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#istandwithAhmed
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Posted by Momina Iqbal - Filed in Society - 814 views
#IStandwithAhmed
When we define media activism, we can say that is it a broad category of activism that uses media as a tool to communicate for social or political movements that affect not just a country but worldwide.
We will be discussing such media activism #IStandwithAhmad. A fourteen year old boy who lives in Irving with his Muslim family who emigrated from Sudan. Ahmed Mohamed builds a clock for his electronic project and was very proud of it and took it to show his teacher who said he was very impressed. But another teacher saw it and raised suspicion and got the police involved. Ahmed was arrested for making a supposedly a hoax bomb. When the locals, police, teachers and mayor support, this spread on the social media rapidly #IStandwithAhmed.
This hash tag #IStandwithAhmed joined people around the world showing support for Ahmed and his passion and interests. It also disgusted people as to a small fortune could be treated in such a way when all he wanted to was build a clock, in a country who takes about equal rights for its citizens and freedom to speak. All Ahmed wanted to do was build a clock which landed him in prison.
The got the attention for some big personalities, the president of the United states of America, President Obama saying:-
“Cool clock, Ahmed. Why don’t you bring it to the white house…”
Mark Zuckerberg tweeting:-
“…Ahmed, if you ever want to come by Facebook, I'd love to meet you. Keep building…”
The charges were eventually dropped but no statement came forward that it will not happen again or they will be more careful in the future.
As the campaign brought many people together and many high officials supported Ahmed, to pursue his interest and passion. As the world stood with him showing him support and telling him he had done nothing wrong and was treated wrongly. It brought a huge impact on the society as to how the Muslims in US were being treated and false claims were made.
The other side also showed that as the people stood by him but the people closest to him were only with him on social media. The same mayor who said that the police were only following protocol, pushed to pass the bill that she claimed would protect the “foreign” law from being used in court rulings, in an attempt to "solve" the problem of an Islamic mediation panel.
Such incidents happen all the time all around the world with Muslims and in Muslims country that happens with the minority communities. This movement of #istandwithAhmed might have brought millions of people together on social media but was that was any use to Ahmed or did it further complicate things for them. We will never know because this is what we do in the modern society give hype or a certain element that benefits our needs and forget it as soon as that 24 hour period ends. We forget how we might have ruined their lives, we forget how cruel the world can be and especially for those who come from such religious belief that is targeted around the world.
Ahmed was no exception to that case, every pond has a bad fish and sometimes due to that the pond gets blamed for what was not their fault. Something similar is happening with the Muslim communities around the world, disrespected, disgraced, humiliated and so on. How badly have the Muslims not been treated in the recent years? And same happened with a young boy, not even of age yet. All he desired was to pursue his passion, his interest. Was it so wrong of him to do so but was humiliated by the teachers and police because he was Muslim. What does ones religion has to do with their interests? Just because of one’s fault we bash the whole community?
What has this world come to? If we murder or arrests or do anything in the name of GOD, does not every religion teach to be humble and kind to one another? No religion teaches to harm or be cruel to animals, so how are we cruel to each other? Have we all stopped learning what our religions actually say and just learn what is beneficial to us? Have we all fallen that low? That we don’t care about a young child even or how actions might affect his mental health and how our actions against him will affect his future life?
As a media person it is said that our emotions should not be reflected in our work because we don’t work for ourselves, we work for the people and to inform them their rights. But the question I can’t help but ask the people is that, has the power of gain blinded you so much that life of a child seems meaning less. Dose not the loss of life shake you to the core? How heartless or how inhuman do you have to be? What horrors must have you seen be such a blinded person with eyes.
We Muslims have not helped the cause any better. Yes we are all in a bad position but does that justify our actions that we do not take when our Muslim brother/sister is in trouble. Our people are dying day after day in the name of religion and rest of us just sit and watch. Have we no self-respect or dignity left inside of us? Even our beloved Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) taught us that we are human beings before Muslims. Allah forgave a non-Muslim just because he feed a dying dog.
The story of Ahmed was just one; there are so many other untold stories this was just got the hype. It might have brought us all together but this taught us a very important lesson. The people that you think love you don’t actually love and care about you; they too are in your life just for their own personal gain. Same thing happened with Ahmed people that stood by him were only there for their own personal agendas and games they didn’t care what actually happen to him or that they wouldn’t let such an incident happen again.
We as Muslims or of any other religion need to take care as to how the world see us we need to protect each other because this world is dark and evil place that is just waiting to destroy everyone in the agreed of power.