So, do you think these protests are going to work? Bring real democracy to Hong Kong?...
...Anybody?
Anybody at all.
"As if," right? The PRC will never allow that to happen.
Slightly different question: Do you think the protesters think they will bring democracy to Hong Kong? Ahh...kids, young people, who knows what they think. No, I don't think they think that. They know, better than Chinese on the mainland know believe it or not, what happened in Tienanmen Square on June 4, 1989. They hold candlelight vigils every year. T'AIN'T NO CANDLELIGHT VIGILS IN TIENANMEN SQUARE.
When I first read about this I immediately thought "Another centralized protest; those things never work." Which really is not true; they worked in blessed Tahrir Square in Cairo. They worked in the maidan in Kiev, during the American Civil Rights movement; Gandhi made them work in India against the Brits. Centralized, big, telegenic, photogenic protests can work--if the guys with the tear gas and the batons and the guns let them work. There's this great scene in the movie Gandhi where Mohammad Karzai, sorry, Ben Kingsley is called in for a talk with some exasperated officials of British imperialism, you can picture them in their uniforms and mustaches and their blubbery proper English diction, and they want to know what this little half-naked man wants!, Gandhi of course says independence and one of the uniforms and mustaches says all blubbery: "You do not expect us just to walk out of India, do you?" "Yes," replies Kingsley. "In the end you will just walk out because 350,000 British cannot control 300,000,000 Indians." (Whatever the numbers were.)
Gandhi and the Indians had two things going for them: One, the Indians were not concentrated in some goddamned square in New Delhi or someplace, they were the country. Two, the Indians had going for them that their imperialist rulers were British! The Brits were not going to start slaughtering half-naked Indians until the rest of the 300,000,000 obeyed them. That just would not be cricket. So yeah, the Brits "just walked out."
Hong Kongers had British rulers too. And the Brits just walked out there too. The oppressors have to cooperate with the oppressed for protests to work. When the oppressors don't cooperate then centralized, big, telegenic, photogenic protests work against the oppressed. There is in all protests a tremendous disparity in firepower. The oppressors have the tear gas and batons and guns and shields and helmets and body armor and the oppressed have sticks and rocks and bottles, at most. The oppressed protesters all corral themselves into some goddamned square just waiting to be oppressed. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.
Now Hong Kongers know this, those Occupy kids and young people know this, they know they are not going to succeed, they know they're going to get arrested, injured, some may get killed. So the question then becomes, "Why are you doing this?" Protests seem to be just universal, even under these hopeless, and known hopeless conditions. "I have to do something," said one Hong Kong taxi driver. Right? We all have felt that way before! "If rape is inevitable, just lay back and enjoy it" (An American basketball couch actually said that.), HELL NO! We're going to fight until the last dog dies! I get that. I really get that. (I have a problem with authority.) Blow off a little steam. "You don't expect us to just walk out, do you? If you're not walking out, we're not walking out!"
But, notice: Then the protests are not really real. You're blowing off steam, you know you have no chance of success; the protests are symbolic. Rather than "really real," another way of putting it is that under these circumstances protests are real in the additional sense as symbols. Put it this way: If the protesters really want democracy they wouldn't be protesting they would be rebelling. If the Hong Kong protesters really want the "mainland" Chinese "to just walk out" they need look only to China's "restive" Muslim Uyghurs for the most efficacious means.
Symbolism is a big thing with human beings, it is a bigger thing among Chinese human beings than some others. Nothing is on the surface in China; everything has got some other meaning, some other "reality." There are protests every single goddamned day somewhere in China. To some all these protests signify a societal "bubbling cauldron." Rebellion is just beneath the surface and Beijing has to keep the lid on the cauldron or take the cauldron off the fire or do whatever you do with bubbling cauldrons. I, for what this is worth, do not see bubbling cauldrons in China (except in the "restive" west.). I see symbolic blowing off of steam. I have three images in mind whenever I think about this. Two images are from the Cultural Revolution period. Some of those "struggled" walked voluntarily to their struggle sessions. Bian Zhongyun did. There was also a guy, such a vivid image from Mao's Last Revolution, whose struggle session was set for, let's say 3 pm today. At 2:30 pm the guy walks out of his house, locks the door, walks to the stadium. Tries to enter the stadium:
"Who are you! What are you doing here!" (Red Guards).
"I'm Harris Binbin."
"Yeah, what of it Harris Binbin, what do you want?"
"Are you not having a struggle session today?"
"Yes! What of it!"
"I am the man you are struggling today."
Only in China.
The third image, from just a couple of years ago, is of a poor woman who was being evicted from her apartment building which was being torn down for another apartment building probably. There are actually photographs of this. She is standing alone in a dusty field abutting her apartment building facing a bunch of People's Liberation Housing Evictors armed with batons, dressed in riot gear, helmets, etc. It is the most hopeless situation imaginable. But she won't move. And in the next photograph the PLHE charge her and send her flying like tumbleweed, the dust kicking up around her.
In all three instances there was real violence. In the CR instances it was the victims who cooperated with their victimizers. The violence of the CR was real, 3,000,000 killed, but the victimizers were not street criminals, they had not been violent before, would not be violent again in their lives, they were "good girls" in the case of Bian's victimizers, they had had no previous run-ins with the victims, there was no "history" there, the victims were "good communists" as Bian and Liu Shaoqi had been, and in this sense the violence was not real, it was symbolic; during the Cultural Revolution the victimizers acted symbolically, their violence was directed at the victims but for Mao Zedong. Beijing was too civilized, Mao said. He wanted "chaos," permanent revolution; wanted students to know revolutionary ardor, wanted them to rebel. "To rebel is justified!" "Bombard the Headquarters!" There is a sense in China, throughout its history, of violence that is both "real-real" and symbolically real. Symbols are important, especially in China.
I look at Chinese history, I look at the country today, I look at the protests in Hong Kong and the only "real" bubbling cauldron I see is in the "restive" west. But, maybe I'm wrong. Love those protesters, though. :)
...Anybody?
Anybody at all.
"As if," right? The PRC will never allow that to happen.
Slightly different question: Do you think the protesters think they will bring democracy to Hong Kong? Ahh...kids, young people, who knows what they think. No, I don't think they think that. They know, better than Chinese on the mainland know believe it or not, what happened in Tienanmen Square on June 4, 1989. They hold candlelight vigils every year. T'AIN'T NO CANDLELIGHT VIGILS IN TIENANMEN SQUARE.
When I first read about this I immediately thought "Another centralized protest; those things never work." Which really is not true; they worked in blessed Tahrir Square in Cairo. They worked in the maidan in Kiev, during the American Civil Rights movement; Gandhi made them work in India against the Brits. Centralized, big, telegenic, photogenic protests can work--if the guys with the tear gas and the batons and the guns let them work. There's this great scene in the movie Gandhi where Mohammad Karzai, sorry, Ben Kingsley is called in for a talk with some exasperated officials of British imperialism, you can picture them in their uniforms and mustaches and their blubbery proper English diction, and they want to know what this little half-naked man wants!, Gandhi of course says independence and one of the uniforms and mustaches says all blubbery: "You do not expect us just to walk out of India, do you?" "Yes," replies Kingsley. "In the end you will just walk out because 350,000 British cannot control 300,000,000 Indians." (Whatever the numbers were.)
Gandhi and the Indians had two things going for them: One, the Indians were not concentrated in some goddamned square in New Delhi or someplace, they were the country. Two, the Indians had going for them that their imperialist rulers were British! The Brits were not going to start slaughtering half-naked Indians until the rest of the 300,000,000 obeyed them. That just would not be cricket. So yeah, the Brits "just walked out."
Hong Kongers had British rulers too. And the Brits just walked out there too. The oppressors have to cooperate with the oppressed for protests to work. When the oppressors don't cooperate then centralized, big, telegenic, photogenic protests work against the oppressed. There is in all protests a tremendous disparity in firepower. The oppressors have the tear gas and batons and guns and shields and helmets and body armor and the oppressed have sticks and rocks and bottles, at most. The oppressed protesters all corral themselves into some goddamned square just waiting to be oppressed. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.
Now Hong Kongers know this, those Occupy kids and young people know this, they know they are not going to succeed, they know they're going to get arrested, injured, some may get killed. So the question then becomes, "Why are you doing this?" Protests seem to be just universal, even under these hopeless, and known hopeless conditions. "I have to do something," said one Hong Kong taxi driver. Right? We all have felt that way before! "If rape is inevitable, just lay back and enjoy it" (An American basketball couch actually said that.), HELL NO! We're going to fight until the last dog dies! I get that. I really get that. (I have a problem with authority.) Blow off a little steam. "You don't expect us to just walk out, do you? If you're not walking out, we're not walking out!"
But, notice: Then the protests are not really real. You're blowing off steam, you know you have no chance of success; the protests are symbolic. Rather than "really real," another way of putting it is that under these circumstances protests are real in the additional sense as symbols. Put it this way: If the protesters really want democracy they wouldn't be protesting they would be rebelling. If the Hong Kong protesters really want the "mainland" Chinese "to just walk out" they need look only to China's "restive" Muslim Uyghurs for the most efficacious means.
Symbolism is a big thing with human beings, it is a bigger thing among Chinese human beings than some others. Nothing is on the surface in China; everything has got some other meaning, some other "reality." There are protests every single goddamned day somewhere in China. To some all these protests signify a societal "bubbling cauldron." Rebellion is just beneath the surface and Beijing has to keep the lid on the cauldron or take the cauldron off the fire or do whatever you do with bubbling cauldrons. I, for what this is worth, do not see bubbling cauldrons in China (except in the "restive" west.). I see symbolic blowing off of steam. I have three images in mind whenever I think about this. Two images are from the Cultural Revolution period. Some of those "struggled" walked voluntarily to their struggle sessions. Bian Zhongyun did. There was also a guy, such a vivid image from Mao's Last Revolution, whose struggle session was set for, let's say 3 pm today. At 2:30 pm the guy walks out of his house, locks the door, walks to the stadium. Tries to enter the stadium:
"Who are you! What are you doing here!" (Red Guards).
"I'm Harris Binbin."
"Yeah, what of it Harris Binbin, what do you want?"
"Are you not having a struggle session today?"
"Yes! What of it!"
"I am the man you are struggling today."
Only in China.
The third image, from just a couple of years ago, is of a poor woman who was being evicted from her apartment building which was being torn down for another apartment building probably. There are actually photographs of this. She is standing alone in a dusty field abutting her apartment building facing a bunch of People's Liberation Housing Evictors armed with batons, dressed in riot gear, helmets, etc. It is the most hopeless situation imaginable. But she won't move. And in the next photograph the PLHE charge her and send her flying like tumbleweed, the dust kicking up around her.
In all three instances there was real violence. In the CR instances it was the victims who cooperated with their victimizers. The violence of the CR was real, 3,000,000 killed, but the victimizers were not street criminals, they had not been violent before, would not be violent again in their lives, they were "good girls" in the case of Bian's victimizers, they had had no previous run-ins with the victims, there was no "history" there, the victims were "good communists" as Bian and Liu Shaoqi had been, and in this sense the violence was not real, it was symbolic; during the Cultural Revolution the victimizers acted symbolically, their violence was directed at the victims but for Mao Zedong. Beijing was too civilized, Mao said. He wanted "chaos," permanent revolution; wanted students to know revolutionary ardor, wanted them to rebel. "To rebel is justified!" "Bombard the Headquarters!" There is a sense in China, throughout its history, of violence that is both "real-real" and symbolically real. Symbols are important, especially in China.
I look at Chinese history, I look at the country today, I look at the protests in Hong Kong and the only "real" bubbling cauldron I see is in the "restive" west. But, maybe I'm wrong. Love those protesters, though. :)
