“I am proud to be from the Middle East, Nen. Our region has always been misunderstood. Ask a Westerner, ‘Do you happen to know where Syria, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey are on a map?’ They’d draw a total blank. In their eyes we’re all from somewhere in the back of beyond. They don’t even know that Mesopotamia was a fount of civilization. We invented cities, maths, writing, astronomy, even the bloody wheel! And the clock, too. How would they measure time without us? They have no idea how much they owe us.”
