Sex blogger Alvin Tan admits stupidity of Ramadan posting, says smart to seek asylum

Alvin Tan is now seeking asylum in the United States. Behind him was his then girlfriend, Vivian Lee. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, September 27, 2014.

Whatever one thinks about sex blogger Alvin Tan, the controversial Singapore scholar has rather opinionated views of politics, Malaysian society and religion.

The 26-year-old is seeking asylum in the United States but told The Malaysian Insider that his decision to flee his homeland was to escape the government's "tyranny" as well as the "ignorance" of ordinary Malaysians.

The butt of criticism by many Malaysians after his offensive and controversial Ramadan greeting on Facebook in July last year, Tan defended the post, which carried a photo of a pork dish, as political satire.

He revealed that this entire episode highlighted the danger of using Islam "as a basis to govern other people's life" by legislating personal morals, without making a distinction between what is immoral and what is illegal.

The former law student at the National University of Singapore, and his then partner Vivian Lee, first came under the spotlight after uploading raunchy sex postings on their blog.

But it was their bak kut teh posting during Ramadan last year that landed them in hot water, and even in jail briefly – after they were charged under the Sedition Act and the Film Censorship Act.

Tan violated his bail conditions while on a supposed working trip to Singapore and is now on Interpol's wanted list.

After lying low for a while, he recently emerged on social media to make known his plans for asylum in the US.

In this bare all e-mail interview, Tan admits that he may even have been "young and stupid" once, but is determined now to face the consequences as a man, and in a strange and unexpected way, adds to the debate over Malaysia's on-going struggle to define its secular-Islamist identity.

TMI: What are your feelings now compared to when you were charged on July 18 last year, given what you have been through?

Tan: My focus now is to start afresh and pursue my dreams in the greatest country in the world, now that there is no tyrannical government in the way. Upon leaving Malaysia, I felt a huge burden being lifted off my back, and I feel safe enough, because I know that extradition between USA and Malaysia will not be an easy task.

Dr Wan Junaidi (Deputy Home Minister Datuk Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar) himself said that an extraditable offence is an offence that is a crime in both Malaysia and the US, otherwise the extradition request will fail.

Remember how the A-G's Chambers tried to extradite Raja Petra Kamaruddin in 2009 and the UK government essentially told them to sod off? Either way, just because I am in a better position to speak up now does not mean that I will.

The last thing I want to be is one of those exiled dissidents who is forever attacking his home country from abroad, bitter and jaded and never really settling down and starting a new life overseas.

TMI: What can you say about the Malaysian approach to freedom of speech and expression?

Tan: The underlying problem is that we're somehow brainwashed into genuinely believing that words are dangerous and can cause riots, killings, etc. With this belief permeating every average Malaysian's mind, they find themselves supporting laws like the Sedition Act with a straight face "in order to keep the peace."

With the people's support of so-called hate speech laws as justification, the government thus keeps the Sedition Act around and uses it whenever it sees fit.

But history has taught us that any hate speech law will eventually be abused by the government for unjust censorship, 100% of the time, which is why the American founding fathers stressed that all forms of speech, ESPECIALLY offensive speech, should be immune to prosecution with Article 1 of the 1791 Bill of Rights.

They understood this idea more than 200 years ago, and look where it has led them politically, economically, culturally, and militarily today. The correct way to deal with a difference in opinion, particularly when it is a moral opinion, is education or, at most, social condemnation in the form of disassociation or boycotts, not jailing people.

TMI: How is your family back home taking all this, in particular the fact that you are seeking asylum, are they supportive? What about your friends?

Tan: My family is trying to live their lives as normally as possible. They have ceased to offer opinions on my life decisions at this stage, because, really, they are ill-equipped to understand and advise on what I am up to, considering the depth of the mess that I have got myself into thus far.

My friends seem to believe that my only and best option, for someone of my temperament, is to get out of Malaysia, and undoubtedly I have taken their advice seriously.

TMI: Why are you seeking asylum, is it because you do not have trust in the local justice system?

Tan: I am seeking asylum not only from the tyranny of Umno, but from the ignorance of ordinary Malaysians. The tyranny of Umno is obvious: they want to jail me to show how much of a stalwart of Islam they are. They control the police force, the A-G's Chambers, the lower courts, the media, and, via the media and the education system, the minds of the people.

The ignorance of ordinary Malaysians is more stealthy but equally lethal. When people believe that it is okay to jail people just because they are immoral or objectionable or offensive, even though they never harmed anyone, you know that this is a primitive country which does not know that immorality and illegality are two different things.

When they call for Ibrahim Ali to be jailed for saying things, I knew it was time to get out as soon as possible.

It is often said that we deserve the government that we get. In Malaysia, Umno manages to stay in power precisely because many people actually subscribe to the Umno mindset, at least in part, without even realising it.

Put simply, the reason I left to seek asylum is that I am powerless to fight against such tyranny and ignorance. The only rational action for me is to leave, instead of wasting my precious life to fight a Sisyphean battle.

TMI: This might mean that you will be remembered among those who do not know you here in Malaysia as a fugitive. Does this bother you in any way?

Tan: Many Malaysians claim that I was a coward for running away. I do not think so at all. When the government and its institutions decide to ruin your life and jail you for years just because you hurt their feelings, you do not sit back and try to fight the overwhelming wave of emotional, irrational force coming down on you.

That is a very unfair situation to expect me to put up any type of fight. I was alone, and even those heartless mercenaries known as Pakatan Rakyat leaders (Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Guan Eng) called for my imprisonment in Parliament just so that they did not lose the Muslim vote. Imagine fighting literally the entire country just on your own and your lawyer.

The only rational thing to do is to leave in an act of self-preservation. First, I was stupid for inviting Muslims to break fast with pork during Ramadan. Now, I am a coward for running away from a trial that will be anything but fair.

Either way, they will have something to criticise me about. What I know is that I am done being stupid. The current Alvin Tan is smart, pragmatic, calculative and mercenary.

TMI: At what point did you decide to seek asylum?

Tan: I first knew about the concept of political asylum when I was in Sungai Buloh prison in July 2013. My Iranian cellmate urged me to apply to the United Nations High Commission of Refugees (UNHCR) for asylum after hearing about my situation. When I was released on court bail, the court, however, took away my passport.

I waited for the right time for almost a year, slowly cutting off my ties in Malaysia (eg liquidating assets, ending contracts), and, when the court approved my going to Singapore to supposedly film a documentary in Singapore in May this year, I seized the opportunity and fled.

TMI: Is there a possibility that your asylum application to the US will not succeed? What happens then?

Tan: I have two layers of appeals, should my initial asylum claim fail. I am still free to put in similar claims in Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, England, etc, if I happen to fail in my bid in America.

TMI: Your rebuke appears to be targeted at the government and Muslims, can you explain why this is so?

Tan: The reason I target Muslims is that they do not seem to understand the concept of separation of church and state. They seem to want to legislate every single religious principle or rule into the law book, and they seem to be especially blind to the distinction between immorality and illegality. In any country with such a situation, Islam is really a political idea, not merely personal faith.

If they insist on applying Islam in politics and governance, they should also know that criticism to Islam would be inevitable and part and parcel of political discourse. They can no longer say it is something sacred and untouchable and impervious to flak, because Islam is now used as a basis to govern other people's lives.

This is, in fact, the basis of my political asylum claim. My satirical attempts at ridiculing Muslims is an expression of my political disapproval of Muslims and Islam. Given how pervasive the influence of Islam is in our government institutions, ridiculing Muslims is tantamount to, say, ridiculing conservatives or socialists. It is the same thing.

The American courts know it. Even my San Francisco asylum officer in his independent assessment agrees that my Ramadan pork photograph was political satire, nothing more.

TMI: On hindsight, do you have any regrets over your Ramadan greeting or do you think it all happened for a reason?

Tan: This is too early to say. If my asylum claim succeeds, I am on track to become a US citizen in five years, an awesome dream come true. If not, well, I just have to be content in knowing that I was once young and stupid, and deal with the consequences like a man. My life is now in the hands of the immigration judge hearing my asylum case.

TMI: What about Vivian, are you concerned about her having to face the charges alone now?

Tan: I did convince her to flee, but she did not see the point of it. I already applied to the court to get our passports released using my personal funds, at no expense to her. What more does she want? What I did not do was to fund her escape, because, why should I? We are both independent adults who are supposed to be able to take care of ourselves.

She has a lot of growing up to do if she believes that it is my responsibility to take her along. I mean, hello, she is the university graduate here, not me. She should be more than capable – much more than me – to take care of herself.

- TMI