What Hong Kong needs, to feel like it belongs in the Chinese nation
Alice Wu says a sense of belonging cannot be created with top-down lessons, and hardliners only make the difficult process impossible. If Beijing and Hong Kong really want to address the issues dividing society, they need to start talking
Love of one’s country can also drive one to point out and protest against its injustices. In this case, it’s the systematic discrimination against people of colour. Trump and his supporters don’t see or won’t understand it. They are, of course, not alone. We see plenty of that on our side of the Pacific: love and pride leaving no room for criticism.
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Why the campus feud between Hong Kong and mainland Chinese students?
As Beijing becomes increasingly aggressive in its response, the “movement” has grown, just as Trump inadvertently became the fuel that fed the kneeling protest.
How well do Hongkongers know the national anthem?
Hongkongers have grown very comfortable with living without a strong national identity; this comes from our colonial past. We do not feel a strong propensity to belong.
Our identity has been built on our ability to survive and capitalise, from the margins. That is something Beijing is obviously, and increasingly visibly, uncomfortable with and intolerant of.
Stereotypes and misperceptions: Hong Kong and mainland Chinese
Beijing and Hong Kong could continue to go down the path Trump is leading in the US, where the act of taking a knee can become so blown up as a political issue that it obscures the reasons behind these acts of protest. Or, if we really want to address the issues that divide us, we could start those necessary and important, but uneasy, conversations.
Annual June 4 vigil at Victoria Park divides young Hongkongers
A sense of belonging cannot be taught, or be dictated by officials here in Hong Kong or from a distance in Beijing. A very wide berth – in time and space – needs to be given to Hongkongers as we search for our identity.
There will be confrontations and conflicting narratives, but hardliners who insist there is only one way to belong make that tough process impossible. Dialogue is the only way forward, the only way to foster understanding and respect.
Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA