Ziagul Sultani
Zee Sultani and her family are refugees from Afghanistan who made their first home in Australia in Katanning. Zee was a much loved and valued member of the Katanning community, as were the rest of her family. She made many friends both at school and within the community at large with her outgoing, friendly personality. The family have since moved to Perth and Zee has secured a position with the Shire of Gosnells. This is her story…
Zee Sultani
From the Public Silo Trail website
My name is Ziagul Sultani but I am known as Zee. I live in Katanning but I am originally from Afghanistan. We came because of the war. Afghanistan is not a place for girls to grow up and be free. It gives me goosebumps to think about what life would have been like if I wasn’t here. For my father to bring us here, honestly, it’s a gift that I can’t ever pay back. Not everyone has the opportunity to do that for their children.
I remember Afghanistan well. In my head I can go from my house to the shops or where we used to get the water. And they’re all good memories because I think my Mum worked really hard to make sure that we weren’t exposed to what was actually happening in Afghanistan. For example a helicopter would fly past, she used to call it a black bird, and she’d say “oh it’s a black bird, just make sure you’re not under them.” We didn’t live in fear. She made sure we had our childhood. You know, one attack and the whole house would shake. Mum would say “oh that’s an earthquake” or something like that. She always kind of disciplined us in a way to make sure that we survived in a harsh world. At the time I didn’t understand but now I understand. It was to keep us safe.
When I was at school in Katanning I was bullied a little. Kids have no idea what they’re saying when they say: “go back to where you come from,” or at work “you have taken over our jobs.” So I had to try extra hard to make friends and go talk to them first. It was a struggle but it got better. Currently I work for the Shire of Katanning (Zee is now working for the City of Gosnells May,2021). I’m the Community/Youth Development Officer.
What I went through, I didn’t want other young people to go through. I just wanted to do something for young people. Not just in Katanning, but around the world basically. Because when I came to Australia I was like “wow, this is how all children should live.” They shouldn’t be living in poverty. They shouldn’t be living without parents. And they shouldn’t be the victims of war. I never thought I would work for local government because I thought my English wasn’t good enough.
But I do a lot of other advocacy work. Not in Katanning, at a State and national level. I was the Youth Ambassador for Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network Western Australia. They advocate for young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds that live in Australia and I was involved with the Youth Affairs Council of Western Australia, organising a youth summit for young people, just to lobby I guess, for regional and rural young people because sometimes we’re forgotten at a State level.
Katanning’s first Harmony Festival was held back in 2007 to 2008 at the Shire office. I actually volunteered then. I performed on stage. We danced our traditional dance and then after a few years of volunteering I was employed to run it. That’s my favourite story of the town. How I was on stage and then I volunteered and now I run it. The Harmony Festival is very close to my heart. I think it’s made an impact on the town. It’s opened new doors. It’s a festive and peaceful day when people just come together, learn about each other’s culture and food and share what they have in common.
There’s actually a lot of hidden factors that not a lot of people know about Katanning. But also, I guess, the people have this sort of attitude where they’ll give you a chance. They won’t judge you straightaway. I can wear my traditional outfit and go to the supermarket and it won’t be an unusual thing. It won’t be “why is she wearing that?” I just could never think about leaving this town. It’s that feeling of being home, you feel you belong here and you have identity. People know me as my name, as Zee – not as a Muslim girl or a refugee girl – so that is always good because you feel like you’re not different. It’s very important to feel like you belong while you’re carrying your religion and tradition and culture. You need that place where you feel free to follow whatever religion you want and wear whatever you want and how you wear it. I think that’s one of the reasons why I just love this place. I always joke that if I die I want to be buried here.
I really like Katanning. The first day we came to the town, I vaguely remember it but I do remember it was a long drive and when we got to Katanning it was this unusual feeling: it felt familiar. I remember a few days later my Dad would give us some change and my sister, who was older than me, got two dollars fifty from my Dad. I said “oh you got two coins! Give me one?” At the time we didn’t know the currency or anything else. We had absolutely no clue. She looked at the coins and the fifty cents looked bigger; so she kept the fifty cents and gave me the two dollars. We were so innocent and we didn’t know anything. All those memories I guess keep you grounded. That’s one of my favourite stories to tell. Now when I actually pick up a two dollar or fifty cents coin I always think of that.
ABC Great Southern
Chloe Papas
20 June 2014
When I first meet Zee, she jokes about the question that many non-Caucasian people in Australia hear: “Where are you from? “Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Zee explains how it feels to hear ‘Where are you from?’
“I would reply, ‘I’m from Katanning,’ and they would say, ‘No, no, where are you from?’” she laughs. She isn’t comfortable with the question, one based on her appearance and the scarf she wears on her head. Zee and her family are from a tiny village in Afghanistan, and have been living in Australia since the mid-2000s.
“When I would say Afghanistan, people’s faces would go completely different,” she says.
“They see the country as a war zone, I suppose.”
Seeking a better life
Zee’s father left Afghanistan in 1999, travelling by boat to Western Australia and hitting the shore at the beginning of 2000. Five years later he was able to bring his family over, and they settled in Katanning. He does not talk about the boat trip, and his children don’t know what happened. Zee cannot imagine what it was like for him.
“Every time we go to the beach, he hates the ocean,” she says softly. “You can see how his face changes when he sees the water, or when in the news he hears that someone died on the seas.”
When asked why they left Afghanistan, Zee says that it’s a question for her father, not her. But, he does not like to talk about it – for Zee’s father, it is best that the past remains in the past. Zee can only guess why they left.
“Dad bought us here for a better life, for freedom, for more opportunities and a quieter life,” she says.
“Having a lot of daughters, he also knew that Afghanistan wasn’t a good place for girls.”
Returning to Afghanistan
Last year, Zee and her younger brother travelled back to Afghanistan for the first time. “I actually didn’t want to go at all,” she says. “I said ‘Who would want to go to a war zone country? Something will happen to me!’ But really, I didn’t want to remember my past.”
Zee’s father sent his youngest children, who had spent most of their lives in Australia, back to their homeland to get some perspective. “The moment I stepped outside the airport in Kabul, it was a whole new world.” The pair went straight to an uncle’s house nearby. Just hours after they arrived, they heard on the radio that there had been a bomb attack just outside the airport in Kabul. “At the time I was so scared,” says Zee. “But for them it’s just another day. People in Afghanistan have so much strength.”
After some time in Kabul, Zee and her brother set off to visit the village they had lived in as children, where their 102-year-old grandfather was waiting for them. They had to leave behind books written in English, non-conservative clothes, and anything else that could be perceived as too modern.
“Driving into my village was the most amazing feeling,” says Zee. “For a second, I thought I didn’t even go to Australia, I thought I had never left.” For Zee, nothing had changed in the village that she had left as a 9-year-old. The dusty, cobbled roads were still bumpy, the smell could only be described as ‘home’, and the same neighbours were there to greet them, all those years later.
Being a woman
Zee knows that life would be completely different for her if she had grown up in Afghanistan. “Women don’t have any value,” she says. “It is changing, but back in my days, women were just housewives.”
The situation for women differs across Afghanistan, and is changing yet again now that most of the Western troops have left the country. “That’s why my mum is uneducated, and why I don’t even know how to read and write in my own language,” says Zee. “We never had the chance to learn.” For five years, Zee’s mother looked after her children alone, while her husband built a new life for them in Australia. In a country where in some areas, women could not work, study or even leave the house alone, it was an amazing feat. “My mum and my sisters are the strongest women I have ever seen,” she says. “We were too many girls at home, it was dangerous for us. They have gone through so much.”
Zee says that, in her father’s absence, one of her older sisters took up the “man role” in the house. “She is so strong. On the outside, she is this really strong person, but when she used to come home, she would just sit in the corner and cry.”
Zee believes that both her and her brother learned the lessons that they needed while in Afghanistan. “For my family, I’m the first girl to go out and do what men do back home,” she says. “I’ve got the freedom to do anything.”
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