Mornington
Morni ngton
14 October
Your guide to what’s on this weekend for peninsula families
2014
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Full steam ahead
MORNINGTON Railway celebrated its 125th anniversary last Sunday (5 October) with a fun day of train rides between Moorooduc and Mornington stations. The K163 steam engine was a big favourite with children and train enthusiasts. See story, Page 10. Picture: Yanni
Asylum seekers find new voice Chris Brennan chris@mpnews.com.au MORNINGTON will host a debate on Australia’s deeply divisive treatment of asylum seekers, with respected refugee advocate and best-selling author Najaf Mazari to deliver a keynote address this month. The forum, which will take place on Sunday 26 October at Padua College’s Mornington campus, is being presented by community advocacy group Peninsula Voice, which recently hosted the
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highly successful domestic violence forum featuring Rosie Batty and police chief Ken Lay. The upcoming event aims to dispel the myths surrounding asylum seekers and present a human face to refugees in light of the polarising political debate that has led to Australia’s increasingly inhumane treatment of “boat people�. The forum will also feature a candid videotaped interview with respected human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, who describes the journey detailed in Najaf Mazari’s book, The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif, as “the
story of all refugees�. Najaf was tortured and escaped certain death after fleeing from Northern Afghanistan in 2001 during the Taliban genocide of Hazara men. He was chosen by village elders as the man most likely to succeed in making the dangerous journey to a safe country and therefor carry on the cultural history of the village. To fulfil his mission, he was forced to leave his wife and six-month-old daughter behind. But after fleeing overland to Pakistan, then to Indonesia and finally by
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boat to the supposed “Lucky Country�, Najaf discovered not freedom but rather the brutal dehumanising hell of Australia’s punitive asylum seeker system from within the notorious Woomera detention centre. Like the vast majority of so-called “illegals� subjected to the trauma of indefinite detention, Najaf’s claim for asylum was found to be valid. He was granted Australian citizenship in 2007 and eventually settled in Melbourne where he wrote his story, which was the first full book-length account of an asylum seeker’s journey.
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The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif proved a huge success and sold more than 50,000 copies. It is currently in its fifth printing and was a VCE text for Victorian high school students from 2010-2013. Najaf has now come full circle - from community leader in his home village in Northern Afghanistan to highly respected leader within the Australian community where he provides a voice and human face for not just his own people, but all refugees.
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