It’s been nearly 20 years since Hong Kong, once described as a “spoiled child”, was returned to its harsher mother. Britain, despite colonizing the island for a hundred years, let it enjoy quite a few privileges in exchange for its complete allegiance – privileges which fostered a Western taste and a sense of superiority within the region. When 1997 came around, Hong Kong had to change dramatically. It’s non-existent economic rivals in the north had suddenly become very existent in the form of Beijing and Shanghai, and now, Hong Kong had to deal with politics, and a communist Chinese regime that promised it “some greater degree of autonomy”, yet never stopped putting pitfalls in its way to try and gain more control over the region, one policy after the other. Yet over the past few weeks, anger and outrage have bubbled up into protest. Now, after the fourth day of demonstrations, the like of which have never been seen in the past 17 years, it looks like it’ll be a war of attrition against an enemy who isn’t looking to budge. ATMs, banks, schools and subway stops have been closed due to student strikes and occupiers – nearly all of whom have engaged in purely peaceful protests, advocating pure civil disobedience – and Beijing’s only message has been to go home. So who’s leading these masses, who, in the face of an inevitable economic decline and the potential loss of their promised suffrage, have stood up and keep standing, despite all the pepper spray, tear gas, and rubber bullets? An interesting group of individuals, all of whom are desperate to see Hong Kong in the people’s hands, rather than Beijing’s. One of the major organizations in the protests is Occupy Central, a Hong Kong movement founded nearly two years ago and kicking off on March 2013, on the promise to engage in civil disobedience in the event that Beijing attempted to encroach on the Hong Kong people’s right to suffrage. Working alongside Occupy Central to bring a measure of true democracy to Hong Kong is the Hong Kong Federation of Students, which was founded in 1958 and has been advocating social activism among the rising generations for decades. Today, they primarily help students organize strikes from school, as well as working with volunteering professors to ensure students don’t fall behind too far in their classes while protesting. On the student front stands out Joshua Wong, a 17 year old high school student. He founded a movement called Scholarism, to oppose Beijing’s “patriotic education” curriculum, and its propaganda. Under him, over 120,000 gathered at the headquarters of Hong Kong’s government – successfully keeping the education reform from materializing. Since then, he’s been in the thick of the protests, and has been arrested and released after leading protesters over the fence of a government building. - See more at: ift.tt/1r0onXY Datsyn News - Who Is Behind Hong Kong Protests?
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 10:03:19 +0000
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