My name is Ziyan, I am a Kashmiri Muslim from Indian-occupied Kashmir and I am an organizer for the Palestinian movement in occupied Texas -- the indigenous land of the Numuntu (Comanche), Ndé Kónitsagíí Gokíyaa (Lipan Apache), Jumanos, Naadahéndé (Mescalero Apache), Coahuiltecos, Caddo, the Carrizo/Comecrudo, the Bidai, the Kiowa, the Wichita, the Tonkawa, Karankawa, Atakapan, Kickapoo, the Eastern Pueblo, Tawakoni and Kitsai and their descendants.
I was raised in America from the age of 6 and I was politicized by the colonial annexation of my homeland Kashmir in 2019, shortly followed by the BLM movement of 2020 where I was introduced to revolutionary figures and movements such as Assata Shakur, Leila Khaled, and the Algerian Revolution. I joined the movement at 16, organizing a protest in my city of El Paso during the attacks on Sheikh Jarrah, then at 18 to 19 mobilizing in Dallas, and then later joining the efforts for Palestine in Austin as a UT Student. During the occupation and encampment in April 2024, I was amongst many arrested. I am now no longer a student as ICE has revoked my visa -- and as of now, I have fled and am in now what is political exile.
I have spent these past months since January 2025 searching for an answer: what must I do? Do I run? Where do I go? What about school? What about my career, my future, my life? Do I stay and risk being brutalized and detained by ICE? Do I live my life like this, constantly paranoid, constantly inable to sleep, watching the door as I wait to see if I will be kidnapped? That any person near me might be ICE, that I might turn and see handcuffs emerge, that an unmarked van might roll up and I have to run, that I'll run and run to someone but to where, to whom, to do what? Can I continue to have nightmares of being detained in an ICE facility, away from my comrades and my family, isolated and alone, forever chained by this Zionist state? Can I continue to live like this, in fear, my bag always packed in case I must run, my documents constantly with me? Can I continue to watch as my family and my friends lose their sanity -- as I watch my mother press her face into my neck and recite a dua in soft words, praying to Allah for my salvation, as my father's voice is tired and fatigued, asking me again and again, "Am I okay, Where am I?", as my younger sibling asks of what will happen to me and I cannot honestly provide an answer that will comfort her, as my family members smile to me but then turn to cry, that my best friend hugs me while I cry asking him to forgive me for not fighting for Palestine enough, that I am to myself, deeply ashamed I am a coward who could not fight back? Can I again, bear the leering and violating gaze and hands of groping police officers and federal agents, committed to a liberal value of "nonviolence", that if I fight back, I'll make things "worse"? That if ICE beats and rapes me, all I can offer is a statement, that all my lawyers can do is issue statement after statement? That I cannot fight back against my oppressors?
Is this how I must live? Is this how any human being should live? I experienced an iota, a mere fraction of the intense feelings of desperation, paranoia, and fear that undocumented communities who do not have the level of privilege I have as a native English speaker, as a petit-bourgeois immigrant, as a university student, experience for the entirety of their lives -- and this is what the so-called free state of America declares as "human rights" while disparaging Palestinian resistance for so-called "human rights violations"? The double standards are sickening.
On Friday April 4th, after nearly three months of paranoia, anger, and desperation, in the last month of school during my exams, I came to a conclusion as UT Austin began to abandon international students and allow ICE to revoke their visas -- and potentially worse, I do not know. I came to the conclusion that Austin organizing leadership for Palestine has failed and will continue to fail and that the only one who can gurantee my own safety, who can determine my own fate, is myself and my comrades who I trust -- that the conditions are not sufficient for me to stay and fight back because of a complete and utter lack of supportive organizing infrastructure. I made that decision on that day that I must run, that I must escape, that I will not stay and allow ICE to detain me -- that after how several white men and women pressed their knees and their hands on me pushing me down while arresting me, after how Austin police pulled my shirt up exposing my midriff and skin, my legs, to all their leering eyes to see in a "search", after how Austin police dragged me to a solitary confinement cell and threw me in there for hours for requesting for religious accommodations, after how my worthless university clearly had no spine and allowed me to suffer, was I going to allow ICE to kidnap me and brutalize me in even more horrific ways? I had already come to a conclusion, one that I had delayed and denied in my heart for months: I would not allow ICE to kidnap me. I ran that Friday and hid for a week -- figuring out my plans till I could reasonably secure some sort of transportation out.
Perhaps the state may think it has won, perhaps some of you might even think reading this that this is a disparate situation, that my exile and that of many others in my situation means the end of the movement for Palestine, that there is no victory in sight.
No such thing will occur -- our movement has survived and prevailed in spite of intense brutalization and suppression and in spite of the incompetency of national and regional leadership, the oppressed all over the course of history have fought unimaginable oppression and tyranny -- against all odds, the Haitian revolutionaries prevailed against slavery, against all odds, the Algerians fought against France and 1.5 million were martyred, against all odds, the Vietnamese destroyed the forces of two of the world's strongest empires: French and American colonialism back to back, against all odds, that the Palestinians fought history's strongest empire and prevailed -- that all empires do fall, that the oppressed have shown resilience and perserverance beyond what we can even imagine. Humans are incredibly strong and resilient and we are capable of so much -- and we are certainly capable of tearing down imperialism itself with our very bare hands.
This is the beginning of the destruction of Zionism -- one that we can ensure will fall in our lifetime, a future that is so close, so tangible one can almost taste it -- but to bring it into fruition, we must renew our commitment to the struggle.
With this, I intend to state my framing and my intentions as I write this in political exile.
I refuse to be framed as a victim or a saint -- I must first acknowledge that the reason for my political persecution and those of others is not because we are morally superior to others but because the state wishes to crush any and all support for Palestine -- we are being used as examples to demonstrate that this is what the state is capable of. This is the first thing I wish to clarify as I believe this liberal individualistic framing of each and every international student or non-citizen as "good" or as "legal" is a problematic lens -- does that mean it is acceptable to abuse, sexually harass, and torment non-citizens who weren't as morally good or 'legal' because they don't fit these liberal parameters we've internalized? We must acknowledge that I am significantly privileged: both with my access to funds, networks, and relative privilege as a more ‘legal” (Well, not anymore) immigrant as compared to an undocumented Hispanic working class migrant who cannot speak English — I would not have been able to successfully flee if not for my privilege. Does someone who wasn't as active as an organizer as Mahmoud Khalil deserve to be brutalized? Does someone who wasn't a legal citizen, perhaps an undocumented person deserve to be brutalized because they did not have my F-1 legal status? Why must we constantly reaffirm our innocence using the logic of the oppressor? Why must we continuously portray ourselves as victims to garner support? Why must we play by the state's rules, constantly asserting legality when the very land we stand on is stolen? The frequent and frankly now, unhelpful Know Your Rights trainings emphasize that self-deportation is not a good idea -- to battle it out with a lawyer but can legality truly save us?
What worth is the promise of law from a settler's lying tongue?
Secondly, I do not wish for my persecution to be framed as a purely Trump-led initiative and centering the principles of “free speech”. Did Democrats not deport people? Did Obama and Biden not persecute BLM activists and surveill them?
We cannot recommit to the struggle without first truly and absolutely acknowledging that our movement was militant for a brief period of time -- then collapsed due to internal contradictions combined with a lack of sustainable infrastructure to combat state repression, degenerating into a movement that has become largely toothless out of fear and liberal tendencies of a lack of discipline and disorganization. Despite the insistence of national organizations such as NSJP and PYM and many others in their social media campaigns, I do not think that romanticizing the student movement is acceptable, especially when we cannot name material victories in the fight for Palestine in American universities, primarily universities actually divesting from weapons manufacturers, not just symbolic victories of passing divesment resolutions.
This is not pessimism or as many like to accuse of deviating from "revolutionary optimism" but a critical aspect of being an organizer -- which is constantly engaging in self-reflection and being able to address such mistakes to grow as a movement and meaningfully challenge the state.
My intentions in providing these criticisms are manifold but first, I must acknowledge that I cannot provide such criticisims without first acknowledging myself that I was unprincipled and was complicit in liberal tendencies. These criticisms I am about to push forward extend not to just Austin organizing leadership but myself -- as I am remained complicit in not being transparent and communicating, of not wanting to speak out of fear of being disliked or distrusted, that when there was conflict and tension, I remained silent and engaged in gossip rather than directly addressing the source of concern.
I had many concerns about the movement for Palestine for a long period of time -- but due to my own insecurities regarding my youth (I was 19), my naive trust in the liberal organizing hierarchy (to simply have faith in leadership), and my lack of confidence in my own intellect and abilities, my lack of experience in conflict resolution, my fear of how I would be perceived, I was unable to voice or articulate these concerns outwardly that I felt the movement had collapsed due to parasitic liberalism. This was a feeling I had felt from June till now. It has been roughly a year now and I have embraced my own intuition, my intellect, and my analysis on this matter.
In January 2025, when the deportations began, I promised myself and to Allah that if I could not outwardly organize for Gaza, I would commit to reforming myself as an organizer, becoming more principled, attempting to reform the movement in Austin, embodying values of honesty that I had once valued as a part of myself and recommitting myself to the struggle. I do not want to say that I am principled or I am better than anyone -- but in January when I realized that anything could happen anyday, I chose to live more honestly, to repent for my negligence in standing by as a bystander when Gazans were being genocided, I wanted to live at least as honestly as I could till the day I had to make the decision to flee everything I've ever known since I was a child or allow ICE to detain me and suffer through some tedious legal bureaucratic process. This statement is a part of my repentance and my recommitment to the struggle for Palestine by being unashamedly honest, transparent, and admitting to the faults I and other organizers made, while refusing to allow Austin organizing leadership to avoid accountability. Before I ran, I was in the process of drafting several statements condemning the organizations that I will mention later on and an accountability process to protect community members from harm. If I was permitted to stay, I would have dedicated my year to confrontation.
This is my first step to a life-long journey of repentance, of a fight for Palestine that isn't just symbolic words but something meanginful, something real. To me, revolutionary optimism is not denial of our material conditions -- but a willingness to accept fault, reform, and grow. This statement is part of my love for the movement that has nurtured me politically and spiritually and my love for my comrades, who may benefit from this, who may be pushed in the right direction, and that Austin organizing leadership which has reigned in tyrannical and abusive ways can finally be exposed and dissected for the rotting carcass it is -- and from that rot, we can bloom into a healthier and stronger movement.
Part 2 will come soon.