Learning to Fight in Hong Kong: The Radicalization of the 2019 Protests

• In Event: New Perspectives on Protest: Ordinary Citizens in Extraordinary Movements

Abstract

In June 2019, the extradition bill proposed by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative region provoked an unprecedented political crisis since the handover of the ex-colony in 1997. Peaceful demonstrations and violent actions carry on for more than six months in a context of increasing polarization between the “yellow” (pro-democracy) and “blue” camps (pro-establishment or central Government). Later, the initial anti-extradition movement evolved into a opposition to the People Republic of China (PRC) in the name of the rule of law and democracy.

This mobilization engaged a new generation of activists, mainly high-school and university students, who adopted a new repertoire of contention different from the peaceful and media-oriented strategies adopted by the Umbrella movement of 2014. These activists remained mostly anonymous to avoid the repression suffered by the leaders of the 2014 protests wearing masks in the demonstrations and using alternative social media to organize themselves. Also, they advocate for violent action against goods and symbols of the PRC and companies which support the Government.

In this context, this presentation analyses the discourses and trajectories of ordinary citizens engaged in the “revolution of our times”, which is one of the most used slogans, using ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews.

Interviews with young activists show how they are experiencing an intense political socialization based on experiences, such as street demonstrations, clashes with the police and the use of social media to organize sporadic actions and to decide actions, slogans, symbols and even the un-official Hong Kong national anthem. The family socialization also needs to be explored as the vast majority of Hongkongers are descendants of mainlanders with ambivalent attitudes towards the People Republic of China.

Besides, the study presents the results of the observation of the “Lennon walls”, temporary public urban spaces across the region where ordinary citizens and activists express themselves by posting graphic and written messages. The combination of spontaneous messages of support and elaborated visual and artistic posters shows how the citizens appropriate the protest symbolically. They also use the walls to communicate, posting practical instructions related to police arrests or health care. We also find lists of yellow and blue businesses and shops in the area around the wall in order to promote conscious consumption. The Lennon walls are also a symbolic battleground as the opponents to the protests frequently tear down the messages which are rapidly replaced by the activists, sometimes with violent confrontations between the two camps.


These experiences contribute, on the one hand, to the radicalization of the anti-China sentiments and, on the other hand, the valorisation of western democratic values. This process conducts to the contestation of the political hegemony of the “one country two systems” doctrine of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, which paradoxically claim to protect the rule of law and democracy.

Author

• Juan Enrique Serrano Moreno, University La Frontera