<p>
	Nanochemist Karzan Zangana commutes from a Clonakilty direct provision centre to UCC to help research. And he does it for free, says Noel Baker</p>
<p>
	Karzan Zangana made an interesting diary entry lately. He keeps a diary, which was in a bag he accidentally left on the Cork to Skibbereen bus, having just returned from Dublin with his wife and children at an appointment at the International Protection Office.</p>
<p>
	The family had to register the birth of their new baby, Adam, and in the hubbub of disembarking, the backpack holding the diary was left in the luggage hold.</p>
<p>
	Since arriving here late last September on a plane from Izmir, Dr Karzan Zangana, to give him his full title, has had a strange time of time of it.</p>
<p>
	It all went into the diary: the family having to suddenly flee from Erbil in northern Iraq, urged to do so by Karzan&rsquo;s dying father who was aware of the fear in which they were living.</p>
<p>
	The meetings with shady agents, the crossing into Turkey, the nerve-jangling wait at the departures hall in Izmir, so frightened they didn&rsquo;t even know where they were going. &ldquo;I was so scared, I was just staring at the floor,&rdquo; he recalls.</p>
<p>
	The plane landed in Dublin, and they were a country they had never visited before. &ldquo;First point, it was not my decision to come to Ireland,&rdquo; he says.</p>
<p>
	&ldquo;When I first started my journey I did not know where I was going. I knew I was going to Europe. I knew I was coming to Ireland when the pilot started talking about Dublin weather.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	Claiming asylum, the family &mdash; then comprising of Karzan, his wife and their two daughters &mdash; were brought to the reception centre in Balseskin in north Dublin, before being taken to the Lodge in Clonakilty in West Cork.</p>
<p>
	For purposes of full disclosure, I should say that in recent months, I&rsquo;ve been giving Karzan the occasional lift to Cork on my way to work. Bright and engaging, he&rsquo;s something of an open book himself.</p>
<p>
	Hours have passed in the car where he has expounded on his past, his family, his upbringing. It is intriguing to make little discoveries, like the time he told me that as a child he was visiting his relatives in Halabja when Saddam Hussein launched a chemical attack against the Kurds there.</p>
<p>
	Or how he saved the life of a colleague in the University at which he was studying his Masters in India when there was a chemical spillage.</p>
<p>
	The merits of his application for asylum will have to be considered by others, but there is no question about one thing: he is also something of an atypical asylum seeker.</p>
<p>
	Just a few years ago he was a member of the Molecular Magnetism Group at the University of Manchester. If you Google his name, it&rsquo;s one of the first pages to pop up, complete with a potted version of his CV: &ldquo;Karzan obtained his BSc in chemistry from the College of Science at the University of Salahaddin in Erbil City, Iraq in 2005.</p>
<p>
	He then obtained an MSc from the University of Pune, India in 2009. Karzan is currently working towards a PhD in the Molecular Magnetism Group researching 3d/4f phosphonate cages under the supervision of Professors Richard Winpenny and Eric McInnes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	Karzan says he loved science from a young age. Another google result features a list of the 13 papers he has published, papers with titles such as &lsquo;Observation of the Influence of Dipolar and Spin Frustration Effects on the Magnetocaloric Properties of a Trigonal Prismatic {Gd7} Molecular Nanomagnet&rsquo;.</p>
<p>
	He presented at conferences around the world. Maybe all this explains why Prof Justin Holmes of University College Cork&rsquo;s School of Chemistry, in one of his first meetings with Karzan, asked him: &ldquo;How did you end up in Clonakilty?&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	It&rsquo;s a fair question. A non-religious ethnic Kurd from northern Iraq who had studied in India and Manchester is now living in the Clonakilty Lodge direct provision centre, tending to his section of the vegetable garden and itching to access the lab in UCC to continue his research.</p>
<p>
	One of his dreams is to have a research article published in Nature magazine. A more short-term consideration is securing status in Ireland, to live and to work. Fearing he would be &ldquo;rusty&rdquo; if he did not keep up his scientific work, not long after arriving in Clonakilty he sent Prof Holmes a speculative email asking to come up and volunteer. Given his qualifications and past experience as a tutor in Manchester, he fits the bill, and the College has accommodated him, for which he is paid &mdash; nothing.</p>
<p>
	&ldquo;Well, this has been a real problem, actually,&rdquo; Prof Holmes says. &ldquo;Not being able to pay him, but also not being able to do things &mdash; the difficulty with even paying for bus tickets, to help contribute to those kinds of things. He&rsquo;s not an employee of the university so he can&rsquo;t make a claim [for expenses].</p>
<p>
	&ldquo;It&rsquo;s just not made easy. Everything is difficult.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	Back at the end of May the seven judge appeal court ruled unanimously ruled that the absolute ban on asylum seekers being allowed to work was &ldquo;in principle&rdquo; unconstitutional.</p>
<p>
	The decision came after an appeal had been lodged by a Burmese man who had spent eight years in direct provision before getting refugee status, and who had complained that existing laws prevented him working here before his status was decided.</p>
<p>
	The matter was adjourned for six months to allow the government to consider how to address the ruling. Last month the Cabinet approved a proposal from the Minister for Justice to establish an interdepartmental Taskforce to address the implications of the Supreme Court judgment.</p>
<p>
	A department spokesman confirmed that the first meeting of the Interdepartmental Committee has now taken place. &ldquo;The Supreme Court has given a six-month deadline in respect of this issue and the Department is undertaking its work having full regard to that deadline,&rdquo; the spokesperson said.</p>
<p>
	Among those awaiting its conclusion are Karzan and his new colleagues in UCC&rsquo;s Kane building. The lab there has become a kind of second home for a man still looking for a first one.</p>
<p>
	Back in Clonakilty he and his family are being accommodated in a centre that primarily deals with families. It is a safe environment, but a cramped one. His two eldest children attend a local school, and Karzan spends some free time growing parsley in the centre&rsquo;s vegetable garden, but there is little doubt that apart from his family, his real passion is chemistry.</p>
<p>
	His speciality is molecular magnetism and in UCC his work has dovetailed with his colleagues in nano-chemistry. According to Prof Holmes: &ldquo;Karzan has got the expertise in synthesising materials and we&rsquo;ve got expertise in terms of their characterisation or incorporation into some kind of device.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	This is quite technical stuff, but the uses of this nano technology could range from smart materials to magnetic barcodes, physical materials that are all but invisible but which could be used in areas such as medical procedures, or devices in clothing.</p>
<p>
	Karzan believes they could be used in MRI procedures as a way to help detect cancers. In fact, he believes that magentic nanoparticles can attach to cancer cells in the blood stream, something which may allow doctors to remove those cells before they can establish new tumours.</p>
<p>
	Meanwhile, UCC is currently looking at developing more energy efficient transistors and all this minute scale work has huge potential applications.</p>
<p>
	Prof Holmes laughs off my suggestion of a kind of &lsquo;Innerspace&rsquo; application as &ldquo;nano nano&rdquo;, but says: &ldquo;What Karzan is actually doing is taking atoms and it&rsquo;s much easier to put those into current devices or to shrink down devices in order to incorporate his materials. He&rsquo;s looking for new materials with new properties. So for example, if I take a block of gold like a gold ring, it&rsquo;s pretty inert, that&rsquo;s why we wear it as jewellery. But as we shrink that down to nano size it can be used as a catalyst and it becomes very reactive because you have a lot of surface atoms. As we go smaller these materials start to have different properties which may lead to future devices that we don&rsquo;t yet know about.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	Karzan is certainly grateful for the opportunity UCC and Prof Holmes has provided him.</p>
<p>
	&ldquo;Fortunately I have found they are interested a lot,&rdquo; he says of the response to his initial email to the faculty, which included his CV. &ldquo;It made me very happy. The asylum system in Ireland, you don&rsquo;t know how long it is going to take.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	He went from a situation where the family had no time to plan anything as they fled Iraq, to a state in which, on some days, there seems too much time. Refugee support groups have numerous stories about the debilitating effect of extended periods in the direct provision system. It is certainly a refuge for many applicants who are fleeing far worse, but the centres can also nullify ambition and activity. That&rsquo;s where the lab comes in.</p>
<p>
	&ldquo;This is the main thing,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;why I am volunteering, the quality of the research that I am doing.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	As for his family&rsquo;s domestic situation, he says: &ldquo;Sometimes I need to focus to write some article, or do some study for myself and some writing and some reading, I cannot focus, it is not convenient but for sure if I can go out of the lodge and find some work I can pay my tax, even if it is temporary.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	Prof Holmes believes that Karzan would be an asset to any Irish university. &ldquo;I think it makes sense for asylum seekers to be able to work and to make a contribution,&rdquo; he says.</p>
<p>
	&ldquo;Why make them hang around for two years where they can do nothing. To me, that just leads to people working illegally. So what&rsquo;s the point of that? If they&rsquo;re here they may as well work and make a contribution to the society.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	Karzan&rsquo;s work at UCC will ensure that, whatever the outcome of his slow-moving application, there won&rsquo;t be an Ireland-shaped black hole on his CV. The fact that some asylum seekers do work &lsquo;off the books&rsquo;, and bring in much-needed cash in doing so, is not lost on him, but listening to him rhapsodise about base materials and carbon and the rest, it&rsquo;s hard to imagine him swapping the lab for a petrol forecourt. Prof Holmes is certainly glad he is making the commute.</p>
<p>
	&ldquo;It costs more to get the bus up from Clonakilty than he gets in the week &mdash; it&rsquo;s things like that,&rdquo; Holmes says with a degree of frustration. &ldquo;But he&rsquo;s been great and a real asset to the group, very friendly and very helpful and very knowledgeable. But I guess in terms of the university, we are tied &mdash; we can&rsquo;t pay him and that would be something, to give him even to pay a few expenses for travel and those type of things.&rdquo; Ask him of a morning how he&rsquo;s getting on and Karzan will invariably give an upbeat reply. &ldquo;I always say good even when it&rsquo;s bad!&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	Life isn&rsquo;t always easy. His father, &ldquo;who helped me so much in my life&rdquo;, passed away after Karzan and his family had landed in Ireland, taken by the cancer that had brought his son home from Manchester, and who urged him to leave last year.</p>
<p>
	While grateful for much of what has happened since his arrival in Dublin almost a year ago, he would like the unexpected twists in his life to be resolved.</p>
<p>
	&ldquo;I wish to answer the case [for asylum], to say &lsquo;yes&rsquo; or &lsquo;no&rsquo; faster. For example, even if they say to my case &lsquo;no&rsquo;, and I go back home and something happened to me, so the world will be witness that I came really to European country, they refused me and I am back home, so I am in prison now and somebody is torturing me, or I am murdered now, there will be evidence that I came to Europe, they refused me, [then] they killed me over there [Iraq]. I went through the process.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	A stickler for research, he has reams of documentation from Human Rights Watch regarding assassinations of Iraqi academics and the abductions and deaths of journalists and others in Iraqi Kurdistan. &ldquo;For example,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;if I stayed over there [last year] I knew 100% I will die and no reporter will report it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	In the short term, earning a crust would do. His wife, also a chemist, feels the same way. Their youngest child was born here and even if they would eventually like to move home, circumstances permitting, they feel an affinity with their new surroundings.</p>
<p>
	&ldquo;I am looking forward to getting my status,&rdquo; he says, back in optimistic mode. &ldquo;I hope so. I hope I can continue working in UCC or go to Dublin and join another group and do my science.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	The backpack showed up, of course. Karzan had run after the bus as it disappeared out of Clonakilty but the driver, on wrapping up for the night, searched the luggage compartment and found it. The bag and its contents, including the diary, were returned to Karzan the next day. &ldquo;I wrote in my book, &lsquo;I lost you today&rsquo;,&rdquo; he says with a laugh.</p>
<p>
	On returning the bag, someone from Bus &Eacute;ireann told Karzan he was lucky. &ldquo;I said &lsquo;I am never lucky&rdquo;, he responded, not entirely seriously. Well, maybe his luck is changing.</p>
<p>
	&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	(Published by the Irish Independent on the 14th August 2017)</p>
<p>
	<a href="http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/a-positive-reaction-to-a-difficult-situation-for-nanochemist-living-in-direct-provision-in-clonakilty-456957.html">http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/a-positive-reaction-to-a-difficult-situation-for-nanochemist-living-in-direct-provision-in-clonakilty-456957.html</a></p>
