We'd like to acknowledge that traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast was produced, the Gellighl people of the urination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present.
It's the late nineties and Mahmud Fazao is growing up in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne. His parents settled here after fleeing the Soviet War in Afghanistan, and for my Mood is a calm and loving childhood. Weekends are spent with Dad at work in the dandinglong markets, and at home his mum cooks delicious delicacies to keep the memories of their homeland alive. They're a loving family and life in Australia is good.
That is until two thousand and one, when.
Everything changes, not just for Ma Mood but for all Afghans all around the world. Until now, no one knew much about their homeland. Now it's a country everyone is aware of. Mamood is just starting high school and kids are crueled in a country he once felt at home. He is completely outed nine eleven, shakes his sense of
belonging and changes life in Australia forever. This lack of belonging the feeling of being an outsider will lead him to become deeply embedded in one of Australia's most violent gangs. I'm Att Middleton and this is head Game Today. How Mahmoud Fazzau became a sergeant at arms for the Mongol's Bikey Gang and the lessons in resilience, reinvention and redemption. Mahmood Fuzz, thank you so much for coming on my podcast head Game Now.
You've got quite a fascinating story. Where were you born? Mahmoud?
I was born here in Melbourne in the southeast in nineteen ninety. So my parents moved here from Afghanistan. They've fled the Soviet invasion and my father's uncle sponsored him to come over here roughly around eighty eight. And yeah, two years later I arrived him.
Two years later you were born, Mamood? And what was your household?
Like?
What was it was it?
Was it quite Australian or were you still quite traditional with your afghan roots and the ways of the Middle East?
Shall we say?
Yeah, Well, my parents were definitely still trying to figure out this land in which they had arrived and they you know, they spoke Pashto at home. I grew up in an Afghan household that was very much time locked to pre Soviet invasion Afghanistan, which was quite you know, unique in that it was conservative, but there were progressive elements of the country as well. You know, women were going to university that was American records you could readily access.
There was a big music culture and a big poetry culture. So I grew up in a household that very much celebrated that kind of Afghan heritage, and Pascheda was my first language. But otherwise I was very much encouraged to be an Australian. You know, my parents were barracked for
the Australian cricket team. You know, we were very much part of this culture and very much my parents encouraged me to be as Australian as I could be, and I was welcomed at school, in primary school and in my community as an Australian for well until nine to eleven pretty much.
So did you see yourself as Australian or did you see yourself as Afghani?
There wasn't really a confusion. I think I merged the two to yeah, and I very much felt Australian and Afghan at the same time. And at school, I remember, you know, kids being kind of fascinated by this exotic, kind of strange place that no one had heard of back then, particularly in suburban, working class suburban Melbourne. This place Afghanistan. It was just kind of like a tongue twister that they would you know, joke about in the school yard, but no one actually knew where this strange
place was. And yeah, I mean I never felt like an outsider really. I was definitely one of the boys on the school yard. And yeah, very much part of the community and very much an Australian. I didn't really know what it meant to be an Afghan outside of my home. You know, there wasn't much of an Afghan community back then either, so my experience of Afghanistan was
very limited to my specific household. I think back then our community was only like a hundred people in the whole of Victoria, so and there were a lot of my family members.
So primary school, you mentioned primary school, was that quite a comfortable living, quite a good way of living. You were very sort of integrated, You loved it, and you mentioned there that things changed after obviously nine eleven, huge event global event that happened, but just taught me prior prior to that, were you a fun loving kid and just happy, go lucky and loving life.
I was very much happy you got lucky. You know. I listened to powder Finger, I did all the things young Australian kids did. I was probably edging on being like a Bogain like I was, you know, I was into VLS. I was just yeah, I played cricket, wanted to be like Brettley, you know all that stuff. And then yeah, around grade five, things started shifting. You know.
I had a bit of a kind of a traumatic event that happened in grade five, and then the following year was nine to eleven, when I was in grade six, and there was this real shift where I felt like I was this part of the community, but from a strange land, but I wasn't one of the boys. To suddenly everyone feeling as though they actually knew the real me, you know, they began to understand what Afghanistan was, and who the people from Afghanistan were and what they represented
and what they really wanted to do to the West. Well, that was how I felt, you know, I felt like I'd kind of been stained with this brush that, you know, the media kind of propelled.
Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. So it was a knock on of effects really from grade five and then grade six, nine eleven happens.
Do you remember that day?
I remember the morning quite vividly, like seeing my father on the couch kind of watching the planes flying over and over again, juxtaposed with these images of bearded men in these caves and then the mountains of Afghanistan, like just over and and over again, and my dad kind of seemed worried. I think it was one of the only times i'd really seen my dad kind of concerned and worried, which was odd. I knew something weird was going on. And then I remember being at school and
it was this kind of strange panic. Even in the classroom. Everyone seemed confused, and we're talking about it. And we were like eleven years old, you know, so it's kind of weird. But people, the teachers were obviously concerned and the kids were talking about it, and I remember one of the girls looking over at me and saying, isn't that where you're from? And said, yeah, you know, And it was this really profound moment where I suddenly realized
that I wasn't part of the group. I might be, I might belong to something else, and I kind of had to understand that and learn about that and reckon with what that meant.
So when when that happened, did you no longer sort of see yourself as Australian? Did it flip straight over to right? People are looking at me now, looking at my home country. This event has just happened. Did you sort of go back into your Afghanistan heritage because obviously you were pushed into that way, or was it a conscious decision of you know, wow, this is happening in my homeland.
Well, the following year nine to eleven happened towards in September, obviously, and then the following year was my first year of high school. So there's already all this this flood of emotions and you're trying to reckon with all of that stuff, and suddenly you go from being the oldest kids yard
to the youngest kid in the school yard. Yeah, and there was this odd thing where all these people that you grew up with, that you had relationships with, suddenly didn't want to hang out with you and associate with you. In the high school yard, and so you gravitate towards the handful of other kids that kind of get you. And I was lucky enough. I had a couple of cousins at the school that I went to, and we just kind of clicked together. And I was like, did you.
Feel like that you had to click together?
Did you feel like that you were pushed towards that and you naturally gravitated towards that because of the situation.
I think it was obvious that we felt excluded.
And it was an obvious exclusion.
Yeah, and there was you know, a lot of school yard jokes around, you know, terrorists and you know, and when you're young and your naive, you kind of play along with all that stuff because you want to be accepted, you know. And so but then you know, there was a few very stern conversations you know, I had with my cousins. Wo, we decide we're not going to cop it anymore. And yeah, like I said, there was maybe four or five of us. Even some of the Arabs
that were hanging out with us. They were like Christian Palestinian kids, like they were Christians, but they still got you know.
Yeah, they still got excluded too of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were still seen as kind of these terrorists Middle Eastern kids, these terrorist Arabs. So yeah, it wasn't just us, but there was maybe maybe five or six of us. They just stuck together. And very early, maybe halfway through that first year, one of my cousins was at the school. She used to wear a hijab and she got like, I remember, she got like an orange pegged at her head, you know, and the white hijab, you know, there was just bits of orange all over it.
And it was a kind of breaking point where my cousin. My cousin was a lot more aggressive than I was, and he said, you know, I'm not copping that anymore. And this was a much older kid too that did it. It was in year lefton or something, year twelve, and yeah, it was we went to his locker bain and we.
Just pushed a breaking point really yeah.
Yeah, and pretty much pretty much, I mean, we knew that if we don't do anything, we're just going to keep copying this for the next for the rest of our lives in high school. Yeah yeah. And so then when we did that, people started respecting us. It really confused us because we used violence in a very aggressive way and we got respect for it and people didn't fuck with us. And so in our very young minds, we thought, well that's the answer, you know, and then it.
Works, right, It's like it works, we get in respect. Was our mindset shift there as well, Manmoud? Was there mindset shift of actually, you know you've pushed me out, you know, fuck you lot, We're going to stick together.
It's us again.
Was it divisive like that or was it just a case, Yeah, it was make you feel angry.
Yeah, we were very angry, very We felt betrayed by the people that we loved, you know, in the community that we love that estranged us, and so we suddenly I remember borrowing books about Afghanistan from the school library, like literally having to learn because my parents were like my dad was kind of a literally never went to school and stuff, so we couldn't like mind him for
the history of our country. Everything he knew was kind of third or fourth hand, and so I just remember like literally trying to learn about who I was in these strange texts at the school library and suddenly having to face the fact that, you know, I'm never going to be seen as an AUSSI. None of these kids will ever believe that I'm an Aussi. So I've got to actually figure out who the fuck I am in this in this strange environment.
Did you try and say I was born here, I'm just as Australian as you are.
And was there was there a fight with that?
Did you use the will to fight that fight or was it just a case of the segregation was too obviously divided. You stick to your group, their stick to their group, and we need to just to stick together.
I think everyone's mind at that point was already made up that, you know, it really is a war of us against them, the West, against these people in the Middle East. And if you know, you believe in any of things that these people in the Middle East believe, you're not part of us. And we were Muslims, you know, so it was we very much believed that, you know,
we probably are not part of this group anymore. And so it was very confusing, and we definitely had to basically seek out a new identity or constructing new identity, and it was very much, you know, it was very disorientating that it was Also the main problem was that we began to use violence that got results, and then that kind of intoxicated us further. And yeah, it was all It was just a kind of slippery slope that made us make a lot of bad decisions.
And what path of destruction if it was a path of destruction or violence, did that lead you down? From that moment onwards.
Well, we kind of shifted into like we in the beginning, it was like reactionary. You know, we thought, you know, these people are going to be picking on us, so we're going to get them back. But then we just started, you know, we thought, well, actually, let's addressed upon him before it starts, and just started you know, almost like terrorizing the other kids in the on the school yard,
you know, and just being really awful people. But it was a it protected us, and it was a very early lesson in that, you know, I began to learn that sometimes the most aggressive and violent and unpredictable people are often the most scared and the most vulnerable, and that's why they lash out the way they do. And
so yeah, but that's what happened. And then we started, you know, meeting other kids from other neighborhoods that were the same as us, and then we just started hustling and you know, yeah, getting up to no good and clicking up with other kids who also viewed themselves as outsiders and were forming little groups. And then we'd all hang out after school and you know, it kind of erupted out of the school environment onto the streets, and you know, that's that's how it happens when you're young.
You know, you're just you're not going to go to school. You don't feel like the system is playing in your favor, and so you're going to do what all the other kids on the street are doing, who also feel rejected and neglected by that system. So you start, you start, you know, falling off.
And did you start to sort of completely push away your Australian identity.
Yeah, I just I was just angry. I was just like angry at it because I was like, you know, overnight, you know, you feel like you've part, you've done, You've made all the sacrifices to assimilate and to integrate into this culture for all to be thrown away at the drop of the hat. You know, I was just furious.
And then there was this kind of campaign in the media, well what felt like to us as a campaign where there's all these stories on the front page of the tabloid press about you know, young, violent, many most of the time Muslim men, and it constructed this kind of image in the zeitgeist about who we were and what we represented. So you had the you know, you had the the scaff rape trials. You know, you had you know, the boat, the people smugglers, you had the Cronulla, you
had the Iraq War. You know, you had these guys, the Taliban, you had Isis. You had all of these images that weren't There was nothing to There was no other media representation that kind of balanced the books. Really, you know that the only time you saw young Middle Eastern men on screen, they were up to no good, you know, and.
Of course I don't know favors. And also you you sort of play up to that, don't you, Especially when you're young and you're naive and and you said it's spilled out onto the streets. How what do you mean when you say it's spilt out onto the streets?
Yeah, I mean, like back then, when you're young and you're just like drinking with your maids and smoking with your mates after school, you don't really you don't sit down together and call yourselves a gang and like start you know, like making t shirts and stuff. You just hanging around. But back then it was all like it revolved around your Neighborhood's kind of like there's a whole
postcode thing now. Back back in suburban Melbourne, it was all it all gravitated around like train stations, because kids would hang out at train stations and they could they could be mobile or through train stations and go different ways. So each train station kind of had its own little crew of people. It was.
Yeah, because it's postcodes now, isn't it. So yeah, that's interesting.
And so people would like if you had drama with someone else and he you always had drama with someone from a different kind of train station, and you get on the trains and run to the go go through their train station and they do the same. So that's that's kind of what the culture was like in Melbourne. And they were like, you know, kids started going a juvie and kids are getting stabbed all of a sudden, and then you know, people are moving pills and people
were smoking weed and selling weed. And then there's like the older you start hearing about the older boys and then they become like these mythic kind of war heroes that have you know, dunstints in jail, they're driving you know, amgs. And that's when it really glorified.
Everything's glorified, isn't it.
And like you say, you almost want to uphold that reputation, you know, and and do do you know your your team?
Proud?
Shall we see?
Yeah? But it's also it goes back to this other thing where there were no other positive role models back then to counterbalance that. So in the neighborhoods that we were kicking it at, the only people who looked like they had money and were successful were drug dealers. That's all there was, Like they were everybody knew they were
drug dealers. They might have had a panel beating shop, they might have had a little, you know, a little side trust somewhere yeah, yeah, little you know, a pizza shop where they would wash their money, but they were all drug dealers. And so when you grew up in an environment like that, you think, well, the only way out for me is to do what these guys are doing, and so.
Make my money, yeah, and then yeah, away we go.
Yeah. And so my parents, my parents could seem that I was really you know, falling off the track here and I'm getting up to no good and you know, I got got arrested a couple of times, and you know, my parents finding weapons on me and weapons in my room and stuff like that, and they knew that it was it was getting really wild, so they they sent me off to like a posh school.
You know, when did you know that it was getting really wild?
I didn't really have that moment. I can see it in hindsight, but at the time, it wasn't like this awakening inside me that motivated me and inspired me to
do better. It wasn't. But yeah, one of my best friends there was like, what these kinds of career they're kind of like these big events where all these different high schools go to and they put the universities present like career prospects and they kind of yeah, yeah, like career opportunities and like pathways to different universities and stuff
like that. And one of my best mates got into it with guys from a different area and ended up, you know, stabbing up a couple of people at this kind of high school event thing, and he got locked up and went away for a couple of years. So that was that was one of the real kind of pivotal moments in my childhood where I thought, oh, it's getting you know, pretty serious, like he could have killed
those kids or whatever. And ironically the kids he stabbed were Afghans, so they were Hazara kids who had just come in the second wave. So there was another wave of Afghans in Melbourne that came after the invasion. So but yeah, and so my parents wanted to get me away from the environment that I was in, and they did that by putting me in school and suddenly I lost contact with and my mate went to jail and Julie and so suddenly I was kind of in this new environment and yeah, wow.
And so your parents are seeing this, this fall of grace, shall we say, are they?
Are they super concerned for you? Do they pull you aside at any point?
And is there a moment where you know they pull you to one side and says this has to stop?
You have to oh yeah, many times, many times, but you kind of don't. It's hard to explain because you know that there's that duality, like you mentioned that there's the person you are at home and then there's a person you are outside, and you feel like they're two
dope split personalities, like they're two different people. And when they start pulling you up on who you are on the outside, you kind of get mad at them because you're like, you don't know what it's like for me, in a very fucking teenage angsty way, you know, like you don't know what it's like for them. But they really didn't. They really believed in the Australian dream that you know, this is a meritocracy and you know it's not you're fucking up is you know, it's because you're
fucking up. You know, you've got every opportunity here. They came from Candahart and the farms in rural Candahar, you know what I mean. They thought, you know, we've got every opportunity here, why are you throwing it away? And there was all this kind of complex socio political stuff swirling around us that they couldn't comprehend, and neither could we.
But yeah, I think we knew that they couldn't understand something that was happening to us, and so every time they pulled us up where it was just like, you know, I fucking get it.
Eventually, Were you part of a biker gain as well.
Yeah, so that happened af So I went to school, and when I went to that posh school, I went to art school. I really was inspired to read. I had a few very influential teachers at that school that really inspired me to find h reconfigure this my moral compass through actually reading. And I became quite a voracious and obsessive reader. And then I went to art school, got out of Art school and couldn't get a job and stuff, and then I found myself back at square one.
So I was waxing with those same kids that I grew up with, and one thing led to another, except that they hadn't had that moment where they they left and came back. They had just graduated on and on to bigger and bigger things on the streets. And so by the time I linked up with them after art school, they were all already kind of making big moves in the suburbs. And you know, they had big runs, and you know they were pretty serious serious.
And when you say making big moves, obviously there's a there's a ranking system within these organizations where they making their way up the ranks, are earning more money.
Was that the case there and new thought, right.
Job, they were just like looking out for me because they could see that I didn't have any money or anything like that, and I didn't have a job, and no one was hiring people that looked like us back then with names like ma Mud, and so they were just like chopping me in to what they were doing.
And I guess I started helping them like I brought, you know, I kind of helped them strategize and helped them think of new ways of applying new new kind of business models or applying new kind of logistical strategies in what they were already doing, because I could offer them a fresh way of thinking about crime, organized crime. And I was very resourceful and so very quickly it was noticed by specific people back then, and I climbed
the ranks very quickly. And then Yeah, there was a guy in prison who was kind of a father figure to the Muslims in jail, who was very influential, and he was being patched into an outlaw motorcycle club and I was part of a group of people that were representing him on the outside. And then we went to the outlaw motorcycle club and eventually became members.
Wow, and this when you became members. Was it a mixture of all religions or was it just Muslims or how did that work?
No, it was it was back then it was a club called the Pinx, but then it patched into another international motorcycle club called the Mongols well known. Yeah, but
back it was it was outlaw. Motorcycle culture is unique and as you probably know, it was born out of returning Vietnam vets who felt ostracized by their communities, who bounded together and found that adrenaline rush or found that freedom and the place to express themselves in these kind of subcultures, and they formed these brotherhoods, you know, and they were all mixed, you know, they were they were people from different backgrounds that just felt like outsiders that boundery.
Were literally blood related by colors, by the colors of their vests and by the patches that they were and it's kind of like you wear an oath to belong to each other. And so yeah, it was refreshing to see that these this is another group that is also that gets what's happened to us and understands and that they'll accept us because they are in the same vein of that you know, outside of culture or counterculture or whatever.
And was there Australians in this bike organization.
Yeah, yeah, definitely, probably a majority were Australians. I mean, the Phinx was a very kind of Anglo Australian club that originated in Adelaide. So yeah, there definitely was that the heritage of that old white, traditional, classic outlaw biker, big bearded kind of you know, tattered up a lot of Nazi kind of symbolism in the air. There was
a lot of that stuff going on. But by the time we got involved, there was a shift in outlaw motorcycle culture in Australia where different clubs were vying for power by basically recruiting people who were influential on the streets. And the people at that time who were influential on the streets were all from different backgrounds, and majority of them Middle Easterners, mainly in Sydney and then in Melbourne.
And I think a lot of that has got to do with a lot of these problems in which, you know, after nine to eleven and after all that stuff, the kids began running a MUK on the street. They some of them did very well and built really hectic reputations for themselves and then they got kind of drafted these by these clubs.
Was what was you know, that bikey life, Like I.
Mean it, it can be whatever you want to make it. You know, it is very much a club that is full of people who really die hard motorcycle enthusiasts that
love the culture. And I'm just gonna disclaimer here is that you know, I'm talking about a club seven or eight years ago, you know, and I'm talking about a very specific chapter of a club that's not you know, I'm not I'm not saying like this is how every club in Australia works, and I don't know how clubs work now even so I'm just I'm just giving my own personal perspective from that time. Yeah, yeah, and so yeah, back then, there was people who loved who would die
hard motorcycle and enthusiasts. There were people who are obviously traumatized, were people who felt lonely, and there were there was you know, drug dealers, there were thugs. There was a bit of everyone because it was a place that accepted you no matter what your background was.
Outlaws, right, yeah, yeah, of course, it.
Was just whatever corner of the world you came from. You could be accepted as long as you subscribe to this code and to this, to this brand or whatever. And so it wasn't like Sons of anarchy where people sit around at the table and you've got the fucking president talent everyone like, you've got to move these guns from Sydney to you know, the Northern territory and you know, what's the what are the Cinelons up to this weekend? And you know, like that, there's nothing that doesn't exist.
I mean, I'm sure it does exist, but it doesn't exist in that way. Everything is very much on a need to know basis. And if you want to do something and there's people at that club that can assist you in doing so, you might get up to something like that, but there's no way the entire club would know, and it would be it'd kind of be the same way as if you were in a football club, you know, and you and you a couple of people at your footage club that you know, do a few things and
you start connecting and connecting the dots, you know. The only difference is because you're in this environment that attracts people from all walks of life, their connections are far deeper and potentially wilder than you know, the boys you meet a footy club and so you can you potentially get up to a lot graver. Yeah, such deeper, deeper thing, yeah yeah yeah.
And how desensitized at this stage in your life, so you know you've patched in, you live in that full outlaw life. How desensitized to violence and drugs and to the normal life are you? Yeah?
I guess I think I don't actually know how you could be dissensitized advanced. I mean, you would probably be a better person to answer that question. I would. I mean, for me, every time I sawance, it was shocking. You know, I never got really used to it. And it's always you know, odd, and it's not as you would imagine it to be, and it unfolds in a very grotesque and crudal way. And it's always a little bit different, you know, like the way people fall, you know, the
way people bleed out. Sometimes they don't bleed, you know, you know what knocks people out, the way they have fits on the ground, and some people, you know, just get back up and don't remember what they were doing. You know, it's always very odd, and.
It's always different. Isn't it.
It's like you said, you know, just how people feel, how people react, how people you know, it's not like it is in the movies.
No, and the sounds are all it's very different. Yeah, yeah, because you're hardwired to think it's going to be like the movies. But then when you see it and you see how cold it is and the way that you know, when it happens, you expect something, someone to intervene or something, and then they don't, and it's suddenly like one of
the craziest things. I remember hearing from someone who committed you know, being a prison for for for murder, and I remember hearing this thing that they said that the scariest thing was like they woke up the next day and they were the same person, you know, like they were just they were just doing the same shit, like they were just going to the coffee shop, and that was the like they even they expected for something to happen and it didn't.
When did you think, you know, enough is enough? And how did that happen?
For me? It was like a cumulative effect. And I will say, like again, just say that I know people might be listening to this and say, you know, Australia. It's not that, you know, it's not that dangerous, it's not that you know, scary. I mean, it's not Chicago,
it's not Canada. But I think you have to really imagine crime around the world as a kind of Bell curve in different countries, and you know, at the top end, when you're at the deepest and at deepest levels, it's as bad as it is everywhere else in the world. If you fuck up, you're going to get shot, You're going to get killed. Like that's just the way it is.
So over all remains the same, doesn't it.
Yeah, that middle, of course, Melbourne is not a crazy violent place in that middle section of the Bell curve, but at the end it's the same everywhere else. It's the same as any other country. You rob the wrong person, one person gets paranoid thinking you're going to knock them, They're going to come after you, like, and there's you know, these people do not count to ten. It's you know, it's they're going to just they're going to do yeah.
And so there was like a cumulative effect where in the space of maybe two or three years, it was probably five or six people that I knew intimately were killed, and you know, I couldn't handle that. I've met commandos and sas guys and stuff like that, and I mean they didn't even lose five of their mates in one or two years, like they lost a lot of mates.
But it really messes with your head and you hit a point where you're like, you know, my one of my best friends was mishandling a firearm and you know he was you know, I was I had to bury him, you know, like he was. And then you're standing over this grave and you're you know, they're lowering the coffin and you're throwing doing it, and you're thinking, what the fuck is this about? What is this about? Like we're in our twenties, like, well, why have I been to
so many of these funerals? Like what are we doing? And what is this thing that we're kind of enchanted by, a spellbound by or obsessed with and revealed itself to
me that this is all just smoking mirror. It's like this code doesn't exist, like nobody actually believed Yeah, yeah, nobody believes in that shit, Like it's it's just the crash dummies that believe in it, Like the that there's honor among thieves that all this stuff, you know, never talk to police, you know, you do your time and all this stuff, and then they all you find out they're all talking to police. The people, they're all the people that are you know, chatting and saying I wouldn't
cop that. I wouldn't you know, when when you've been slighted or someone's wrong, they're trying to motivate you and do something. They say I wouldn't cop that. Fucking course you would cop that. You cop whatever whatever you know we tell you to do, you'd cop that. And here you are telling this guy to do something, and then of course they do it and do ten years in jail.
And that the book that was chirping away in his ears, not even there to visit him or put money in his bank account, you know what I mean.
So it's like, get your head out your ass, you.
Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And so but that that really damaged me, and yeah, I had to I had to help it. It all kind of crashed on me, and I had this moment of realization where I was like, I actually don't Oh, it's anyone to do anything in this and I don't have to be part of this anymore that I don't, I can just stop. I don't have to be with these people. But I knew I had to make a radical move and actually cut contact. You can't be one foot in, like you have to
be kind of one yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's either you're in or you're out. And it was really cold because there was a lot of people I loved in that in that world that I had to cut ties with. And even those people they're dead now, like do you know what I mean? Like, or they're doing really long bids in jail.
And it's it's also one of those as well. It's not not just change that was that's needed. It's drastic change, you know, in a situation like that, it's got to be drastic. And when I mean drastic to the point of maybe moving location off to everyone that's in that organization or that that's around, even if you love them and if you're great friends with them, it's like, no, drastic change needs to happen in order for something good to come of it.
I got to the point where I was like, would you be happy being that young boy on that school yard being bullied, having oranges thrown at your head? Or whatever. Fucking ies. I'd rather be that boy than do this shit and you know, drag my mates through hell.
And there's the Australian Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, do you know what I mean? Like like I would rather be that that kid than you know, create these kind of cycles of destruction and you know, recidivism and like just dragging all my people, because it's my people that go down with me. It's not just me, Like I'm dragging my cousins in. I'll drag Like if someone's got a drum with me, they've got to go to my family's house. They're going to do this, do
you know what I mean? Like it's I had to shoulder that and it was already too late, Like I came to that realization too late.
And so you make this drategic change and it's quite the segue.
How did that feel?
Yeah? Well, initially I wanted to I studied psychology and wanted to literally work as kind of a counselor and in prisons and to try and actually help rehabilitate people so that they don't go back to that life when they leave, because the receiptivism rates are so high, and I thought that would be something purposeful that I could
actually commit my life to. But then I got I met a bunch of editors and stuff through this friend of mine, and I began writing and got into journalism, and I actually thought, well, actually, no, it's about presenting this world for what it is, bare knuckles, and telling these young kids that it's not. It's not what's in the music videos and if your favorite app music video, it's not. You know, they're giving you, you know, they're giving you the shallow venier of the kind of porcelain
veneer of what this lifestyle actually does. It actually just you know, people robbing, Yeah, your mates robbing, Yeah, your mates tell them ONNYA. You know, you can't trust anyone. People are going to get Yeah, you're going to get bashed, You're going to get shot, you know, and you're on your own. So you're better off on your own just actually partaking your life and contributing to society rather than
being another statistic which is a cliche. But you know, if you want, if it's a double sided coin and the option is you know, being in the streets forever or choosing life. I know what I'm going to be doing on choosing life.
Every single time now that you're you do all this, how interesting is it to be an investigated journalist? And if anyone can tell that story and get in and show people, actually, this is how bad it is and you know, do not get involved, it's you.
Well, it was two things. It was that, but it was also about showing the public that these people that you're reading about are not just you know, they're not just the criminals that they made out to be. That actually they've lived whole lives and there's a lot of decisions that led up to that they made throughout their life, and a lot of kind of social fractures around them that led to their decision making that made them commit
the crime. Like, my whole thing was don't understand and trying to illustrate the criminal by the crime that they've committed. Try to understand them for everything that they've done up until the point that's led them to the crime. And it was really about empathizing with people, not sanitizing what they've done. And so I felt like again like I go back to like media representation in the way that
people are perceived. I think what I really wanted to do was I felt like journal crime reporters had been captured by police narratives because they were relying on police because criminals wouldn't talk to them. And the one thing that I could do was actually get some criminals to talk and actually explain the rationale and that things are a lot more complex than they're they're they're let to believe. And so yeah, that's.
What it is as well.
The things are a lot more complex than than what the media portray and what the you know, the media put out there.
Well, you wouldn't know this firsthand. You know, you experienced them and like you there you had, you had all those reports written about you, and you didn't have an opportunity or you do have an opportunity now, but think about.
All, do you, because well you do, But you know it's only because I'm persistent, like yourself, really, you know, getting getting the message out there and educating people in that way.
But it's hard.
It's hard to you know, once once the media portray you a certain way or you know, like you said, the complexity of what actually happens underneath, people swallow that stuff up, don't they. They go, well, they brand you with it, and like you said, they tire you with that brush and all of a sudden, and sometimes I'm similar Sometimes I think, but I might as well just be that person, even though I'm not that person exactly, I might.
As well just be it.
But again, that's why it's dangerous. That's why that reporting is dangerous. It's not it's not actually just the theory, like we're not actually talking about things in theory that this has real life consequences. I've seen people shoot each other over stuff they've read in the papers that wasn't necessarily true.
And also take their lives.
Exactly in the UK, they have taken their lives because you know, they've been tarnished trial by media. Nothing formal or nothing legal has come out of it, but it's just trial by media. They've read a bit of paper, all of a sudden, the whole world's against you, and it's too much for people.
It's too much.
You have this crazy thing in Australia where journalists are crying about defamation laws, and I agree, you know, defamation laws might be slightly lenient to super powerful people, but what they never fucking talk about is all of the people who don't have access to litigation and lawyers that they can talk about hook line and sinker and who never get an opportunity, those working class people, the crooks,
the criminals, people who've been wrongly accused. They can't afford fifty thousand dollars a day in litigation, so they just have to swallow this image that's being portrayed.
It's one sided image because they haven't haven't got the facilities or they know how to tell their to teil their side or it tends to get it out to the masses.
And sometimes it's just the charge if they don't even follow it up to sentencing. So you have someone who's been charged with an offense who gets front page treatment and then he beats the charges and sentencing and he gets nothing.
So, you know, and then you're working towards that you is that one of your is that you say, that's my ambition.
Motivations to in why you do what you do?
Now, definitely, I think that's what inspires me is to kind of reef. I think the thing that I can contribute is to reimagine crime reporting and in doing so, I mean, this is very idealistic, but in doing so, maybe it changes the public perception and maybe influences policy.
And they reframe the way that they look at, you know, punishing people rather than actually rehabilitating them and trying to figure out what the kind of social issues are that are inspiring these crimes, rather than you know, just locking people up. Like why kids joining our motorcycle groups? Why are these outlaw motorcycle groups? You know, where are they coming from in society? What's what's actually generating these kinds of organized have.
Been drawn to it?
You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, And how can we think about those issues and disentangle that and kind of measures in place that move kids away from that. I think that that's the most interesting thing in the most you know, if I'm balancing your books, it's the thing that I hope to contribute in some idealistic social justice warrior kind of fashion.
That you certainly know, mate, And adjusting to such a different way of life, how has that been.
In that world? I was somebody, you know, and then you kind of nobody, and you feel you have to adjust around the way that people can disrespect yours things that you perceive to be disrespect You just kind of have to wear all that kind of stuff, and that takes a bit of adjusting to, and you know, obviously you're making a certain amount of money, you're partying, you're having fun, you feel like a rock star, or you're
imitating this kind of rock star lifestyle. That's actually, like you said, it's actually just a master's hiding all this other stuff that you're dealing with inside your head. But sometimes you miss you miss all that. But I would never I would never have it any other way. You know. I'm so happy for where I'm at in my life right now, and I feel good every morning I wake up and I don't have to look behind my shoulder.
I can go to any restaurant or any any bar, or any club that I want to go to without thinking, oh, man, is it going to get a bit tense here? Who's going to be you know? Do you know what I mean? I don't have to really, I don't have to work. Yeah, yeah, you don't have to. You don't have to second guess the police are tap my phone, all this sort of stuff. You don't, you know, they're bugs in my car, all
of this stuff. You can just be free, you can just be you just do your bit and be happy and you know, look after the ones that will be there for you to the end.
And have you re established or refound your identity you know, who is mamood.
I think it's like this, you know, because of what might have happened, what happened to me when I was young. I think I'm just constantly reconstructing and diverting and becoming this different person. And I think that's a way that helps me deal with who I was in the past and kind of suppressed that in some way. I haven't
reverted back to any identity. I think I'm just constantly constructing your identities and kind of distracting myself with lots of work and trying to contribute in the most positive way.
And going back to head game. Final question for you, Malud, what has your experience taught you about resilience.
I think you just have to back yourself in. I think that's all it's taught me is always like believing in yourself and knowing that no matter how how much noise there is, you can always the decisions, always yours, and you can just walk away. I think that's the most powerful thing for me in terms of resilience, is that you are the owner of your decisions and how much noise there is and how much bullshit. There is out there of people saying you have to do this,
you have you actually don't have to do nothing. You just be yourself and make your own decisions and that's that and that's it. You know, No, I've done that. It's worked for me, mate.
I've loved this conversation. Loads of common ground, loads in common from two people that had two completely separate careers.
Yeah, it's been fascinating, mate.
Thank you for coming on Risk gentlemen, may keep doing what you're doing. Thanks so much for joining me on Headgame. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any of our incredible stories and leave me a review wherever you're listening, I'm at Middleton.
Catch you again next time.