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In October 2010 we travelled to three countries in the Middle East: Egypt; Syria and Jordan. While in Egypt we took a Nile cruise, effectively an organised tour package complete with guide, but otherwise we travelled independently: by cab; rental car (in Jordan); bus; train and plane.
On the way there we had stopovers in London and Budapest to visit friends.
The impact on me was to reassert the depth, complexity and colour of this seminal part of our history and civilisation. In particular this is the cauldron in which Judaism, Christianity and Islam were created, together with much of our science, language and mathematics.
1967 is in the news this week as it is 50 years since one of the few referendums, since the Federation of Australia in 1901, to successfully lead to an amendment to our Constitution. In this case it was to remove references to 'aboriginal natives' and 'aboriginal people'.
It has been widely claimed that these changes enabled Aboriginal Australians to vote for the first time but this is nonsense.
Yet it was ground breaking in other ways.
The electrically literate may find this somewhat simplified article redundant; or possibly amusing. They should check out Wikipedia for any gaps in their knowledge.
But I hope this will help those for whom Wikipedia is a bit too complicated and/or detailed.
All cartoons from The New Yorker - 1925 to 2004