June 4 veteran offers advice to HK students: build bridges, not walls
Isolated political movements are bound to fail, says Wang Dan after some university students say they will boycott the candlelight vigil on Saturday
A former student leader of the June 4 protest in Tiananmen Square has warned young Hongkongers that isolated political movements will fail.
Wang Dan, who now lives in Taiwan, made his comments after some university students said they would boycott the candlelight vigil at Victoria Park on Saturday because they disagreed with the organisers’ call to build a democratic China. The students also said the commemoration was not related to Hong Kong.
I would like to urge them to spend more time learning from history
“I would like to urge them to spend more time learning from history,” Wang, 47, said.
Members of a political campaign “will not succeed when they draw a line restricting themselves from others, instead of garnering support from allies”, he said.
The vigil was not just a remembrance of the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989, when the democracy movement flowered before being crushed by the leadership; it was also a protest against Beijing, he said.
“In my view, deep inside the hearts of those who are at the helm of the leadership in Beijing there will be fear, as long as that many people keep showing up in Victoria Park, reminding Beijing they will neither forget nor give up” their fight for the vindication of the movement, as well as for democracy, he said.
The vigil had given Hong Kong people a reputation for wanting justice, and also raised the profile of the city – and its aspirations – in the international community, he said.
The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China has organised the vigil every year since 1990. But the gathering has drawn criticism from some younger people in recent years, with the Hong Kong Federation of Students announcing its members would not be taking part for the first time this year.
Ng Kwai-lung, head of Shue Yan University’s student-run editorial board, described rally organisers last week as “pimps and bawds in a brothel”.
Zhang Xianling, a 79-year-old member of the Tiananmen Mothers group, said the vigil gave the relatives of those killed on June 4 tremendous support, in addition to furthering the progress of democracy in China.
“It doesn’t matter that some people have different points of view, or separate activities they would like to join,” Zhang said. “There’s no difference on the basis of the key objective, as long as the youngsters in Hong Kong do not agree with the bloody massacre in Tiananmen.”
Tiananmen Mothers is a support group of more than 120 relatives of those killed and injured in the crackdown.
You Weijie, a representative of the mothers’ group, said young people could honour the victims in their own way. She said she was always moved by pictures of the gathering, and the sight of the flickering candles. “The more people who turn up in Victoria Park, the better. Every single candle in Victoria Park carries a remarkable power which can be seen all over the world,” You said.
