DISCOVERING SIMILARITIES AMID DIFFERENCES

Dean Sahu Khan, OAM

For service to the community, and to interfaith relations

Dean Sahu Khan’s message of hope for all of us is quite simple – seek to understand yourself better, in order to understand those around you of a different faith.

“When we truly see the similarities, that’s when we will understand - and accept - the differences that unite us,” he told Indian Link.

Dean received the OAM this King’s Birthday for his services to bringing different faiths together, with the goal of uniting all in order to serve the community better.

Dean appreciates the acknowledgement and recognition of his work as founding member and chair of the Canberra

Interfaith Forum, as well as the national board member of Religions for Peace, Australia – through which his vision has come to fruition.

A lawyer by profession (he is currently a Criminal Law Expert, with Legal on London, and has been Prosecutor, Director of Public Prosecutions with the ACT Government), the vision for interfaith activism was planted as a seed when he was young boy growing up in Fiji. He recounts with a smile a minor schoolyard altercation when the boisterous lads decided that the best use of their time at recess was to argue about whose god was more powerful - Jesus, Allah or Bhagwan.

“My father took the time to educate me on the seminal message – that religion is a collection of rituals that we participate in, but at the heart of that religion are fundamental truths that are universal. And within that heart is the soul of the religion – which is, that there is one creator.” groups of Wagga Wagga and also as Ambassador of Australian Football League Diversity Community since 2017.

He added, “All religions teach us how to be, and how to live a good life – but we often miss the point of the key messages.

“Whatever you do, must be with complete honesty and with full conviction and responsibility,” Dr Saba Nabi says, recounting her multiple roles and committee positions where she believes she has always found respect because the feedback and suggestions she gave were always genuine and well-intentioned.

Asked to choose the one field of work she finds most fulfilling, Dr Nabi says it’s difficult to pick one favourite among all her babies. “I am working for the uplift of all sectors, but multicultural affairs are probably the closest to my heart, partly because of my own journey from being a migrant to a citizen,” she says.

There has been a language barrier, and a lack of translated material, guidance and information especially for those on student visas. “There is also a bit of scepticism in hiring those who come to Australia with a foreign qualification, and more can be done to help provide recognition to foreign degrees, and I am working for that,” Dr Nabi says.

Dr Nabi is certainly not new to receiving awards, having started out as a winner of the NSW International Student of the Year Award back in 2014, and since then having collected a wide variety of them, including being on the list of the 100 Influential Women of the Australian Financial Review in 2018 and also winning the Riverina Volunteer of the Year Award in 2019, the Hidden Treasurers Honours Roll of 2020, and the NSW Rural Women Scholarship in 2021.

Dr Saba Nabi feels proud to have passed on the volunteering spirit to her 13-yearold daughter too. “It’s heartening to see her take on a lot of voluntary initiatives,” she says.

Tarini Puri

religious practices? How do we influence better behaviours in ourselves and othersin the absence of being able to advocate from a platform of a religion?

We fail to realise that we are all children of the one creator – regardless of how that creator manifests in our religious texts.”

Dean says he is religious, as well as spiritual. Many of us judge the actions of the individual as a reflection of the religion, when the reality is that the crucial messages of the scriptures are misunderstood, misinterpreted, and often subject to the whims of the human condition.

Additionally, he observed, the similarities of the scriptures – the germane ideas and fundamental truths – are overlooked in favour of the focus on the differences.

So how do we shape a kinder world which is becoming more relaxed about

The answer is simple, says Dean. “We look within ourselves to ask – I might be following all the practices and rituals my religious beliefs tell me, but does this follow through in all my actions, thoughts and behaviours? As an example, after I have prayed, do I ensure all my thoughts are charitable towards my fellow beings, and not just my family? In choosing my generosity, am I focusing only on those near and dear to me, or do I see the bigger human family - regardless of their faith?”

Dean Sahu Khan won the Bluestar International (Interfaith) Award in 2012, and ACT Government’s Volunteer of the Year award in 2016 for his work with the Fiji Australia Association of Canberra He is humble about his latest honour on this King’s Birthday, and hopes that the legacy he will leave is one of people asking themselves – no matter their faith or religion – was there love for all in each of my thoughts and actions?

“Then, only then, will we know there is a true intersection of faith and hope.”

Salma Shah