News and Comment

Global Social Media Standing with Muslim Youth like Ahmed and His Clock Spotlighted Institutionalised Islamophobia and Racism in America

News:

Irving's police chief announced Wednesday that charges won't be filed against Ahmed Mohamed, the MacArthur High School freshman arrested Monday after he brought what school officials and police described as a "hoax bomb" on campus.

At a joint press conference with Irving ISD, Chief Larry Boyd said the device - confiscated by an English teacher despite the teen's insistence that it was a clock - was "certainly suspicious in nature."

School officers questioned Ahmed about the device and why Ahmed had brought it to school. Boyd said Ahmed was then handcuffed "for his safety and for the safety of the officers" and taken to a juvenile detention center. He was later released to his parents, Boyd said.

"The follow-up investigation revealed the device apparently was a homemade experiment, and there's no evidence to support the perception he intended to create alarm," Boyd said, describing the incident as a "naive accident." (http://www.dallasnews.com/news 15/09/2015)

Comment:

The criminalisation of Muslim youth growing up in secular liberal democracies like America became a global trending topic on social media after Ahmed brought his clock to MacArthur High School in Irving Dallas, Texas on Monday (14/9). Both teachers at the high school and police authorities from Irving police department revealed their racist and institutionalised Islamophobic attitudes by targeting a brown-skinned Sudanese Muslim student named Ahmed Mohamed and his "suspicious" looking clock. What is clearly suspicious is the way in which school staff and five police officers who detained and interrogated Ahmed (without parental approval or awareness), together with his so-called ‘hoax bomb' did not implement safety drill procedures except by handcuffing and terrifying Ahmed "for his safety and for the safety of the officers". The obvious perception that authorities wanted to maintain for Ahmed and fellow students was the Muslim terrorist narrative. This racist and Islamophobic perception however ignited Twitter and Facebook in support of Ahmed with the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed. While Ahmed's particular case has had a rare positive outcome due to global social media attention, this is definitely not the norm for most Muslim youth exposed to institutionalised Islamophobia in secular liberal nations.

The policing of Muslim youth in countries like England and Australia where teachers are trained to recognise and prevent radicalisation by literally spying on school children, checking for signs of "radicalisation" or "extremism" shows the extent that institutionalised Islamophobia has gone. The consequences for the Muslim-teacher relationship becomes irreparably damaged due to the mistrust and suspicion that is produced instead of nurturing and care that was once normal. Innocent and vulnerable Muslim children as a result become potential criminal suspects for no other reason than being a Muslim boy or girl who believes in their Islam.

This blatant act of criminalising Muslim youth, like Ahmed, with his love for engineering and science, may have been saved as a face saving and opportunistic exercise by political and business Capitalist leaders like Obama, Zuckerberg, MIT, GE, NASA, Google and Twitter but the harsh realities of institutionalised Islamophobia faced by Muslim school children continue in absence of the Khilafah "Caliphate" State.

لَتُبْلَوُنَّ فِي أَمْوَالِكُمْ وَأَنْفُسِكُمْ وَلَتَسْمَعُنَّ مِنَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ مِنْ قَبْلِكُمْ وَمِنَ الَّذِينَ أَشْرَكُوا أَذًى كَثِيرًا ۚ وَإِنْ تَصْبِرُوا وَتَتَّقُوا فَإِنَّ ذَٰلِكَ مِنْ عَزْمِ الْأُمُورِ

"Ye shall certainly be tried and tested in your possessions and in your personal selves; and ye shall certainly hear much that will grieve you from those who received the Book before you and from those who worship many gods. But if ye persevere patiently and guard against evil then that will be a determining factor in all affairs." [Surah Al-i Imran: 186]

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir

by Tsurroya Amal Yasna