The Cradle of Civilization: The Cloak We Iraqis Hide Behind

I wanted to write about this topic because I see Iraqis, in general especially old ones when you talk about how retarded we all are, tend to give you this lame speech that we're the country where civilization was born. and I want to give my opinion about this topic.
What old people say is largely true, Mesopotamia has been the birthplace of writing and primal civilization, they were the role model of there time, the peak of scientific thinking and that makes me wonder, all those years, have we ever taken a good look at where we stand in this world, have we thought even for a second what brought us here, what made us go from hero to zero, when you browse the pages of history you see that great empires usually shatter after some time, but even when they do, there is always a time when they come back stronger , more determined that they will not let others mock them or look at them in scorn, that if they were once great they will never be slaves and they will do their best to be great again.
I believe that each man creates his own glory, that we can't be great just because our ancestors were once great, that we can not continue being proud hearing the echo of what our ancestors did, and that we should be the ones shouting about what we did and letting our sons hear our echos , we should be proud about the things we did, not the ones others did, and I believe that every moment that we're wasting being lazy or sloppy is a moment we can't replace, and that by accepting where we are now, we are insulting our country, ourselves and the memory of those Iraqis who were once great.
As I am writing this I wonder what has happened to us, are we so happy being a ridicule, Isn't there a desire in each of us that Iraq would once in our lifetime be looked at with awe and respect, and the question that rises above all and above all : why have we lost hope?
I haven't traveled much out of Iraq but I have seen that we are living in a world of our own, a world where things that we should be offended by became ordinary to us, a world where dirty streets are more common than clean ones, where people are killed in cold blood and no one gets accounted for it, I say we have hit rock bottom and we have to do something to pull ourselves out and I'm not saying that my post has great ideas that will fix everything but every small bit makes a difference, so please if you read my post, try to make a difference.
Thank you for your time.