A Panel for all seasons..

A terrific panel discussion on ‘Coming of Age: Growing up Muslim in Australia’ this afternoon for the #BrimbankReadersandWritersFestival2015. With co-author Irfan Yusuf and editor, Demet Divaroren our conversation was brilliantly facilitated by #WritersVictoria Director, #KateLarsen. From inspirations to frustrations, we canvassed many challenges of a hyphenated identity in an at times monocultural society. A genuinely wonderful session, engaging healthy input from the audience, highlighting media bias and the socio-cultural demonisation of new communities as a veritable rites of passage tool, locating Muslims as the current folk devil. The irony of an incumbent Catholic PM who has lamented the persecution of his Catholic ancestors in Australia, yet has failed miserably in his duty of care to quell the Islamaphobic sentiment contributing to wide scale racism here, was duly noted #politicalirony101 #ComingOfAge #GrowingUpMusliminAustralia