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defrogI usually do a June 4 post about the annual candlelight vigil in Hong Kong commemorating the students who were massacred in Tiananmen Square.
It’s now June 13. I’m a little late, because I was traveling on business in Singapore during June 4 and was too swamped with actual work to do a proper post.
Anyway, the vigil did happen. As you can see.
And everything went as planned.
Almost.
This year the turnout at Victoria Park was 135,000 – impressive, but actually somewhat lower than the past few years, and far lower than the record 180k from last year. The reason?
Factional politics.
Basically, the Victoria Park event is organized every year by a group called Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China. Their aim is to force Beijing to acknowledge the massacre even happened, and to support the establishment of democracy in China.
However, many of the student unions responsible for the Umbrella Revolution have zero interest in supporting democracy in China because, basically (and I'm paraphrasing here, but this is the basic sentiment) fuck China, we’d rather establish democracy here in Hong Kong, the rest of China can go get fucked.
So they staged their own June 4 vigils instead.
The HKASPDMC has said they don’t mind if people want to have separate events, so long as it sends the basic message “Never forget 6/4”. But it does highlight the schism between the older activists and the younger ones when it comes to mainland China. The HKASPDMC wants to engage with China and instigate change for the good of all Chinese people. The Umbrella Movement wants nothing to do with China, and sees it solely as an obstacle to getting what they want. If people in mainland China want democracy, they can fucking well get it themselves.
Kids today, eh?
Admittedly, it’s probably unrealistic to expect the Umbrella Kids to have the same emotional connection with June 4, since almost all of them were born after 1989.
Still, I think they’re missing the point of the June 4 vigil. The objective is mainly to demonstrate to Beijing that we remember what happened on June 4 and we won’t forget. That message works best when everyone is unified. You can pretty much bet that Beijing would love nothing more than for the HKASPDMC to start squabbling among itself and disintegrate into splinter groups that can’t agree on a course of action.
Still, it has to be noted, the Victoria Park event was by far the bigger draw. This year. We’ll see about next year.
Splitters,
This is dF
It’s now June 13. I’m a little late, because I was traveling on business in Singapore during June 4 and was too swamped with actual work to do a proper post.
Anyway, the vigil did happen. As you can see.
And everything went as planned.
Almost.
This year the turnout at Victoria Park was 135,000 – impressive, but actually somewhat lower than the past few years, and far lower than the record 180k from last year. The reason?
Factional politics.
Basically, the Victoria Park event is organized every year by a group called Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China. Their aim is to force Beijing to acknowledge the massacre even happened, and to support the establishment of democracy in China.
However, many of the student unions responsible for the Umbrella Revolution have zero interest in supporting democracy in China because, basically (and I'm paraphrasing here, but this is the basic sentiment) fuck China, we’d rather establish democracy here in Hong Kong, the rest of China can go get fucked.
So they staged their own June 4 vigils instead.
The HKASPDMC has said they don’t mind if people want to have separate events, so long as it sends the basic message “Never forget 6/4”. But it does highlight the schism between the older activists and the younger ones when it comes to mainland China. The HKASPDMC wants to engage with China and instigate change for the good of all Chinese people. The Umbrella Movement wants nothing to do with China, and sees it solely as an obstacle to getting what they want. If people in mainland China want democracy, they can fucking well get it themselves.
Kids today, eh?
Admittedly, it’s probably unrealistic to expect the Umbrella Kids to have the same emotional connection with June 4, since almost all of them were born after 1989.
Still, I think they’re missing the point of the June 4 vigil. The objective is mainly to demonstrate to Beijing that we remember what happened on June 4 and we won’t forget. That message works best when everyone is unified. You can pretty much bet that Beijing would love nothing more than for the HKASPDMC to start squabbling among itself and disintegrate into splinter groups that can’t agree on a course of action.
Still, it has to be noted, the Victoria Park event was by far the bigger draw. This year. We’ll see about next year.
Splitters,
This is dF
