PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Dear Om, It has been fascinating to read of your journey from Bhutan, a country you loved, to Australia, your new home which you have embraced with heart and vigour. The early part of your memoir is heartwarming as you tell of your extended family and life growing up in Bhutan - being so different from my own growing up in Australia! Your energy and keenness towards Bhutan's development is clear as you worked hard within the civil service, furthering Bhutan's telecoms systems.
This makes it all the harder to comprehend how a country can then turn against families such as yours and deem them to be non-citizens because of ancestral background! Disbelief, anger and unease are felt as you tell of 'tools' such as a citizenship card under a policy called One Nation being used to disenfranchise whole groups of people because 'someone' felt the nation was being swamped by the 'wrong' kind of people (sounds eerily familiar).
Fortunately, Australia as it is today (hopefully our worst moments are behind us), is a place where such ideas have been quashed by the democratic process and where the notion of a 'fair go' is something most of us hold to. And Australia is where you eventually found yourself putting down new roots. The last part of your book takes us through the practicalities and challenges for both individuals and whole communities in making a new start in a foreign country, starting with next-to-nothing but hope. Best wishes to you, Saroja and Smriti, and keep going strong with the community advocacy. Craig Kirchner
Om Dhungel arrived in Australia as a student in 1998 before being granted a refugee visa in light of the Bhutanese Government's persecution of the ethnic Nepalese of southern Bhutan. As inaugural president of the Association of Bhutanese in Australia, Om played a critical role in the settlement of 5000 Bhutanese refugees in Australia. Before coming to Australia he was a senior civil servant in Bhutan's Department of Telecommunications, then, while a refugee in Nepal, general secretary of the Human Rights Organisation of Bhutan and co-editor of The Bhutan Review. In Australia he worked for ten years as a business analyst at Telstra, and today sits on the NSW Ministry of Health Advisory Committee, the NSW Police Multicultural Advisory Council, the Blacktown Multicultural Advisory Committee. He runs Om Dhungel Consulting. James Button is a former journalist and Europe correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is the author of Speechless: A year in my father's business and Comeback: The fall and rise of Geelong, and has won three Walkley awards and a Melbourne Press Club Quill for feature writing. He is a freelance writer and editor.
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Dear Om, It has been fascinating to read of your journey from Bhutan, a country you loved, to Australia, your new home which you have embraced with heart and vigour. The early part of your memoir is heartwarming as you tell of your extended family and life growing up in Bhutan - being so different from my own growing up in Australia! Your energy and keenness towards Bhutan's development is clear as you worked hard within the civil service, furthering Bhutan's telecoms systems.
This makes it all the harder to comprehend how a country can then turn against families such as yours and deem them to be non-citizens because of ancestral background! Disbelief, anger and unease are felt as you tell of 'tools' such as a citizenship card under a policy called One Nation being used to disenfranchise whole groups of people because 'someone' felt the nation was being swamped by the 'wrong' kind of people (sounds eerily familiar).
Fortunately, Australia as it is today (hopefully our worst moments are behind us), is a place where such ideas have been quashed by the democratic process and where the notion of a 'fair go' is something most of us hold to. And Australia is where you eventually found yourself putting down new roots. The last part of your book takes us through the practicalities and challenges for both individuals and whole communities in making a new start in a foreign country, starting with next-to-nothing but hope. Best wishes to you, Saroja and Smriti, and keep going strong with the community advocacy. Craig Kirchner
Om Dhungel's journey of the heart and soul, from the fields of southern Bhutan to the streets of Blacktown, Sydney, is a journey from which we can all learn, regardless of our origins. -Michael Hutt, Professor of Nepali and Himalayan Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Om's optimism and tenacity helped him travel the harrowing path of a stateless person to build a new life for himself and his community. By telling his inspirational story and shedding light on the resettlement experience of Bhutanese refugees in Australia, Om brings the issue of refugees and the conditions for their successful integration in their new countries to a wider audience. - Bhim Subba, author of Himalayan waters and former Director General of the Department of Power in the Government of Bhutan
