By Ali Khimji

If someone was sent to a place for a long time, and it was for reasons beyond control, you’d think that when given the chance to leave, that someone would jump at the opportunity.

However, this doesn’t appear to be the case in Abu Zabaal, Egypt’s last surviving leper colony. The doors have been thrown open, but residents don’t appear to be in a rush to leave. Abu Zabaal was opened in 1933 and was effectively an ‘open-air prison’, having little contact with the outside world. Over the last 10 years, Abu Zabaal became a thriving village of 6,000 people with plenty of local amenities.

In the past, people feared leprosy because it caused visible disfigurement and disability, was believed to be contagious, and was incurable until the 1990s. Leper colonies were located in remote locations, and they were provided with their own currency because it was thought that using mainstream currency would spread the disease.

The whole notion of being withdrawn from society can have detrimental effects on a person’s personality, and if offered a way back into society, they can become reclusive as they have made a home of their new surroundings.

This appears to be the case at Abu Zabaal and many people have built lives in the colony. The residents feel a sense of belonging and have no wish to re-integrate back into mainstream society.

There is also a parallel with prisoners on death row. Their perception of the world is based on them living their last few days, but if they are acquitted of their crime and released from prison, they feel lost and vulnerable and some even commit further crimes to return to the prison environment.

Those that have seen ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ may remember Brooks Hatlen, the aged convict who is released and commits suicide because he cannot cope with life outside; he finds everything is too fast-paced.

It doesn’t help if mainstream society has pigeonholed a particular group, and this is the case with lepers. This also throws up an analogy with the novel ‘Blindness’ by José Saramago, where an epidemic of blindness spreads in a unnamed city and the afflicted people are sent to a filthy, overcrowded asylum. The asylum breaks down into anarchy and this spreads to the city outside.

We want to hear your thoughts on this topic; how can we help people integrate back into society after they have been excluded?

Salams and Greetings All,

It’s approaching the end of the day today. It’s a relatively quiet day in the office, with our Creative Director and Lifestyle Editor off on a fashion shoot for out next issue. When I mean quiet, I mean in relation to our usual ‘print week’ mania. With the Global Peace and Unity event looming in a couple of weeks time, the team are busy preparing for that and making some last minute arrangements. We’re very excited at the buzz going around that and we have some very cool ideas in-store Watch this space for more info!

I wrote a blog post a couple of days ago, asking you to send in your suggestions for topics and themes to start a conversation. We had quite a few responses, and are awaiting a few more. The thread is still open on our blog post. You can find that here.

We’ve just wrapped up our Friday afternoon tea session and closing up for the day. Have a great weekend

Live long and Prosper!

Robi

Web Editor

(We were struggling to find an appropriate image for this blog. You can guess why)

By Khadija Gulamhusein

Who says it’s difficult to be green? Or brown for that matter…Now every time you go for a poo, you could be saving a tree or mitigating the chance of a freak weather event. No really, I’m being serious. An innovative new pilot project in the UK will see human waste being used to produce gas for household use. After being stored for 18 days, the waste will make its way back to the homes of unsuspecting residents, alongside gas from other more conventional sources.

We want to know what you think of the pilot and whether you think it should a permanent fixture across the UK.  Do you think it’s a poopy idea or are you all for natural poo-wer?

Salams and Greetings All,

As you may (we hope) or may not have noticed, over the past couple of months, the team at emel have been working hard at building up our social media presence. We’re attempt to push out blog posts more frequently (now with the help of three brilliant interns who are working with the editorial team for a little while). However, we would like to publish and promote a lot more interesting features in the near future. We’d like to get a conversation going, with you coming to us with ideas and suggestions on how we can get these conversations, debates and discussions started.

Which brings us to our next point. Blog posts. We’d like a lot more of them, but before we can do that, we’d like you to suggest topics and areas to talk about. After we receive a good amount of suggestions, we’ll pick the best ones and open up the floor for you to submit your own thoughts and opinions on the subjects. The editorial team will go through your post, and the best write-ups will be published on our blog.

Let us know what you think.. or if you have any ideas of your own! You can send us topic suggestions as a comment below, or leave them on our Facebook page. I’ll open up a tread on our discussion boards for ideas.

Live long and prosper

Robi

Web Editor

By Ali Khimji

With news of the election of World Cup Winner Romario into Brazil’s lower House of Congress, we at emel took time to reflect over the politicians that had illustrious careers before entering office:
Arnold Schwarznegger starred in over 30 movies before becoming the ‘Governator’ of California in 2003.

Winning two Oscars wasn’t enough for Glenda Jackson, and she has won five elections to hold a seat in Parliament for 18 years.

Ronald Reagen was also an actor, but went one step further and secured the Oval Office of the White House for eight years. Mr Reagen was able to use his knack for remembering lines, in memorising lengthy political speeches.

Sir Menzies Campbell held the British 100m record from 1967 to 1974, but was unable to transfer the winning mentality to the Liberal Democrats when he was leader of the party.

On the other hand, Manny Pacquiao was able to knock his political opponent out of office, receiving double the votes that his rival did, to become congressman of Sangrani.
More recently, Wyclef Jean tried to run as a candidate in the upcoming Haitian presidential elections. However, he did not meet the residency requirements and we are still not sure if we should be ‘Ready or not’ for his entrance into politics.

At emel, we were thinking of other celebrities that might make good politicians:

• Sir Alex Ferguson would be perfect to bring the House of Commons into order, and would gladly give his ‘hairdryer treatment’ to any unruly MPs.
• Given her persistence in securing citizenship for the Gurkhas in Britain, we feel Joanna Lumley would be able to push any Bill through Parliament.
• After playing the role in The West Wing, Martin Sheen appears to have picked up the demeanour of being President with his dominant authority and excellent people skills.

We want to know which celebrities you think would make good politicians. Or did your local politician have an interesting career before entering office?

By Ali Khimji

The winners of the Ig Nobel Awards were announced last week, with Britain landing a national record of four wins at the ceremony.

The ‘Igs’ are awarded to scientists whose work makes people laugh first and think later. Winners included psychologists Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest at the University of Amsterdam, who discovered that breathing difficulties caused by asthma can be alleviated by repeated rollercoaster rides.

The Physics prize went to Lianne Parkin and her team at the University of Otago in New Zealand, who discovered that people are less likely to slip over on icy footpaths if they wear their socks outside their shoes instead of inside.
One research paper that you might want to show your boss is the winner of the Management Prize; Alessandro Pluchino at the University of Catania, who demonstrated that companies work more efficiently if people are promoted at random.

While they may appear to be as random as the above, people have sworn by home-made remedies throughout time; with the Ancient Greeks believing that a headache could be cured by a shock from an electric eel, and Koreans pricking their thumbs with a needle to relieve indigestion.

My mum will always make me eat onions soaked in honey to get rid of a cough, while my dad believes that a good cup of tea can solve any problem.

We want to know what your random remedies for ailments are? Or have you spotted any random connections that could make an (Ig) Nobel Prize winner?

For more natural remedies check out Issue 58 – July 2009 – Kitchen Cures

By Ali Khimji

Many of us ask each other the above question in a hypothetical scenario, but unfortunately this was a real question asked to the miners that have been trapped underground in Chile for the last eight weeks.

Some of the items that have been sent down, the 12cm borehole include sandwiches, vacuum-packed meals, portable games consoles, pocket Bibles and medication. Barcelona also provided a signed football shirt which was sent down in one of the tubes, which have been nicknamed ‘palomas’ or ‘doves’.

We had a quick run-around the emel office to find out what two things people would need if they were stuck down a mine. After much discussion around the technicalities and conditions (we agreed that we already have nutrition, water, light and hygiene products, but no power sources), we came up with:

“My diary and a DVD of Sophie’s Choice, one of Meryl Streep’s best performances. If life in a mine is imminent, it may as well be with literary reflection and a reminder of Meryl Streep’s thespian genius!”

Ayman - Managing Editor

“A book of poetry by Rumi and my mum’s pashmina – to remind me of her scent.”

Fatema - Lifestyle Editor

“A football and my pillow.” - Israr Ahmed - Sales Executive

“A martial arts manual and a Qur’an.” - Narges - Designer

“A Qur’an and a notepad” - Iram - Administrator

“A Mcguyver DVD box set and a portable dvd player that runs on solar energy. The genius that was McGuyver could use two trees and a couple of cans to evade almost anything.” - Robi – Web Editor (aka The Geek Shaykh)

“A Rubik’s cube and my Man Utd shirt.” - Ali  - Editorial Intern

“ A copy of the most recent issue of emel & a Qur’an.” – Nada - Editorial Intern

“A 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – the book!”

Khadija - Editorial Intern

What two things would you need if you were stuck down a mine? Answers on a postcard please, down a 12cm tube…

(or just post below!)

You’ve heard of Marvel’s action super hero The Silversurfer, now prepare to be wowed by The Silver Scorpion; the latest comic book super hero to hit the scene. It turns out that he’s wheelchair bound.. and also Muslim.

The new character from Liquid Comics apparently began life when a US philanthropist, Jay T Snyder was inspired by President Obama’s attempt to reach out to the Muslim world with disabled Syrian and American kids. When the children were asked what superpower they wanted, none of them wanted their disabilities healed. The CEO of Liquid Comics suggested how these children were “empowered by their own disabilities, and they should not be seen as a source of weakness”.

The Silver Surfer is still an early idea, but the author has mentioned that he has lost his legs in a landmine accident and later develops the ability to control metal with his mind (similar to Magneto from Marvel’s X-Men comics).

Initially, 50,000 Arabic language comics will be distributed throughout Syria in November, but will be also be published in English and be available for downloading worldwide online.

It’s not the first time Muslims have become comic book characters of course. We ran a special feature on the 99 back in October last year. You can read the feature here and watch the video below>

Like Fatema, I also spotted an interesting story in the Metro this morning and wanted to forward it here. The mainstream media have been spending quite a lot of their time in recent years highlighting bad press amongst young people within wider society. It’s always good to highlight the good press, which will set to inspire and encourage more people to come out and promote all the positive things the youth bring to the community.

Barry Spilling, 73 from Ipswich has commended a group of brave teenagers who came to his aid when he collapsed after suffering from a diabetic hypoglycemic attack. His blood sugar had sunk from 8.2 to 2.7.

The four boys from the nearby 4′rce youth training centre, led by 14-year old Charlie Mickleburgh, spotted the struggling man and ran to help him.

“Teenage boys get such a bad press these days that it was lovely to find such helpful, caring young lads.” Mr Spilling praised.

It’s important to understand that when we knowingly or unknowingly demonise a segment of any community, we fuel the engines that cause people to react. To handle that, we should highlight the good things around us and promote them.

———

Robi

You can read the full story in The Metro below.

Source – The Metro, 23rd September 2010