When it comes to changing thoughts and changing what we believe in we can say that this is something challenging especially when it is about things that happened to us in a young age so imagine your dad died in war by some people who just hate the nature of who you are.
This is the story of Ahmad,a Palestinian who lived and got raised in an American Muslim community in Indiana, when Ahmad was about 9 years old he used to go play soccer with his dad on Saturdays and one time he saw another kid pushing another kid to the ground just to make fun of that poor kid and the poor kid starts crying and right away Ahmad asks his dad ‘ why is he doing that dad?’ the dad responds ‘it is what it is but it depends on you how you can change it or how you can just accept it’ Ahmad thinks of what his dad said and runs to that kid who falls on the ground and helps him up and does his best to make him smile.
Ahmad comes back to his dad smiling and says ‘it could never be the same’ the dad responds ‘what can never be the same, Ahmad?’ then Ahmad responses ‘accepting what's happening or trying to change it’ the dad that day kept thinking of what his son Ahmad said and what this could mean for him and if that can affect Ahmad in a convenient way so about two years later Ahmad saw another incident of two kids fighting each other while he was in the soccer field so Ahmad decides to separate them from each other and tries to talk to both of them and that is what he did ‘do not fight each other please’ Ahmad said, then one of the kids complained about the other kid just because he took his soccer ball so Ahmad right away solves this by giving his own ball to one of the kids for free just to fix that small conflex so he took what his father told him two years ago in a way that made Ahmad a better person.
A week later Ahmad told his dad what happened between the two kids and what he did and how he fixed the problem, the father get shocked in a way that he is happy and proud of what his son Ahmad did, then the father asks Ahmad ‘did you feel bad that you gave that kid your ball?’ Ahmad responds ‘no’ the father smiles and says ‘why not? Didn’t you lose your ball for someone you don’t even know? and just to make them stop fighting!’, ‘it is called making someone happy father’ Ahmad said , then the dad just smiles in silence.
7 months later Ahmad and his family moves to new york to a nice and quiet neighborhood near the city where Ahmad liked the place at the beginning till that one day when Ahmad and his mom were in the park when a white guy kept staring at them from a close distance and it kept happening every time he goes to that park with his mom from that same exact person, one day Ahmad the 11 years old kid went to that guy and said ‘is there something wrong sir? every time we come here to the park you keep looking at us!’ then suddenly the white guy screams at Ahmad and says ‘you damn immigrants! If it was my call , I would kick you all’ Ahmad runs back to his mom shocked and scared of what the man said and tells his mom about it and she just decides to never go back to that park ever again and see that racist guy again, but for Ahmad he kept thinking and asking himself ‘why does he hate us? what did we do to him? ’Ahmad says in his mind, and by time he just realized that it is just the nature of the present he was living in.
So one day Ahmad's father asks Ahmad ‘what would you do if you had to do something you wanted so bad, what would that be?’ ‘it would be to watch a movie for the first time in my life’ Ahmad said,his father decided to surprise his son Ahmad on his birthday on which by then(1999) it was a big deal to watch a movie in the cinema so Ahmad's father said to Ahmad ‘do you know where are we going, son?’ ahmad replies ‘aren’t we going to eat somewhere?’,’not today son, we are going somewhere I know you would love, Ahmad we are gonna watch a movie’’ the father said.
Ahmad thought that was the best day of his life but what went on that night made it the worst day of Ahmad's life, Ahmad and his father walked out of the cinema and from nowhere a guy stops them and pulls his gun and tells Ahmad's father to give him all their money ‘wait! You don’t need to do this’ Ahmad's father said, then the guy hits his father on the face to knock him out, Ahmad's starts to scream ‘please don’t hurt my dad!’ then Ahmad's father tries to take the guys gun but fails and the ends up shooting Ahmad's father and the guy runs away, Ahmad starts crying and screaming hard ‘dad! Please wake up! Dad, please don’t leave me alone’ people starts gathering around and called the police, Ahmad's dad was shot that night in front of his eyes by someone who just cared about stealing money from Ahmad's father, this all happened by chance from a regular white guy who just cared about money not killing but since that day Ahmad hated white people thinking that his dad was killed because his family are immigrants and they have been treated in a bad way just because of who they are.
In 2001 Ahmad was walking to the park with his mom and suddenly from nowhere he saw an airplane hits the world trade center tower he called his mom and said ‘mom an airplane just crashed that big tall building’, the mom couldn’t believe her eyes of what she just saw; big black clouds and fire coming out of that building.
The moms yells Ahmad's name and holds his hand and they go home, Ahmad and his mom opened the tv and looked at the news and saw what she saw out there and then she hears the shocking news that the attack was by Muslims who hijacked two airplanes and crashed them, Ahmad right away asks his mom ‘mom why would they do that?’ the mother couldn’t answer her son Ahmad and said these are not Muslims and they do not represent Islam.
Ahmad got shocked of what happened and then he realized that a single act of someone doesn’t represent the rest and Ahmad then changed his mind of the way he thought that all white people are racist and all people are the same in a way of hating the other group but turned out for Ahmad that in this world and in each community there is some good people and some bad people and you should never decide to hate someone from the looks or without getting to know them unless they harm you then that would be a purpose.