Maria (00:07.274)
Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Kashmir Exist Podcast. Today we have a very important topic. Today we're gonna talk about advocacy. What is the experience of an advocate, the good things that come, the struggle and all the challenges that we face. With me, I have very important voices, very strong advocate for different causes. Please everybody introduce yourself.

Mike, you can start.

Mike (00:39.361)
Thank you Maria. Hi, my name is Mike. I'm a former pro-Israeli and I'm advocating for the full liberation of Palestine.

Maria (00:50.198)
Great, please continue. Let people know.

Ray (00:56.839)
Yeah, hello, I'm Ray. I'm a Palestinian and since the beginning, since my will was born, I'm advocating also for the liberation of Palestine.

Maria (01:12.682)
Now we have point blank with us.

Point (01:19.347)
Yeah, I am point and I have I'm an activist for I guess Kashmir and Palestine.

Maria (01:31.03)
Thank you. And a voice that all of you can recognize and I know that you already love. My beloved friend, Tesh, is here with us as well.

Teyshi (01:40.11)
Thank you Maria. Yeah, I'm Teishi. I am an activist and an advocate for all people that are oppressed, which obviously for me includes Kashmir because I'm a Kashmiri and the current suffering of the Palestinians, which has been going on for the longest time.

Maria (02:01.046)
Thank you, Tashi. Welcome back. So to all of us, you said, what is advocacy? So advocacy is the act or process to support, promote, and or are you in favor of a cause, policy, idea, or group, involve efforts, involve influence decisions, create awareness, and generate support to a specific issue or initiative. And I have a couple of questions for our guests.

Can you guys share with me what motivates you to become an advocate?

Maria (02:37.456)
Anyone can decide because Mike, thank you.

Mike (02:40.503)
Okay, if you want me to go first. Well, my story is a little bit different, right? Because I'm a former pro-Israeli. So my initial reason for getting involved in this stemmed from October 7th and President Biden's address to the United States, where I heard, you know, about, I guess we'll use TikTok friendly scene. also using that. raping, you know, and the 40 beheaded babies.

Maria (02:42.944)
Please.

Mike (03:09.803)
kind of outraged me and as an American Jew, I wanted to advocate for Israel. So I joined TikTok shortly after that and I landed on a live and I started advocating for Israel initially.

Maria (03:30.41)
That's interesting, but now you are not advocating for Israel. What motivated you to change that approach?

Mike (03:38.197)
Well, my approach changed because of the people that I debated and taken the time to listen. I was fortunate I landed in a good live like you Maria, that's where we met, the General's live. I was frequently brought up on the panel. My only argument was based around October 7th and as I was up on the panel I was confronted with some hard questions from people like Bobby, Harley, Petra.

you know good strong advocates and you know when I started to look into the things that they were using to debate to debate me it really changed my point of view and my view started to change as I listened to the other Zionist because I found that those Zionists had no empathy for the Palestinian people so I can remember and

You know, I used to have three questions that I would ask, not pro-Palestinians. This was my transition phase. I would talk to other Zionist pro-Israelis on the panel as I had an Israel flag, and I would ask them three questions. And they were, how many Palestinians in Gaza is Israel prepared to sacrifice to end the Hamas group?

And you know, most of the time it was outrageous, their comments back about the percentages. And then I would ask how many Palestinians in Gaza are a member of H Group. And basically the consensus from the pro-Israelis where, you know, they're all guilty. And then, you know, I also had concerns about how Israel was conducting

their occupation in Gaza and, you know, we watched them hit a refugee camp with some American made weapons. And it really hit home for me. So my third question was, do you feel that hitting a refugee camp is collective punishment or collateral damage?

Mike (05:57.407)
You know, after getting answers from a couple of Zionists, I took down the Israeli flag. put up an American flag and the more I looked into things and learned about Palestine and the occupation, the more my views changed on the whole situation to where now I'm a full-blooded, pro-Palestinian advocating for the full liberation of Palestine.

And I think my voice is important because I am a white American Jew. And unfortunately, the Zionists can relate to my voice. And I think they can hear me a little better than they hear the Palestinians.

Maria (06:45.43)
That's a powerful story, Mike. I truly appreciate you sharing with us today. Yes, I met you and it's one of the biggest blessings in my life. Who else wanna share what motivates you to speak up and advocate?

Teyshi (06:59.9)
Well for me Maria, by the way I want to say well done and whoop whoop to Mike I was whooping on mute there but for me it's quite quite an interesting story as well because you know I think there's a little bit of Stockholm syndrome sometimes that happens for people that are occupied that that definitely we've seen happens and for my situation if I take it back to my circumstances of being Kashmiri when I

Maria (07:07.185)
Okay.

Teyshi (07:28.678)
came to the UK, you I had an Indian passport and I remember that I had that until I got British citizenship as a teenager. I won't go into the details of it, but I remember having that sort of passport and it made me feel like I was Indian. You know, at that stage, this was before the actual trouble started in the late eighties. And I think for a long time as a young person, I kind of identified as Indian.

and I did that in ignorance. I had the privilege of being in the West that cushioned me from the realities. And when I went back to India regularly and in that year that was coming towards the end of the 80s, there were certain things that started to happen. I actually felt angry at the rebels because I thought that this is the reason India is cracking down on us because these are...

troublemakers and I was, you know, naive and angry at the wrong people. As a young person, I think that, you know, as I got sort of older and I've seen, for example, the BJP party, which is the current government that's in, and they're a fascist party, by the way, they're a kind of, you know, party that champion India being for Hindus and it being Hindu only.

Because we've got this kind of extreme party that's ruling India now, it kind of shook me awake to the reality of what was going on in the valley. And then I started to understand a little bit more from that perspective of why, of who really are the good guys and the bad guys. I think with the previous government that was in, which was the Congress party, they...

are pretty much kind of, I would compare them a little bit to the Democrats. know, they kind of seem okay, but they're not really good because they're doing the same things. And so it was hidden. And I think that's why I felt, you know, angry at the wrong people. I didn't really understand. It took a lot of growing up. It took for...

Teyshi (09:42.785)
you know, really stark examples of that, the BJP party and Modi himself, it took some really stark examples of what's going on to not only Kashmiris, but Muslims in India for me to sort of wake up out of my reverie. And I, know, ever since then, you know, I've been, I feel like I fully, fully become aware of what's happening. I think as well, it's really funny because I was an

I would say an advocate activist for Palestine from an early age because my dad supported it and as a young person I was always interested in my parents' opinions as you are when you're growing up. And so I remember being at university and having debates actually with what we would now so easily use that term Zionist.

that's who I would be debating against. And yeah, you know, for the longest time. But I think it's just ironic that I supported Palestine before I was able to support Kashmir. And I think today when I talk about that and how South Asians lack of support, probably part of it because I recognize that in myself and it angers me. But yeah, that's how I, for me, that's what activism means. It means standing up, facing the truth.

exposing the truth and doing the right thing, even if it feels uncomfortable for yourself.

Maria (11:10.336)
Thank you, Deshi, that was powerful. Ray, would you like to share?

Ray (11:17.466)
Yeah, sure. So for me, was born Palestinian, right? I used to hear the stories of my grandparents, my father, who were actually born in Palestine. I wasn't actually born in Palestine, I was born in Syria. And that was even trickier for me because in Syria, we were taught about Palestine, you know, at schools. Syria and, you know, the education system there.

It was all about resistance. was all about talking about the rights of the Palestinians and the oppression that they are going through under the occupation. And to me, was something like I was fed that, you know, since I was a little boy.

Also, you know, when I reached to a later stage, when I became, you know, like 17 or 18 years old, and I started looking into different things. I was wondering, like, you know, the Syrian regime back then, you know, they are advocating for Palestine. They are always in the news and in the media and everywhere. They are advocating for Palestine. But I could see Syrians were oppressed.

Palestinians were oppressed under this dictatorship system. And that was the part where I was trying to understand how could we advocate or how could a regime would advocate for oppressed people while it's suppressing their own people. Now, fast forward when I left Syria later, I started seeing things even more clearly.

The thing that got me to start questioning and asking, when I see, even I myself as a Palestinian, I had to go through some situation in Syria where I was interrogated. Interrogated because I'm a Palestinian and because I was just in a visit, in a quick visit to Jordan.

Ray (13:42.976)
I was interrogated for like six hours. And that interrogation didn't really make sense to me in Syria that, know, asking me, why did I go to Jordan? Why did I, why did I have to, if I, if I ever visited or if I have any relations, relations with the, with the Israeli occupation. And that was, that was something that got me to, to question, you know, the practices of the Syrian regime.

And again, fast forward to 2011, the image was more clear that that regime was a dictatorship. And it's not much different from the occupation, the Israeli occupation, especially with what happened during the revolution in Syria. So for me, I started my activism on Facebook and in support of both Palestine and

the Syrian people. Again, fast forward till October the 7th. You know, that's when I started looking into the more social media options, which was TikTok for me. And I started seeing the lives. And this is where I felt like I can speak at least I can speak more, can maybe spread the message, I can have more voice rather than just, you know, typing some comments and here and there on

different social media platforms. And of course, that led me to meet Teyshi and learn more about Kashmir and again, hear about more occupation and more oppression. So this was a motivation for me to feel like, you know what, from my position, even though I'm far away, I were in different part of the world, but my voice counts, my voice matters.

I have been through this, my people have been through this and so many other people have been through this. So you know what? I'm going to continue and I'm going to use my voice and I would use any resources that I have to advocate for oppressed people around the world, not only in Palestine.

Maria (15:55.734)
Thank you Ray. It's a great story about advocacy because you're talking for the people that cannot speak, your people. And last but not least, points. You want to share a little bit about what motivates you to speak up for others?

Point (16:17.039)
yeah. so, I started with activism quite late. it was after I, went through something, I, I got blind, disabled to some level. Some people would call disability. and after that, it's sort of like, made me change a lot. of course, going back in time, I'm also

in this case a brown person so I would go through racism and I remember back when 9-11 happened as a kid I was beaten up because I was brown and they associated me with a terrorist and so I thought okay I mean why why I mean why is this necessary and speaking up about

up against about that or against those people who speak badly for everyone and sort of giving that title to everyone. The title itself, terrorist, sort of diminished in my head. And so I understood more about why certain topics are being spoken about as a kid, even at an early age. Whilst in this case, I never felt the same

same as or I didn't go through as bad of things as for example Palestinians do. But later in life when I became blind I sort of like took more time to analyze what is actually happening both in the microscopic and macroscopic view.

by more people who are disabled, people who are visually impaired, autistic, neurodivergent, all those. Even LGBTQIA +, thinking more with the background of science and of course psychology in this case, to understand that more in depth, for example in this case, LGBTQIA+. I became a pro-Palestinian very late.

Point (18:38.813)
in this case, to support Palestine. And I often feel sad about that. I feel bad that I haven't taken much time. But in this case, it sort of took me some time to... After October the 7th, of course, I had Palestinian friends before that. But after October the 7th, I took more time reading more books, figuring out what exactly is happening.

I wanted to stand on the right side of history in this case. And that's when it sort of felt more to the heart that I really had to stand up for this because this is not only something that is bad towards us, the Palestinians in this case, it's the entire world. If you think about the Zionist ideology.

Maria (19:34.742)
Thank you, Point. Another powerful testimony. And thank you all for sharing. Now I wanna know, what are the challenges that you have faced in your advocacy career? Mike, you wanna share with us?

Mike (19:56.799)
Sure, yeah. So I've faced all kinds of challenges, you know, in my time advocating for Palestine, coming from a Jewish family and Jewish community. Sometimes advocating is not the easiest thing to do.

I've also had problems, faced difficulties, fundraising.

Mike (20:30.979)
And I've also struggled, you know, with sometimes not being accepted by, you know, Palestinians. And I've also, you know, I've received what I would think is racism being called the white supremacist, being singled out and attacked.

But I haven't let any of that sway me because I think the good we do here outweighs all of the bad events. If I can change the view of one person, then my mission has been accomplished. And we just, move on to the next person and we change the people who have empathy and listen and the people who don't, we just need to skip over.

Is that doubt? It's a hard question to answer, Maria. I hope that that will do.

Maria (21:29.558)
Thank you Mike. was there with you and thank you for this despite everything you still strong with us. Tessie, would you like to share with us the challenge that you have experienced?

Teyshi (21:44.08)
Yeah, I think that, you know, for me, I think sometimes I it's hard to cope with my own frustrations when I feel not just feel when I see that people are so, you know, uninterested, they're so indifferent, they're so apathetic. It's like that horrifies me. It horrifies me when I, you know, when you're trying to

share with people, isn't this terrible, look what's going on, we need to do something, what can we do with those feelings that you have, right? And people just kind of looking at you with a glazed expression as if you're talking in different language. then like, anyway, I, did you not want to know where I went on my holiday? Anyway, so I've got this new car and it feels very much like that, you know, there's, you know, the shutters come down, you know, you're met with a brick wall almost. So I feel.

That's for me, my personal thing, that's the hardest thing that I deal with. feel like it affects, I wouldn't say it affects my motivation, it actually makes me more angry, right? I'm sure everyone on Facebook thinks that I'm just there with war, you know, is it war stripes on my face? I don't know what it's called, but, but you know, I will say that I have found it to affect my moods in as much as it's kind of made me see people.

in a way that haven't seen them before. I think we always like to see the good in people and we should do. But I think equally in these situations when you see people being willfully ignorant and turning a blind eye and not being interested, especially when the war in Ukraine started and I saw how everyone in Britain reacted, it was like the nation was in mourning. There was an absolute shock that was reverberating. I remember that happened in work, people on my social media.

The next minute there was an open border for all Ukrainians, absolutely no, you know, checks whatsoever, just come straight in. People were opening their homes to them, to Ukrainian refugees. And you know, that's a great thing by the way. And in terms of, you know, housing Ukrainians, they went to the top of what we have here, which is like a housing list where people that need housing, social housing, there's like a list for it. And Ukrainians at the time went straight to the top of the list.

Teyshi (24:04.962)
These are all great, right? But it kind of made me realize we never see this. We never see this for other people. And especially where, you know, we've been hearing about Israel's relentless attacks on Palestine. We heard it before October the 8th, put it that way. You we'd hear about Israel carrying out strikes in different areas. It would make the news. And I'm pretty sure people would either switch it over or not be interested.

I think for me, that's the hardest thing is that there is this thing that happens, is selective allyship, selective activism, know, and yeah, you know, selective advocacy. And that baffles me. It baffles me how you choose that one set of people are worth caring about and another are not. So for me personally, that's my biggest struggle when I met.

with other people's apathy to a grave humanitarian situation.

Maria (25:08.758)
I feel you because I feel like as advocate for people I get to know people and I become more anti people. okay Ray would you like to share some of your challenges?

Teyshi (25:19.875)
Yeah, don't blame you.

Ray (25:29.985)
Sure, absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, I can list the challenges in a different way because, you know, the challenges, believe it or not, in my situation and so many others like me, it started from home, from our home, from parents and from relatives, you know, because we live, you know, where we were born and lived, we live in a...

under a dictatorship system. So that gave us the concept of always mind your own business. Why do you have to speak? Why do you have to say anything? Because the government itself or the regime itself is actually advocating. So all you need to do is just to follow what they're doing. But again, like we said, because the regime itself

is pretty much complicit as we can all tell. It was something like, you know, I need to speak more, I need to highlight more. But again, it would be shut down pretty much by the family by saying, you know what, all you need to do is just to pretty much look after your future, your family, you don't really have to worry about the activism, especially that, you know,

When you are an activist, it might actually affect your family because basically we were always being spied on. If you say some word on social media that might affect your family, might affect your friends and everyone that you know, they would be questioned.

Home and community, that was the very first challenge that I faced. The next challenge was the governments themselves. Like I mentioned, if you would really get out or deviate from the scripture that the government is giving you, that is something that you would be questioned about. You would be chased. You cannot just speak up. Again, I'm not talking about speaking up against the government itself.

Ray (27:52.326)
I'm speaking up against the occupation or against the oppression, but in a different way, in a different narrative than the governments are allowing us to do. All right. So that also was a challenge. Okay. You can't really do an extra work. No, all you have to do is just to follow the scripture. Now moving, moving to, to a Western, Western country, that also was a challenge. Although, although it was, it was actually, it gave me more

freedom of speech, but it was also a challenge because you know when you are coming from a place where you were anyway under oppression and under dictatorship, right? So it was something like you always have to hold yourself back from speaking up because you don't really know this is this is how we were we were raised. This is how we grow up. You don't really know who is listening and you don't really know who's going to hurt you. Right? So again,

For me, it was a challenge when I identified myself at work here in the Western country. I identified myself at work when I would be asked, where are you from? If I'm going to say I am from Syria, because of what happened at the the revolution in 2011 and everyone thought that it's a civil war, people would be more compassionate. And they can maybe discuss further with me.

But if I identify myself, I am from Palestine, then, mm, OK, they have more arguments with me because of the propaganda that they watch, that Israel is defending itself against those people who call themselves Palestinians. So this was a challenge. This was not only a challenge. was the story of my life. That's how I can call it.

Maria (29:46.826)
Thank you Ray. I completely understand and identify. So family sometimes can be a thing. So, point, can you share with us some of your challenges that you have experienced as an advocate?

Point (30:00.327)
Yeah, definitely. I would say my challenges, of course, I don't call this exactly challenge, but I have been threatened before. It does impact me psychologically to some levels. More racism, guess, xenophobia to some levels. But there is, when it comes to challenges directly for my activism,

I think it's mostly when I've asked people for help or joining in the projects and that has been a difficult part to actually engage in or try to get some output from whilst many say yes, eventually certain things just slip away. On another thing it could be also that many people have a lot to do.

But I do mostly activism through digital means, like doing things via certain platforms online or something like that. But on a local level, activism is way more easier to some extent. Challenges I could face as even a disabled person, because I do believe that is something

that is very important to talk about here, in my opinion. It can be difficult, for example, to get certain, I guess, visual challenges, to not understand certain visuals. Or, for example, go on protests. I often try to tell other people who are disabled in my...

I guess in my community, the blind community, would tell them to tell them that they could still be an activist. They can still do something even if they cannot stand outside and do protests. That is sort of a challenge because you cannot always give that insight to people the best possible way. Other than that, I wouldn't say there is much.

Maria (32:26.528)
Thank you so much, Poyn. I really admire your dedication and everything that you have done to work in this career advocacy. So I have faced one major challenge. I have two questions that you guys need to help me to understand. The challenge that I have experienced is infiltration.

Infiltration of people with bad intentions and our community grew for advocacy. We haven't seen any news, I'm pretty sure that you heard the Black Lives Matter movement. When we see people destroying the street, but turns out that they were not part of the Black Lives Matter, but somebody external, the one this group looked bad. Or I see people infiltrating our movements online in order to get clout or money.

So my question for you guys is, what do you think that they do this? Why do you think that people infiltrate advocacy group? What is the objective? Mike, you want to start answer my questions?

Mike (33:35.287)
Yeah, sure. So why do people infiltrate groups, right? I would say they do that because they want to create some type of division. And, you know, they come into the group, they get accepted, and then they create some type of division. And then that group is no longer functioning as well as it was.

And I've seen lots of division caused this way in my 15 months here advocating for Palestine. So that was the first question. What was the next part, please?

Maria (34:16.456)
Like what do you think that how we can protect our advocacy group from this infiltration?

Mike (34:24.811)
Well, I mean, I know like when we do our service, we vet people before they go on there, but I think we need to have an open door policy and we have to take the risk on people that they're going to be there for the right reasons, just like we are. And let them prove us wrong because we need every voice we can get Maria.

Maria (34:49.802)
That's very important. Yeah, we like to call people and so it's very hard just vetting and close the door. Tishy, what about you? You have experience with infiltrating in your works and your projects?

Teyshi (35:04.981)
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, we've spent, as Mike said, we spent 15 months on TikTok, which obviously is a platform that means that a lot of people can jump on and can literally talk about anything as long as they don't get banned. And I can say the word banned because we're not on TikTok right now. So basically the sort of infiltrations we've seen as being anything from Zionists pretending to be pro-pallies, Zionists

not being openly Zionist, but trying to make friends with pro-Palestinians to kind of say that, you know, let's bury the hatchet, you know, we want this war to be over. To people that claim to be pro-Palestinian and yes, the things that you can understand, the motivations that you could understand in as much as it makes sense in your head is some people might do it for clout to center themselves, right?

There is unfortunately a lot of ego involved in jumping up on a panel and everyone look at me, everyone listen to me, I have to say everything. In fact, the other day I heard someone say, God's brought me here so I just need to talk, so just let me talk. And it was a really good example to me that some people I think really feel that they need to be heard and you know, whether they actually, when they open their mouth, say anything meaningful can sometimes be a different matter, right?

So yeah, there is the idea of clout, ego, centering yourself, making things always about you. Some people need that attention. Some people crave attention. Some people want validation. I think we've seen people come in, as Mike mentioned, that have caused division, whether it was intentional or whether it was just because there is some sort of toxicity and it naturally sows division. We've seen that as well.

But think that the ones that are a little bit, know, and then there's people that try and, you know, like we said, it's not a very nice thing to talk about, but yeah, there's certainly people that want money and might be doing certain, shall we say, questionable endeavors, whether it's raising money and, you know, we know raising money is a good thing, but, you know, there are unscrupulous people around. And of course, in these situations, people will be opportunistic and exploitative, right?

Teyshi (37:27.762)
But the ones that... So in my brain I can understand that in as much as it computes. The thing that I find really really difficult to understand is people who do it for kicks, who aren't necessarily after money. They might be after attention or it's just not even that right? It's just a sort of psychological manipulation and they enjoy manipulating people. I think that's the hardest one.

for me that I've had to come to terms with because it just doesn't make any sense to me. But I think what we have, you know, and seen and realised is that there will be opportunists, whatever their motivation. And of course, it's, you know, it is upon us to be kind of really on guard. people may think that I'm perhaps a little paranoid about certain things like that, but I do have general feelings that I get about a situation that are, you know, I pay attention to red flags.

I like to think that I'm on point with it to be honest if I say so myself. mean other people could disagree with that, that's fine. For me it's about, I think Mike touched on this, but we're a community. think there are all of us on the call. We've known each other for, yeah, a good amount of that 15 months. I think we've had enough experience and this is people outside of this particular recording as well that we know.

are the real deal and that does take a level of trust. You have to be open to let people in and I think you trust people until they prove you wrong. I think you have to go by that. There is definitely times though that I get a sort of a feeling about someone and I'm not, something doesn't feel right, something and I don't ignore it but I have that rule in my head that I keep that in my mind and I wait until they do something that is tangible.

for me to kind of distance myself or at least alert other people that there might be a problem. It is important to trust people. It's important to protect our spaces. It's important to do things the right way. I think one of the things that we should definitely avoid is the sort of kind of pointless drama, hysteria that can go on. We can all be prone to it certainly, but if we want to keep our advocacy strong,

Teyshi (39:52.771)
uniform and aligned, we just need to also be aligned in, you know, trusting each other, but also checking in with each other. it is important that when we have evidence that there is an infiltration that we do call it out and that we remove those people from our spaces as much as possible.

Maria (40:18.878)
Thank you, Tessy. Yes, calling out is very important. I they can be uncomfortable. I know that some people don't like confrontation. But I think, as you say, it's just important to bring out the attention of others so we can stop further damage in our movements. Ray, do you have any experience with infiltrated people? How do you think that we can protect our communities from this?

Ray (40:49.652)
Of course, yeah. So the infiltration itself, would, you know, I would talk about the what is behind it or why does it really happen from what I've seen. OK, now the first thing that I could think about is, you know, when the movement, when any movement is getting more momentum, it is getting more traction and it becomes strong.

the voices are strong, they started to be heard and they start to bring more people in. The infiltrators would, the first thing they would start, they would intend to do is to tarnish the reputation of this movement, okay? And they would feed on, like Tashi said, they would feed on some sort of the ego of the people.

they would feed on spreading some fake news and fake information so that people would start losing faith in each other, the members who are part of this movement, they would start losing faith in each other. And that's what would take us to the next step in this case, which is creating distraction and division.

And of course, you know, it's the recipe for the recipe to failure. The failure of any movement is or any even any any community is divide and conquer. And that's what the infiltrators would do. Now, there is also the third thing that comes to my mind is, of course, taking advantage, taking advantage of the movement, taking advantage in terms of, you know, if

those people are after some clout or some, you know, building some reputations for themselves. Okay, so that is a perfect place for them to start doing so. Taking advantage also for monetary profits. So in this case, of course, you know, in the form of collecting donations in the form of, you know, creating some some

Ray (43:09.074)
fake projects in order for them to make some money out of this. So this is how I see it. I really summarized what the infiltrators and what they are thinking about and what are they after. How to face it? Now, I would agree with both Mike and Tishi said. We do need to have an open door for people.

who are joining us, but in this case, we would let them in, but again, we would always be careful. cannot just, we are not there, the movement, we are not there to make friendships. We are there for one reason, which is to be voice of the voiceless. So basically, as long as we don't really fall in the trap,

of just because this person is a strong voice, then, right, yes, okay, come in. And we've seen something like this. People were, some people and some famous names, they were advocating and they were hard up against occupation and Zionism and all this. And all of a sudden, after a couple of months, after maybe they achieved what they wanted to achieve and they earned the reputation that they want, they just flipped that they went against the movement.

against in fact against some certain groups so that they would put, know, they would again divide the groups against each other. So basically, yes, we welcome everyone, but we also need to look at or keep an eye on the red flags. We need to keep an eye on the behaviors of these people who join. We need to keep an eye on, you know, the signs of how their ego is growing.

Okay, because ego is taking taking a big chunk of the movement, especially when you are having someone who has a strong voice and someone who has some people who would really believe in their words and what they say. So again, you need to keep an eye on the red flags. And as soon as we start seeing red flags, it is not wrong. And it is not a bad thing to do when we start, you know,

Ray (45:35.662)
the accountability thing, the accountability system, which is, you know, we call it out. Even in private, we don't really have to go in public unless it is really important for everyone to know. But like to start with as a protective measure or precautionary measure, we need to have it in a private or a smaller group to highlight what is going on, highlight the questionable behavior, questionable actions.

Okay, and then when everyone agrees that they all see what we can see, then maybe we can move to the bigger group, to the bigger circle and start saying, okay, guys, there's some questionable behavior here and we need to call it out and we need to put an end to it. I hope that makes sense.

Maria (46:26.358)
Totally right. And I like that you say divide and conquer. I that's the major objective of these people as well. Point blank, do you have any experience? Do you want to give any advice about how to deal with this situation? Have you ever dealt with infiltration?

Point (46:47.701)
I wouldn't say I have had a direct experience with infiltration when it comes to the Palestinian or even Kashmiri movement or the activism that I have taken part in surrounding these two.

movements. I don't know if I should call it exactly a movement, but yeah, I have heard a lot of stories. I've been around when it has happened, but it hasn't directly sort of made me be aware of doing something in that case. And that could be because I'm not used to it. However, I have been through infiltration in other ways. What baffles me more is

when we see the beauty of humanity sticking together and trying to do something for human beings, there will be one serpent there and that serpent will penetrate the entire movement and cause an issue. To stand away from the humanity aspect is something that baffles me because in that case it really

really shows that there are inhumane beings. Even those who are our friends, those who are our fellow activist members, they do have tendencies to be inhumane. And I do categorize infiltration to be an inhumane act.

Let us step away from something that is very important to deal with, this case to stand for Palestinians, stand for Kashmiri people, Congolese people, Sudanese people, all these people who are in need to go against fascism. I think I really do agree with both Keshi, Teishi, I mean all of you guys when it comes to this Mike as well, and of course Ray.

Point (49:01.609)
The first thing is that we are doing this for those in need. We aren't here to necessarily make friends. I do believe our primary objective is to free Palestine, free Kashmir and all these nations. If we become friends, I believe that is a plus, but that is not something that we sort of stand here for.

It is always difficult to understand who is who. And when it comes to projects and all that, this has caused an issue to create new projects, to be around people who even have started new projects. It has caused issues for me as well. In this case, to be someone who wants to organize projects. We never know who is right, who is wrong.

We never know how to manage projects because of this, how to stay secured in this case. And of course, we understand the stigma that people can have if someone goes and says, I have this new project, would you like to join? You can understand that people can feel a bit withdrawn from that to not join it.

understand from the aspect that maybe I could be an infiltrator. could even question that. Who knows? And this is a big issue. So I would say that. That I've been through that in that case.

Maria (50:43.232)
Thank you so much, Point that was very clear. So I want to make the last part of the podcast like an open panel. I would like you guys to share your personal experience as an advocate. Can you please share with me like what is the most, the sacrifice that you guys do as advocate? Like for example, all of us are engaged in boycotting, which is not easy. And also when you share your experience, I will...

like you to say a message to everybody that the thing the advocacy doesn't work. Can you guys, can Mike can you start? Like share with me your experience, share with me what is the toughest you sacrifice that you had on as an advocate and a message for the people that think that this doesn't work.

Mike (51:36.375)
Well, I don't really feel that I'm sacrificing much.

I openly advocate. It has made my life difficult. As you're aware with my work, know, advocating there, not being able to hold my tongue, advocating in my community, within my own family. So it...

Maria (52:00.084)
Yes.

Mike (52:13.301)
You know, there is sacrifice there a little bit, but not when I look at all of the suffering and all of the wrong that, you know, Israel is doing. I think about, you know, my grandparents fleeing Germany and, you know, the Holocaust memorial and, you know, all the Jews standing together saying, you know, never again. And,

And then to watch, you know, how this is unfolding. And what I would say to people that don't think advocating is important is, you know, you can't wait until these problems come to you because they do affect us. As an American, it affects us greatly with Biden just passing that.

eight billion dollars and more military aid to Israel. think every single American, whether you want to advocate or not, should be concerned because maybe you're a veteran, maybe you're homeless, maybe you're struggling week to week and we are sending all of our tax dollars over to Israel to occupy Palestine and to kill

Palestinians, women and children. And if you can watch that without standing up to say it's wrong, then you need to reset your compass. If you're an American and you can watch our tax dollars be spent like that, I'm just not sure what I can say. And then if you're also an American, and I find this very troubling that the US has passed

GI benefits to members of the IDF. We shouldn't be giving them American veteran benefits. What we should be doing is arresting them for war crimes. And I think people should be talking about that. This is definitely a good topic for people to advocate. And if you can't find a reason why, then it's too late because it's already affecting you and you've lost your battle.

Maria (54:33.302)
What happened with American First people? Can you share with us a highlight moment or something that impacted you during this year? Something good that you experienced, something that moved you hard and you worked as an advocate?

Mike (54:54.804)
Yeah, so let me talk a little bit about this, right? So last November I was fortunate. I was on a live and I bumped into this crew. One of them was Freedom Advocate. So I spent all of November, she was a moderator on a panel. I spent all of November with her, listening to her daily.

Come December, it was like we were a little team. We would do lives all night long. She'd be educating us. It was great. And then, you know, the beginning of this year, back in January, we started the sessions on Palestine that she does. At first, I was like outside help. I'd help with the promotions, you know, flying the poster and everything.

And then I became more and more involved with it. And I think that's the best thing that I do here is educate people. And if it wasn't for that session, because I had some really tough times back in February. I know most of you are familiar with what happened with the doctor and Lulu.

Shortly after that, I left TikTok and Freedom basically pulled me back in and then we started running the sessions for the first time on February 7th was the first session we did. And that's what motivates me. That's what keeps me going. And that's the best thing that I've done here.

Maria (56:37.908)
Thank you Mike and I want to tell everybody that I'm witness on this and he is the best when it comes to educate people and create promotional videos. I hope that you check our page so you can see it for yourself. Thank you Mike. Tishy, can you please share with me what are the sacrifices that you had to do when you advocate?

Teyshi (57:04.468)
Yeah, thanks for that Maria. And by the way, done Mike, we've all seen your great work over the past year and a bit. So sacrifice is an interesting word. I don't really think about it too much like that. because it's kind of might start me to grow anxiety. So I tend not to think about it that way, but in realistic terms.

You've mentioned the obvious ones like, you know, boycotting certain things, dropping some of our comforts. You know, a lot of us spent time doing projects, you know, throwing our voices for the cause. This is time that otherwise we might have done maybe in leisure time or different things. It's not really a sacrifice though. I think for me, the biggest sacrifice, if I'm being honest, is the fact that by talking about

Mike (57:53.312)
Okay.

Teyshi (57:59.573)
maybe even Palestine, knows? Kashmir certainly, that I risk not being able to visit Kashmir. It's a risk that I have thought about, it's a calculated risk. But I feel that all that time that I spent away from Kashmir when I was younger, especially when I first moved here, I feel like...

that, you know, this is the reason that it's worth it. It's worth it for me to miss out being there all the time and having, you know, feeling that wrench that I can do something good out of it. So I kind of feel like it was meant to happen. I've always felt that deep down, even when I was young and before I was particularly focused on anything, I just knew that there was a reason why I didn't grow up, you know.

as I, you know, my dad didn't even really want to come to the UK or go to America. He had no plans to do that. He actually did that quite late in life comparatively. And it was just because I don't know whether it was something caught his eye in the medical journal where he saw the advert or maybe one of his friends said something to him and it finally, because he never actually wanted to leave Kashmir himself. And I, so for me that, you know, the biggest sacrifice could be that I risk being

I don't even want to say the words, know, bar dentry into Kashmir. That's going to be it for me. I think the only other thing that I can think of again, which I don't have problem with it I'm being honest, I think most people know that I'm quite assertive and outspoken. Some people would see that as being rude. Of course, I'm a woman, so obviously if I speak my mind, I'm automatically rude. But yeah, there have been times in work that I've had arguments with senior management. I think particularly post October the 7th.

There were a lot of people in senior management that were very pro-Israel, making very sort of casually racist remarks about Palestinians and Palestine. I wasn't able to stay quiet. I did have a direct challenge to one of the senior managers who I think was a little taken aback.

Teyshi (01:00:18.244)
Yeah, and then that was it for me. I kind of knew that I didn't want to stay with that company because of that. But I don't consider that a sacrifice either. think the only thing, these are all the ways that my life has changed. It doesn't bother me. I'm happy with that. I think I have to accept that I have become westernized in as much as I've grown up in the UK. But for me,

how I deal with the sadness, it's sort of, it's not a big sadness, but it is there, it's a kind of sense of loss that I feel for the place that I was born in, is that I feel that I can use my privilege in the West to speak up, even if it's at the cost of me going back there, because it must be done. I think they had another question as well, Maria, didn't you?

Maria (01:01:11.667)
Yes, I do My question was like a what can you tell people? They say the advocacy doesn't work. There's a waste of time. What's your message for them?

Teyshi (01:01:24.068)
Yeah, this is an interesting one because I think, you know, I was talking about before, it's confusing to me when I see people's apathy in the face of such tragedy, but we know it does work. You know, we've seen the, how people, very, very sort of senior people around the world have been shaking in their shoes since everyone people took to the streets. They took to social media. They took to TikTok particularly. I know that there was,

Well, we know, for example, there were meetings with TikTok executives and very sort of foremost Zionist celebrities to challenge TikTok as to why they were allowing what they considered to be, know, antisemitism. We also know that some TikTok lives were played in, I think it was played to the, what we would call the, you know, the Israeli government, the cabinet, the inner team.

that some of the TikTok lives, the pro-Palestinian TikTok lives were played there. So certainly, you know, that's quite huge, right? I think that we've successfully combated a lot of the disinformation that came out post-October the 7th, like the 40-headed babies and the mask rapings. We can say rapings on here, by the way, just to let everyone know in case you're watching the words.

I think it's been powerful in that we've seen certain companies like McDonald's and Starbucks take a knock. Some people say that they, you know, were kind of facing a loss in revenue anyway, but certainly, you know, the impact of the BDS movement has had through activism has really shown a lot of difference. You know, we've seen, we've seen branches of McDonald's and Starbucks closing down in certain areas.

And we can, we know that, you know, some percentage of the loss in revenue is definitely because people do not want to associate with those brands and have completely turned their back on it. I think we saw the effect of activism on not only, and there was a lot of elections in 2024, by the way, but you know, in the UK and certainly in the U S for example, we saw that very much being central themes of

Teyshi (01:03:39.533)
policies and debates that were going back and forth. I believe that, for example, the Palestine issue made or break certain candidates. I really feel that it impacted. think essentially what we're talking about here, what we've seen post October the 7th, if we're just talking about this specifically, is we've seen people power. And it goes to show to us all that actually we do have the strength. The strength does lie with us, even though we're made to feel that we're insignificant.

that we can't do anything, but each of us is strong and in numbers, I believe we're powerful and undefeated actually. So that's my words to anyone. And don't forget those people that are suffering in Palestine, see us supporting them and raising our voices for them. I think it's a huge psychological boost.

for them, for all of us, and for everybody that ever feels powerless. So yeah, I would totally disagree with that. think if you think activism doesn't work, then you have your eyes closed, you have cotton wool stuffed in your ears, and your mind and your heart is definitely not turned on. So yeah, I don't agree with that at all.

Maria (01:05:00.502)
I love what you say. Advocacy showcases the power of the people. You are not alone. You have a community. They are willing to fight side by side toward the things that matter to you. One more question for you, Tashi, if you don't mind. Can you tell me one highlight moment, something in your advocacy career that stays with you, that changes your life or marks you?

Teyshi (01:05:26.859)
I mean, it's a really hard one for me this. You could say some really high points where, you know, we are seeing some of the great work done, we're seeing, you know, changes being made. I think we could say some really, you know, exponential changes, but I like the ones on more of a local level. I like to see that, for example, I can even change minds of people close to me. I really enjoy that. I suppose it's the opposite of what I'm saying when I see people

that are apathetic. So conversely, it would make sense that when I see that I'm getting through to people and that they are understanding what's going on, for me, I will take that over anything else because, you know, that's what we need. We need people to be awake and it gives us hope that, you know, that more and more of that will happen.

Maria (01:06:18.71)
Yeah, thank you, Tessha. And you can see the local transformation here because all of us are here advocating for Kashmir because of you. The Kashmir Project, the Kashmir Exceeds podcast is because of your influence. So thank you for that.

Teyshi (01:06:34.234)
kids.

Maria (01:06:35.278)
Ray, please can you share with us the sacrifices that you have to go through? Whether you tell the people that think the advocacy doesn't work? And please give us a highlight in your life as an advocate.

Ray (01:06:54.149)
So, you know, if we're talking about sacrifices, to me, it would be around two things. One of them is on a personal level, on the family level, let's say, which means, you know, when you put more time and effort into advocating and trying to speak up and to be the voice of the voiceless, that, of course, would cause some

Let's say we are allocating more time towards this activity versus, of course, spending, let's say, more time with family. Of course, we can always organize this. sometimes, especially during the last 15 months, of course, we all understand and we all realize that oppression

and atrocities and people getting killed nonstop day and night, right? They aren't even a break for that. So why and how do we have to take a break? Yes, of course, we need to look after our own health and our own wellbeing so we can keep being advocating and supporting. But also, yes, we do need to be mindful and we do need to be

supporting as much as we can, nonstop if we can of course, in order to help the people who are going through this. These difficulties are difficult, or let's say the atrocities that they are going through. Work-wise, that's the other challenge. Work-wise of course, someone like me running my own business and...

sometimes I couldn't really avoid, you know, being in Australia, talking to some of the clients, of course, because, I'm not a white person. So the first question or one of the questions that I would have is that, where are you from? And when I mentioned that I'm Palestinian and, of course, based on the news and what we hear for the last 15 months, the question would come automatically about what is my opinion.

Ray (01:09:18.459)
And that's when I start talking, especially me being from Gaza myself originally, of course I would start talking and advocating and trying to voice, you know, my people and what they're going through. So yes, that would affect some of my, affect me or my relationship with some of my clients when of course you would realize that those clients are

You know, they would say that they are pro peace in general, but they are still going or leaning towards, okay, well, Israel is defending itself. that affected me once with one of my clients. The rest so far, not yet, I would say, and I hope it won't. But yeah, these are the ones, these are the challenges and these are...

the situations where I would feel like, yeah, okay, this is really affecting. When people say advocacy doesn't work, well, it does. Again, look at the, especially me, someone who was following since I was a kid, since I was a child following what's going on in Palestine, the past 15 months,

They are a game changer. The best example is Mike with us. That is, you know, that's and so many others like him who changed their stance and they realized what is happening and they did more research. And of course, they, let's say, joined the right side and became advocates themselves. OK, now there are the other category of people who

also who are the proof that advocacy doesn't work, are the people who actually didn't know anything about what is going on. Maybe these people are so busy within their community, within their day-to-day activities, and they didn't really realize what was going on. So activism and advocacy brought them in, brought their attention.

Ray (01:11:44.856)
got them to do more research and to become even stronger voices. OK, and I'm sure that one of these people is you, Maria. All right. So the numbers are increasing. The attention is drawn to the complicit role or the complicit governments, like what Mike mentioned, the American tax dollars who are going

directly to support Israel and to support weapons and to support even their education and health system while Americans are still trying to do or struggling with this part. people started to understand the power of protesting, the power of boycotting, the disruption that is

causing because, again, economy is actually the major player of keeping and maintaining the oppression. So it's a long list, honestly. It's a long list of clues to prove that advocacy doesn't work. Now, the other part of your question is some of the significant moments for me as an advocate.

or as an activist. The first thing that would come to my mind is Kashmir, Kashmir and what is going on there. I didn't really know about it before. I didn't have any idea what is going on there. So and thanks to the activism, thanks to Teyshi, we are part of the Kashmir Exist project. We are part of the whole movement.

And hopefully I would like to see even more momentum in that part on that side as well in this direction. The other significant moment is during our interaction on social media, on TikTok, on the lives with Palestinians in Gaza, they said something. They keep saying something important. They would say they expressed how happy

Ray (01:14:07.654)
and how thankful and grateful they are to see people talking about them, to see people raising their voices about them, and even giving them some platform. You can imagine that being bombed, being under attacks day and night, and you cannot even say anything.

and you are just getting killed silently. Now, the significant part here is that when they come and say, at least we are being heard, we can see the change. Although they are on a hurry, they want us to hurry up and they want a solution, a faster way of relieving them. But still, they are appreciating and they know and they understand that we are doing our best.

and they understand that at least someone is speaking on our behalf. It is not anymore being killed silently.

Maria (01:15:18.208)
Thank you, Ray. Yes, one of the wonders of TikTok was able to connect to people on the ground in Gaza, get to know them, my name and other struggle. I think that will be one of my highlights. Be able to call the friends and also all of you because without this, I wouldn't have met you. So point blank. Do you want to share with us?

Point (01:15:44.661)
Yeah, would you mind repeating the question again?

Maria (01:15:48.022)
Sure, but the first question is what kind of sacrifice have you had to do during your advocacy? And then share with us a highlight moment that have marked you and your career and also a message for the people that say the advocacy does not work.

Point (01:16:11.603)
Yeah, definitely. mean, I do find the question about sacrifice valid, albeit very odd. But I could answer this in several ways. Of course, I won't put a lot of time on it. But I guess to be in this case, if I was ignorant, stupid and silly, and I kept being it, I think that's the best. think that alone is a sacrifice itself.

because that gives me a comfort. But I don't want to be that. I do miss being comfortable, I guess, to just slack on the sofa when I come home and not care about any activism at all. Maybe turn on the Netflix or, I don't know, just listen to whatever. That could be something that is a sacrifice. However, in this case, I've learned so much. I have

and I'm very grateful for that. When it comes to sacrifices in a critical standpoint in my life, I guess more, I guess, contractual stuff, stuff that could be related into other activism that I could have done but not essential to the human needs. In this case, I have to pick and choose what is in need of.

I find the Palestinian case, the Kashmir and all this to be more something I should stand for with more power, if that makes sense. And of course I have made sacrifices that some people could deem to be very big.

And some people could say it should be done and many others could do it. Could be in this case a lot with work. But that didn't stop me. And it shouldn't. mean, I think that there is someone's livelihood at stake when they take that step.

Point (01:18:38.463)
But in my case, I was secure enough. When it comes to the second question though, which was about activism, I believe. I believe that activism, of course, is very much beneficial. Activism is alive and well. It has been for a long, time. And we can, for example, see this

Back in South Africa, apartheid, had protests outside of universities in the US. It was one of the most biggest impact that stopped and made South Africa turn almost, wouldn't say 360 degrees, I mean, mean not 180 degrees, but at least it did turn to a positive, I mean a positive turn. And that alone was a big, big thing.

for activism itself. It was a big proof and evidence that activism is alive and well. Just to think about BDS, I myself would think that boycott, divestment and sanctioning is a very big thing. And I'm a big supporter for it, for the movement itself. Starbucks, they lost $11 billion. Their CEO had to step down. And that's a very big thing.

And that is all because we understand from what is right. We understand the difference between right and wrong. I believe I do want to step back into sacrifice again to some levels here because I believe if I sleep and I think that's the sacrifice I would take. If I sleep calmly, if I know something wrong is happening,

in Palestine, then I think the sacrifice is wider if I am bigger if I don't do anything. That's a sacrifice. And it goes both ways. I believe ignorance in this case cannot be sacrificed. whilst in another way, in a parallel dimension, someone could say ignorance is comfort. And that alone is a

Point (01:21:06.781)
sacrifice. And so in this case BDS, if you go back to the second question here about activism, BDS is something that we take over our comfort zone. It's something that is very difficult. We might be very much into, for example, a beverage that we drink often, but then we can't do that because they are eventually it comes on the BDS list. But it's a practice we just have to keep.

And it has worked, just like it did with Starbucks, with McDonald's. It works. And not only that, when it comes to activism, I do find it crazy that people can say it does not work at all, that it's not necessary, that it's all political and the public cannot do anything. We enhance people's...

voices, Palestinian people's voices when we stand outside. People hear us, the public hear us. When we talk on these podcasts, we enhance the voices that the Kashmiri people have, their stories, humanize them. And that alone is a very good act of activism. Whether the political parties and groups do anything now or tomorrow, it is still humanization.

There is a humanization aspect in activism and that is necessary and needed and that's what I stand by.

Maria (01:22:42.666)
Thank you so much Point Blank. Yes, and I want to remind to our listener and to everybody the question, the powerful advocacy that if you can vote is because someone advocate for that. If you there is a legal minimum way is because somebody advocate for that. So you don't have to work for one dollar. If there is a if you have if you're allowed to take breaks and you work is because somebody advocate for that.

All the rights that we have now is because a group of passionate people advocate for this. So I want to say thank you to our guests. This was a powerful conversation and I appreciate your time. You can say your final thoughts or we can close now. Does anyone want to say anything?

Mike (01:23:36.767)
Yeah, final thoughts. Let's go in order too, Maria, and finish it off like that. So my final thoughts are, you know, we've got to have goals, first of all. My goal is to stay here and to keep educating people. We have to stop the misinformation. We have to raise the voices of those that are advocating. And we need to do it as a team. We need to do it united.

And I hope to see more and more people as we move into the future. Thanks, Maria.

Maria (01:24:12.342)
Thank you, Maya. I appreciate you here.

Teyshi (01:24:16.333)
Yeah, I just want to second what Mike says. Sorry, I jumped the gun there. Second what Mike says. You know, what we do is important. We are hopefully very focused. It's relentless. Exactly like, you know, Ray said, you know, the tormentors don't sleep. The suffering people, they don't get a break.

Maria (01:24:16.49)
This year.

Teyshi (01:24:43.023)
And so the work we have to do is relentless. And in the words of point blank, it's 2025. We've got a lot of hard work to do.

Maria (01:24:51.978)
Thank you, Tashi.

Point (01:24:53.925)
Yeah, it definitely is 2025 and we have a lot of hard work to do. We always do. Hopefully we can learn from last year and we can try to fix from our footsteps, I guess. But yeah, I'm very happy that we have these examples like Teishi, Maria, Ray and of course Mike to...

give us these examples that good activists exist. And that's what I'm very happy for.

Maria (01:25:30.826)
Thank you. Ray, final toll so we can close.

Ray (01:25:36.399)
Sure. Look, again, activism, advocacy, they do work. They do miracles. We might feel that this is we are doing some slow progress. But honestly speaking, think about it over the last year, is moving. Before that, it was even slower. Now it is getting more momentum. It is moving faster. We need to keep it up. We need to.

Make sure that Look at it this way, you know when we are looking at this session here We see people from three different continents across you know covering the world map basically Right, so that would even give us you know, it would give us some Better feeling that you know what if

in one continent because it is night time and you went to sleep, all right? Please don't feel that guilty because some people in the other part of the world, they are awake and they will continue. They take it from there and they are voicing and they are talking, all right? So basically, it's a 24-7 activity. So the more people in our area, the more people are involved, the better, the stronger, and the results will come faster.

Thank you very much.

Maria (01:27:01.302)
Thank you Ray, thank you for participating again. And to our listeners, if you have any questions about how to advocate, where to donate, please reach out to us and we'll be happy to answer all your inquiries. Thank you for listening to us and tune again for our next episode. Bye.

Teyshi (01:27:24.254)
See you later.

Point (01:27:26.312)
Bye-bye.

Ray (01:27:27.587)
Bye, see you.

Maria (01:27:28.81)
Whoever has the power, close the recording.