Remarks

Me and my friend originally wrote this in early October 2019 admist the height of the Hong Kong protests because of my anecdotal experience of the decreasing support of the demonstrators online in the Western world.

Although my English is nowhere near fluent at the time (as you will soon see), it was good enough; just earlier in the year, I had found success trying the raise international awareness of the protests through Reddit. So I attempted to reignite support for the protests and tell the story from our prespective.

The post didn’t end up getting much traction at all, but I still wanted this preserved on the internet. Looking back three and a half years later, it is easy to see the flaws of my original post, what I should’ve included and what I should’nt have. But hindsight is 20/20 (or in Cantonese, 有早知冇乞兒), and if not for it’s inherent informative value, I hope the post at least have value acting as a time capsule of the thoughts of your avergage Hong Kong protestor in 2019.

2023/03/16 – rrakku

Original post

(The whole Blizzard thing exploded as I was writing this semi-essay, and I am so proud of the community. Though my cause is kind of outdated it seems, I still wanted to share it with you all.)

Hello, I am u/MaTPheW_FunG, a Redditor from Hong Kong. Posts on this subreddit had mostly been videos and pictures. However, this one will mainly be texts illustrating what I and some of us really think beyond the graphics. I would really appreciate it if you took it to your heart and read until the end.

I recently noticed the general opinion of Redditors regarding the Hong Kong protests has been backsliding. This movement was never just butterflies and roses like some have portrayed so. In the same sense, there weren’t only arson, destruction and bloodshed. That’s why I am here to try to clarify and shed light on the current circumstances – what the police, our government, and the protesters have done, no matter the good or the bad, I will and only will state the facts. But don’t just hear from me, hear from other news sources too – I have included links of some related reports.

My guess is that many of you started to follow this movement closely after the one-million-march on the 9th of June. The protests at that time, in general, went on peacefully, but even when ⅛ of the whole city marched for the sole demand of withdrawing the Extradition Law Amendment Bill, our Chief Executive Carrie Lam did not comply. The 12th of June marked the tipping point of the whole movement, as it was the first occasion that rubber and beanbag rounds are used against protesters in an attempt to press forward the council meetings and pass the bill. Later protests often escalate into fierce battles between the riot police and the protesters, and we have yet to see the end.

It remains controversial among protesters about the violent acts around the city. Since foreign news sources could never reach the level of detail in local news, graphics played a very important role in conveying the messages behind the protests, which some, admittingly, is not very pretty to look at, and some media started to give harsh comments on the movement. Yet, the graphics itself is the bare surface of what’s going on. The message that I am trying to get across is, we ought to understand the motives behind these destructions – what radicalized our peaceful protests?

The populous march on June 9th and 16th proved that there was a lot of public concern over the extradition law amendment, and hence a serious, thorough public consultation was urgently needed, even if a complete withdrawal is not granted at once. Yet, we had only received indifference from the government when expressing our demands through peaceful demonstrations. We are therefore stuck in a dilemma – either we radicalize our actions to add up the pressure to the government in the risk of losing foreign support, or be continuously ignored. What changed the mindset of most protesters is the fact that only through violent means could we halt the lawmaking process, namely on the protests on 12th of June and especially the vandalism in the Legislative Council on the 1st of July. Lacking cards to play, mounting violence eventually became the only out in many eyes of Hong Kongers.

Snapback to the most recent incidents, most noticeably the assaults on “normal citizens”; arsons and destruction of different shops and metro stations. While we recognise these actions are wrong in nature, the context is key to understand their cause: The driver drove a car into a crowd of protesters before being assaulted; the so-called “normal citizens” are elite police squads undercover; MTR, the company that runs Hong Kong’s metro services, are criticised of being unable to stop the assaults on the 21st of July. Further resentment is ensured as the company turned a blind eye on the police brutality occurred in Prince Edward station on the 31st of August. Later on, the company succumbed to the police even more, including closing down stations on-demand, trains being requisitioned as transport for riot police, and allowing ambush to take place in metro station exits.

No matter what aforementioned, we are deeply sorry for any inconvenience caused at Hong Kong Airport. In case you don’t know, the Hong Kong Airport is one of the busiest airports around the world and it remains largely significant to Hong Kong’s economy. Many of you who travelled to Hong Kong a few months ago may notice that some protests took place in it. Some protesters demonstrate by doing a sit-in, some radical ones took it one step further and started obstructing travellers from entering the departure hall. Protesters took the protests to the airport in hopes of gaining international support and attention as well as bringing pressure to the government. For this please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused.

Another public outrage most recently inflicted is the freshly enacted anti-mask law, put in force by citing the Emergency Regulations Ordinance; and to say it is controversial would be an understatement. Enacted in 1929, it was originally passed to handle a mass strike and has long been forgotten since its last citation in the 1967 riot. Basically, it empowers the Chief Executive to “make any regulations whatsoever which he may consider desirable in the public interest” in “an occasion of emergency or public danger”. This recent enactment has caused widespread doubt on its legality and its necessity and was also termed as ‘madness’ by Chris Patten, the last Governor of HK from 1992-1997. The imposition further deprives Hong Kong’s rule of law and separation of powers and exacerbates the use of institutional violence against protesters and citizens. More worry that imposing this law in such sensitive times will further escalate public dissent.

That’s all I wanted to clear up. As I have mentioned, Hong Kong is in desperate need of foreign support, please continue to voice out for Hong Kong, and urge the passing of the Hong Kong Human rights and Democracy Act. Feel free to AMA in the comments.