The Marching Band

On Saturday, tens of thousands of us will take to the streets to march for universal suffrage. Few cities do demonstrations better than Hong Kong. Where else in the world could you cram 500,000 people through bottlenecked streets in the steaming heat, and still be able to take the kids and grandma along for a family day out? The July 1 march is a model of effective peaceful protest and good grace in an enormous crowd. But more than that, it’s one giant party with one huge political agenda.

“The march always has such a charged atmosphere,” says Alex Lee, 26, who has attended the march every year since it began in 2003. “It is an amazing feeling to be doing something you believe in and having so much fun in the process. I was there at the very first march and I was blown away by the sheer number of people who turned up to show how passionately they cared about the city they live in.”

What Are We Marching For?

The July 1 march began in 2003 as way for all of us to demonstrate against the Article 23 anti-subversion act and voice our frustration towards Tung Chee-hwa’s government. It was organized by the Civil Human Rights Front, which was formed by several existing organizations shortly after the act was proposed. It proved an awesome lesson in people power: half a million people turned out, Article 23 became headline news worldwide, the much-reviled Regina Ip was forced out of office and Article 23 bit the dust. Mission accomplished? Well, sort of.

While that first mass demonstration helped to stop Article 23, the march continues and every year the protest takes a new pro-democracy theme. This year’s main area of focus is the “fight for universal suffrage in 2007-08.” In other words, it’s the fight for everyone who calls Hong Kong home to be granted the right to elect our leaders.

But that’s not the only thing that people will be marching about this year – and that’s a problem, say some commentators. Among the other issues that will be appearing on banners in Central on Saturday is everything from gay rights and minimum wages to a ban on employing Bus Uncle. People will be protesting collusion between government and big business, the Tamar site proposals, school closures, exam cheats, the government surveillance regulations and even cat killers. It’s a “chop suey” approach that has newspapers such as Eastweek and Apple Daily up in arms. The problem, they say, is that such a mixed message may deter people from marching; people who don’t agree with every request on a mounting list of demands may simply decide not to show up. A smaller march is a weaker protest; to put it another way, divided we fall. It’s time, says Apple Daily, for a return to a simple, unified message: universal suffrage.

But veteran political activist and legislator Long Hair Leung Kwok-hung insists that the fight for universal suffrage unites all the marchers and believes a diverse range of demands can only add to the march’s effectiveness by giving people from all walks of life the opportunity to get their voices heard. “Hong Kong people do not need some Big Brother type telling them what they do and do not need to fight for,” he says. “The best way people can enjoy the march is to think about what’s really important to them, where they see their city going and what concerns them, then express this in their own way.