I was born in Brisbane in 1981. When I was seven we moved to America. My parents had split up and dad was running hotels in Noumea and New Caledonia. Mum had some friends in the States and we went over for a vacation. She found work and one year led to two, and she eventually got remarried.
We lived between New York and New Jersey. It was amazing – like what you see on TV. The kids were all running amok. It was a lot of fun, but the wrong kind of fun.
Religion was part of my life growing up. I can remember mum encouraging me to pray when I was a boy. She used to take me to church – sometimes we’d go to a Catholic church, sometimes we’d go to a Pentecostal. But as soon as I was old enough not to go, I didn’t. I can’t recall praying or thinking about anything beyond the here and now as a young man.
We moved back to Australia when I was 16. Mum didn’t say so at the time but I think part of the reason we came back was me. I was on the wrong path with the kids I was hanging around. Mum told me we were coming here to Australia for a vacation. It turns out it was a one-way ticket but she figured that was the only way to get me out of there.
Ali Kadri, Imam Uzair and Robbie Maestracci feature in 'The Mosque Next Door'. Image: SBS Source: Image: SBS
"I was lost, I was doing bad things."
I moped around for a few years. I was really depressed because I wanted to go back to the States with my friends. I tried to go to school here but the system was completely different. Within six months of enrolling I dropped out.
I got a job doing door-to-door marketing – the sort of thing you jump into after school with no experience. Later I worked at a bank and at Centrelink – they were good jobs. But recreational drug use was always in the background. I’d go out and party on the weekends. The thing about that is, from what I’ve observed, recreational drugs stay in the background until something happens in your life, and they don’t become so recreational or occasional any more.
That’s what happened with me. I was married young at 22. I was using drugs throughout my marriage and when my marriage ended, I went into a nosedive. I’d felt like I’d failed at conventional life. I didn’t deal with it well and I turned to drugs and crime.
