Ken Berwitz
My previous blog referenced Orwell\’s “mutability of the past” – i.e. that history can be twisted, pulled, changed and rearranged, if people either don\’t remember what actually happened or didn\’t know in the first place.
I called the new movie “Truth”, about Dan Rather and Mary Mapes\’s use of fake documents to attack President Bush just before the 2004 election, “as perfect an example of it as you will ever see”.
Well, here\’s another one – much more recent – that the same could be said of.
The arrest of Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old Texasstudent, in mid-September for bringing a homemade clock to his high school created a nationwide debateabout racism and Islamophobia in the United States. Despite facing a wave ofugly criticism, Ahmed won support from high places – President Obamatweeted his support, and the teenager isexpected to be a guest at the White House this weekend.
Is that your remembrance of ahmed mohamed and what he brought to school?
If so, you are ripe for mutability.
ahmed mohamed did NOT bring a homemade clock into school. He brought a 30 year old Radio Shack Micronta clock that he took the cover off – nothing homemade about it at all – and put it in a case that looked for all the world like a homemade bomb. He got exactly the reaction he (and, I am 99.9% certain his publicity-hound father) wanted – the school, justifiably scared of what it might have been, called the police and detained him….releasing him after determining that it wasn\’t a bomb, it was just made up to look like one.
For this sick, pathetic hoax, ahmed mohamed, and his father, have received every conceivable reward. All it took, and continues to take – is ignoring what he did and pretending he is some brilliant inventor who put together a clock from scratch and was only hassled because he is a Muslim.
And if that didn\’t sicken you enough, the article goes on to show mohamed in Khartoum, Sudan, allsmiles as the guest of Sudanese President omar hassan al-bashir, their arms aroundeach other. In case you are unaware, al-bashir is an international war criminal who stands accused of orchestrating the Darfur genocide, which killed hundreds of thousands of people…and who also may have embezzled as much as $9 billion dollars of state funds.
But there they are, arms around each other. BFFs to the end:
Does any of this register with Post writer Adam Taylor, or with President Obama, whose invitation for ahmed mohamed to be his guest at the White House this weekend is still open?. To them, all you are looking at is a sweet, innocent 14 year old whiz kid who built his own clock, and – poor baby – has been subjected to “a wave of ugly criticism”.
I think I\’ll end this blog now. I need a shower.
