Monday marked the first anniversary of the “Umbrella movement” in Hong Kong. No one could have foreseen that the week-long pro-democracy student-led movement in September last year would become a two-and-half-month-long peaceful uprising, attracting people to occupy major business districts and garnering media attention the world over.
This was definitely the most severe crisis that the ruling elite had ever faced since the British passed the territory’s sovereignty to China on July 1, 1997.
The subsequent responses to the protesters, both by Hong Kong and Chinese officials, and by different segments of the public affected the territory in ways beyond imagining. Denial of fundamental rights and excessive violence characterized the Hong Kong government’s reaction to a peaceful protest. In contrast, the courage of young protesters in the face of attacks by riot police inspired more citizens to challenge the authoritarian system and confront a hopeless situation with inner strength and truth.
As a local story in the global struggle for democracy, the Umbrella movement made history for reasons beyond the public outrage over the autocratic rule of Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) and became a serious test of crisis management for the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The territory-wide protest critiqued the autocratic mechanism that China has implemented to appease Hong Kong’s business elites in the post-colonial era.
Political discontent set in motion popular frustrations that culminated in the peaceful occupation of several business districts of Hong Kong. Last year saw a dramatic deterioration of Hong Kong’s autonomy when China published a controversial white paper to affirm its absolute control over the territory. The announcement eroded any remaining political goodwill that China had built since 1997.
As China only transferred authority to handpicked agents in Hong Kong and used its “one country, two systems” policy to establish a suppressive mode of governance, the post-colonial rulers considered democratic rights to be exchangeable commodities to be handed out bit by bit. When they applied the logic of economic transactions to control the public domain, they made a mockery of universal suffrage and favored the rich at the expense of the poor.
In many East Asian societies deeply rooted in Confucianism, social media has created a safe and comfortable online space for young people to access information outside the state media and to comment on public policies. Educated young people live in a boundless virtual world at odds with the future-less society they see around them. They mobilized themselves through Facebook, Twitter, FireChat and YouTube on an unprecedented scale.
This was a bad omen for the CCP leadership and its collaborators in Hong Kong. When the riot police failed to clear thousands of unarmed protesters from downtown by firing 87 canisters of tear gas on Sept. 28 last year, the government allegedly cut off the cellular and Wi-Fi connections in the occupied area at night.
Many students were so worried that the state would shut down the entire telecommunications network that they switched to a new mesh-networking app called FireChat that enabled smartphone users to form a temporary Internet, urging more people to help defend their access to the Web.
Authoritarian regimes that rule by fear also rule in fear, and Hong Kong’s post-colonial authority is no exception. Forcing people to submit is different from winning trust and showing leadership.
When the government sent in riot police and thugs to impose the rule of “might makes right,” the intimidation gave rise to a new dynamic that raised popular confidence in Hong Kong’s democratic struggle.
There was nearly universal outrage at the scenes on YouTube of riot police brutalizing unarmed protesters. The tears and sweat of peaceful demonstrators inspired the rest of the public to get involved, and deprived the chief executive of what little legitimacy he had in the eyes of the people.
The Umbrella movement was a shining example of direct democracy at work. People from all walks of life took to the streets to assert their rights in defiance of police brutality. The spontaneous occupations of a few downtown neighborhoods gave new life to the public’s desires for freedom and democracy.
An ideological community was formed in an ad hoc manner to support those who occupied the public space, and fought for the right to do so without fear and intimidation. During the final few months of last year, the protesters gained a sense of empowerment and made Hong Kong into a lively political theater on Chinese soil.
Hong Kong is still subjected to Chinese authoritarian control that greatly departs from the promise of high levels of autonomy under the Sino-British Joint Declaration (1984) and the Basic Law. While it might be hard to fight the CCP’s domination, its residents are keen to assert their limited agency and seize control of their destiny.
The Umbrella movement radically expanded the protest space in Hong Kong. Politically, it revealed the moral bankruptcy of China’s “one country, two systems” policy. Such a top-down authoritarian mode of governance contradicted people’s desires for direct democracy and led to severe tensions and conflicts, which the post-colonial elites have tried to cover up through appeals to economic growth.
As the battle for of democracy in the early 21st century is being fought in the public squares, shanty towns and villages of the global south, the meaning of good governance is contested by ordinary Hong Kongers.
Throughout the Umbrella movement, people embraced a shared political vision and space with fellow citizens in the occupied sites. By seeing themselves as the disenfranchised and forging alliances with each other, the public proved capable of nonviolent activism and making legitimate demands of their government.
Joseph Tse-Hei Lee is professor of history and codirector of the Global Asia studies program at Pace University in New York.
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