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A few days ago, I stopped for long seconds in front of a short video of Greta Thunberg on social media. I wanted to click the “Like” button, but I did not. The matter might seem trivial. But for me, it was not just a “like,” but a question about my entire future. Will I be able to stay in the United States if I click the button?

When I arrived in the United States in the winter of 2022 as an exiled novelist, I held an almost perfect perception of this country. I came fleeing from Algeria, where I faced accusations because of my novels, my opinions, my public defense of women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, freedom of conscience, and the centrality of the human being in the state and law, in addition to my criticism of corruption and political and religious authority. I had previously been shortlisted for the Index on Censorship award for freedom of expression, and I was honored by the German Bundestag program “Parliamentarians for Parliamentarians” in 2021. For me, the United States was more than a destination for asylum; it was a promise that a person could live without fearing their opinion.

I did not expect to find myself, after a few years, hesitating out of fear before clicking the “Like” button on a political post.

Fear is not always born from laws; sometimes it is born from the political climate. As an asylum seeker whose case is still pending, I find myself constantly thinking about whether expressing my political stance, even in its simplest forms, might be misunderstood or used against me in a time when almost everything seems like becoming a subject of censorship.

Here lies the irony that I never imagined I would live. I fled from official censorship to survive, but today I find myself practicing self-censorship to keep surviving.

This article is not about Greta Thunberg, nor about Zohran Mamdani, nor about defending one political party or attacking another. They are merely two examples of issues that have become, in the United States today, the scarecrows of the right-wing rhetorics. Since the war in Gaza, and the escalating debate over immigration, universities, protests, and LGBTQ+ rights, everything became an accusation, making many, citizens and immigrants alike, rethink every word they write or publish. and today because of the attempt to almost criminalize leftist ideas, trivialize LGBTQ+ rights in political discourse, and the official vilification of immigrants, every person who defends social, gender, or even immigrant rights has become afraid of “condemnation”. While we as refugees, immigrants, and exiles fear losing our legal status or deportation, some Americans fear losing their American citizenship due to the amendments that some are seeking to achieve.

As an exile in this country, I do not live these transformations as an observer, but as a human being whose entire future depends on his sense of legal and social security. When a person reaches this state, fear creeps into details that seem small: A comment, a share, or even a like on a post. Everything turns into a potential crime. With the increase in official rhetoric hostile to LGBTQ rights, my fear has increased more about the possibility of diluting our rights in this country due to official bullying, especially against transgender people.

However, there are still independent institutions here, a relatively free and pluralistic press, and a judiciary capable of supervising power, but democracy is not measured only by laws, but also by fear. There is always a margin of action for any government in the world confined between what laws allow and what institutions prohibit, and this margin, despite its small size (maybe), provides an ideal ground for the emergence of dictatorships. A climate hostile to freedoms and social rights may turn at any moment into a bridge from a democratic system to a single-cell system. Even if America seems ‘far’ from this scenario, American citizens have the right to fear for the future of their children and the shape of the country they will live in, and as I write these words, I am suppressing many of my thoughts because of fear.

 What worries me today, is the rise of a discourse that portrays certain political ideas, especially those related to social justice, or the defense of Palestinian rights, or the rights of immigrants, or LGBTQ+ rights, as ideas that deserve suspicion rather than debate, and the discourse that tries to equate the victim with the executioner under the pretext of “not fueling polarization,” while the country today seems to be in dire need of someone to defend its constitutional values represented by equality, individual and collective freedoms, religious freedoms, and above all, freedom of expression and respect for human rights. With the rise of right-wing discourse, it is healthy to have a courageous left-wing discourse to resist it, and this is usually called “Dialogue”, “Freedom of expression” and not “Polarization”. 

Today, as an exiled writer in the USA, I do not know if I will click the “Like” button next time for videos by Greta Thunberg, Zohran Mamdani, or any leftist figure in USA. but I am sure that some wise rhetorics wouldn’t cause any harm, and freedom of speech whether for the citizens or the immigrants is the crown of every democracy on earth. and wether my like counts or not, matters or not, it’s still a freedom of expression.

Anouar Rahmani