Hong Kong....Occupy Central Demonstrations....
- Thread starter bd popeye
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Engineer
Major
That's called . I would stay away from such line of thinking if I were you.
Engineer
Major
That age group also happens to be the easiest to manipulate. Their needs of finding social acceptance among their peers discourages any sort of independent thinking.
People in Hong Kong have been conditioning themselves to oppose anything that is China for the past two decades, while turning a blind eye to China's accomplishments from the same time period. HK people's constant needs of bringing up 1989 to instill fear in the territory is your classical definition of propaganda, which also shows these people's mind set are still stuck in a different era. Their opposition to a more balanced view of China in HK's education system is a sign of their intolerance to views other than their own.
I am glad you recognize this.
China has the guaranteed rights of calling the last shot in HK. This is written in HK's constitution. The current argument for more democracy in HK is fallacious to begin with, because it is based on quoting a few characters out of an entire article from the constitution.
Why did police fire tear gas? Because people tried to lay siege the government headquarter, as well as trying to hold the entire territory hostage. If people don't want to get hurt, then they should not be participating in unreasonable actions.
No doubt that the economic factors are the primary factors driving this, but it is underpinned by an prevalent social attitude.
It is a sad fact (one I know only too well from experience) that many Hong Kongers have an snobby view of themselves with regard to mainlanders. They are in fact, in many ways, an Insular Island people by attitude.
Maybe forty or fifty years ago, this attitude may have been justified and I would have expected to see it as prevalent in the respective generations. It is disappointing therefore to see that many of the young are no better today.
I suppose in many respects, this is the expression of the erosion of HK confidence in their superiority, mainly through the daily demonstration of the fact that this attitude is increasingly unjustified and indeed some parts of the mainland will be able to look down on them in exactly the same way.
Seen from that perspective, this ill is a problem that's time has come and a fang that needs to be pulled.
On the other side though, I also know full well that commitment to the cause may not be as solid as it may at first appear. When I was that age I often went to demo/protest events. Not because I cared passionately about any cause (most of the time I did not have a clue) I went because it was fun, a good party and damn good way to meet and pick up girls. I would guess a lot of kids are mainly there for that and of course to be seen to be there
It is a sad fact (one I know only too well from experience) that many Hong Kongers have an snobby view of themselves with regard to mainlanders. They are in fact, in many ways, an Insular Island people by attitude.
Maybe forty or fifty years ago, this attitude may have been justified and I would have expected to see it as prevalent in the respective generations. It is disappointing therefore to see that many of the young are no better today.
I suppose in many respects, this is the expression of the erosion of HK confidence in their superiority, mainly through the daily demonstration of the fact that this attitude is increasingly unjustified and indeed some parts of the mainland will be able to look down on them in exactly the same way.
Seen from that perspective, this ill is a problem that's time has come and a fang that needs to be pulled.
On the other side though, I also know full well that commitment to the cause may not be as solid as it may at first appear. When I was that age I often went to demo/protest events. Not because I cared passionately about any cause (most of the time I did not have a clue) I went because it was fun, a good party and damn good way to meet and pick up girls. I would guess a lot of kids are mainly there for that and of course to be seen to be there
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Re: Chinese General news resource thread
The only reason Hong Kong has been booming since 1997 as they say is because of China and it's boom. Don't believe Hong Kong's success is independent. To the run up to the handover, all the stories were how Hong Kong was so powerful and important to China that it was going to change China. Well that didn't happen and that's how Hong Kong lost its identity which is why Hong Kongers have been trying to separate and create their own identity. Because they didn't lead China now they're just one in a crowd of a billion. Must be very disappointing and a big letdown after all that hype.
A tactic of colonialism is divide and conquer. If there were an outright rebellion of an entire population, colonialists will have problems throughout the long run. So the tactic was to take a fraction of the population and give them privileges others didn't get. And then the colonialist would create an identity for them as to identify they were also superior to the others. That way this privileged class would fight to maintain their superiority and privileges thus helping to maintain the colonial system while everyone else stopped concentrating their anger and hate of the colonial master to now the people getting privileges they're not getting.
You saw that in Africa. Every border in Africa was drawn up by colonialism. Before that there were hundreds of different nations in Africa. So when it came up to the communists and the Cold War forcing the Europeans to decolonize countries they conquered, they still needed to have some measure of control over their former colonies. So what they did was pick a small minority in the country that use to be a small nation before colonialism and better yet hated by most of the others and give them the country to rule. That way they would always have to run to their colonial master for help when trouble happened. Why is there so much violence in Africa? It's rooted in colonialism lumping all of them into one country and then giving all the power to one ethnicity to rule them all.
You saw that in Hawaii before it became a state when sugar cane plantations needed to import labor from Asia. They would bring in a new ethnic group to work in the fields and when poor working conditions would take their toll and tensions would rise between planation owners and the workers, a new group from a different ethnicity would be shipped in and they would get all the demands the previous group of workers wanted. Thus rivalry between old and new workers would spring up and the anger towards plantation owners would now turn on the new group. Then when just as anger would start to turn back to the plantation owners, they would ship in an entirely new ethnic group of workers and the whole thing would start over again.
This whole situation happening in Hong Kong is just to deflect away from the problems of what colonialism caused in this world. When you see those Hong Kongers waving British flags, they're telling the world colonialism wasn't as evil as advertised. It was in fact preferable. Why do you think you see people saying slavery was best thing to ever happen to Africans. What are they looking as a reference? The conditions caused by colonialism in the first place. There was colonialism before slavery.
Read all the stories about China especially after the 2008 Western financial crisis. It's all about how horrible in general China is a place to live. Why is that? Because China faired better than Western countries after 2008. That put it out there whether it was true or not that China might have a better system and that could cause a rebellion of sorts to change the system that enriches and protects the top even at hard times. There was never a viable challenger to the Western system. Remember how they said if the US sneezes every other country catches a cold? The 2008 financial crisis... China defied that belief and that scared them. That's why everything now is about how horrible China is a place to live. The news of Alibaba scares them. A company that the literal vast majority of Western consumers never heard of being the biggest IPO ever? It doesn't need them to be successful. And Wall Street is scared because in the near future this could mean tons of money going to Chinese companies not Western ones. That's as scary as China not catching anything when the US sneezes. So expect a lot of bashing in the long run.
A lot of expatriates left Hong Kong after the handover because of the scary predictions Hong Kongers were putting out there like tanks rolling and people being shot in the streets as China took over. It was until those predictions turned out to be wrong expatriates started returning.
The only reason Hong Kong has been booming since 1997 as they say is because of China and it's boom. Don't believe Hong Kong's success is independent. To the run up to the handover, all the stories were how Hong Kong was so powerful and important to China that it was going to change China. Well that didn't happen and that's how Hong Kong lost its identity which is why Hong Kongers have been trying to separate and create their own identity. Because they didn't lead China now they're just one in a crowd of a billion. Must be very disappointing and a big letdown after all that hype.
A tactic of colonialism is divide and conquer. If there were an outright rebellion of an entire population, colonialists will have problems throughout the long run. So the tactic was to take a fraction of the population and give them privileges others didn't get. And then the colonialist would create an identity for them as to identify they were also superior to the others. That way this privileged class would fight to maintain their superiority and privileges thus helping to maintain the colonial system while everyone else stopped concentrating their anger and hate of the colonial master to now the people getting privileges they're not getting.
You saw that in Africa. Every border in Africa was drawn up by colonialism. Before that there were hundreds of different nations in Africa. So when it came up to the communists and the Cold War forcing the Europeans to decolonize countries they conquered, they still needed to have some measure of control over their former colonies. So what they did was pick a small minority in the country that use to be a small nation before colonialism and better yet hated by most of the others and give them the country to rule. That way they would always have to run to their colonial master for help when trouble happened. Why is there so much violence in Africa? It's rooted in colonialism lumping all of them into one country and then giving all the power to one ethnicity to rule them all.
You saw that in Hawaii before it became a state when sugar cane plantations needed to import labor from Asia. They would bring in a new ethnic group to work in the fields and when poor working conditions would take their toll and tensions would rise between planation owners and the workers, a new group from a different ethnicity would be shipped in and they would get all the demands the previous group of workers wanted. Thus rivalry between old and new workers would spring up and the anger towards plantation owners would now turn on the new group. Then when just as anger would start to turn back to the plantation owners, they would ship in an entirely new ethnic group of workers and the whole thing would start over again.
This whole situation happening in Hong Kong is just to deflect away from the problems of what colonialism caused in this world. When you see those Hong Kongers waving British flags, they're telling the world colonialism wasn't as evil as advertised. It was in fact preferable. Why do you think you see people saying slavery was best thing to ever happen to Africans. What are they looking as a reference? The conditions caused by colonialism in the first place. There was colonialism before slavery.
Read all the stories about China especially after the 2008 Western financial crisis. It's all about how horrible in general China is a place to live. Why is that? Because China faired better than Western countries after 2008. That put it out there whether it was true or not that China might have a better system and that could cause a rebellion of sorts to change the system that enriches and protects the top even at hard times. There was never a viable challenger to the Western system. Remember how they said if the US sneezes every other country catches a cold? The 2008 financial crisis... China defied that belief and that scared them. That's why everything now is about how horrible China is a place to live. The news of Alibaba scares them. A company that the literal vast majority of Western consumers never heard of being the biggest IPO ever? It doesn't need them to be successful. And Wall Street is scared because in the near future this could mean tons of money going to Chinese companies not Western ones. That's as scary as China not catching anything when the US sneezes. So expect a lot of bashing in the long run.
A lot of expatriates left Hong Kong after the handover because of the scary predictions Hong Kongers were putting out there like tanks rolling and people being shot in the streets as China took over. It was until those predictions turned out to be wrong expatriates started returning.
On the other side though, I also know full well that commitment to the cause may not be as solid as it may at first appear. When I was that age I often went to demo/protest events. Not because I cared passionately about any cause (most of the time I did not have a clue) I went because it was fun, a good party and damn good way to meet and pick up girls. I would guess a lot of kids are mainly there for that and of course to be seen to be there
+1
My mother and all her classmates in university at the time went to TAM in 1989 because of the re nao and the solidarity, most of them had no idea what they were actually protesting about.
Although I'll say in this case, the protesters are all bound by an emotional dislike (putting it mildly) for China, and Chinese MLers as well to an extent.
They value their sense of identity, whatever that is. I don't want to say it is snobbery and a sense of superiority towards MLers so as to not offend air superiority and other HKers here, but there is a hierarchy (justified or not) that comes into it.
And of course, "free XYZ from China" is like the fast food of democracy/human rights movements; easily consumable, but very little substance.
But that's why I think, commitment might be a little stronger here than other movements. We'll see how long they can maintain their peaceful presence, especially if the government basically ignores their demands.
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I wonder if Beijing is micromanaging the police response at all. In either case, the authorities have been remarkably lenient.
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From WSJ...
"Few police and almost none wearing riot gear were seen near the protesters, who were inundated with food, water and protective gear by supporters. There appeared to be no central organizing authority. "If I must name a leader of the movement, it is Hong Kong itself," said Amy Wong, a university student who said she joined protests out of anger at the tactics used by police."
"Few police and almost none wearing riot gear were seen near the protesters, who were inundated with food, water and protective gear by supporters. There appeared to be no central organizing authority. "If I must name a leader of the movement, it is Hong Kong itself," said Amy Wong, a university student who said she joined protests out of anger at the tactics used by police."
Equation
Lieutenant General
I agreed with you there, that's the thing I don't get about. Hong Kongers don't have anything to be snobby about in the first place.
i wonder if the organizers of this this protest had in mind of an endgame, like so many American strategists now insist on as a prerequisite to commit its military. We know for sure that the CCP will not relent, so what do these protesters plan on doing?
If these protesters were banking on their grievance resonating within mainland China, thereby coercing the government into a compromise, they should probably remember that you dont get support from people that you refer to as "grasshoppers" lol.
so i dont know if there is a coherent strategy in place for the protesters.
If these protesters were banking on their grievance resonating within mainland China, thereby coercing the government into a compromise, they should probably remember that you dont get support from people that you refer to as "grasshoppers" lol.
so i dont know if there is a coherent strategy in place for the protesters.
Re: Chinese General news resource thread
so the protesters are disrupting things for the sake of disrupting things...I cant see how the CCP has any incentive to acquiesce to the protesters' demands? anything they are doing is simply harming Hong Kong itself...i highly doubt an artificial political crisis that resolves nothing will do any good to Hong Kong's economy.
so the protesters are disrupting things for the sake of disrupting things...I cant see how the CCP has any incentive to acquiesce to the protesters' demands? anything they are doing is simply harming Hong Kong itself...i highly doubt an artificial political crisis that resolves nothing will do any good to Hong Kong's economy.
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