Problematic Pedestal-ing & Migrant Puff Pieces Gone Wrong
I keep thinking about bad idols. Being good at one thing doesn’t make someone qualified to discuss everything else. And increasingly, we glorify people for identity rather than character.
Source Chat GPT. And, yeah, stool and pedestal are different, but I wanted both.
Problematic Pedestal-ing
Kill your idol.
DMX was once interviewed while meeting his estranged son. His son asked him to stay sober, prompting DMX to say, “I guess I’ll see you at my funeral then.” DMX argued that if his son reciprocated his “unconditional love,” sobriety wouldn’t be a requirement for visits.
A year later, DMX died following a drug overdose.
Loving someone does not mean overlooking their every flaw. Healthy love recognizes when someone needs help because of their actions, not their circumstances. Codependence and parasitic relationships are unhealthy love.
The #suicidalempathy crowd is bringing receipts about how yet again a migrant was praised by a charity for the “stunning bravery” of moving from a third-world country to a first-world, only to later get exposed as, well, a violent person.
Regressives, aka people controlled by identity politics rather than morality, seem increasingly excited by anyone moving from a poor country to a rich one, while screaming “evil colonist” when someone travels in the opposite direction.
Think about that: poor person goes to rich country, brave. Rich person goes to poor country, suspicious.
This time, the Red Cross is under the microscope.
If you understandably don’t like random lists of people, I’ll give a recap from this recent example. Game of Life: The Story of Sharif was a sympathetic animated film commissioned by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies about Sharif Ahmadzai, who fled Afghanistan as a teenager and ended up in Greece. A decade later, Ahmadzai is accused of murdering 38-year-old Scottish aid worker Elisabeth-Jane Ross. Her body was found stuffed inside a suitcase.
Ahmadzai has been charged, not convicted. He admits concealing Ross’s body and using her bank cards but denies killing her. Whether he murdered her or merely played a twisted game of Weekend at Bernie’s, the Red Cross scrubbed its film.
Again: migrant boxer from the third world, brave man worthy of a documentary. Scottish aid worker, murdered while actually helping migrants, somehow doesn’t inspire a documentary.
Seriously, have any volunteers been memoralized aside from Mother Teresa???
If you take anything from this story, appreciate the people who bypass the cult-ish screaming and protests and actually do good work. The next time a social justice warrior lectures you, just ask how many hours they volunteered this year.
Sadly Needed Preface
I’ll say it again: I am a migrant. I am the byproduct of immigration to Israel and the US. I volunteer with African migrants.
F-ing obviously, I’m not anti-immigration. At all.
So having some non-volunteer white savior living in a segregated part of the world — like Colorado or Oregon — insist that I’m anti-immigration because I don’t obey their social-media trends is maddening. They chant “ICE evil” and call it a day. I work with immigrants helping them get residence and get called a prick by these posers.
The truth is every identity has bad actors. People who actually volunteer with migrants know this of them, like people who actually volunteer with the homeless or prisoners or any other group suffering from their conditions.
The migrants I volunteered with are some of the sweetest people I’ve ever known. That doesn’t mean I’ll vouch for a stranger. This is solely about idolizing people we know virtually nothing about, like a man who abandons his extremely pregnant wife to lead a protest, or a man who is praised as a feminist publicly but abuses women behind the scenes.
Without getting too #policharged, I’ll insist states have an obligation to vet strangers using data, background checks and whatever reasonable tools are available.
If watching Buffy taught me anything (it did), you do not invite strangers into your house. Not until you’re sure they’re safe.
Today’s post remembers puff pieces that went horribly wrong: cases where an outlet celebrated one specific migrant with too much naïveté and not enough curiosity about the person being placed on the pedestal.
Obviously, ten horrible individuals tell you approximately nothing about millions of migrants.
Note: This was surprisingly annoying to research because merely searching for these stories seems to set off every moderation alarm. ChatGPT practically flags itself lest it accidentally learn something that makes it a little more like Grok.
Note 2: There’s a Reddit post collecting several of these incidents. Go ahead and look. Half the thread is already a graveyard of “Comment removed” notices. By the time you read this, there’ll probably be more.
Migrant Puff Pieces That Aged Horribly
1. The Red Cross’s Game of Life
Sharif Ahmadzai’s journey from Afghanistan to Greece became an animated humanitarian film commissioned by the Red Cross and Red Crescent federation.
Today, he is accused of murdering Scottish aid worker Elisabeth-Jane Ross, whose body was found concealed inside a suitcase in Athens.
Ahmadzai admits disposing of her body and using her bank cards but says he found her already dead. He denies murder.
The Red Cross quietly deleted its film.
2. The Syrian Refugee From the BBC Documentary
In 2015 and 2016, BBC Newsnight followed the Badreddin family, Syrian refugees rebuilding their lives in Newcastle.
One son, Omar, even appeared after being accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. He denied it and was acquitted.
Then came the sequel.
Omar and his brother Mohamed were later convicted of repeatedly raping a 13-year-old girl. Omar raped her on at least seven occasions and threatened to kill her or take her abroad if she resisted.
In 2024, both received lengthy prison sentences.
So the sympathetic BBC refugee documentary eventually acquired an epilogue involving the serial rape of a child.
But, hey, it’s BBC. What do you expect from state sponsored channels aside from Jew obsession?
3. “MIGRANTS ARE NOT CRIMINALS”
Anicet Mayela came to Britain from the Republic of Congo and unsuccessfully claimed asylum.
Britain tried to deport him several times. During his immigration battles, Mayela was photographed campaigning with a placard declaring:
MIGRANTS ARE NOT CRIMINALS
Which is true!
Migrants are not criminals.
Unfortunately, this particular migrant was.
Mayela later pleaded guilty to raping a 15-year-old girl and was sentenced to nearly 11 years. While already imprisoned, he admitted another rape and sexual offences involving a child.
4. The Afghan Refugee Cricket Story
There is a recent British case involving two 17-year-old Afghan asylum seekers convicted of abducting and raping a 15-year-old girl. Since I’m trying to mock bad journalism, not practice it, I’ll leave it at that. You can try to find more on this story.
5. The Integration Documentary Star Who Joined ISIS
Osama Krayem was born in Sweden to Syrian immigrant parents. As a child, he appeared in Without Borders: A Film About Sport and Integration, presenting young football players as examples of successful immigrant integration.
Then Krayem grew up and joined ISIS.
He traveled to Syria and was later implicated in the 2016 Brussels terrorist attacks.
A boy literally selected for a documentary about successful integration eventually became an ISIS terrorist. Or as Thurnberg puts it with a big smile, “Yallah intifada!”
6. Switzerland’s “Example of Successful Integration”
Eritrean refugee Habte Araya arrived in Switzerland in 2006 and received asylum two years later. He had a wife, three children, steady work and was held up as an example of successful integration.
Then, in 2019, he went to Frankfurt and pushed a mother and her eight-year-old son in front of a high-speed train.
The mother escaped. Her son didn’t.
Araya also tried to push a 78-year-old woman onto the tracks.
Importantly, he had developed serious psychiatric problems before the attack, so this isn’t really a cultural-incompatibility story. It’s just another reason not to put strangers on pedestals because, well, they might go crazy!
7. Germany’s “Boxing Baker”
Moise Lohombo came to Germany from the Democratic Republic of Congo as a child. A German trade publication profiled him as an inspirational turnaround story: troubled youth becomes apprentice baker and boxer. Later coverage called him the boxender Bäcker, the boxing baker, and presented him as an integration success.
Unfortunately, his criminal history didn’t end with the inspirational article.
In 2024, a German court sentenced Lohombo to nine years after convicting him of brutally beating and raping his own mother. I had more details written on this incident in an earlier draft, but it’s really depressing. I mean, really depressing. Like, it reminds me of how when the war started I said, ‘Eli Roth was forced to support Israel because the shit Palestinians filmed themselves doing on October 7 is worse than anything he could fabricate for Hostel 4.’
8. Minneapolis’s Celebrated Somali Police Officer
When Somali-born Mohamed Noor joined the Minneapolis Police Department, his hiring was treated as a milestone. The mayor welcomed him. The Somali community held a meet-and-greet. A city newsletter celebrated him. Community leaders called his hiring a way to build trust.
He was a role model. For being Somalian and an officer. When have police officers done anything wrong?
Then Australian immigrant Justine Damond called 911 because she thought she heard a woman being sexually assaulted. Noor responded. When Damond approached the police vehicle, Noor fired across his partner and shot her. She was unarmed.
Noor was convicted of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The murder conviction was later overturned, while the manslaughter conviction remained.
So one immigrant killed another, but the one who came from Africa was immediately loved, while the other, who came from Australia, was likely categorized as a white colonist stealing Native American land. Only some people get to do that!
Today, searching Mohamed Noor brings up a Minnesota legislator, a Saudi footballer and even variations on Ilhan Omar’s father’s name. If Reddit and Wiki can’t just delete the story, there’s always SEO.
To avoid labels of Islamophobia, I’ll add two stories that don’t involve Islam. Again, these are the stories that came up because of puff pieces, and your local MS-13 Member doesn’t get a puff piece.
9. Britain’s Romanian Migration “Poster Boy”
When Britain lifted employment restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians in 2014, journalists waited at Luton Airport to document the arrivals. And, so, Victor Spirescu became an instant celebrity. For moving.
Labour MP Keith Vaz personally greeted him, and Spirescu became Britain’s “poster boy” for Romanian migration.
Four years later, the BBC published:
“‘Poster boy’ for Romanian migration died in car crash.”
An inquest heard that Spirescu had taken cocaine, had been drinking, was disqualified from driving, wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and was travelling around 100 to 110 mph when he crashed.
Again, millions drink and drive. I am not judging wreckless and suicidal behavior like rape or murder. But, maybe, just maybe, selecting random people at airports and appointing them representatives of entire nationalities was a terrible idea. And journalists should do some more damned research before their puff pieces.
10. The Refugee Success Story Who Actually Deserved the Praise, But Still Tragic
Agitu Ideo Gudeta was an Ethiopian refugee who fled to Italy and built a successful goat farm and cheese business in Trentino. Reuters called her a “symbol of integration.” UNHCR held her up as an example of how refugees contribute to their host societies.
She deserved it. She worked hard. She revived abandoned land. She employed other migrants!
Then one of the migrants she employed, Ghanaian worker Adams Suleiman, killed her with a hammer.
One migrant deserved praise. The other deserved prison. Because identities are not actions or personality types.
Lowering the Bar Until the Pedestal Is Meaningless
Some of the best musicians, like Jimi Hendrix, were famously modest. Others weren’t.
Who am I to say whether a great artist deserves a great ego?
I can only speak to how we regard other people.
And I think we need to raise the bar for what counts as an achievement. Men exploring their feelings isn’t that praise-worthy, no matter how many podcasts tell me it is.
Norm Macdonald once joked about Pride signs: “That’s an odd thing to be proud of. It’s not an achievement.”
There’s a difference between being proud of something you accomplished and putting someone on a pedestal simply because they belong to a category.
And whatever you’re proud of doesn’t immunize you from criticism.
Migrating a great distance absolutely can be something to be proud of. I am inspired by African migrants who told me about walking thousands of miles, hiding in graves and surviving horrors I can’t imagine.
That resilience inspires me. The way they smile, despite their trauma, inspires me. Wanting education inspires me.
The fact they’re an immigrant does not.
Did they migrate for opportunity? Values? Safety? To avoid repercussions?
An Israeli comedian jokes about olim: “You’re not a real oleh if you came from South America. You have to move from a richer country like the US.”
He’s right. Simply moving somewhere isn’t evidence of virtue.
Good deeds and good intention are evidence of virtue.
I’d rather praise the volunteer than the person they’re helping. I praise countries that welcome persecuted people (cough cough Israel), not countries that persecute people until they have to flee (cough cough Egypt).
On a personal level, don’t count the number of Syrian refugees who became doctors and subtract the ones who became murderers to determine an individual refugee’s moral worth. Leave that to the state. The governments absolutely does need the boring statistical version of that calculation. Crime, integration, employment, education and social attitudes are legitimate public-policy questions.
Horrifying anecdotes aren’t population-level data.
They also aren’t irrelevant.
Stories matter.
Sharif Ahmadzai represents Afghan refugees about as much as Jeffrey Dahmer represents Americans.
Omar Badreddin represents refugees about as much as I represent short people.
You get it.
Vetting matters. Acknowledging that some newcomers have criminal backgrounds, extremist beliefs or attitudes toward women and minorities incompatible with liberal societies does not mean everyone from those places thinks that way.
Quite the opposite.
Also, being photogenic doesn’t make you a good person. When the BBC goes looking for someone attractive and sympathetic enough to sell “refugee chic” or “look at this poor prisoner” it isn’t necessarily showing reality.
It’s just casting a protagonist.
Vetting is how you distinguish between them.
The lesson of a migrant murderer isn’t that we need less empathy for migrants. It’s that empathy for one person cannot require indifference toward everyone else.
Women fleeing misogynistic regimes deserve empathy. So do gay people, religious minorities and secular people escaping extremists. So do the people already living in the country receiving them.
If a migration route produces disproportionate security or integration problems, governments should be allowed to examine that data without pretending that doing so means hatred of everyone who comes from there.
Empathy isn’t the problem. The pedestal is.
Before making someone the poster boy for your political cause, remember that you’re writing about a human being.
You have absolutely no idea what he’s going to do next.
Kill your idol.
Thoughts?
Interested in more? I covered a similar phenomenon in the drug-normalization world, where San Francisco turned some of its worst addicts into posters for “drugs are OK!” only for those stories to end very differently. Read that here.
