Eshin Direct

It’s July 1st and it’s that special day in Hong Kong when protesting seems to be the right thing to do. Last year a quarter of million disgruntled Hong Kongers took to the streets to protest an amendment to a law that would leave them open to exploitation by Beijing. This was further aggravated by SARS where the outpouring of frustration was symptomatic of the people feeling powerless to affect their situation. This year it seems that Beijing has been bad and decided that no matter who the HK people elect as their leader, it’s still has the final say on the matter. They expect 300,000 people to grace the streets in protest to this.

It’s strange being an outside observer to this. There are those that believe that Hong Kong has the right to govern itself. There are those that believe that Hong Kong should be more integrated into China. I suspect most expats couldn’t care less about it all although if asked, most will say democracy is a good thing.

I personally believe that Hong Kong is an precarious position since it’s competitive advantage over the rest of China is fragile at present and will be non-existant in the future. Financially, most of the money has gone into Shanghai already. Hong Kong still holds onto its skilled labour force but mainland Chinese are rapidly advancing in terms of skills, attitudes and lifestyles that the HK people hold dear. There is an influx of Hong Kong people into mainland China too.

The question that many Hong Kongers should ask is what does Hong Kong want to be? What should it stand for? What is the culture that it seeks to protect? What are they fighting to preserve through election of their own leaders rather than having it dictated to by Beijing?

I think people lose sight of that fact sometimes. It’s nice to protest and through protest, that might in itself determine the cultural heritage you pass on to your children. But Hong Kong people need to decide what are their intrinsic values that they hold dear aside from the freedom to choose. The US, much that I might deride them, had values and ideals that they held dear and that were drastically different enough from British rule for them to rise up and demand freedom.

I’m not saying that Hong Kong does not have it’s own culture, heritage, or values of it’s own. I would argue that it does. What I’m advocating is that if you are going to protest, do so for the sake of these core ideals that makes Hong Kong unique, rather than just for the sake of protesting. Freedom is great but long-term, what does having this freedom enable you to achieve and justify you being under your own rule?

I question this since today is Handover Day from British rule. Over a hundred years of colonialism, and all that entailed, ended on this day back in 1997. Sure, broken promises by Beijing might be a cause to protest but this day marked the end of the colonial yoke. For much of the British rule, democracy didn’t exist either. The right to have a say in the leadership of Hong Kong didn’t seem to be an issue then as it is now.

It might have been a British quirk to spite China by implementing a system that hailed to democratic ideals, a sort of poisoning the psychological well of sorts if you will. However, simply demanding democracy and demanding freedom without knowing what you want to achieve with these tools, not values, is also as dangerously damaging to being a slave to the communist system. If you had your freedom tomorrow, what would you do with it?

Tags: Political Thoughts