'You're Either A Spy, A Terrorist, Or You Know Someone Who's A Terrorist'

I shudder in reading what happened to Matthew Hedges in the UAE in 2018 because it could have been me. I could have been him. If there’s a reason why what happened to him did not happen to me is that I am a coward. I tended to act very cautiously when encountering “sensitive” subjects and questions that might have come up in conversation with locals.

Even so, I had been living and working in the UAE for six years when, one summer day in 2017 after teaching a media history class, I received a phone call from Zayed University’s HR Dept. “I regret to inform you,” the officer began without emotion,