Bahaa Dabbagh: Building belonging, one laugh at a time

Bahaa Dabbagh, one of our World Refugee Day Telethon heroes, is a Syrian comedian, cook and community storyteller whose work celebrates the richness of Syrian culture and the power of laughter, food and belonging. Born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Aleppo, Bahaa fled the Syrian war in 2015, spending six years in Turkey before settling in Melbourne in 2021 – with his beloved cat, Sasha, in tow.

This year’s campaign theme, Finding Freedom: Diversity in Community, resonates deeply with Bahaa’s journey. “If one of us isn’t free, none of us is free,” he says. “In this country we take it for granted, our freedom and our ability to not worry about what we’re saying or thinking, but there is a huge majority of the world that is not feeling that way.”

Belonging is a strange concept for Bahaa. “I grew up in Saudi Arabia, a Syrian born and raised in a country where everyone was telling me, ‘you’re not from here’, even though that was all I knew,” says Bahaa. “And then I moved to my home country, and while I was trying to figure out what my country is and what it means to me, our government started saying, ‘you don’t belong here’. 

“And then I went to Turkey, where I actually discovered the most about myself and I very much felt a sense of belonging, but more than 90% of the community there did not want me either. And now that I am in Australia, I am struggling too, because I’m not Australian, and when people think of an Australian, no one thinks of people who look like me.” 

Belonging is complex, but Bahaa found a way to make sense of it: “I’ve figured out a way to create belonging. It’s fragmented – pieces of me belong in different places. Poetry and friendship, those pieces of me belong in Syria. Comedy belongs here, because people here see my sense of humour and they like it. Love, I’ve experienced in Turkey the most.” 

But there is one belonging that for Bahaa is never questioned: “My cat Sasha, who came with me from Syria to Turkey to Australia, she is where I belong. If she’s around, that’s where my centre of belonging is.”

A powerful moment from his journey was smuggling his cat across dangerous borders. On a bus ride from Syria to Turkey, the trip that was supposed to take one hour, but took 36 hours instead, he was threatened at gunpoint to remove his cat from the bus seat. “And I said no, I can’t,” reminisces Bahaa. “The safety of this cat is important to me.” 

“Throughout the journey, the people got to know my cat very well, because at every checkpoint she was the topic,” continues Bahaa. “It was kind of a blessing, because instead of discussing who we were and what we were doing and why we were fleeing, we were discussing the cat, which was a very good thing to hide behind.”

Bahaa’s path from Syria to Australia is marked by resilience and humour. “I left Syria as a mechanical engineer, textile engineer. I had eight years of experience in pathology and five years of experience in pharmacy,” he shares. “Now I’m a comedian, with mental health issues,” he jokes. “The refugee journey teaches you not to take anything for granted.”

In Melbourne, Bahaa has rebuilt a sense of belonging through food, community and creativity. As a culinary educator with Free to Feed, he brings the tastes of his mother’s kitchen to life. “It’s funny how much you take the place you live in for granted until you realise you’ve lost it,” he reflects. “Cooking helps me feel like myself again.”

On stage, Bahaa’s comedy sparks laughter and reflection. He first performed in Turkey as part of a grassroots fundraiser. “There was this really famous cat that a Turkish soldier went to Syria and saved and took back to Turkey,” he recalls. “There were like 8000 applications to adopt the cat. I said, well, Syrians are now meowing on the borders. Maybe you can take some in.” This blend of humour and truth creates moments of impact. “It’s funny but true. Someone told me after the show, ‘We feel more sympathy for cats than humans.’”

His podcast, Refugee Thoughts, gives voice to refugee experiences. “There are very interesting answers to the question I ask all my guests, ‘what’s an experience that you would never have had if you weren’t a refugee?’” Bahaa says. “It’s me as a refugee interviewing other refugees, creating an environment where we can talk about the things only we have experienced.”

When Bahaa has this question turned on him for a change, this is what he has to say: “One thing that I do in the mornings is watch videos of people walking in my city, literally. And that’s something that if I wasn’t a refugee, I don’t think I would do. Just in the morning, just on TV, just with my coffee, I watch people walking. And there is a demand for this because so many people need to see our country, to see our streets. I’m trying to pick up things that I may have forgotten, like the colour of the footpath.”

Bahaa finds World Refugee Day vey important because “Attention is the highest level of currency right now. You want attention, that’s what makes change happen, and at least once a year people actually think about this topic.” 

But Bahaa wants people to think about refugees more than one day a year, which is why he has undertaken writing, with a co-writer, a sitcom about refugees. “The hope is to create something that people would want to watch and maybe think a little bit afterwards. It’s a very funny thing that we’re working on, so hopefully it comes together,” says Bahaa.