In May 2017, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates delivered a stark and prescient warning to the Western world. Speaking at a global summit in Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan made a show of switching to English to issue his message, to ensure nothing was lost in translation: “There will come a day that we will see far more radical extremists and terrorists coming out of Europe,” he said, attributing this predicted outcome to “lack of decision-making, trying to be politically correct, or assuming that [Westerners] know the Middle East, and they know Islam, and they know the others far better than we do.”
He concluded, pointedly, “I’m sorry, but that’s pure ignorance.” The audience burst into applause. That clip has been shared widely in recent days, juxtaposed with violent scenes of mayhem and destruction playing out across Europe, particularly in France.
