MY REPLY TO BARACK OBAMA*

Dear Senator Obama,

It was such an honour for me to receive your message yesterday!
Thank you so much for that kind gesture. Of course, I have an idea of how campaign machineries are supposed to work and that this sort of thing is not necessarily to be taken as a personal message. Nevertheless, it was meaningful to me.

Please be assured that I have been doing all I can to shore up support for your campaign and will continue to do so beyond today’s election, from which I strongly believe you will emerge as THE WINNER you naturally are!

Surely, my reach is very limited (not least because I am not American and live in London) but I hope that, through the series I’ve been posting on my blog and the phone calls and email messages I’ve been making to family, friends and acquaintances I have in the US, I can contribute somehow to your VICTORY!

I know that you certainly don’t have the time to read this, but I would like to take this opportunity to let you know how much I’ve been touched by your book “Dreams From My Father”. It was brought to me this Christmas as a gift by my younger sister who lives in Washington DC. I’ve been reading it by installments, as time permits and, as I read, posting small extracts from the chapters on Kenya in my blog (just hope you wont terribly mind this). I’ve been trying to highlight the passages that best help to understand the current situation in Kenya, although I often feel like posting everything because it’s so engaging! Of course, the need to not seriously infringe your copyrights helps me to resist that temptation.

Let me say that I had approached Kenya before through the writings of American scholars such as Robert Bates and Caroline Elkins (incidentally, both from your alma mater Harvard), but none of them gave me the personal insight on the soul of land and people you manage to express with such fine detail. I am African, and I am a woman, but I don’t remember ever reading before anything written by a male or female, of any race or cultural heritage, that reflects so well the realities of life in Africa (I lived most of my life in Angola, my country of origin, and visited 14 other African countries so far) and the particular challenges it poses to African women – no doubt your dear sister Auma played a special role in it, but only a human being as deeply sensitive as yourself could write about those experiences so touchingly. And not only that: the profound way in which you reflect about the human condition in America and anywhere else in the world!

A few weeks ago, an African-American blogger living in Germany referred to me as “a brilliant mind” in relation to an article I wrote for the “Atlantic Community” – a German-American think tank online. I was flattered, but didn’t take him too seriously, mainly because, although a highly reputed professional in his field (engineering), he is not really an ‘expert’ on the issues I wrote about (economic and trade-related issues). However, based on my gender, cultural and human experiences, I can say to you without hesitation: Mr. Obama you are a BRILLIANT MIND!

I’ll leave you now on your road to a victory that is certain anyway because, as you put it so well in your message, this is about more than just winning an election!

Please accept my BEST WISHES to your political and personal life, which I would like to extend to your beautiful and intelligent wife Michelle and your wonderful daughters Malia and Sasha.

A LUTA CONTINUA!
A VICTORIA E’ CERTA!!!

*(Please refer to previous post)

Dear Senator Obama,

It was such an honour for me to receive your message yesterday!
Thank you so much for that kind gesture. Of course, I have an idea of how campaign machineries are supposed to work and that this sort of thing is not necessarily to be taken as a personal message. Nevertheless, it was meaningful to me.

Please be assured that I have been doing all I can to shore up support for your campaign and will continue to do so beyond today’s election, from which I strongly believe you will emerge as THE WINNER you naturally are!

Surely, my reach is very limited (not least because I am not American and live in London) but I hope that, through the series I’ve been posting on my blog and the phone calls and email messages I’ve been making to family, friends and acquaintances I have in the US, I can contribute somehow to your VICTORY!

I know that you certainly don’t have the time to read this, but I would like to take this opportunity to let you know how much I’ve been touched by your book “Dreams From My Father”. It was brought to me this Christmas as a gift by my younger sister who lives in Washington DC. I’ve been reading it by installments, as time permits and, as I read, posting small extracts from the chapters on Kenya in my blog (just hope you wont terribly mind this). I’ve been trying to highlight the passages that best help to understand the current situation in Kenya, although I often feel like posting everything because it’s so engaging! Of course, the need to not seriously infringe your copyrights helps me to resist that temptation.

Let me say that I had approached Kenya before through the writings of American scholars such as Robert Bates and Caroline Elkins (incidentally, both from your alma mater Harvard), but none of them gave me the personal insight on the soul of land and people you manage to express with such fine detail. I am African, and I am a woman, but I don’t remember ever reading before anything written by a male or female, of any race or cultural heritage, that reflects so well the realities of life in Africa (I lived most of my life in Angola, my country of origin, and visited 14 other African countries so far) and the particular challenges it poses to African women – no doubt your dear sister Auma played a special role in it, but only a human being as deeply sensitive as yourself could write about those experiences so touchingly. And not only that: the profound way in which you reflect about the human condition in America and anywhere else in the world!

A few weeks ago, an African-American blogger living in Germany referred to me as “a brilliant mind” in relation to an article I wrote for the “Atlantic Community” – a German-American think tank online. I was flattered, but didn’t take him too seriously, mainly because, although a highly reputed professional in his field (engineering), he is not really an ‘expert’ on the issues I wrote about (economic and trade-related issues). However, based on my gender, cultural and human experiences, I can say to you without hesitation: Mr. Obama you are a BRILLIANT MIND!

I’ll leave you now on your road to a victory that is certain anyway because, as you put it so well in your message, this is about more than just winning an election!

Please accept my BEST WISHES to your political and personal life, which I would like to extend to your beautiful and intelligent wife Michelle and your wonderful daughters Malia and Sasha.

A LUTA CONTINUA!
A VICTORIA E’ CERTA!!!

*(Please refer to previous post)