I learned the feeling of statelessness in my Uyghur homeland

This post is part of Global Voices’ July 2026 Spotlight series, “Statelessness.” This series offers insight into the issue of statelessness and how it hinders people’s freedom of movement, educational opportunities, political access, and more. You can support this coverage by donating here.
I was born as the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) was coming to an end. My childhood coincided with the early years of what was later celebrated as the era of Reform and Opening Up (1976–1989).
Unlike my parents, I did not experience the chaos and violence of the Cultural Revolution. Instead, I grew up during a relatively stable period. Together with my parents, brothers, and sisters, I enjoyed what I still remember as a happy childhood.
I can still vividly recall my first day of primary school. To celebrate the occasion, my father bought me a bright red schoolbag, a white blouse, white socks, and a pair of shiny red shoes. That morning, I felt like the happiest child in the world.
Life seemed simple then. On weekends, my parents would take us on outings, or we would visit my grandmother.
School was filled with activities and celebrations. Every Children’s Day brought performances, games, and excitement. Looking back now, those memories still feel warm and peaceful.
Yet many years later, I came to realize that even during those seemingly calm years, the foundations of a different reality were already being laid.
One day, a teacher explained Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and told us that human beings had evolved from monkeys.
Like every curious child, I rushed home and eagerly shared this new knowledge with my father.
“Dad, my teacher says we came from monkeys.”
My father paused for a moment before smiling.
“Maybe your teacher came from a monkey,” he replied. “We were created by Allah. Never forget that.”
At the time, I did not understand why he responded that way.
Years later, I realized that my father was trying to protect far more than a religious belief. He was trying to protect an identity.
‘Their goal was never to make Uyghur lives better’
As I grew older, I became increasingly curious about who I was. I began reading history and asking questions. Gradually, I came to understand that my culture, the Uyghurs, possessed a language, culture, and historical memory distinct from those of the Han majority, which make up 91 percent of China’s population.
More importantly, I began to sense that the society around me was not quite as equal as it appeared.
My father was the first person who taught me that I belonged to a people whose story could not simply be folded into the story of China. He was the first person who planted the word “Uyghur” deep in my heart.
One day, we were discussing China’s economic reforms. Like many young people at the time, I knew little about politics. What I heard repeatedly was that life had improved after Deng Xiaoping’s reforms.
So I asked him: “During Mao’s time, there was the Cultural Revolution, and people suffered greatly. Now, Deng Xiaoping has introduced reforms, and life is getting better. Doesn’t that make Deng a good leader?”
My father laughed softly. Then he said something that would take me decades to understand.
“Child, whether it is Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping, it makes little difference for the Uyghurs. Their goal was never to make Uyghur lives better.”
At the time, I found his answer puzzling. Only years later did I begin to understand what he meant.
As I entered adulthood, I increasingly noticed patterns that had seemed invisible when I was younger.
Opportunities did not always appear to be distributed equally.
Admission to better schools often depended on more than academic performance. Finding a respectable job often depended on more than qualifications.
Many Uyghurs felt that important opportunities were becoming harder to reach, while others appeared to move ahead more easily.
Years later, when I read the writings of the imprisoned Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, I was struck by how closely his observations reflected realities many ordinary Uyghurs had long experienced.
He wrote about employment inequality, barriers to social mobility, and the growing marginalization of Uyghur language and culture.
Reading his words, I often felt that he was describing the frustrations that many of us had quietly carried for years. At the time, however, these concerns remained largely beneath the surface. People complained privately. They rarely spoke openly. And despite growing frustrations, daily life continued.
Uyghurs and Han Chinese lived in the same cities, studied in the same schools, worked in the same offices, and shared the same public spaces.
The tensions existed. But so did ordinary human relationships.
Then came July 5, 2009.
Only days earlier, reports had spread among Uyghurs about the killing of Uyghur migrant workers in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province (June 25–26, 2009).
The official silence that followed deepened public anger and grief.
I happened to be traveling for work when the Shaoguan incident occurred. When I returned to Urumqi on July 4, I could sense that the city was uneasy. Yet I could not have imagined what would happen the next day.
On the afternoon of July 5, I met several friends near the Grand Bazaar. We had gathered simply to celebrate my return. Before our food even arrived, people began rushing out into the streets.
We followed them outside. The scene was chaotic.
People were running in every direction. Some were crying. Others looked terrified. A young woman ran past us shouting, “They opened fire!”
Moments later, a university student told us that demonstrators protesting the Shaoguan killings had been met with gunfire. Whether every rumor was true or not hardly mattered at that moment.
Fear spread faster than facts.
Smoke rose in the distance.
Panic spread through the streets.
Nobody seemed to know what would happen next. My friends and I eventually made our way home through side streets.
That night, the electricity went out.
Gunshots echoed through the darkness.
Families called one another in tears.
Parents searched desperately for their children.
Rumors spread that more violence was coming.
For the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to feel vulnerable in the city where I was born.
Yet the deepest impact of July 2009 did not come from that night alone. It came from what followed.
A lasting impact
The most profound change after July 2009 was not the increase in security measures in the region. It was the transformation of human relationships.
Tensions between Uyghurs and Han Chinese had existed long before July 2009. Many Uyghurs were already concerned about demographic change, unequal opportunities, and the gradual erosion of their cultural space. These frustrations were real. But despite them, life continued through countless ordinary relationships.
People worked together.
They studied together.
They lived next door to one another.
Friendships, professional relationships, and neighborly ties still existed.
After July 2009, something changed.
What had previously remained beneath the surface became openly visible.
The tragedy not only produced fear. It also produced mistrust.
The change was not immediate. No one woke up the next morning and announced that trust had disappeared. Instead, it faded quietly.
One conversation at a time.
One friendship at a time.
One silence at a time.
People who had worked together for years suddenly became more careful around each other.
Conversations that once felt natural became awkward. Subjects that could once be discussed openly were avoided. Sometimes nobody said anything at all.
The silence itself said enough. An invisible wall had appeared. And everyone knew it was there.
Some friendships disappeared. Some colleagues stopped speaking openly to one another. Some neighbors who had once shared meals and celebrations began looking at one another differently.
For many people, the most painful realization was not that ethnic tensions existed. It was discovering how quickly those tensions could overwhelm relationships that had once seemed genuine.
A homeland is not defined only by territory; it is also defined by relationships. When those relationships begin to unravel, the sense of belonging begins to unravel as well.
Then came the years after 2017. [Editorial note: The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Regulation on De-extremification was enacted on March 29, 2017.]
By then, many of the fears and anxieties that Uyghurs had quietly discussed for years no longer felt hypothetical.
Large numbers of Uyghurs disappeared into detention facilities and prisons. Intellectuals, writers, professors, religious figures, businesspeople, artists, and ordinary citizens were swept into a campaign unlike anything the region had experienced before.
For many Uyghurs, it seemed as though an entire society had suddenly become suspect.
Almost everyone knew someone who had disappeared.
A relative.
A former classmate.
A colleague.
A neighbor.
A teacher.
A friend.
The uncertainty itself became a source of fear.
At the same time, the space for Uyghur language, culture, and religious life continued to shrink.
Many mosques disappeared from city landscapes.
Uyghur-language education became increasingly restricted.
Books vanished from bookstores and libraries.
Public expressions of cultural and religious identity became more difficult.
Families were separated.
Friendships were interrupted.
Entire communities were transformed.
Looking back, I often think about how these developments affected my understanding of statelessness.
They did not create that feeling. By then, the feeling already existed.
I had first encountered it years earlier — in the inequalities I observed growing up, in the tensions that surrounded daily life, and in the painful divisions that emerged after July 2009.
What happened after 2017 did not teach me what statelessness was. It confirmed what I had already begun to understand.
That statelessness is not always about crossing borders. It can also emerge when people begin to feel that their language, culture, memories, and future no longer have an equal place in the homeland they have always known.
The distance between a person and their homeland is not measured only in kilometers. Sometimes it is measured in belonging. And for many Uyghurs, that distance had never felt greater.
Slowly, I began to understand something that had never occurred to me as a child. Citizenship and belonging are not the same thing.
A person can possess a passport and still feel politically invisible.
A person can carry an identity card and still feel increasingly disconnected from the society around them.
That is the form of statelessness I learned.
Not the statelessness of missing documents.
Not the statelessness of crossing borders.
But the statelessness of remaining on one’s ancestral land while gradually losing the feeling of belonging to it.
Many people assume that Uyghurs first experienced statelessness when they left their homeland and entered exile.
My experience was different.
I learned the feeling of statelessness long before I crossed any border.
I learned it when I watched the distance between myself and my homeland grow wider year after year. I learned it when relationships that once seemed natural became strained by mistrust. I learned it when belonging itself began to feel uncertain.
My father is no longer alive today. He passed away before he could witness many of the changes that would later transform our homeland.
Yet I often find myself returning to those conversations we had when I was a child.
At first, I thought he was teaching me about religion.
Later, I thought he was teaching me about politics.
Only much later did I understand that he was teaching me about belonging. Decades later, I finally understood what he was trying to tell me.
Citizenship and belonging are not the same thing.
Statelessness is not always the absence of a country.
Sometimes it is the slow erosion of belonging.
It happens when a people begin to feel that their language, their culture, their memories, and even their future no longer have an equal place in the land they call home.
Many people assume I learned that lesson in exile.
The truth is more painful.
I learned it in my own homeland.