LettersAll that is left for Hong Kong youth is to fight for the city they know

Young people are putting their bodies on the line to defend their rights and freedoms, putting to shame older Hongkongers and the British colonial officials who should have done more to safeguard their future

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A police officer swings his baton as he restrains a protester during the clear up after a clash outside the Legislative Council in the early hours of June 10, after the controversial extradition bill sparked Hong Kong’s largest street protest in at least 15 years on June 9. The following weekend saw an even bigger rally. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:00am, 6 Jul 2019Updated: 8:00am, 6 Jul 2019

Hong Kong people have made history by taking to the streets to show their contempt for their chief executive and their refusal to be governed by diktat. The vast majority of these protesters were peaceful Hong Kong citizens. However, some, notably those who barricaded police headquarters last week and entered the Legislative Council building on Monday by force, were not.

In a tactic referred to as “Marginal Violence Theory” in a New York Times article by Fred Chan Ho-fai on July 1, protesters used their bodies to provoke the police, hoping to gain support in the media and ultimately to be heard by their government. Resorting to these acts illustrates how desperate the people of Hong Kong really are and how far they are prepared to go in a battle of brinkmanship with the authorities.

Hong Kong people, whose discontent with their government runs deep, will not be fobbed off with apologies and delay tactics. As an agent of China’s agenda to accelerate its authoritarian control over Hong Kong, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has pushed the people too far. To restore the balance that is the status quo of “one country, two systems”, she must step down now.

Before the handover, no one in Hong Kong cared enough about self-determination or democracy to protest – they took the rights and freedoms they had for granted, as if they organically sprouted and would continue to thrive. These rights and freedoms were not organic, they emanated from the British system of government and only came to the “barren rock” that was Hong Kong because they were imported. Now it would seem that China has decided that these rights and freedoms must be curtailed sooner than 2047 to maintain order and stability on the mainland, and yet, Hong Kong is surprised these privileges are withering.

China’s promise to uphold one country, two systems was always situational at best. Tiananmen Square had informed us that the Communist Party would maintain control at all costs if threatened, but somehow the Basic Law was meant to provide a shield. The central government increasingly insists that the requirements of the “one country” are paramount.