A mystery or a puzzle

Puzzles can be solved; they have answers. But a mystery offers no such comfort. A mystery cannot be answered; it can only be framed, by identifying the critical factors and applying some sense of how they have interacted in the past and might interact in the future. To solve puzzles, you need the right data and information, to solve mysteries you need to ask the right questions.

In recent weeks a blogger in Syria, who has been writing for at least six months, wrote about her father's encounter with the secret police and how his heroism prevailed. I wrote about it in my blog"My father- the hero". Last week her cousin wrote of how she had been kidnapped by persons unknown and how they were desperately searching for her.

But yesterday a friend sent me an article from an English newspaper questioning whether this blogger even existed and whether all that she had written was true or a figment of someones imagination. Others quoted in the article even doubted that Amina was a real person!

Interesting, I thought, here was a puzzle and a mystery wrapped in one. So I looked at the first blog of this young lady, which turned out to be the first two chapters of her life story. Here is how it begins..."“I am Amina Abdallah Arraf, Syrian-American Muslim Princess, born Staunton, Virginia, October 1975. Father: Abdallah Ismail Arraf, Syrian Arab. Mother: Caroline McClure Arraf, American Christian by birth. Second of four children. Lived in Damascus, Syria (1976-1982), Riverport, Virginia (1982-1991), Lilburn, Georgia (1991-1999), Chicago, Illinois (1999-2002), Atlanta, Georgia (2002- present). Married in Damascus, 1999. BA, MA from Georgia State University." The next two chapters trace her mothers and fathers histories in some detail. Are not all these facts checkable?

And today another person emerges claiming to be the real author of all the 144 blogs - a Tom McMaster writing from Istanbul Turkey!

What is the truth and what is fiction? Is it a puzzle or a mystery? Is it a plant by the Syrian secret service or is Tom McMaster a real person. Perhaps some real journalists will emerge to clarify the truth.