Wadjda Official Trailer from Razor Film on Vimeo.
My interview with the very lovely Saudi filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour is now out – see the full article at Aquila. I was lucky enough to meet Haifaa when she was in London promoting her debut film Wadjda about a young Saudi girl’s battle to cycle. See the trailer above. We got talking about the rise of female Middle Eastern filmmakers, the importance of personal victories, filming in Saudi and also cycling (of course!).
Here’s a snippet:
http://www.aquila-style.com/magazine/
Leila Khaled is probably the reason the saying “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” was invented. Okay, so I am exaggerating but not by as much as you would think. At the age of 25 Leila Khaled and a fellow combatant hijacked a plane to highlight the plight of the Palestinians who had been forgotten in the refugee camps of Jordan and Lebanon since the formation of Israel in 1948. It was 1969 and a year later, after some plastic surgery to make she wouldn’t be recognised, she would hijack another plane. Some hailed her as a hero, others as a terrorist. I interviewed Sarah Irving, author of recently published ‘Leila Khaled – Icon of Palestinian Liberation’ to talk about the hijackings, assassination attempts, marriage and life in a political organisation.
Brick by Brick and Loaf by Loaf, we build ourselves
About a week ago, I was sitting in a cafe talking to a new acquaintance about racism. The person in question had worked on issues of race and racism for some time and I would say is a lot more clued up about the tensions and insidious forms of racism than I am. Even so, I was a little shocked to hear her say that she preferred the outward racism of her childhood than today’s hidden-behind-a-smile-racism. Personally, I didn’t want to go through the experience of having my hijab pulled off and being called a ‘Paki’ (derogatory term for Pakistani) by complete strangers again.
I write about the never-ending battle I have with myself when I’m writing on environmental issues in the Middle East about whether politics should be at the centre of my reporting or not…
Set up in 1999, the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Centre was named after a Bangladeshi boy murdered in a racially motivated attack in Burnage in 1986. It is a resource centre on everything from the criminal justice system in the United States to the history of the local Pakistani community of Manchester.
I speak to conservationist Mindy Baha El Din about the rise of the environmental movement in post-revolution Egypt, tourism and the challenges ahead
Yep, the title says it all. Sisters Magazine contacted me a couple of months ago about writing a green column for them and, of course, I said yes! So for the next couple of months I’ll be lovingly putting pen to paper (more like fingers to keyboard) on topics such as eco-mosques, solar power, meat-eating, growing your own veg and spreading the green Dawah. So keep an eye out and here’s my first on eco-mosques of the world. Read the full article here. 
Latest from Manchester Climate Monthly
