Australia's Afghan Cameleers - Part One

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2015

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dawood Azami focuses on the life and legacy of the Afghan cameleers, who first arrived in Australia in the 1860s. They played a crucial role in the development of railway lines, overland Telegraph line and provided supplies to remote mission stations and farms. They became part of the pioneering legend of inland Australia by opening up the Australian deserts, exploring it and enabling the early white settlers to survive.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading from the BBC.
0:04.0	The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use go to BBCWorldService.com
0:10.0	Slash Podcasts.
0:14.0	January 1915, and it's a beautiful day in broken hills.
0:20.0	A small town in Australia about 8 hours drive today, north east of Adelaide.
0:26.0	And a train of 40 open trucks is approaching.
0:30.0	Two gentlemen are used to live down at the North Camel camp.
0:34.0	They actually waited for the train to come along and then they open fire up onto the train.
0:40.0	They had a shootout.
0:42.0	The local ice cream man and his friend Aboucher attacked the long slow holiday train.
0:50.0	Over 1,200 men, women and children came here all excited to go to the annual picnic.
0:56.0	The train was attacked by two men who were hidden behind an ice cream van
1:02.0	and the Turkish flag was flying from that ice cream van.
1:07.0	An Afghan halal butcher and his friend an Afghan ice cream man with camels in Australia.
1:15.0	How did they get there?
1:17.0	And why were they taking a picnic train?
1:20.0	In fact, there were hundreds of Afghans deep in the interior of Australia at this time.
1:26.0	It came and went as a remarkable chapter in the history of globalized diasporas
1:34.0	as well as Australian history itself.
1:37.0	This chapter opened and closed without much notice.
1:42.0	I am Dawud Azami of the BBC World Service
1:46.0	and this is the story of how it was Afghans who opened up Australia.
	...

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