In 1996 chewing gum became a really big problem in the Egyptian city of Masoura.
Not the usual problem of getting it on your shoe, or mean kids putting it in your hair, but one of evil foreign enemies meaning to do you harm in the worst way.
Rumours took hold: Israel had devised a sinister trick. They were lacing chewing gum with aphrodisiacs and putting into the marketplace where unsuspecting young Egyptian women were buying it. On the university campus, young women whispered dark warnings to one another: the gum takes hold of you. Packets of Aroma and Splay gum were causing young women to ruin themselves and bring great dishonour upon their families.
