Guest Writer M. R.: WTO Opening Day March and the media : an Alternative View

Socio-Political Rants

Photo: Hong Kong Digital Vision.
To see all HK Digital Vision’s Photos of the Protest March: Go here

M.R. Le Duc is a Canadian writer and teacher residing in Hong Kong. He has kindly written his impression of the opening March and the way the media portrayed the protesters.

Ug.  I use the word alternative and my heart sinks down around my
liver.  Although this word is often seen as hold-over from a bygone
Seattle grunge propelled era, it suits in this case.  People
everywhere are starved for an alternative viewpoint, so much so infact
that many don’t know they are wasting away, a victim of the
nutritionless slop fed to them through the miracle of broadband, by
mainstream media.  The media coverage of the protest march opening in
conjunction with the opening of the WTO meetings in Hong Kong was no
different.

From where I stood (first circulating around Victoria Park during the
preparations, later marching with the Oxfam organization), the vibe
was one of solidarity, unity, and  the seriousness of the task before
them.  My impression based on the hype of "thousands of radical
protesters descending on Hong Kong," was that the crowd was pretty
thin. It was Tuesday after all.  We marched through the streets of
Causeway Bay and Wan Chai, past the boarded shop windows and lines of
private paparazzi, most of us shouting slogans such as "Make Trade
Fair!" and "Down, Down, WTO!"  I happened to cross paths with Gael
García Bernal who played Ernesto "Che" Guevara in the recent film The
Motor Cycle Diaries who was doing some filming of his own amongst the
crowd, as well as chanting his support.

Unfortunately for those with a message, the march was then diverted
away from all public view (except of course through the fear-based
fish-eye of the TV news) and down onto a large pier where we stayed
until the rally ended.  As I was being interviewed by Anna Marie, of
ATV World News, she was dragged off to report on the more important
jumping of the Korean rice farmers into Victoria Harbour.

It was later reported on the news that evening that "although (the
rice farmers jumping into the water) was not an aggressive act toward
the conference, it was radical and showed the potential for more
dangerous demonstrations in the future."  I saw a well planned and
executed form of protest that was considerate of the other protesters
and their safety.

Of course, the most heavily reported shots of the march were those of
the "riot police" discharging their pepper cans on the heads of a few
rangy protesters in the front of the line, and as well into the eyes
of the zealous reporters who had their cameras focused up the very
spray nozzles of the police, and made up more than half of the fray.

On the ground I felt proud to be a part of this motion.  I even felt
at times that all of those cameras and interviewers might help get the
message out off the lonely pier that we were designated to, into the
rest of the city which we were kept from, and the rest of world that
couldn’t be there.

My wake-up call came as I got home to my flat and turned on the TV.
"Violence marred the opening of the WTO today"…"Dangerous radicals
threw themselves into the Victoria Harbour in an attempt to swim to
the WTO"….all channels gave the same message:  resistance is
laughable, threatening, or down right useless.

On Sunday, December 18, I will march again against the tyranny of the
WTO and the other organizations of their ilk, those closed-room
dealings of a very few that decide the fate of millions.  I will also
march to remind the underlings of the proverbial "man": the media, who
prescribe our way of life, without regard to its reality, that they
see the same truth on the ground as we do, but they chose to
manipulate it for a pre-composed purpose.

You can email M.R at M.R.LeDuc@gmail.com

Chris Lee’s Photos of the Protest March: here

Sams’s Photos of the Police and Protesters