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Editor’s Letter
Welcome to this, the 18th issue of EI8HT. As you will notice on the cover, we have labelled it “Industry” in order to pull together, under a unifying title, a number of stories that have been submitted to us . Our Industry subjects are varied and include stories about workers in a factory in the Czech Republic, a rubber plantation in Liberia, a failed industrial project deep in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, salt collecting in the high mountains of Bolivia and man’s use of animals, both industrially and domestically, in Holland. Elsewhere in this issue other stories touch on industry in part, such as in the story of the disappearing men of a Mexican village who leave their families and homes in order to find work in the great industrial north, America.

There is much more besides industry in this issue, even some light relief in the form of Tim Minogue’s humorous column in which he looks at an exhibition depicting animals employed for wartime causes.

I certainly welcome some light relief from the otherwise serious stories we publish. At the same time I also applaud the independent photographers and writers who continue to seek out and report on stories that are “difficult” to publish these days. Our contributors have a firm belief in the process of making people aware of the issues they feel are important. In this copy of EI8HT you will also learn about the plight of the destitute in Bogota’s El Cartucho neighbourhood, as well as Lena Engel’s personal battle against her inner demons in Surfacing.

With each edition EI8HT aims to present stories that are real, sometimes brutally so. Freud once wrote that people can have too much reality and that they necessarily must switch off from it to preserve their sense of well-being. Do the real stories in EI8HT change the world? Or even opinions of the world? Recently my bank manager told me cheerfully that he enjoyed receiving the magazine each time I send him the new issue, but he hurriedly looks away whenever he catches a glimpse of a story he deems too depressing. I respect his right to switch off from EI8HT’s take on the world but I also take solace in knowing that our magazine has momentarily upset the balance of his day. However small and niche EI8HT’s impact is, it doesn’t shy away. EI8HT gives a voice to the unheard and hopefully makes us think of lives outside our own, even if it is just for a fraction of a second.

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