An excellent piece by Raghda Butros, on being an ‘Arab Christian Muslim Secular Jordanian Palestinian citizen of the world’:

When I was in first grade, the teacher asked us to divide into two groups, Muslim and Christian, for Religious Education classes. I was one of several kids who was not quite sure, and so I went to the class with most of my friends in it, which happened to be the Islamic studies class.  With a surname like “Butros”, which to those of you who don’t know, translates into “Peter” in English, I was soon caught out and sent packing to the other group. I went home crestfallen; to tell my mother I had been pulled out of class. Having been a troublemaker from prior to my birth it seems, she immediately retorted with the usual “what have you done now?” To which I could, for once, respond with an innocent shrug…

Read the full post, here.