When we forget where we come from, we run the risk of forgetting who we are and where we’re going.

If the average European examined his DNA and genealogy, I’m sure he or she would find traces of half the world’s people mingling in his or her veins: descendants of people who, perhaps more than a thousand years ago, may have practised any one of the three monotheistic religions and who may have come from as diverse places as today’s Syria, Iraq, Sweden, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Morocco, France, Tunisia or Palestine to name but a few.