In September 2008, five teenagers, a Qatari, an Iraqi, a Syrian-Armenian, a Pakistani, and an Iranian, journeyed from the Middle East to Washington, DC to join teens from around the world in an intensely competitive annual ritual: the World School Debating Championships. Well aware that their region is associated, in Western minds, with oil, money, and jihad, they are determined to show that they are not closed-minded extremists.
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