Eight Months a Democracy Movement Does Not Make, it’s just Begun.

Awaiting a Democratic Hong Kong

News: China rules out universal suffrage for Hong Kong in 2007 and 2008

Although for the piece on the blog, Still Awaiting a Democratic Hong Kong, I manage to utter the words of hope, and a person who could still see universal suffrage unfolding in the future if not in 2007, and 2008, then the next elections. If you read my personal emails last night, you would think it was the end of the world. I was ready to catch the next plane out. I wrote to my editor at popmatters, and told her that my column on Internet Censorship was really no longer worth publishing considering the circumstances.

She reminded me that the changes in China were happening so fast that there is no way that a monthly column could keep up and Internet censorship was still relevant, and I had to stick on topic. I told her I was going to bed.

This morning, I meandered for breakfast and looked around. Yeah, Hong Kong is still here, much the same way Hong Kong was still here after the handover in 1997. We didn’t wake up and it went dark. And although the flags changed then, although China just stepped in and our borders merged 43 years too early, and unfairly Hong Kong is truly under China’s reign. We still exist. We still wake up and have breakfast, and read crappy free weekly magazines that make your eyes roll to the back of your head with boredom. I still pay too much for some limp carrot raison salad that I sometimes have.

But what I also realized this morning was its was only eight months since Hong Kong has demanded democracy on the mass scale it has. Most of us were not that conscious of the issues that I talk much on the blog, free speech, freedoms, direct elections. We all knew about them in an intellectual way, but the nitty gritty was a blur. It wasn’t until after July 1st 2003 and I started Glutter (in a pure coincidence) the night before, that I could tell you the exact structure of the voting system of the legislature. Before that, it was just a mass blob of complication that didn’t seem quite right to me.

So after July 1st a huge group of the seven million people went on a journey to explore the idea of self governance, and realize that it was right for us, and we felt not only ready but deserved. Groups started forming, established forums saw a spike in members, voters registered for the first time. And then two days ago, China came in an told us they had sole ownership of Hong Kong, and if direct elections were to be allowed, they have to approve and it was not to happen in 2008, we sat stunned.

The night it was announced, police swarmed the area of the secretariat, they stopped cars to check where they were going, the government expected possible mass demonstrations and public disorder which did not happen. My friend said, “Why is there nothing? Why is there no protest?” and I said, “Hey, we’re both sitting at home right now.”

Then she replied, “It all happened so fast. Like we had no time to think about it. We don’t even know how to act.”

That’s the beauty of Totalitarian regimes, they can come in quickly, make decisions without any debate. No due process, no time for anyone to make counter arguments, it thrives on unpredictability and the tight reign of fear. We don’t know what to do because we don’t know what might happen if we act. And we didn’t have the structure, the organization nor the communications venue to create a quick, mass response. And how could we, it’s only been eight months.

I look at democratic movements around the world, and other self governing movements, each has a longer history than ours, some have yet to win, some won after 10, 20, 30, 40 years of fighting and demanding. Not every one happened over night like the fall of the Eastern Block. And which is why when the Berlin wall came down, the world was stunned. Something like that has never happened before.

So we for now, we build. China tells us it’s not happening in 2008? Fine, we keep laying the foundations, establish better networks, make our voices heard both nationally and internationally, garner support, think of new peaceful ways of working towards the goal.

Eight months a fully functioning democratic movement does not make, but we’ve gone so far, so fast, already. Eye on 2012 for now, after four years, anything can happen. No one expected this one to even start and it has.

News: China Bristles at Criticism of Hong Kong Restrictions (Good historical overview)