We have stayed in Hong Kong for nearly four weeks now. From the beginning, the city gave a very strong and unique sensation, and I felt an immediate urge to say something right a way. Yet it is obvious that to city is so many things at the same time that there is a danger of saying something immature or blind-eyed. Therefore I have done my best to first learn about it through reading books, seeing films, talking with people, and sure enough, walking streets. Sure enough, the city is spectacular, people friendly, and we are enjoying our stay, comfortable and fully safe. However, it would feel intellectually dishonest and indifferent to start with a tourist account. Therefore I just have to start with a humble analysis of what I think I see. The burning issue about Hong Kong is the continuously escalating unrest.
Let me give it a shot, taking both risks, first that of a) sounding like and old slightly paternalizing Besserwisser fart, secondly that of being labeled b) an idealist radical academic. I understand that it is first and most young peoples' movement, although not exclusively. It brews in all university campuses around the city. Understandably, the young are the ones who have most reason to worry about the future of HK, and those who care most about freedom of expression, and privacy. They are those who will be around after 2047 when Hong Kong is supposed to quit being a special admistrative region and turn to an ordinary city of China, which does not currently seem to prioritize those values. A high level of frustration is generated by the fact that there are no democratic means to change things.
At the same time, even if not explicitly pronounced, behind the unntenable situation is the extreme capitalism of the city-state. Hong Kong has developed into a safe haven of banks, investment brokers and property tycoons, where orninary people's concerns are only secondary. This keeps turning the rich even richer and the poor even poorer, a development surely not sustainable. (See OXFAM report 2018). Downtown where we live and move around we tend to see the prosperous Hong Kong, with smiley, fashionable, beautiful people, and expensive cars. However moving any further from the downtown area, there are shabby looking houses and homeless people under bridges. Even if the students have been most active in the demonstrators, even workers are involved. While it today's students who are likely to have better salaries besides other prerequisities of surviving in the future, but even they feel threatened by the society turning untenably inequal. All of this is taking a heavy human toll. According to a therapeutists who works with young people, mental health issues are rising alarmingly and this has already lead to a surge of suicides.
Sure enough, by default my sympathies are on the side of activists that strive for democracy, equality and freedom of speech. I also confess that I don't even automatically condemn breaking laws, when they are on the side of the oppressor. Whether or not this is so extreme right now I cannot tell. As a pacifist, I would personally love to believe in the idea of this being a peaceful movement at the core, but it is getting harder here. One factor making it difficult to judge is that one can't really tell who are the violent ones, whether violence is part of the movement itself, or whether there are provocators who do these things. Whoever those are, shops are being trashed, windows broken, ticket vending machines and property vandalized, and worse. Apart from material damage, also people-hurting violence is escalating. Police is using tough measures from tear gas and water pressure all the way to live rounds. This very morning a police officer shot a demonstrator hitting him to the stomach, possibly fatally. In the vicious circle, the undertakings of the police incite flames of revenge, for example in the form of petrol bombs thrown at police. Also homes and families of police officers have been threatened. Such deeds are sharply against my idea of reasonable activism.
One ugly consequence is that divisive talk and acts emerge, very much like elsewhere where nationalism is becoming a leading guide. This means people turning, not only against mainland Chinese companies, but also against ordinary people and even their little family enterprises, many of which have been totally destroyed. Mainland Chinese students are no more feeling safe, some leaving. Some protests have also turned against universities, of which the faculties actually are inclined to understand the causes of the situation.
Altogether, the situation seems to be serious and in a deadlock. The protesters stick to their five demands, and the government does not compromise, unless the violence stops, which is very unlikely to happen, in particular in the lack of internal leadership. Not many locals that I have spoken to are optimistic of a solution to be found any time soon. On one hand, it is obvious that the government of Hong Kong under its chief executive Carrie Lam has made dramatic errors, first by introducing the extradition bill that set aflame the situation, then being neither capable of dialogue in the course of the unrest, nor exercising any other means of releasing the tension besides forceful police actions. On the other, even the protest movement seems to roll ahead rather uncontrolled without an obvious leader with whom the government could even have a dialogue. The five demands have been nailed on a wall, but there seems to be no capability for peaceful compromises. More and more, the movement starts to seem like a hopeless attempt to get everything at one bite, and as young peoples' black-and-white irrational rage.
Obviously, all of this has to do with the giant of China, not likely to bend easily. So far the idea of Hong Kong's national autonomy is somewhat in the background, but turning increasingly more obvious. Yet, Hong Kong is part of China, and there is no way around the fact. The China's military presence in the city is particularly real at the Babtist University campus, namely across the street. One can actually hear the military commands being shouted in their daily exercises behind the wall! The threat is there, but not many want discuss it. The chief executive is no democratically elected president, but essentially China's administrator. The citizens have few means of changing the big picture by any democratic means, on the other hand, the prospects of a revolution seem also meagre.
What a mess! The truth is, I am just a visiting gweilo without words of wisdom to tell neither to the protesters, neither the government, just trying to make sense what's happening at a historical moment.
An update one month later: The democratic movement won a landslide victory in the district council elections. This calmed down the demonstrations for a while. However, the inaction and indifference of Carrie Lam's government toward the five demands has taken people back to the streets. Yesterday near a MILLION citizens across ages and professions walked peacefully from Victoria Park to the Center. The struggle for democracy continues.
