Caravanserai

In 1993 Hanifa Deen set out on a journey of the heart and mind to show the human face of Australian Muslims. These are ordinary people from diverse backgrounds and cultures, people who mow their lawns, worry about their mortgages and love their children. Ten years later, in the wake of September 11 and the Bali bombing, she revisits those people and finds them living in the shadow of the wider community’s hostility. Australia has shifted from the welcoming caravanserai that Deen originally envisaged to a place that many Australian Muslims no longer see as safe for their families. The whispered voices of prejudice from the past are now loud and shrill and gaining currency day by day.