George Packer.
According to the letter, the negative impact of the original Executive Order was felt immediately, creating stress and uncertainty for artists of global renown and disrupting major US 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,” it said.
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, the letter noted.
The letter told Trump that 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 US 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,” they warned.
In their letter, the writers and artists said that they strongly believe that the immediate and long-term consequences of his original Executive Order are entirely at odds with the national interests of the US.
“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,” the letter said.
