Gulnessa Quotes

“Zainullah’s angry now. Zahra’s withdrawn. She used to be so bright and bubbly. But I think it’s making Hassan get some sense. Everyone gets nightmares.”

“While it is true there are people who don’t want us here, there are others who welcome us, and are happy to share their country with us.”

“But that’s like the Terror. Everyone who didn’t do what they wanted was removed. Had we landed in a situation like the one we’d just escaped from?”

“Guards kept telling us that no one wanted us in Australia.”

“Any problem that arose was too much for Mom now.”

“Officers try to prove we are lying.”

“Not weak, not strong. Different...”

“His quiet presence since leaving home had helped and reassured me. And more and more I’d found a liked being near him.”

“I sat quietly in a kind of daze (...) far from my bubbly little sister.”

“It’s not possible to be this frightened and to stay alive.”

“So we are in prison here because the government doesn’t want us.”

“Muslim women should dress traditionally and wear a scarf, even though he always wore western gear.”

“Why do they keep us behind high wire fences like we are criminals?”

“They take away our people’s lives.”

“I usually tell the two Z’s stories about home, and about Dad and our Bahkhuls or Arjays. Yes, it is good they hear these stories. Not about things from here.”

“Mum seemed more and more often to sit gazing out of the window, oblivious to us.”

“She was getting more and more headaches, and spending more time in our room.”

“I wouldn’t have done it if I had known people wouldn’t believe us.”