Poor kid. I tell myself that many of us spent our adolescence waiting to escape the grip of our family’s dysfunctions, and mostly succeeded, or at least survived. From Jessica Contrera, in the Washington Post:
The news crew is here, but the famous boy is still asleep. He had just flown 22 hours, back to this squat stone house where he used to live when he was just a regular 14-year-old. His bright green go-kart is still out back. A year ago, he could have woken up and spent hours tinkering with its engine. He could have spent the day on his trampoline, or just watching funny YouTube videos on his phone.
Instead, he’s waking up to the sound of more reporters in the living room. Because he’s not Ahmed Mohamed, a regular 14-year-old. He’s “Clock Boy,” a viral sensation, the accidental embodiment of a national debate about Muslims being dangerous — or not. A black youth mistreated by overzealous cops — or an example of vigilance against potential terrorism…
The reporters are from Fox 4, a local TV channel. [Ahmed’s father] Mohamed invited them here, on Ahmed’s first day back in Texas after nine months in Qatar. They moved a month after Ahmed was arrested for possessing a homemade clock that his school deemed suspicious-looking. The move, it seemed, was an attempt to escape the spotlight, or at least the hate mail and death threats that came with it.
And yet, Ahmed’s summer homecoming was heralded to reporters with a news release sent out by the family and its supporters: Clock Boy is back, and ready to be interviewed…
***********
… His parents had a choice: deal with this quietly, or tell someone. Their son had been placed in handcuffs and interrogated, in a town known for its resentment of Muslims. So they called the media, and soon Ahmed was trending on Twitter, and everyone from Mark Zuckerberg to President Obama was sharing messages of support.Two days after he was arrested, the charges were dropped.
“This is what happens when we (IPD) screw something up,” one Irving Police Department detective wrote in an email later uncovered as part of a public records request from Vice. “That thing didn’t even look like a bomb.”
And so came the next choice: Let this all die down, or seize the platform they’d been given and use it.
So they put Ahmed on “Good Morning America,” MSNBC and “The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore.” He told reporters how kids in school called him ISIS Boy. Sympathetic crowdfunders raised $18,000 for his education. He visited the White House, the Google Science Fair and the president of his home country of Sudan (a wanted war criminal, but Mohamed said it would be rude not to accept the invitation)…
His dad tells him that this is God opening doors for him. Something bad happened, but God turned it to make it good. God chose him for this, so he can make the world a better place.
Only now, he feels safer on the other side of the world. As trolls tried to pick apart his story, someone posted the Mohameds’ home address on Twitter…
The Internet is his refuge — and his attacker. He reads every story and long, rambling conspiracy theory about him. Countless blogs and videos have been dedicated to proving Ahmed’s clock was just a RadioShack clock he put in a new box. (It was partially made of RadioShack parts, but the design was all his own, he says.) Others insist that this was all a stunt masterminded by Mohamed to get attention. (“He can’t plan the reaction. And why would he want me to get arrested?” Ahmed says.) Still more have proclaimed that the Mohameds are terrorist sympathizers because they once owned a company called Twin Towers Transportation. (They did own a company by that name, because their offices were housed in a Dallas office building called the Twin Towers.).Ahmed would like to respond, but he never does because then he will have allowed himself to be angry. In Islam, Ahmed says, you are most vulnerable to the Devil when you are angry.
Instead he tweets only positive messages to his 97,000 followers. Like when he announced “Just Arrived in Dallas!” with a heart emoji and “It feels good to be back!”
plz go back to Qatar. You’re not welcome here.
Go back with your terrorist dad …
When Ahmed was 9, [his father] Mohamed decided to run for president of Sudan. The current president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir — whom they would later visit after Ahmed became famous — had just been indicted by the International Criminal Court for directing genocide in Darfur. Without him in power, Mohamed argued, the United States might lift its sanctions on Sudan, and the country could prosper.
He never made the ballot. But the next year, in 2011, he made international headlines. Inflammatory Florida pastor Terry Jones held a “trial of the Koran.” Mohamed, who saw the trial as a chance to spread his message — and take his kids to Disney World — showed up to defend the Koran. International outrage over the event, which ended in the burning of the holy book, led to rioting in Afghanistan. At least 20 people were reportedly killed, including seven U.N. employees.
“I did what I think is right,” Mohamed says.
While he was trying to make a name for himself, his American home town was rapidly changing. Irving was once a white-flight suburb best known for housing the Dallas Cowboys’ Texas Stadium. By the time Ahmed entered middle school, the Cowboys had moved to Arlington and the Mohameds’ Zip code was deemed the most diverse area in the country. Only 9 percent of the students in Ahmed’s school district are white. (However, there’s only one nonwhite person on the Irving City Council.)
The neighborhood surrounding the Islamic Center of Irving, which serves about 10,000 area Muslims, began to flourish with condos and mansions built by those who wanted to live close to the mosque. Rumors spread that the neighborhood was a “no-go zone,” an area only Muslims could enter, and that the mosque was imposing sharia law in the city. The rumors were false…
Gosh, ya think? Yes, I know the reporter had to include that line, but c’mon, America! We’re supposed to be better than this!
Baud
We might all be moving to Qatar if Trump wins.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: Why Qatar? WTH is Sharia Law? How is it going to be imposed?
Mary G
Poor kid. He has a stage father.
Keith P.
One day he’ll be Clock Man (when he’s 18 and Flavor Flav dies)
Technocrat
@schrodinger’s cat:
It’s become a shibboleth of the right at this point. I’d wager that not 1 in 10 of the people using the term can accurately define it.
singfoom
Sharia Law is just a dogwhistle for racists who hate / fear muslims. It’s very effective because it reminds them that not only are they NOT Christians, but there is a whole legal system based on Islam. Of course, Sharia law could never flourish ANYWHERE in the United States due to the separation of Church and state.
But demagogues never let facts get in the way of a good lie that’ll make their followers pee their pants.
This poor kid. Anyone that becomes internet famous is never left alone again. Fuck those hateful people who bother him in real life or over the internet.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Baud: Only if you like living under a wonderful mix of theocracy and oligarchy. Not to mention the climate. I’ve been there. It’s nice as a tourist. It’s hell on earth if you live there.
Also, IIRC, slavery is more or less legal there.
Baud
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Still better than President Trump.
Villago Delenda Est
@singfoom: If you were to relabel “Sharia Law” as “Jesus Law” it would be the toast of the Bible Belt.
Gvg
It does sound as if his dad wants to be famous and possibly doesn’t have the best judgement. However poor judgement seems to be pretty widespread.
singfoom
@Villago Delenda Est: I think the unspoken assumption that most American evangelical Christians (not all Christians) operate under is that U.S. law is based on “Jesus Law”. But you’re absolutely right, they’d love to have their Christian theocracy.
Schlemazel
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
So . . . Like the US under Trump
schrodinger's cat
Speaking of Islam, from the last thread:
More Sufi music by A. R. Rahman from Dilli 6, pin code for the iconic Old Delhi neighborhood, Chandni Chowk. It is home to both Jama Masjid and The Red Fort. Jama Masjid seen here is one of the biggest mosques in India, built by Shah Jahan who also built the Taj.
Arziyaan == Requests
Sung by Kailash Kher and Javed Ali
Citizen_X
@Villago Delenda Est:
Fixed.
Major Major Major Major
@Gvg: Yeah, his dad is definitely a very big portion of the situation here.
Schlemazel
@schrodinger’s cat:
Thanks for the link btw – I have just let youtube run and been enjoying to tunes, not a klincker so far!
Timurid
@schrodinger’s cat:
5 minute explanation:
Sharia law is a legal code based on religious sources (the Quran, hadith, commentaries on same) and compiled and adjudicated by members of the clergy. It covers family law, civil law and lesser criminal offenses (especially crimes against property). There are four major schools of Islamic law, so the content and scope of sharia law varied in different jurisdictions.
Qanun (from the same root as ‘canon’) law was state law, enforced by the ruler and his agents. It was often influenced by religious doctrine and sharia law, but it was mostly compiled (depending on locality) from earlier Arab,Turkish or Mongol laws and traditions and from Roman, Persian and Chinese legal codes… or from any combination of these. It addressed more serious criminal offenses as well as state policies and regulations, covering everything from taxation to diplomacy and war.
Whenever the two codes conflicted, qanun always took precedent over sharia… because the state and the ruler were the final authority in any legal dispute. Theocracies were exceedingly rare in Muslim history. If and when they occurred, they were almost always led by Shia or members of some related sect. The dominant Sunni Muslim denomination understood a clear separation between religious and secular authority, and almost all Sunni states respected that distinction. Sharia law was not the law of the land.
That’s how it worked in the pre-modern Muslim world (what Islamists supposedly want to return to). In most modern Muslim states the scope of sharia law is even more limited, if it has any legal authority at all…
Roger Moore
@singfoom:
That’s not reassuring to people who want to break down that prohibition so they can install their own religious law. The people bleating loudest about Sharia aren’t unhappy because it’s religious law, they’re unhappy because it’s the wrong religious law.
schrodinger's cat
@Schlemazel: I am glad you like it. Love both Sufi music and Bhakti music, mystical traditions in Hinduism and Islam respectively. There is a fair bit of overlap. Though I am not particularly religious, I find it calming.
schrodinger's cat
@Timurid: Thanks for the explanation. BTW Kanoon is law in Hindi/Urdu too.
sukabi
@Roger Moore: yep, same ones that claim the US is a christian nation, and our laws are based on biblical law.
jonas
@Timurid:
This is a really key point for people to understand: the “political Islam” of the last 50 years that has sought to make Sharia (in its Hanbali/Salafist/Wahabist form) the foundation of some utopian Islamic state is a completely modern phenomenon. They imagine that this is how things were during the Rashidun caliphate, but that’s pure ideological revisionism. When people observe that ISIS is trying to impose a “medieval” form of Islam, my response is: “if only!”
jonas
@Roger Moore: Yup. There’s actually a not-insignificant movement on the margins of Christian fundamentalism known as Dominionism that seeks to replace the US Constitution with Old Testament-style religious law — stoning adulterers, burning witches, the works.