Liberty Times: As a self-styled revolutionary who looks up to Che Guevara, what are your plans for the year to come?
Leung Kwok-hung (梁國雄): Three things are on the agenda, with the first being the “Occupy Central” movement [an occupation of the Central District (中環區) with traffic disruption in the hopes of forcing the authorities to agree to implementing genuine universal suffrage].
The second is very crucial to Hong Kong. The Chinese Government promised to implement what it called “general elections,” the elections for the administrative heads of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in 2107.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The special administrative office has begun the first rounds of inquiries to compile a report which will later be submitted to Beijing. The league hopes to encourage [the people’s] participation in the five constituency referendum to truly bring general elections to Hong Kong.
Third, the League hopes to push through reforms concerning the rights of the people of Hong Kong, such as civic pension guarantees.
[It’s funny] you mentioned Guevara; it brings a joke to mind. Everyone knows that Guevara was a gun-toting revolutionary, [but fewer know that he was] originally a doctor. He once met [former Cuban president] Fidel Castro in Mexico, and Castro asked him during a battle in Cuba: “You’re a doctor [by profession]; which are you going to take up, the gun or the medikit?”
Guevara took up the gun.
The story tells us that we can change during the process of a movement. The self is both illusory and real at the same time. We establish our philosophy of life based on the imagination of the self, and are shaped through our pursuit of ultimate caring [for others]. We interact through such processes, just as everyone else.
As Dom Helder Camara once said: “When we are dreaming alone, it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality.”
From this point of view, the situation can be changed, whether in Hong Kong, Taiwan or mainland China.
LT: You believe everything can be changed. What then are your thoughts on the pessimism regarding the “Occupy Central” movement?
Leung: The pan-democrats’ first problem is how to maintain solidarity. The question is constantly on my mind. How do we maintain solidarity?
Using [Taiwan’s] dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) movement in the late 1970s as an example: they came together as a group in the courts, but the main problem facing the coalition was how different parties and factions reacted to a critical issue. If they hadn’t abandoned their ideals under duress, they could have gone one step further.
Hong Kong is in the same situation.
[The answer is that] in court or in jails, we agree with each other. After the Kaohsiung Incident in 1979, everyone [that was arrested] made adjustments to how they would continue their actions.
I am not saying introspection would not come without being arrested; in fact even after winning, you must still do some soul searching. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is the same. They [dissidents] were arrested in 1979 and then the dangwai participated in subsequent elections. They built a platform by forming a coalition between pro-Taiwan independence and pro-Unification factions in opposition of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
“Occupy Central” is not a one-time event where the protester returns home after the event. Civic protests must be a continuous and ongoing process due to the inherent nature that humans are forgetful.
For the people of Hong Kong, will there be true general elections at the end of 2017? We don’t know. However, once we establish the medium for the five constituency referendum, we need to carry on with it, unless you terminate the medium itself, or others refuse to work with it. That is why I do not see this event as a one-time-only affair.
The problem with the medium is that its leader does not yet realize that it should not be a one-time-only event. They constantly equate the medium with nuclear weapons and say that it cannot be reused, and lay emphasis on being precise on the target.
That’s a joke. At the current level of autocratic rule in Hong Kong, civic protests are an established norm, and should be used in a variety of situations strategically. The only difference is the size of protests.
The civic protest is an ongoing process, not of debate, but of action. The leader of the events then turns actions back into theory, giving the people food for thought. Do they raise the bar if the “Occupy Central” event fails? Will they turn the issue into a referendum topic, or even consider a strike?
It is courage, and not just words, which motivates the people to step forward. It was so with [Mahatma] Gandhi, [former South African president Nelson] Mandela and it should be so for Hong Kong. It is a direction the “Occupy Central” event needs further though on.
LT: You seem to draw on a lot from the history of Taiwan’s opposition party and compare it with Hong Kong’s own experiences. What else [in the DPP’s history] has inspired you?
Leung: Hong Kong may not be able to use all of Taiwan’s experiences [of democratization], but we must understand how Taiwan and its people have gotten to where they are. I have been calling for dialogue between Taiwan and Hong Kong for this exact reason.
The DPP now has diverged from the party under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). The DPP, in the process of social activism, has gone from a party fighting for the most basic constitutional government reforms for the Taiwanese to a party of corruption.
When the party can no longer play the role of the opposition party, it loses its progressive attitude. That spells the end of them. At least, when compared with the democratic and progressive ideals when the DPP was founded, it has not been very progressive.
Hong Kong faces the same problem in this regard. Most strangely, we [the pan-democratic camp] are seeing this even before we are in a position of power. When the pan-greens have no future and also cannot turn back, should it not learn to compromise [with other factions]?
Another problem appears once the pan-greens decide on compromising; If they have turned their back on their ideals then so be it, but they should not attempt to unnecessarily complicate the concept of democracy, or they would be substituting democracy for another ideal.
Such is the problem with the [pan-green] charter; the most progressive method they have come up with to go to table with Communist China is in fact taking a step backwards. We are giving away part of the rights of a general election just to be able to sit down [with Communist China.]
The “nomination committee” is the equivalent of forcing a tall man to get down on his knees and crawl through a dog hole. Giving up civilian nomination [of election candidates] is not going to work.
From my point of view, general elections are this — the people have the right by law to nominate others or step up themselves for the election, and also possess the right to vote others into position.
There really is no reason to have debates over this issue and turning it over at every angle, and then saying that the general elections is a complicated issue and that the people of Hong Kong do not understand it.
At the same time, we must understand it if the [pan-green] charter had taken into consideration that the Communist China regime had successfully entered the WTO at the end of the last century and [how such an issue affects] China’s development at the beginning of this century.
Only through analysis can one come to the realization that the fusion of Chinese and local capital resulted in the global capitalist platform under Chinese one-party rule, and the Chinese Government would not allow reforms [to influence their control on resources.]
Simply put, what scared the party in the past was efforts of democratization, which would loosen the autocratic rule of the party in Beijing, but now they are afraid of the effect of Hong Kong disappearing.
Behind the allocation of power certainly lies the allocation of resources, which brings to light the second problem facing the pan-greens in Hong Kong — the wealthy in Hong Kong are not that different from the people in power in Communist China in terms of socioeconomic charter.
In this regard, Taiwan seems to share Hong Kong’s problems.
LT: What do you think is the common ground for dialogue between the civic societies of Taiwan and Hong Kong?
Leung: Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) in the past established a military autocracy in Taiwan due to US consent, allowing him to be separate from Communist China, as well as establishing the basis for the KMT and DPP’s rule in Taiwan, while within Communist China’s sphere of influence.
Hong Kong strives towards such a future and the crux of the issues lie in democracy, and whether the people [of Hong Kong] can truly achieve self autonomy.
As a player with increasing influence in global capitalism, Communist China’s overheads in dealing with Taiwan and Hong Kong is very low, due to sharing the same culture, and to an extent, the same language.
Taiwan and Hong Kong have been severed from China in the past, but now China is back [and pushing at the borders], whether you like it or not.
China’s [global] influence today is due to mutual economic reliance with the US in the WTO and its growing economic strength. If Communist China can succeed in becoming an autocratic nation with a burgeoning economy, the human race will become extinct. Such is the mutual lesson from which we have to learn.
Translated by staff writer Jake Chung
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