After Pauline Hanson’s National Press Club call for a “monocultural” Australia, Suzan Wahhab writes from her own family’s journey from occupied Palestine to Sydney to show that the fair go is strengthened, not weakened, by multicultural belonging.
On a sweet, balmy October night in 1986, my family and I stepped off a plane in Sydney. I was with my mother Souad, my father Victor, my brothers Nabil and Jiries, and my sisters Mary and Wendy. We had just flown a gruelling route from Tel Aviv through Athens and Singapore, carrying nothing but our hopes and the heavy memory of what we left behind in Ramallah, Palestine.
We arrived just a year before the first Intifada, having lived for 19 years under military occupation.
When people in peaceful countries think of “occupation,” they often think of politics. Let me tell you what it actually means for a human being: it means your life is completely controlled. Your movements are restricted, your water is diverted, your home can be demolished, and young boys can be taken from the streets for interrogation. Under that rule, if you protested, you faced sudden curfews. Anyone on the street a minute too late was arrested or shot. We had no right to vote, no right to run our own affairs, and no future for the next generation. We were treated like a threat just for existing, stripped of freedom simply because of who we were and what we believed.
That is why October 14, 1986, is a sacred date for me. It was the night we were finally treated as human beings.
The shock of arrival
But freedom didn’t mean an instant fairytale. As a Christian girl educated in a Catholic school by nuns, taught to uphold a high level of behaviour, the transition was a culture shock. When I started at Canterbury Girls High School, I struggled. I was bullied by girls for saying I was Palestinian. I was told by my teachers that “Palestine doesn’t exist.” I was shocked by girls smoking in the toilets and meeting boyfriends at the school gates.
Overwhelmed, I cried to my parents that I wanted to go back to Ramallah to live with my grandmother. My mother gently but firmly put sense into me. She looked at me and said: “You want to go back to a life in a big prison? We are free here, and we stay here, together.”
She was right. As I progressed from high school to university, and then into the workforce, Australia opened its arms to me. I built a life enriched by great friends from all over the world and great Aussie mates who helped me succeed. This society viewed me as an equal, offering me not just as a migrant, but as a woman, the opportunity to have a fair go and contribute. I will forever be grateful and indebted to this country, and to the Australian ambassador ‘s assistant in Tel Aviv who back in 1986 saw potential in a decent, enterprising, honest-to-goodness Palestinian family.
The return on investment
And what did we do with that “fair go”? We gave it all back to Australia.
My parents built a business and mastered the English language. Every single one of my siblings achieved a tertiary education and established businesses that serve this country:
• My sister Wendy and I founded an accounting practice.
• My brother Nabil established a well-respected family law firm.
• My sister Mary became a drug and alcohol counsellor and nurse.
• My brother Jiries became a mechanic shop owner and a part-time farmer.
We didn’t just move here; we integrated fully. My sister Mary married a fair-dinkum Aussie named Glenn, an awesome guy our family adores. My brother Jiries married Lisa, another fair-dinkum Aussie girl who is hands-down the best sister-in-law on the planet. Our family tree grew deep Australian roots. The Wahhabs are now proudly related to the Sweeneys, Davidsons, and Kennedys. My male cousins are married to Australian girls from Lebanese Maronite, Greek, Italian, Assyrian, Serbian, and Colombian backgrounds.
This land even heals old-world divisions. Two of my Palestinian Christian girlfriends are happily married to Palestinian and Lebanese Muslim husbands. Another Palestinian Muslim friend of mine is married to a Palestinian Christian man. This is Australia. Old hatreds melt away here under the sun of mutual respect.
We see each other as Australian first, with a beautiful background from somewhere else. Because except for the Indigenous traditional owners of this land who have been here for 60,000 years, every single person living here can trace their heritage to another country, whether they arrived in 1986, or their ancestors landed as convicts or free settlers in 1788.
We all come from somewhere else. And that includes Pauline Hanson.
The levant in my blood, Australia in my heart
Yesterday, Pauline Hanson stood before the National Press Club and argued that while Australia is multiracial, it must be “monocultural”, that we must all live under “one cultural umbrella.”
But history and science tell a different story. I come from a place where we are all Palestinian, but our origins are beautifully mixed. Over centuries, Palestinians became a tapestry of Jewish, Roman, Greek, Crusader, Armenian, Assyrian, Lebanese, Afghani, Arab, and English blood. I myself am a mix of Jewish, Greek, Armenian, and Syrian/Lebanese. I am simply Levantine in origin, and Australian by adoption.
I adopted Australia as the place to build my life and my business. My husband is Fijian-Indian, and our 18-year-old son is a fair-dinkum, free-born Australian.
I would hate to think that my son would ever have to live under the kind of authoritarian, divisive rule I was born under. I have loved being in Australia for the past 40 years because I wanted him to have a different life. I don’t want people to mistake him for an outsider just because he has creamy skin, curly black hair, and brown eyes.
Exporting the ‘fair go’
I don’t want to see a shrinking, fearful Australia. I want to see a prosperous and harmonious Australia, enriched by the cultures that come here and give everything to build a life under the umbrella of a fair go, freedom, equality, and democracy.
If you have never lost your freedom, you have no idea how beautiful democracy truly is. Australia must never fall into a fascist, dividing rhetoric that strips away our harmony and makes over 51 per cent of the population feel unwelcome. We want freedom for all, including the Indigenous people of this land who have suffered historically, just as my people have suffered in Palestine.
In fact, Australia inspired me so deeply that I co-founded Palestinian Christians in Australia (PCIA). We use our platform to advocate for a free and equal society in my homeland, completely emulated on Australia’s system of equality and the fair go. We want a future there where everyone – whether they are Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, and wherever they are from – is treated equally and fairly under a system that puts human dignity first.
An open invitation
My vision for Australia, and my vision for Palestine and Israel, is exactly the same: that we all sit down at one table and enjoy the richness of the human family.
We want a world where we can all eat together at a single table filled with falafel, hummus, paella, moussaka, maaloubeh, fish and chips, lasagna, and dolmas.
Pauline, I know you care about Australia. So do I. And that is why I am offering you a genuine invitation to come over and see for yourself the Australia we have created here.
We want you to see the beautiful, rich table we have built, not to attack you, but to show you how much richer, more equal, and more joyful life is when the umbrella is big enough for everyone.
With deep gratitude,
Suzan Wahhab
Republished from Palestinian Christians in Australia
Suzan Wahhab
Suzan Wahhab was born in Jerusalem and grew up listening to Nakba stories in occupied Ramallah. She is the President of Palestinian Christians in Australia and is an accountant and financial strategist.