A decade after thousands of young people occupied the city center of Hong Kong in pursuit of the fully democratic elections, the former student leader Nathan Law thinks that the movement has never had the opportunity, faced with what it was with the political ambitions of the Chinese leader recently Ascendie Xi Jinping.
A decade after thousands of young people occupied the city center of Hong Kong in pursuit of the fully democratic elections, the former student leader Nathan Law thinks that the movement has never had the opportunity, faced with what it was with the political ambitions of the Chinese leader recently Ascendie Xi Jinping.
Law, who became the youngest elected member of the city’s legislative council before the rules were rewritten to exclude the opposition candidates, said that the movement, which is sometimes blamed for the incentive to the anger of Beijing, was not the trigger for the replica of the Chinese Communist Party in power on the promised freedoms of the city.
“China’s policy has changed at the national level,” Law said to Rfa Mandarin in a recent interview. “In the past, they felt that they were a fairly discreet and discreetly increased power on the international scene.”
But when Secretary General Xi Jinping took power in 2012, things have changed, he said.
“When Xi Jinping came to power, it was clear that he had much greater ambitions for the totalitarian regime and for the role of the Chinese Communist Party in the international arena,” said Law. “So there was very little incitement to preserve democracy, diversity, civil society or freedom in Hong Kong.”
10 years ago, Law was part of the Civic Square storm of September 26, 2014, the demonstration which launched the central occupy movement of 79 days.
Gap
When the students went on strike and the crowds supporting the demonstrators refused to leave, the police fired the first tear gas. The demonstrators used their umbrellas to protect themselves and the movement of the umbrellas was born.
Even then, Law and his colleagues student leaders Joshua Wong, Alex Chow, Agnes Chow and Lester Shum knew very well what they faced.
“I don’t think we were naive at the time,” said Law. “We were very clear from the start how much the gap of power between the Chinese Communist Party and the inhabitants of Hong Kong were enormous.”
“The fact that young people have led this movement that everyone was waiting for was not a key factor in the result,” he said. “There was not enough political pressure or international support to force the Chinese Communist Party to give in.”
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The Hong Kong which gave birth to the Movement of Umbrellas was a very different place, where the pro-democracy camp had a significant proportion of seats on the legislative council and at the district level, where popular mass demonstrations were a common characteristic of the political life of the city, and where hundreds of thousands of people are still gathered each year to cry in the Massacre of Tiananmen in 1989 The bar.
“Hong Kong at the time was completely different, looking back,” said Law. “One of the most lively memories I had of the umbrella movement is that the toilets of the occupation camp in the admiralty were cleaner than that of my house.”
“Insumering in the face of history”
“Everyone has thought about this movement so much – it was a kind of utopia that showed us the beauty of human nature,” said Law. “It was the political situation we want, a world in which we could give those around us.”
“The degree of strength and hope that it has brought out among people has been unequaled by any political movement since.”
But there was a huge price to pay for this idealism, both following the central occupy movement, and the 2019 demonstrations and the subsequent repression under two draconian security laws.
“Many students have been imprisoned and removed because they participated in political movements,” said Law. “They were powerless in the face of history, because in a closed system, the movements of the students are not tolerated and young idealism is suffocated.”
Nevertheless, the tradition of mass protest of Hong Kong inspired others to resist the authoritarian regime elsewhere, especially in Thailand in 2020, he added.
Now, with so many comrades behind bars for daring to resist Beijing’s will, Law’s response is similar to that of almost all the other activists who are now fighting for the restoration of city freedoms.
“People in prison do not want us to be trapped in a negative emotion loop all the time because of their situation,” he said. “They want us to do our share.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.