'Who did this to us?' is of course a common human response when things are going badly, and there have been indeed many in the Middle East, past and present, who have asked this question. They found several different answers. It is usually easier and more satisfying to blame others for one's misfortunes.
A band playing Rossini, in contrast, is an unequivocally cultural choice; it is also the point where we can unhesitatingly speak of Westernization rather than modernization -two terms the content and meaning of which have been the subject of much argument.
The perception of space was much affected by the introduction of two European devices for improving vision -reading glasses and telescopes. The first are attested as early as fifteenth century and as far east Iran, where the poet Jami, lamenting the infirmities of old age, remarks that his eyes were now useless 'unless, with aid of Frankish glasses, the two become four.'
The habit of measuring distances in time and motion has survived to the present day. It is not unusual, if one asks a peasant how far it is to the next village, to be told 'one cigarette' -meaning that if you light a cigarette now, by the time you finish it you will be in the village.