"I'm facing my own fear": Meet the Muslim woman starting a mobile shisha cafe to travel round Australia

Self-described Muslim bogan - 31-year-old Turkish Australian Betul Tuna - wears a headscarf, prays five times a day and fast during Ramadan

She lives in Shepperton, one of Australia's One Nation strongholds, where Islamophobia is rampant and she's got a smoking idea to put an end to it for good.

One puff of the water pipe at a time ...

By day she's a community worker and a single mum with three kids. By night Betul and her best mate Suzan Yilmaz are transforming an old caravan into a shisha cafe on wheels.

They're gearing up to travel around the country with it, parking in random streets, opening their doors to all Australians who might fear Muslims.

"Forty nine per cent of Australians don't want us here," she says.

"I'm facing my fear and I guess I'm expecting the forty nine per cent to face their fear and maybe come have that cup of coffee.

"Or try the shisha, it's sweet. A lot of people are curious, a lot of people do want to know.
Muslim
Source: The Feed
"They probably don't have the opportunity to be able to just causally sit down and not feel dumb when asking the question. I think that's really important.

"I will always start the convo with 'this is a safe place, I am someone you can ask questions to, if I don't know the answers I find the answers'."

Betul says the key is not getting offended and communicating that's she's open and "happy to have that discussion".
A recent poll revealed that almost half of Australians - some forty nine per cent - agree with One Nation senator Pauline Hanson and that there should be a ban on Muslim immigration.

For Betul and her community, she has a rather straight response.

"It's sad, it's very sad, it's disappointing ... "

"You start thinking where do I belong? Where is my identity? I'm born and raised in Australia, I'm an Aussie, where do I belong?

"I think I've said it before, but unless you're the original, the custodian of the land you're standing on you don't really have that say.
"You start thinking where do I belong? Where is my identity? I'm born and raised in Australia, I'm an Aussie"
"I believe the owners of the land are the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people and unless there is an Aboriginal or Indigenous person telling me to go back then I'm not going anywhere."

Betul's business venture has an unusual name and one that may surprise some people - Hijack'd - but she says she looks at it with a smirk.

"You know, a lot of people said to us that sounds very negative.

"And I was like you know what? Sometimes you've got to see the humour in negativity as well.

"I don't see it as negative, we thought it was funny. Like hey, come have coffee with someone in a van called hijacked.

"There are days when we feel this isn't fair. My religion has been hijacked, it's been hijacked.

"I guess we want to reclaim what was ours, what is ours, rightfully."
Smoke
Source: The Feed
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3 min read
Published 4 October 2016 7:12pm
Updated 5 October 2016 10:09am
By Patrick Abboud
Source: The Feed

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