What’s next for Hong Kong’s democracy movement
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Version 0 of 1. After 75 days of protests, occupations and myriad clashes with police, Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement seems to have reached a dead-end. On Wednesday, police dismantled barricades at the last main occupation site in the city's Admiralty district and arrested some 200 protesters who refused to leave the site. The protests were led by a coalition of student groups and Occupy Hong Kong activists who captured the world's attention when they first took to the streets in late September. They were angry with Beijing's decision to vet candidates in future Hong Kong elections -- a sign that China's one-party state had no interest in allowing full universal suffrage in the former British colony. The occupations that followed, which snarled traffic in three locations across the city, lasted longer than anyone initially thought they could. They were organized, colorful, inspiring. Protesters fed and cared for each other, made artwork, ran teach-ins, shared tents. Solidarity marches took place in cities around the world. Their days of standoff with police, iconic umbrellas in hand, offered some of the more stirring scenes of resistance we've seen this year. The movement in Hong Kong seemed to signal the greatest challenge to Beijing's authority since the 1989 student protests that culminated in the crackdown at Tiananmen Square. But as the sun rose on Thursday, Hong Kong's bustling thoroughfares were mostly absent of signs of entrenched dissent. The students, for all their efforts, had won no real concessions from either Beijing or Hong Kong's local government. Yet protest leaders, many of whom are in their early 20s, are taking the long view. "It definitely isn’t the end of Hong Kong’s democratic movement," said Lester Shum, a charismatic student leader. "It is unrealistic to think a single movement can change everything. Real civil disobedience is long term, so we must equip ourselves so we can organize better and rally more people from different parts of society." The protests, as many observe, have laid down a generational marker. A considerable proportion of the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets over the past three months were from the first generation of Hong Kongers to have grown up mostly under rule from Beijing, in conditions far removed from the hardships and economic uncertainties of an earlier era. Benny Tai, an academic at Hong Kong University and one of the main leaders of Hong Kong's Occupy movement, offered this historical frame for what's happening in the Chinese territory in an op-ed for the New York Times: These young people grew up in a vastly different Hong Kong from that of their elders, who were raised with much less prosperity and security. For many older people, survival was a daily challenge. Having had that past, older generations prioritize economic security and social order, even though many have transcended the tougher times of their youth. The younger generations, meanwhile, came of age when economic and physical security were no longer major concerns. Their values reflect this: They focus much more on self-expression, sustainability, fairness and justice. These young people grew up in a vastly different Hong Kong from that of their elders, who were raised with much less prosperity and security. For many older people, survival was a daily challenge. Having had that past, older generations prioritize economic security and social order, even though many have transcended the tougher times of their youth. The younger generations, meanwhile, came of age when economic and physical security were no longer major concerns. Their values reflect this: They focus much more on self-expression, sustainability, fairness and justice. As the protests raged, various polls and surveys found that fewer and fewer of Hong Kong's youth saw themselves as "Chinese," but rather as distinct "Hong Kongers" -- an identity removed from the mainland. Visit the main occupation site in these past 11 weeks and you'd encounter what felt like an entire generation of youth discussing the virtues of living in an open, liberal, democratic society. "We are here together to be with each other," Serena Lee, 22, told me in early October. "We know this will be a long war." "The biggest success of the protests is that people are awakened," Alex Chow, another prominent student leader, told the Wall Street Journal this week. "The young generation will be the engine of reform." To that end, Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement has some targets in sight. As my colleagues Kris Cheng and Simon Denyer reported on Wednesday, activists are possibly planning a rally around New Year's Day and also intend to pursue other methods of civil disobedience to push for more political reforms. "Blocking government may be even more powerful than blocking roads," writes Tai, who goes on to suggest that Hong Kongers could stop paying taxes (they are usually collected in arrears every year), halt paying rent in public housing estates and create political havoc in the city's Legislative Council, which governs largely under Beijing's thumb. The protesters, as WorldViews has discussed earlier, are not just animated by demands for democracy, but other concerns tied to larger economic inequities in the Asia's premier financial capital. Observers say the pressure is now the largely unpopular Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong's leader, to mend fences with the protesters and address their demands. That looks tricky. Full democracy seems out of the question: Leung went so far as to tell foreign journalists earlier this year that a truly open democratic process could never be allowed in Hong Kong because it gave the city's poor too much power. And critics say his government's attempts to solve the city's housing crisis -- with countless young people effectively priced out of finding their own homes -- have been woeful so far. As the protests dragged along, they lost widespread support from a city that grew increasingly frustrated with the inconveniences posed by the occupation sites. But protest leaders are counting on the underlying sympathies of many Hong Kongers to remain as the spotlight shifts to Leung and his government. "It’s going to be a different world, a world of permanent political crisis," Hung Ho-Fung, an assistant professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University, told Bloomberg. Tai, the Occupy leader, is bullish: The end of the occupation will not signal capitulation, especially not for young Hong Kongers, who have had a political awakening over the last several months. An undemocratic system and a lack of effective civic engagement by the government will not satisfy the demands of the Umbrella Generation. A more serious crisis will break out in the future if the source of the problem is not dealt with properly and adequately. And the next outbreak will be fiercer. The end of the occupation will not signal capitulation, especially not for young Hong Kongers, who have had a political awakening over the last several months. An undemocratic system and a lack of effective civic engagement by the government will not satisfy the demands of the Umbrella Generation. A more serious crisis will break out in the future if the source of the problem is not dealt with properly and adequately. And the next outbreak will be fiercer. |