The World of Hong Kongers; Hong Kongers of The World
By Ivan Ko / Citizen News/ Published on 26.12.21
Both the District Council Election in 2019 and the Legislative Council Election held a few days ago have fully reflected the free will, unity and uncompromising attitude of Hong Kongers. After disqualifying all the existing pro-democracy legislators, putting some of them into jail, screening out all the pro-democracy candidates, and reducing the proportion of directly elected seats, they thought Hong Kongers would submit themselves to the new norm. Yet, the result has once again proved that they are unable to understand Hong Kongers, let alone to manage. The mutual distrust has now been even deeper.
The same mistake was made in 2014. They made a decision (known as ‘831 Decision’) for the rules of a so-called universal suffrage of the Chief Executive, which could virtually reserve the candidacy to pro-Beijing camp only. Even though they tried to persuade Hong Kongers to accept the imperfection by unofficially promising further improvement in the future, most of the Hong Kongers chose to continue fighting for a genuine universal suffrage but not to compromise. In fact, from my personal experience, the public in Hong Kong was generally smart and firm – An election is meaningful only if people are free to elect and to be elected. If not, the result would be similar to the Legislative Council Election this time – Only 30% of the registered voters turned out, even though the government has already provided quite a few unprecedented incentives for voting.
Indeed, regardless of how low the voter turnout was and how many Hong Kongers boycotted the election, it is undeniable that they are going to take full control of the Legislative Council and will pass whatever law they want, as the previous election system has already been replaced by a dissident-free one.
Nevertheless, there is still a silver lining. The pro-democracy camp traditionally had the support from around 60% of the voters. Now we can confidently say that it has risen to 70%. Despite the absurdity of the election process, the result has actually shown the spirit of Hong Kongers, which is encouraging.
In the past, Hong Kongers had little interest on politics. Rather, we were arguably materialistic. However, since the protest on 1 July 2003 involving 500 thousand people, Hong Kongers has realized one thing – Whenever Hong Kong needs us, we, Hong Kongers, can be incredibly united. In 2019, up to 2 million Hong Kongers took to the streets to make the people’s voice clear, and more than 70% of the voters participated in the District Council election in the same year. In 2014, tens of thousands of Hong Kongers occupied Central and Admiralty in the Umbrella Revolution. In 2012, 90 thousand people protested against the Moral and National Education. Every year, tens or even hundreds of thousands Hong Kongers participate the 4 June vigil and the 1 July protest. These show the quality of Hong Kongers. We know much more than earning money. Civic consciousness, civil society, freedom, democracy and rule of law are deep in our mind. On top of that, Hong Kongers would never compromise our beliefs for the sake of temporary peace.
Under Bristish rule for 150 years, Hong Kong has experienced continuous advancement in its social system, especially from 1970s. We embrace freedom, democracy and rule of law. We interact with the world every day, and remain open-minded and friendly towards different cultures (including mainland Chinese). Indeed, Hong Kongers have already integrated into the world. From 1990 to 2000s, I travelled frequently between Hong Kong and mainland China. During that time, I often heard from the mainland Chinese that they admired Hong Kongers for our global vision, and that they relied on us as a bridge between mainland China and the rest of the world. Of course, after the Moral and National Education controversy, the 831 Decision, the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement (which eventually led to the civil-law-based, notorious National Security Law), as well as the Wolf Warrior Diplomacy in recent years, we thoroughly understand that they would never try to understand and appreciate the world with an open mind, just like how they treat Hong Kongers. Worse still, they believe what work in mainland China could work anywhere else in the world, without putting themselves into others’ shoes.
On the other hand, Hong Kongers have experienced and survived the impact of numerous political incidents, including the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and the crisis happening right now in Hong Kong. We have evolved into a distinct ethnic group which believe in openness, freedom, democracy and rule of law.
There is a Chinese idiom referred as ‘Frog in the well'. Hong Kongers are like frogs who used to be free to go anywhere in the world to appreciate the beauty of the nature. Now they try to trap these frogs into a well and want them to praise how gorgeous the well-sized sky is. In the past 30 years, they have never stopped brainwashing us. They attempted to convince us that the market of 1.4 billion people in mainland China is our only hope, and that the central government has given us a lot of favours. In reality, there are 6.5 billion population in the rest of the world, including 3.3 billion in Asia. Hong Kongers, who have always been shining in an international environment, would anyway survive without any single market. Who is the one doing favours? It goes without saying.
In the world of Hong Kongers, we embrace the whole world. We are not confined to a specific geographical location, and, more importantly, do not belong to any regime or political party. No matter where we are, we are Hong Kongers of the world! I believe we will soon form a ‘Hong Kong’ that is all over the world.
Photo by Tim Cheung on Unsplash
