Shamsiya Mohammadi is looking forward to voting for the first time in her life.
The 18 year old Adelaide woman doesn’t yet know who she will vote for, but it will be a fairly straightforward process compared to what she might expect in Afghanistan, where she was born.
Women can vote there. These days they can stand for office and be elected, but safe to say it’s not necessarily the calm and orderly experience Australians expect.
Shamsiya arrived in Australia as a refugee.
“A few years after I was born my father had to flee because of the Taliban regime. We had to go to Pakistan. He went to Pakistan first but my family went soon after.”
Shamsiya stayed there until she was 9 years old.
“When I was three, my father had to come to Australia in 2001.” Shamsiya’s father come to Australia by boat.
“In Afghanistan it was all peaceful before the Taliban arrived. But after that my Dad got threats from the Taliban and we had to flee our homeland… That’s why we fled to Pakistan.
“We had to wait until the end of 2006 before the rest of my family could come. And so we came here in November 2006.”
"After that my Dad got threats from the Taliban and we had to flee our homeland." Image supplied.
Initially, Shamsiya and her family lived in Renmark, in rural South Australia. Her father picked fruit to earn a living and Shamsiya, with little English navigated primary school in a small town that hadn't seen many people who weren't white.
Top Comments
Great story but that is really not evidence that it's possible to integrate refugees from the 3rd world into 1st world democracies. Abc and Fairfax media do studies like this all the time with a sample size of 1.
I think you need to look at 10,000 or 20,000 people from a source country (like Afghanistan) to get a better idea of the outcomes (employment rates, crime rates etc etc)
I honestly just don't think it is possible to achieve acceptable outcomes but wish all the best to refugees who are here.
Well finally! If the pro refugee movement want to have success in getting refugees here this is the type of article and person they need to promote.
I see article after article from refugees saying how we are crap and how we don't give them freedom to wear their hijab. They make it sound like Afghanistan was some kind of paradise. They are so ungrateful and yet it's followed by an article from some pro refugee person saying we should let more in!
But a balanced article like this is better, this girl has mentioned she has endured racism and some difficult times here but also acknowledges the freedoms she has here which she is obviously grateful for the opportunities and freedoms here and notes that things were far more oppressive in Afghanistan for women.
A balanced article like this does much more for promoting harmony than those other articles.
Australia and Australians aren't perfect, and coming from a different culture must be hard, so I don't expect a refugee to gloss over things and pretend that we are all awesome but I think any criticism has to go hand in hand with some acknowledgement of the advantages here also, because the other type of articles do leave people scratching their heads trying to figure out if the refugees hate us so much why they stay. Those other "hijab" articles as I call them (the million and one articles about Muslim women whose only concern in life is about whether they can wear a hijab or not) make racism so much worse, because it makes people think that all these people hate us and b are ungrateful for the freedoms here and c are shallow human beings who are obsessed with whether they can wear a head covering it not.
People always say that education is everything, and that's exactly why there is so much dislike of Muslims because article after article educates us that Muslims hate us, think we are backward bogans, and in turn they come across as shallow unintelligent people who are obsessed with petty ritualistic things like whether they can wear a bit of cloth on their hair or get their meat blessed.
I can't believe it has taken this long for the pro refugee movement to realise that if they feature some people like this girl who is intelligent and grateful for some things here that they may gain more support that way. You catch more bees with honey than vinegar.
Not often it happens but I agree with you. Don't recall seeing any articles like that either
I have never seen an ungrateful refugee myself or an article emphasising "we are crap". Afghanistan may not be a paradise, but it is still a nation and a home to many, just like Australia is to you. Women in Australia haven't always had the rights they do now, nor have they had it given to them on a platter in so many other countries. Western countries like Australia has had to go through a long process to get to where it is now concerning women's rights and freedom.
Exactly. I personally know 7 refugees (from Vietnam, Sudan, Iraq and Iran). All of them are health professionals (we're in the same field). All of them are hard working. All of them are amazing! All of them have assimilated well. I wonder if people who are so against refugees actually know any of them personally?