A Letter to Mehdi Hasan: We Who Chose America Must Keep Her Free

Dear Mehdi Hasan,

I watched your No Kings speech and felt every word resonate deep in my soul. You spoke not only with eloquence and courage but with a rare moral clarity that this moment in history so desperately needs. When you said, “I’m not here out of hate. I’m here out of love,” I found myself nodding through tears.

I, too, am here out of love — love for America, love for truth, and love for humanity’s potential to awaken from emotional blindness.

Like you, I chose this country. On April 7, 2000, when I became an American citizen, I stood proudly before a judge and swore an oath to the Constitution. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I wanted to give back to this country — to defend the very freedoms that allowed me to find my voice after escaping the emotional repression of my childhood.

In 2014, I published my book A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from the Lies and Illusions. It tells the story of how I healed from the wounds of repression and found emotional freedom through truth. But after publishing it, I became the target of well-orchestrated psychological warfare — a campaign of lies, manipulation, and mobbing by people who, like those currently in the White House, are driven by fear and hate.

These individuals tried to destroy my livelihood at the workplace where I had served with integrity for nine and a half years. No one dared to expose them or their corruption. No one cared that they almost shattered my life. It was a smaller stage than the national one you speak of, but the same dynamics were at play — the same cowardice, projection, and silence that allow tyrants to rise.

You reminded the world that “we who chose America love America often more than the people born here.” That truth runs through my veins. I know how precious freedom is — both political and emotional — because I had to fight for it, inch by inch, against repression in all its forms.

You spoke of defending democracy. I speak of defending the soul — of freeing humanity from the chains of childhood repression that give birth to dictators and blind obedience. Could you imagine a world where every human being was free from that inner tyranny? There would be no kings, no thrones, no need for wars or domination — only self-aware, emotionally free people capable of true empathy and justice.

Thank you for your courage, Mehdi. Thank you for standing where so many are silent, for reminding us that love for freedom is not naïve — it is sacred. You have reignited my faith that truth still has a voice.

With admiration and solidarity,
Sylvie Shene
Author of A Dance to Freedom
sylvieshene.blogspot.com