Madam – This letter currently has no delivery address, seeing as, close on 20 months after the new administration has taken office, it’s not yet seen fit to appoint a replacement to the previous incumbent, Ambassador Patrick Gaspard. I do hope with American’s long history of friendship and interest in our country that you’re able to assume your post and read this letter in the not too distant future.

Anyway, the point of my letter.

According to lore, Ernest Hemingway won a bet with friends to write a novel in six words, when he wrote what has been described as the saddest sentence ever written. His piercingly moving effort, which still has the power to haunt, was:

“For sale, Baby shoes, Never worn.”

Those sad words would have been written in the United States almost a century ago. With the news coming out of the United States border centres tonight*, the thought occurred to me that through the actions of the current administration which you represent, our generation’s saddest sentence has become something like this:

“Belatedly released, the immigrant child could not recognise her own mother.”

Yours in sadness,

Kalim Rajab. DM

Links:

• July 26 2018: After months of outcry over splitting up migrant families at the border, the US government has until the end of the day today to reunite all eligible families it separated:
• Also see this New York Times story.