In Theory: Who’s to blame for Ahmed Mohamed’s arrest?
This past month’s big viral moment was undoubtedly the story of Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old boy in Texas who brought a clock he built to his high school, which led to him being questioned by police — who viewed the clock as a possible bomb — and arrested.
The backlash against the school and police department has been swift, with many saying the Muslim teenager was treated the way he was because of his religion and ethnicity.
Ahmed was released and the charges against him have been dropped, but not before a social media campaign made its way across the world, denouncing the teen’s treatment as racist and an overreaction.
The incident has sparked discussion about the rationale behind school and police officials’ actions.
On Thursday, one of the largest Muslim groups in Texas weighed in to say they don’t blame the school or police officers, but rather the “climate of fear” they say the nation’s political leaders have created with anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Q: Who or what carries the blame for Ahmed’s treatment and arrest?
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I’m not ready to publicly condemn or cast blame on anyone, but some things seem obvious in this case.
A particular, identifiable cultural group has made itself the enemy of American culture, namely extremist Muslims who are largely Arabic in ethnicity. This group has attacked our country and others in such violent, hurtful and abominable ways that their identity has been burned into our minds as those to be guarded against with extreme vigilance.
Unfortunately, there are countless innocent people who bear the similarities of general religious affiliation, if in name only, and ethnicity and language with them who fit the “profile” in our minds, and so our first response in any questionable situation is fear.
Sadly, grievous overreaction, as in the case of Ahmed Mohamed, is often the result. The way this young man was treated is absolutely unjustifiable, even if we do understand the fear that was its source.
If I absolutely had to place blame it would be on mankind’s sinfulness, inherent in everyone born since Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden. Sin in man’s heart is the source of errant beliefs about God, hurtful treatment of others and prideful estimation of ourselves. Paul bemoaned this condition in himself, but he also realized the ultimate answer to this grievous problem “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:234-25).
Pastor Jon Barta
Burbank
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Since I think that assigning blame or fault only adds to the cycle of overreactive ill will, I’ll respond as if the question were: “What went wrong here?”
No one has said which teacher Ahmed showed the clock to, but I assume it was a science teacher of some sort. Which means that one thing that went wrong was that a science teacher didn’t know that a bomb requires explosive material, which the clock clearly was not attached to. Or put another way, it was a problem that a 14-year-old student was smarter than the teacher.
Presumably the police officers who came to the school also couldn’t tell the difference between a bomb and a clock; another egregious lack in training (and ditto the problem of the 14-year-old being smarter).
I assume further that, had the teacher and school been responding according to a standard plan of action regarding suspicious electronic devices, that information would have been given to the media by now. So there’s something else that went wrong: no standard operating procedure for these situations. Such a plan would immediately lift suspicion of racism: “This is just what we do, for anyone, in these situations.”
And yes, of course it’s tempting to blame the racist climate of our times, and it wouldn’t be wrong to do so.
But what went wrong here goes much deeper than that. Racism thrives when people are overly fearful about their own well-being, and conversely when they’re overly trusting, accepting without question the poison spewed from the mouths of, well, basically anyone on TV. And we all have choices; we choose to be overly fearful and unquestioning. There’s no one to blame for that but ourselves.
It seems too often that too many in this country are too comfortably settled into being the lowest common denominator of intelligence, fairness, compassion and generosity of spirit. And those who don’t fall into that category are guilty of giving a far-too-accepting shrug as we watch our noble country getting meaner and more stupid by the day.
Ask not for whom Ahmed’s clock tolls; it tolls for thee.
The Rev. Amy Pringle
St. George’s Episcopal Church
La Cañada Flintridge
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Just as many will never darken the door of a church because of the “Christians” they have experienced, we normally jump to characterizing people based on the intense experiences we have had with a specific type of person. People conclude all types of generalization, “Well, all women are …, all children are …, all people of a certain ethnicity or religion are …”
If one meets two Christians or two Muslims on the street, unless you spend time with them to find out what type of person they are, one cannot always conclude who is trustworthy as a person just by first glance or their initial conversation. So, if there has been an established threat by any group, you jump to a conclusion based on one’s need for safety or self-preservation!
I think Christians or Muslims should understand this and exercise tolerance and understanding. One could still affirm the loving characteristics of the religious group one represents, but it is unfair to become upset because someone, especially a government official, responds with any prejudgment under the circumstance of ongoing global, national and local threats being executed by someone in a group similar to the one you are a part.
Who or what should carry the blame for Ahmed’s treatment and arrest? The radical terrorists.
The public school and the police maybe could have exercised a greater level of examination before taking absolute action, but we shouldn’t slight them under the circumstance. On the other hand, I understand if a group is being mistreated because of the destructive actions of those who claim to be related, the frustration and disappointment because of conclusions being drawn. But that is life and we need to deal with it patiently, lovingly and with a sense of stability. Sometimes we respond based on our emotions rather than our logic, but this is a part of being human!
The Bible encourages us to be patient and kind to not only our friends but also our enemies. Even if they are only enemies by perception! And take time to get to know an individual and be a help to them.
Terry Neven
Pastor
Montrose Community Church
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First of all, let me offer a big salute to the big Muslim group in Texas that is not blaming the school or the police. The group mentioned a climate of fear, and I think many Americans do fear what some fanatics of the Muslim faith have done. Alas, some of our politicians have contributed to the climate of fear, but that climate is not all their fault.
I was born a few months after Pearl Harbor happened, so I don’t have any firsthand memories of how we Americans behaved, but I know now that we were afraid, and when human beings are afraid, they do strange things. Look how we interned so many of our fellow Americans simply because they had Japanese last names. It was shameful, if you think about it — but “they” looked like the enemy, and so “they” could be the enemy. Not only did we intern them, but some of them lost their homes and land and never got it back. There was an attempt at restoration in the 1980s — I think — but many Japanese Americans who suffered during the war had already died. We tried, but they had died.
Anyway, there was a climate of fear then and there’s a climate of fear now. Let each of us remember that there are many Muslims in this country who were born here, and they are just as patriotic as you and I. So let each of us do everything we can to resist being xenophobic, and let us not rush to judgment the way the folks in Texas did. This is America, for Heaven’s sake, where we believe in liberty and justice for all. The word “all” means even those who don’t believe the way we do and those who don’t look like us, either. Remember the Pledge of Allegiance: “With liberty and justice for all.”
The Rev. Skip Lindeman
La Cañada Congregational Church
La Cañada Flintridge
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There is more than enough blame to go around for all here:
The parents for being unaware of the “suspicious nature” of the clock or not being aware of what he was making; the teacher who saw the clock and said, “Don’t show it to any other teacher”; the principal for demanding a written statement; the police who examined the clock, determined it was a not a bomb but then took the boy into custody for having a “fake” bomb, publicly taking him out in handcuffs. And Ahmed for being insensitive to what ill Middle Easterners and Muslims are going through today in America.
The teacher should know better than to tempt a teenager with the words’ “better not,” the police should know not to treat a “ticking” non-explosive device’s designer as a regular criminal, when his crime is being a teenager. The principal should know how to deal better with ninth-grade pubescent males and their hormonal arrogance, and Ahmed should know better than to be arrogant toward the authorities and realize that school is much different from the real world.
The city of Irvine is also to blame for its past anti- Islamic rhetoric doubly because it leads to abuses against all here in America. Now, and perhaps, in the future, when the police see a “suspicious clock,” they may be reluctant to act when it is real. That mistake will be explosive to us all.
Rabbi Mark Sobel
Temple Beth Emet
Burbank
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The Muslim group is correct in citing an “atmosphere of fear” as an underlying factor, but those who took unjustified actions out of fear and ignorance in this case shouldn’t be let off the hook.
Who were responsible if not the educators who overreacted and called the cops, and the police who then arrested Ahmed for no cause whatsoever? Do school officials have no common sense in Texas? Has Texas no bomb squads, trained dogs or modern technology at all? Of course they do, and they have no excuse for just winging it so haplessly.
President Obama came off as the good guy here, and I believe that he is genuinely supportive of young Ahmed. However consider also antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan’s Facebook post: “Does Obama saying nice [he actually said cool] clock make up for Obama killing this kid?” Pictured along with Ahmed was Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the late 16-year-old Muslim and U.S. citizen killed while eating dinner during a U.S. drone attack in Yemen in 2011.
“Obama killing this kid” may seem over the top, but does saying that the youth was killed accidentally in “a mistake, a bad mistake” as Obama said at the time, in a program our President authorizes and in which he personally OK’s the strikes sound much better? To me not really.
Have we no judgment, no ability to tell actual threats from innocence? Are we just winging it?
Meanwhile, recent estimates by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement say that at least 30,000 foreign recruits have gone to Syria or to Iraq to join ISIS/ISIL or other radical Islamists groups since 2011, from 100 countries, including more than 250 Americans. The Pentagon says that “coalition,” in truth U.S., forces have killed 10,000 Islamic State fighters in all since 2011.
The math is clear. We surely are not winning hearts and minds among Muslims, in the Middle East or worldwide, including in our own country. Fear is not working and rationality must be put back in charge.
Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose