“This is a country that is heterogenous culturally – not just ethnically or religiously, as people would now blame it to be. It’s actually a country that has somehow invented the notion of multiculturalism, and lived with it for a very long time.”
If the current state of the Middle East isn’t enough to shake your faith in humanity, consider its status as our longest continuous experiment in civilization. In the Fertile Crescent, humans have been living together in large groups since before we were even technically capable of recording our history. That the result of this is a desert punctuated by cities that are regularly burning is not the highest recommendation for the whole human project.
The saving grace here is that such a view is rather limited, even if it is the one with which we’re typically presented through our media and entertainment. The Aga Khan Museum is hoping to bring a much wider – and, it should be said, more hopeful – perspective to the fore with its new exhibit, plainly and pointedly titled Syria.
Source: David Berry for National Post, October 14, 2016
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