They were cracking wise on the radio.
How did the boy who stowed away to Hawaii in a plane’s wheel well survive? He was an X-Men, with the most boring super power ever. “I’ll get you when we land in Toledo, Magneto!” The airline got ideas from the incident: new ultra-economy seating, with fees for oxygen and heat.
I was tempted to join the merriment, but the chuckle trailed off. Because it is a tragic story, and the broadcasters would have already known that.
I don’t know how much other nations would laugh at the misfortune of others, but we do it too much. There needs to be a clear line drawn. No laughing when a story has real suffering in it, and no laughing at children’s grief, loneliness, or injuries.
Empathy Lost
I have to ask—is it whistling past the graveyard? Using humor to deflect danger or fear? Or are we so sheltered here, in this beautiful country that has not been visited by war for 150 years, that we have forgotten just how heartbreaking the world is? Do we lose empathy if things seem far enough away?
His father told him his mother died. He had not seen her since 2006. When he learned his father lied to him, that she was alive in Africa, the 15-year-old was furious and ran away.
He wanted to see her. That is why he got on the plane.
From the beginning, we knew he was a young boy, and he may have been hurt during the flight. He may or may not have brain damage from five hours of oxygen deprivation. It is possible that the cold protected him from that. Yet reporters smile and joke and express amazement. That’s not OK. This is a human being who reached a desperate moment. What if he was your own child?
Holds Barred
Sometimes a comic is praised for a no-holds-barred attitude. But that is wrong. Certain holds are barred for a reason.
There is terrible sorrow in this story. His mother broke down and wept uncontrollably while she was being interviewed by the BBC. For a few minutes she could not say anything.
Speaking with VOA from a refugee camp in eastern Ethiopia, Ubah Mohamed Abdullahi said she felt bad that her son risked his life for her, and that her dream is to live with her children in the United States.
”I cried, felt badly and many people in the refugee camp came to me to give me support,” she said.
FBI agents said surveillance video shows the 15-year-old jumping out of the wheel well of a Hawaiian Airlines jet on a Maui tarmac Sunday after surviving a cross-Pacific flight from San Jose, Calif. He told authorities he had argued with his father before leaving his house.
The five-and-a-half hourlong flight over the Pacific would have exposed him to sub-zero temperatures and very low pressure, likely knocking him out for the duration. He has been hospitalized ever since.
The boy’s parents are divorced, and he lives with his father, Abdilahi Yusuf Abdi, a cab driver in Santa Clara, Calif.
Abdullahi said her ex-husband took their three children to California without her knowledge, and that she hadn’t heard from them since 2006.
“I know he was looking for me, and I am requesting the U.S. government to help me reunite with my kids,” she told VOA.
New Project for Kerry
Secretary of State John Kerry, this would be an excellent project to undertake. Since the Middle East peace effort seems to be on pause, maybe you have a little more time to reunite a mother and her children.
People joked about the South Korean ferry sinking. They joked about the lost Malaysian plane. They joked about drone strikes. No, no, no.
Humor is one of the spices of life. But when it is applied where it does not belong, it is a poison.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
