6 yrs ago today, an attack at a market near the URC People's Park in Ürümchi. I woke up to the news a few km away & felt afraid. So many things changed. The city & region grew more securitized; the era of "People's War on Terror" and 便民卡 soon followed bbc.com/news/world-asi…
There are many watershed moments in the #Uyghur region's recent history. This is one. So much fear was born that day. My own never went away; instead it morphed into something ambiguous, agitated constantly by the security forces stationed @ street corners, marching thru the city
Those security forces never went away, not even after I moved back to the US in 2016. Back in the Uyghur region in 2018, it struck me that the "new" checkpoints + stations weren't even all that new -- just more material manifestations of that heightened security presence.
Sometimes I think back to the period I lived there, 2012-16, as the good ol' days bc they seem so much better than now. But those times, while full of so much meaning and life, weren't actually good. And it's heartbreaking that everything has only gotten worse since.
*Ugh on the "URC People's Park in Ürümchi" bit. Cannot be trusted to edit my own tweets lately.
