Dear President Obama,
![]() By Ida SEFER |
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 ( www.rnw.nl) 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 a burst of rage and anxiety swept through me. How can you murder eight thousand people and get seven years for a
![]() New President Barack Hussein Obama I ask you to consider these millions of people and this play on words politicians use, this “ethnic diseaseâ€. 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. |
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 willing 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 diseaseâ€. 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.
Sincerely,
Ida Sefer