Dear President Obama ,
I’ll forever remember that fourth of November in the year two thousand and eight. Millions lined up for hours on end so their vote would not be late. I’ll forever remember that fourth of November when the world exhaled at last. Paris and London and Toronto and Sydney watched the last vote get cast. I’ll forever remember that fourth of November when thousands stopped traffic to see, you and your family step on stage and write yourselves into history. I’ll forever remember that fourth of November because it wont be a John, George or Bill, a non-English name will be signed into history on top of capital hill. I’ll forever remember that fourth of November in the year two thousand and eight, we worked hard, it took time but most definitely it was fate.
I must tell you something that you should know, I did not cast a ballot. I am an immigrant, a refugee, an alien, a non-citizen they call it. My people were tortured, raped and mutilated in a little country overseas. They were scolded for their religion and bombed into oblivion, nothing was left but debris. My father was taken to a stadium where he was chained like an animal in a cage. He luckily escaped with some help of his friends and so have his captors and that is why I’m enraged. Yesterday November the 6th a man named Mladen Blagojevic was sentenced for seven years in jail. He participated in the butchering of eight thousand women, children and adult males. While I read this news burst of rage and anxiety swept through me. How can you murder eight thousand people and get seven years for a murder spree? I wondered how the left over family members must feel about this repulsive news. We said never again, never again, and after Bosnia, Rwanda, now Darfur and the Congo how much longer are we wiling to loose? So many people raped and tortured for political control of land. Will we ever step in to punish these murderers and finally take a stand?
I know you are excited about the possibilities and I am thrilled too. I cannot wait to see all the changes you make and the things you are going to do. But I do ask you this; now that you have a power I will never get a chance to obtain. Because I am just one person in this world and these changes by myself I can not attain. I ask you please to think of the thousands of raped women in the Congo who are dying from infections due to brutal men. I ask you to please think of the fourteen year old boy who watched his father get decapitated in Bosnia and re-lives this day again and again. I ask you to think of the women who were forced into rape camps as young as the age of five. They were tortured and mutilated and executed and never revived. I ask you to think of the Janjaweed who slice and cut young children as they please. I ask you to consider these millions of people and this play on words politicians use, this “ethnic disease”. I ask you to claim it GENOCIDE because ETHNIC CLEANSING is a nice way to say it. I ask you put pressure on the UN and the Hague so everyone can no longer delay it. I ask you to push for longer sentences and to address the torture of women in these countries. They are slaves to their government, societal standards and patriarchy. So I ask you let’s do something together as a nation before it’s way too late. Let’s do something extraordinary and righteous, let’s do something great. Let’s really fight for the freedom of these people who need a helping hand. Let’s enforce WORLD LAWS, let’s not let these murders think this is acceptable, let’s do something grand.
Lastly I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my letter. I am really no one important just one woman trying to make the world a little better. I am one person and I can not do much. But you Mr. President, you have the power to change and enforce laws and such. Lastly Mr. President please think of your daughters and wife. Think about other wives and daughters and the importance of life. You were fortunate enough to be born in a place where such drastic change can happen in a hundred years. The world has been waiting, and you and your family have appeased our fears. We will still wait and nothing will change unless someone with power speaks. But I ask you to think of US the world refugees in these upcoming weeks. I ask you to be that CHANGE in the world we have been waiting for. I ask you to enforce that, never again, never again will this happen, no more GENOCIDAL WAR.
**I actually sent this to him, who knows he might read it he might not but I said what I wanted to say.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Dear President Obama.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/10321
Weekly Feministing Newsletter
Feministing RSS Feed
A somewhat prosaic comment, but: could you send this to newspapers? I think more people need to read this.
i sent it to Chicago Tribune, we'll shall see if they like it
:)
What a wonderful, inspiring letter. One of my closest friends is Bosnian, went to Sweden to escape the outrageous murders going on in her own land. I certainly hope he reads this, as do the readers of The Tribune.
Greetings Rooted Willow. I am so sorry that you and your loved ones have suffered under the brutal regime you wrote of, and am in complete agreement with all you had to say about the injustice, of how little punishment the mass murderers and brutal "soldiers" of the world receive. The lack of punishment for these crimes is a crime in itself.
My hope is that, when Hillary Clinton becomes our Sec. of State, she will be able to bring more attention to stories like your's and so many people like you around the world, and hopefully, bring about real action to end these crimes. I believe she will be a great advocate for women around the world. Now that she will have some real power, the women of the world have cause to hope that things will begin to get better. That we will be reminded that women's rights are human rights.
I believe that many people would be willing to stand up to these sorts of dispicable, cowardly crimes, if they knew what was happening. Unfortunately, our mainstream media does not tell stories like your's, or stories about such horrors as the mass murder of thousands of women in Juarez Mexico.
http://www.libertadlatina.org/Crisis_Lat_Mexico_Juarez_Femicide.htm
This is now being called a Femicide, a "Gender Cleansing" it would seem.
Juarez is just across the US border and many US corporations have moved there for cheap ( read women's ) labor.
It is believed that around 5000 women have been raped, tortured and murderered there, or sold into slavery. No one knows where they all are.
Yet, instead of spending the money to provide security, or insisting that the Juarez police protect these factory workers, who are usually abucted in route between work and home via the bus system, this unspeakable slaughter has been covered up by the officials and the corporations.
Please, please, keep posting. You state your case so well and the world needs to hear your voice. Tell us more about your experiences.
Blessings to you and yours.