Hong Kong protests will inspire world even if they fail, history professor writes in book about unrest, the city’s culture and its past
- Jeff Wasserstrom compares current protests with 2014 ‘umbrella movement’ and earlier unrest in China, and police actions with those of Chinese police in 1989
- A keen observer of social movements, he says history is sometimes blindsided. But he doesn’t see a repeat in Hong Kong of Tiananmen Square protest crackdown
It’s hard to write a definitive book on Hong Kong, particularly now with the city having experienced eight months of street protests – but academic Jeff Wasserstrom has made a good stab at it with Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink.
The 112-page book, published Columbia University’s Columbia Global Reports, doesn’t follow the protests chronologically, or examine how or why various incidents happened, but instead takes a step back to look at Hong Kong in terms of one-word themes, such as “Water”, “Battles”, and “Victories”.
Wasserstrom, a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, sets out to give readers a condensed history of Hong Kong, his personal observations about the city, explanations of its unique culture and political system, and how the city ended up mired in unrest.
The academic has a particular interest in pre-1949 student movements. He followed keenly the Chinese student movements in Shanghai in 1986 and 1987, the student-led demonstrations in Beijing in 1989, the “umbrella movement” protests in Hong Kong 2014 and the current protests against proposed changes to extradition law that have morphed into broader demonstrations against the Hong Kong and Chinese governments.
“In the last few years, Hong Kong has had a magnetic pull on me. I spent the first part of my career thinking about Shanghai, but the two cities have much in common”, such as a history of student movements and a cosmopolitan society, he said during a visit to Hong Kong in early December.