Lesson from China's past for Hong Kong colonial-flag wavers

The flag of colonial-era Hong Kong made a familiar appearance during the February 1 protest organised by the Civil Human Rights Front. But why would any Hongkonger want to be recolonised? I have more respect for Hongkongers who advocate independence – though success is highly improbable, and pushing for it is not only counterproductive but downright dangerous – than for those who hanker after British rule. Do they want to be again governed by a string of dictators (albeit benign ones) from a foreign ruling class who, let’s be honest, for the greater part of their centuryand- a-half in Hong Kong, regarded their colonial subjects as racial inferiors?

Before anyone calls me a traitor (and I can’t be one because I’m not Chinese), I’m not advocating independence for Hong Kong; I’m simply stating my different reactions to those who desire self-determination and those who wish to return to an imagined past, when everything was supposed to be hunky-dory.

The latter are similar to the Ming loyalists who stubbornly resisted the Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) with the slogan, “Revolt against the Qing to Restore the Ming” (“fanqing fuming”), forgetting how miserable the Chinese people’s lives had been during the reigns of those dreadful last emperors of the Ming dynasty.

The present might be bad, but it doesn’t follow that everything about the past was all that good.