Standing With Ahmed

Every few days I check the news, because I find that it is important to be up to date with whatever is going on in the world. This morning, when I was doing my usual sweep through the Internet in order to be up to date with the world, I was drawn towards two stories that may not seem connected, but to me are deeply rooted in the same plant pot.

In the last twelve hours, the hash tag ⌗IStandWithAhmed has gone viral. This hash tag is a result of a fourteen year old boy being arrested for bringing a home-made clock to school, a clock that a teacher falsely accused of being a bomb. Ahmed was arrested in school and released shortly after, when the police released that it was literally a clock he had made at home because he is a fourteen year old boy pursing mechanics. 

The second thing in the news that has captured the world's attention in the last few weeks is the refugee crisis. When there are hundreds of thousands of human beings crying out in pain, living in conditions that are so far from anything we live in, and enduring the heart-wrenching experiences of fleeing a place that you and your family have called home for hundreds of years, I really ask my self why the world is doing next to nothing. 

I question why countries are closing their borders, and turning away as families are torn apart, mothers are loosing their children and people are loosing their identities. I question why the acceptable response to these tragic events is to sigh and look apathetically at the news reports flooding in of the horrors these people are coming from, their harrowing journeys only to be met with hostility. 

You are probably wondering what the two stories have to do with each other, so I will explain the link that I have made:

The world is focusing on the wrong facts and figures. Instead of stretching out our hands and opening our hearts, we are creating a society where it is acceptable to close our eyes and focus on the wrong things. 

Ahmed Mohamed is a fourteen year old boy, an innocent fourteen year old boy, a talented fourteen year old boy. 

Now tell me what part of that makes you think of a terrorist? Because there must have been something that provoked the teacher into calling the police. 

Oh yes, I know what it is. Ahmed Mohamed was arrested today because he is a Muslim. So really what happened was, a grown adult, someone that should have known better, decided that it was their place to insight their own preconceived prejudices and get an innocent boy arrested because he was a Muslim boy, taking an interest in mechanics. 

But it gets better. It gets better because effectively the world is turning their back on these refugees based on prejudices; based on stereotypes that have one purpose in society, which is to destroy any of the basic humanity that people have. 

I am struggling to put into words how angry and disheartened I feel right now. The world is misplacing its concerns. Western superpowers should be worried about what is actually going on in these middle-eastern countries that is causing such an influx of refugees. 

We should be focusing on trying to fix the root of the problem instead of misplacing our prejudices and stereotypes onto innocent people that need our help and support more than anyone. 

The message Ahmed's school sent to him today is that they have a certain expectation that he will be a terrorist. They show him that they don't see Ahmed for a fourteen year old boy with skills that will change the world, instead they see him as a potential threat because his faith is not the same as theirs. And you know what that says to me? It says that we have not evolved at all. It shows me that white supremacy is just as prevalent now as it was one hundred years ago, and that destroys me, it really does. 

As for the refugee crisis, I really do beg people to open their arms but to also look ahead, look ahead to fix the problem that is not going to stop until a superpower puts it to bed. 

Whilst usually my posts are not this political, I feel so strongly about this, that I could not have passed an opportunity to write about it on this platform. I hope you will stand with us in standing with Ahmed and learn to open your hearts to the refugee crisis. 

-LF, LR and MG xxx

An Open Letter to the UK

Like all sixteen-year olds my age, irrespective of my race, religion or ethnicity, I worry about normal sixteen-year old things: I worry about whether I have done the right homework and what to wear to the oh-so-important party next Saturday night. i worry about if I can afford those concert tickets that I am desperate to go to, and I worry about if that look that boy gave me that one time meant anything or not.

But unlike most other sixteen-year old girls, I worry about something that is far bigger than any of those trivial things:

As a sixteen year old, Jewish girl, I worry about something far greater- I worry about the rise in anti-Semitism, but particularly, the upcoming neo-Nazi rally as well as their decision to burn some of my most sacred books, and shred my Jewish homeland's flag.

Today, I was most alarmed to be informed that not only were people whoa re hell-bent in destroying the very thing I stand for, coming right to Golders Green in an attempt to belittle and desecrate my religion, but they were not going to stop there. They are also going to burn the books that my ancestry is written on. They are going to burn my history as if that will be effective in obliterating me.

In February I was fortunate enough to visit Poland with my year group. As I walked the paths of my ancestry, who seventy years before me were not as fortunate as I, because whilst I walked those same paths' with my head held high, clutching the arms of my extended family, I knew in my heart that nothing will ever do justice to the fact that, even though I walk free, walking is something amongst so many other things that six million of my brothers and sisters will never do again.

It has now been four months since I have returned from Poland, but it saddens me to say that since my return, I have noticed some alarming details that I feel, given what I have experienced, needs to be addressed.

Not only does this neo-Nazi rally remind me of the persecution suffered at the beginning of the Nazi regime that my brothers and sisters experienced just seventy years ago, but it is the burning of the books that hold the holy presence of my religion that is causing me to write this letter.

I am not asking you to believe in what I believe, but instead I am appealing to the human in you- the human that knows that if we enable this group of neo-Nazi's to have the power and satisfaction of knowing that they can get away with degrading me and my people, then it will empower them to go further and further.

Whilst many people argue that it is only a tiny minority of people that are going to participate in this rally, I see it as something else.

I see the beginnings of an extremely familiar trend that has followed my people round since time has begun. I see the sparks of persecution, and I do not like it. I see a chance for people to add fuel to the fire that should have been extinguished at the very least seventy years ago, when one man's hatred led to the mass annihilation of six million of my people as well as five million other people from all different religions and ethnicity's.

I am appealing to the human in you because i know that most of you reading this, will shake your head at the prospect of a neo-Nazi rally, and will acknowledge the kind of danger that this puts me and my people in, but will go no further than to sympathise with the pleas of a sixteen-year old girl.

I am asking you one simple thing, I am asking you to share this message with everyone, so that we turn a generation of by-standers, into a generation of those who seek to ensure that every person in the UK is living in comfortable safety.

I appeal to you because I know that when someone is killed or something is burnt, we reach out far and wide, and we cry as a country for the life lost and the bloodshed. But when the risk seem smaller and insignificant, people are more reluctant to stand up and put an end to what could be the start of something destructive.

So as I close this letter, I ask you as a sixteen-year old girl, who shares the same likes and dislikes, who goes to school and goes out with her friends, to help me by sharing this post and that hopes to raise awareness for help to protect my people.

I chose not to belittle or to humiliate those who have different views to mine, but to acknowledge them whilst reasserting the importance of my safety as well as my family's.

I ask you to share this post, and join the petition because like all other sixteen-year old girls, I just want to have fun, and not worry that the elimination of my people and what they stand for, is ever imminent.

Thank you,

LF, LR and MG