WSJ:

KABUL—The Sept. 11 attacks that triggered the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan also uprooted 16-year-old Abdul Ghattar from his village in war-torn Helmand province, bringing him to a desolate refugee camp on the edge of Kabul.

Yet Mr. Ghattar stared blankly when asked whether he knew about al Qaeda’s strike on the U.S., launched a decade ago from Afghan soil.

“Never heard of it,” he shrugged as he lined up for water at the camp’s well, which serves thousands of fellow refugees. “I have no idea why the Americans are in my country.”

In a nearby tent that is the camp’s school, his teacher, 22-year-old Mullah Said Nabi Agha, didn’t fare much better. He said he has never seen the iconic image of the Twin Towers burning. He was vaguely aware that some kind of explosion had occurred in America.

“I was a child when it happened, and now I am an adult, and the Americans are still here,” Mr. Agha said.

WSJ claims that “92% of Afghan men between ages 15 and 30 haven’t heard of [9/11.]”

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

5 replies on “No Clue of 9/11”

  1. I’m sure that many children in 1950 Japan hadn’t heard of Pearl Harbor, and didn’t know why the Allies were occupying their country.

  3. Why would it surprise anyone that people living in the Stone Age haven’t heard of something that happened halfway around the world?

  4. More the late Iron Age, but that’s a quibble.

    When they do hear about the Twin Towers, it will probably be blamed on Israel & the Jews.

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