Democracy activists split but fighting on
‘After the movement ended, there were lots of doubts about the approach taken.’ Ka-Chai Kwok
FOR 79 days, they peacefully occupied a hub of Asian commerce, galvanising public attention on Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy. Their yellow umbrellas and seemingly leaderless organisation became famous worldwide, symbols of a movement daring to stand up to Beijing.
Yet a year later, many involved in the Umbrella Movement use words such as ‘‘failure’’ and ‘‘frustration’’ to assess their protests, which are likely to be studied and analysed for decades.
‘‘The failure of the Umbrella Movement was that we could not achieve more,’’ said Agnes Chow Ting, 18, a strategist and former spokeswoman for Scholarism, one of several high school and college groups that sparked the occupations. ‘‘Instead of being disappointed, we should think about what we can learn from this.’’
Similar campaigns of civil disobedience took years or decades to achieve results.
Yet among Hong Kong’s youth, there was an expectation that the huge protests – which drew hundreds of thousands of supporters to the city’s streets – would result in concessions from Beijing or at least the resignation of Hong Kong’s unpopular chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, also known as C.Y. Leung.
Neither of those things happened. Now many of these prodemocracy activists are assessing whether they should abandon their past tactics – including adherence to non-violence.
Obliterated is the notion that Hong Kong’s government, in its current form, will press Beijing to fulfil promises made when China resumed control of the British colony in 1997.
Sebastian Veg, a Sinologist based in Hong Kong, said that, for democracy supporters, the protest euphoria has long faded. In its wake had come a hardening of distrust toward the Chinese Communist Party that could pull the movement in different directions.
‘‘Beijing is adamant it won’t give an inch to the pan-democrats,’’ said Veg, who directs the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China. Chinese officials, he said, ‘‘keep lecturing Hong Kong on how it should behave, one lecture after another. People don’t want to engage in politics because they see all the avenues as blocked.’’
Hong Kong’s street protests mushroomed last year after a committee of China’s National People’s Congress ruled on Hong Kong’s elections process for selecting a new chief executive in 2017. The ruling effectively empowered Beijing to vet all candidates for office, which democracy activists say was an abrogation of treaty promises made when Great Britain agreed to transfer Hong Kong to China.
On September 26 last year, members of Scholarism and the Hong Kong Federation of Students began demonstrations at the government headquarters in Admiralty, in downtown Hong Kong.
More established pro-democracy groups, including Occupy Hong Kong with Love and Peace, soon joined them.
On September 28, police used tear gas and pepper spray on protesters, prompting tens of thousands to join in the protests and occupy other parts of town.
As days turned into weeks, protesters transformed the main occupation site into a mini city, with makeshift ‘‘study stations’’ for the students and organised food preparation, water hauling and trash pickup.
Banners and protest art flourished, and Hong Kong tourists – including some from mainland China – wandered through the encampment, gazing at the spectacle.
‘‘It felt like it wasn’t real,’’ Chow said of the Scholarism group. ‘‘I couldn’t imagine we would have a day where so many people were on the street in Admiralty. It was like a dream when I look back on it.’’
But as the weeks went on, the disruptions caused by the protests – and the divisions within the Umbrella Movement – started to weigh on the city.
Business owners filed lawsuits and pressed the Hong Kong government to clear the protest sites. Organised thugs showed up and picked fights, testing the nonviolent resolve of protesters, including some still in high school.
By December, police and cleanup crews had cleared away all remnants of the Umbrella Movement. A period of self-reflection and recriminations began.
In a Hong Kong cafe, Ka-Chai Kwok and Bowie Lam talked about the post-occupation mood of their fellow activists.
‘‘After the movement ended, there were lots of doubts about the approach taken,’’ said Kwok, 27. ‘‘People were challenging the traditional groups. They were angry. They didn’t want these groups and their leaders making decisions for them.’’
‘‘That was not fair,’’ said Lam, 28. ‘‘In these kinds of movements, you need to have people who are organised and can direct action.’’
The splits within the movement do not appear to be narrowing. One new wrinkle is the rise of groups such as ‘‘Hong Kong Indigenous,’’ which argues that Hong Kongers are ‘‘losing our rights and indigenous values to the Chinese Communist Party’’. The group argues for a more aggressive form of direct action, and it appeals to local residents who are fed up with the droves of mainland Chinese tourists that visit Hong Kong each day.
On social media, Hong Kong netizens regularly complain about ‘‘locusts,’’ a derogatory term for Chinese tourists.
Almost every week there are small street protests in Mong Kok, a working-class Hong Kong neighbourhood that has been transformed by jewellery shops and high-end retail catering to tourists from the mainland.
‘‘These kind of protests before Occupy,’’ said happened Bastien Wai-Chung, a social activist who has been monitoring events in Mong Kok. ‘‘What’s different now is the pervasiveness of the concern over this.’’
As the anniversary of the protests neared, there seemed to be little enthusiasm for a largescale commemoration, by either activists or the Hong Kong establishment.
According to a recent story in the Hong Kong Free Press, curators have struggled to find a gallery willing to display a collection of protest art that was recovered from occupation zones last year.
Any such display at a government-funded institution, said Veg, ‘‘would not be acceptable’’ in the current political climate.
Veg, who has written extensively about Hong Kong politics, says protest leaders are being too hard on themselves by declaring their efforts to be a failure.
In June, he noted, Hong Kong’s legislature – composed of a majority of democracy advocates – rejected Beijing’s elections proposal. That, he said, deprived the Chinese Communist Party of bragging rights that it had granted ‘‘universal suffrage’’ to Hong Kong, a huge propaganda setback for Beijing.
Still, by failing to endorse the elections proposal, Hong Kong is now left with the status quo, in which China’s leaders will continue to directly select the region’s chief executive.
That reality has prompted some activists to ponder various long-term strategies for securing Hong Kong’s self-governance.
Scholarism leader Joshua Wong, who was in the United States over the last week, has floated the idea of a series of civic referendums to help Hong Kong shape its future after 2047.
That’s the year that mainland China attains full control of the former British colony, including its currency, court system and freedom of speech.