My Take | Why historical optical trick has me scared
Localists often make angry assertions about their positions,but arguments offered by intellectuals are by no means unintelligent and not easily dismissed
The rise of radical localism is both fascinating and repugnant to me because it subverts basic historical and political categories that make up the mental universe of many, if not most, people of my generation.
As a Chinese and Hongkonger, I consider the movement a cancer in the body politic of the city. However, at its most sophisticated, it has become a full-fledged revisionist version of Hong Kong that needs to be confronted.
Among such beliefs are: Hong Kong people are not Chinese, but have their own cultural and ethnic identity; China has no legitimate rule over Hong Kong, so the city remains effectively a colony; and it has no future under the “one country two systems” principle, so independence is the only option.
Localists argue such positions with varying degrees of sophistication. Sometimes, they are just angry assertions, accompanied by obscenities. But in the hands of intellectuals like Tsui Sing-Yun and Lian Yi-zheng, such arguments are by no means unintelligent, and are not so easily dismantled.
Localist websites have been circulating a talk given by Lian, an economist and commentator, at a Chinese University forum last month in which he argues against at least two sacred historical cows.