When Zaahir Edries escaped Apartheid in South Africa at the age of five, he'd imagined his new home would be one of equal opportunity.
"I'm born in South Africa, migrated to Australia when I was quite young, came with our family, we left a pretty difficult situation in Apartheid South Africa. So it was important for us to come to a place where on its face was going to give us a good chance, the Australian fair go."
But settling into Australia in a post-9/11 world was difficult for this young Muslim boy and his family.
"Around September 11 things changed for me quite significantly. Attitudes towards my faith and my identity changed in the public sphere so that made it difficult to interact the same way I did before. As a young adult at the time I struggled to reconcile my identity as a Muslim and also as someone who was being asked to explain the events of some horrible criminals on the other side of the world, which wasn't something we'd experienced previously."
Click on the player at the top of the page to listen to the audio in Punjabi.
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