But he says that we view that country through "Orientalist bigotry," seeing only its morbid qualities.
It happens every few years or so, in one forum or another: sentiments that were once thought timeless and noble and are held up and found to be shot through with bigotry.
When I was a teenager I learnt, through the bigotry of the people around me, that my attraction towards other boys was wrong and that I was a pervert: a homosexual.
It was a bumpy season, one that started off on fire and saw its way through more bigotry, marriage, eavesdropping and prison time for the Bateses.
Businesses, the media and politicians arguably conspire in an "optimism industry" that patronises through the soft bigotry of low expectations.
The more unconventional way for him to have told the story was to have begun as he did, then recreate his own Holocaust tale in full, ending with the discussion of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world and the spread of bigotry through popular culture.
"You are not going to end bigotry through posters and platitudes.
An illiterate populace imbibed bigotry through Nazi radio propaganda.
And, sadly, until we begin to tackle bigotry through education I fear that the number of those affected by this will continue to rise".
