Lakemba, the Australia of my youth

Lakemba is a much-maligned suburb of southwestern Sydney. About 20 kilometres from the city centre, it was a typically working class area until the mid-1960s when increasing numbers of Lebanese migrants began to settle there. By 1977 Sydney’s most prominent mosque, the Lakemba Mosque, was opened on Wangee Road just to the north of Lakemba’s main business precinct. In the late-1990s Lakemba shot to the headlines as a centre of gang-related violence, and in the 2000s as stories about alleged Muslim extremists became the flavour of the month.

I lived in Lakemba from 2003 – 2004, and spent much of 2005 and 2006 there too. My memories from this time have very little to do with extremism or gang violence; rather, it was a time of fun, freedom and friendship. From when I first moved to Lakemba, when I had friends like Ali and Mustafa by my side, to 2004 and later when I spent most nights hanging out with my friends Samer, Walid and Abdul, I have almost nothing but happy memories from the era. It was hedonistic – going for movies at 11pm, followed by coffee in the city or Burwood at 3am, then breakfast back in Lakemba. I’d scrape myself off the bed a few hours later to get to work at Starbucks the next day, or if it was a university day I would probably just sleep through.

My life has since taken me in a very different direction; now, living in Pakistan, 33 years of age, I often reminisce about those times. I think about when Samer came to Sydney Airport to see me off when I was heading to Pakistan for the very first time in January 2006. I think about the time that Abdul very kindly tried to refer me to a prominent Sydney journalist that he knew, only for me to turn it down due to my own lack of interest (and perhaps confidence). I think about my first flat that I rented on Macdonald Street, and nights during Ramadan at the Lakemba Mosque just a short walk away. And I think about the countless nights that I spent at Walid’s place sleeping over during summer. Come morning (read: midday or later) we would head out into the muggy Sydney heat to Jasmin’s Restaurant for a breakfast of labneh (strained yogurt) and fatteh.

On a recent trip to Sydney I went back to Lakemba. Some things had changed a lot, while others had remained the same. The streetscape was much more overtly ‘Muslim’ than I remember it being – huge hoardings proudly proclaiming the shahada demarcate prayer halls and Islamic book stores in a way that they wouldn’t have in the early 2000s. Arja Patisserie, my favourite pit stop for baklava, had closed down. And the previously Arab-dominated demographic seems to have been diluted by a new influx of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims who call Lakemba home.

It was a typically sticky Sydney summer morning, and I couldn’t pass by Jasmin’s without stopping in for breakfast. Of course I ordered my old favourites, and as I dug into the fatteh, the slightly warm, sour yogurt coating my tongue, I was transported to another place and time. I closed my eyes… some (often prejudiced) people say that coming to Lakemba is like stepping out of Australia and into a Middle Eastern country. However for me, that morning, it was like coming home to a place I had lost touch with – the Australia of my youth. Suddenly everything went into rewind – Pakistan, books, blogs, India, teaching, travel, Melbourne, relationships, Iran… and I was 20 again, about to face a new day in Lakemba where on my to-do list I had… nothing.

Fatteh at Jasmin’s Restaurant

I opened my eyes and snapped out of it. I knew what I had to do. My days in Lakemba existed perhaps only in the memories of those who were present – in the days before social media and camera phones, simple memories like these went undocumented, simply consigned to the annals of a person’s life. That’s not particularly a bad thing – not everything must be hyper-documented in the way that modern social media urges us. However it’s also a tragedy, because whenever I hear the name Lakemba uttered, my sentiments are restricted to my mind, while the faces in the room around me register a very different emotion, oblivious to my world of youthful bliss. I wish I had more of my fun times in Lakemba to share with the world.

I decided to feature fatteh, Jasmin’s, Lakemba and the Lakemba Mosque on my Recipes for Ramadan video for this week – because while the mosque itself is not particularly remarkable, Lakemba holds a very special place in my heart, one which is so different from that which most people envisage. Lakemba, in this way, is one of the most Australian places I can think of. Lakemba is the Australia of my youth.

Have you ever returned to a place to relive memories? Comment below!

(If you’re interested in making fatteh, I found a good recipe online here at Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail)