Did you know that the first Afghans that migrated to Australia were the cameleers of the 19th century?
Australian filmmaker Jolyon Hoff saw Ali’s experience as a former Afghan-Hazara refugee as an opportunity to re-examine Australia’s colonial history.
At the graveyard where many cameleers have been laid to rest, their ancestors will come and pour water on the graves, or sprinkle seed for the birds. These are all practices that we still do in Afghanistan. But the descendants didn’t know why they were doing it, which was really interesting for me. And the graves themselves are fascinating because the cameleers have obviously been buried in an Islamic way – with tombstones and Quranic verses calligraphed on them.
