Most mornings for weeks, in one of the pro-democracy protest camps in Hong Kong, Wong Yeung-tat (黃洋達) has berated, mocked and goaded the government and, increasingly, the student protest leaders and democratic politicians he deems too timid.
“The occupy campaign needs to be taken to a new level,” he said in an interview. “There needs to be escalation, occupation of more areas or maybe government buildings. The campaign at this stage has become too stable.”
Wong’s confrontational, sometimes profane, diatribes lie at the heart of a deepening struggle for the soul of Hong Kong’s protest movement. Having taken to the streets nearly two months ago to oppose election restrictions imposed by Beijing, the protesters have become fractured by exhaustion, distrust and polarization over strategy.
Photo: Reuters
Wong’s organization, Civic Passion and a tangle of like-minded groups, Internet collectives and free-floating agitators have grown impatient with the milder path supported by most protesters. They argue that only stronger action, such as new occupations, can force concessions from the Hong Kong government and the Chinese Communist Party.
While not advocating violence, Wong scorned the democratic politicians who condemned an attack on the city’s legislative council last week that shattered two windows as well as the mainstream movement’s carefully nurtured ethos of peaceful disobedience.
The politicians, he said, betrayed “those who carry out actual struggles.”
Photo: Reuters
He said two of the 11 people arrested in the attack were members of Civic Passion, which claims several hundred committed members and a larger following online, where Wong’s speeches are posted.
“The moderates are still the majority, but Civic Passion and groups like them have a big influence on the Internet and among the youth,” said Bruce Lam (林匡正), a Hong Kong media commentator who has written a history of political protest in the city. “I think there’ll be more and more conflict between the two sides.”
Lately, groups like Civic Passion have taken a more prominent role at the city’s three protest camps, especially at Mong Kok, the teeming, raucous neighborhood that has become a base for their pugnacious brand of opposition politics.
Photo: Reuters
The groups have also used a news Web site and a ribald manga comic-book style magazine, Teen Passion Weekly, to attract youths disaffected with the established political parties.
“This is marketing for civic resistance,” said Cheng Chung-tai (鄭松泰), a teacher at Hong Kong Polytechnic University who is an associate of Wong’s. “People think politics is dirty and boring, but through popular culture and humor, we can change that.”
Mainstream protesters fear confrontational tactics could tear the movement apart and anger ordinary residents, many of whom are already tiring of the protest camps.
Photo: Reuters
“It will be difficult to narrow the differences,” said Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人), the chairman of the pro-democracy Labor Party, who has been castigated by the movement’s more zealous wing. “We have already escalated to a high point. If it would further alienate public opinion, then that’s something we don’t want to see.”
Pro-government forces see groups like Civic Passion as criminal, with Hong Kong newspapers loyal to Beijing condemning them as bent on sowing chaos.
“Overseas, an extremist, violent organization like Civic Passion would be classed as a terrorist organization,” Wenwei Po, a Hong Kong newspaper that supports Beijing’s policies, said on Friday.
It called for Wong to be punished by the courts.
Wong, 35, nicknamed “Emperor” by his followers, is easily recognizable by his goatee, closely cropped hair and oversize glasses. Disillusioned with compromises made by moderate democrats in city government, Wong helped found Civic Passion in 2012.
“Now I’m afraid that they might sell us out again,” he said one recent morning after a breakfast of Coca-Cola and cigarettes.
Groups like his have mixed their demands for unfettered self-government in Hong Kong with resentment of mainland Chinese immigration and influence.
“It’s like the colonization of Hong Kong, using mainland people to replace local people,” Wong said.
Critics have called such rhetoric far-right demagoguery, but Civic Passion’s populism also embraces welfare rights and liberal positions against the city’s tycoons.
Going forward, Wong has called for “flash occupations” of new sites, organized over the Internet, that would strain police efforts to contain them.
“It doesn’t take a lot of human resources and it’s flexible,” he said.
Such tactics and their support on the street could be put to the test by an operation that began yesterday, when the police and court bailiffs began enforcing a court injunction to clear a small section of the Mong Kok street camp.
The operation began without clashes, but protesters said conflict would be much more likely if in coming days the police attempted to clear the rest of Mong Kok, which has attracted activists who favor greater confrontation.
Some protesters said a victory at the barricades would demoralize the police and force the government to offer concessions. Others said that even if victory was out of reach, the conflict would steel protesters for future struggles.
“The force of the police has already reached its limit, but the resistance movement of the people still has a lot of potential to be cultivated,” said Horace Chin (陳雲根), a university lecturer who supports the Mong Kok protests.
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