MELBOURNE, 20 October, 2024: There are thousands of migrants here from Afghanistan, which always remains in news headlines. It is not uncommon to see Afghan women and men in many suburbs, and some have such large populations. They have brought in their culture, faith, dresses and music adding to the multicultural ethos of Victoria and Australia. It is this that was visible at the Afghan Cultural Day Festival at the Dandenong Park. So beautiful dresses, caps, outfits flashed design and colour in the green park. Singers from the stage sang songs and kids danced. It was fun all around.
Interestingly, the original Afghan flag (the one before the Taliban took power) was all around and on many stalls. One fellow was wearing a T-shirt with the flag.
But what attracted and astonished me was an unusual stall, full of framed photos. Little did I know, they were past Afghan political, social and literary figures in frames neatly kept on tables. An unusual but interesting visual experience.
I could see the photographs of King Zahir Shah, last king of Afghanistan (1933-1973), Malang Jan (literary figure), Md. Asif Sameem (poet,writer), Sardar Md. Daoud Khan, who overthrew King Zahir Shah, Manzor Pashteen (human rights activist), Dr, Najeebullah, the fifth and last President and leader of the leftist PDPA before the Mujahadeen takeover, Hamid Karzai (former President, Ashraf Gani among others.
A few Afghan boys were around who had only recently migrated from Afghanistan, seemed to be quite knowledgeable about these leaders and one of them pointed at Dr. Najeebullah’s photo, saying he was a good leader. Then they introduced me to the organiser of the stall Gul Rahman Arianzai, who said, “this stall is here to educate young Afghans about their past leaders and prominent figures.”
According to the Victorian Government site. there are, “The Afghan community in Victoria is the largest in Australia. There are 43,845 people in Victoria who have Afghan ancestries, of which 25,432 were born in Afghanistan. The Afghan community consists of ancestries: Hazara, Pashtun, Tajik, Turkmen, Uzbek and Kyrgyz.”
Afghan-born migrants here mostly live in Casey and Greater Dandenong. Of the many communities that constitute Afghans here, the maximum are from the Hazara community.
