Part of the problem in African countries is due to European leaders in the 1880s carving up African territories with straight lines, ignoring ethnic and linguistic divides, tribal territories, existing kingdoms, and even geography. So when United Arab Emirates was becoming a country in 1971, its founders did the opposite. They went village to... See more

I asked him a question about the local culture, and he said, “It depends if you’re talking about the people from the desert, versus the coast, versus the mountains.”

I said, “Where is your family from?”

He said, “From the desert, but then two uncles got in a fight, splitting the family, and half went to Iraq for a while. They reunited in Abu Dhabi,... See more