Mourning and remembering the victims of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and also the Hong Kong that was

I lit a candle each this evening for the victims 

of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and Hong Kong

 

I woke up this morning literally feeling my heart aching.  Okay, it may have been heartburn due to my having had curry for dinner last night.  Even if so, it captures how I feel on June 4th: a dark day in the calendar; one that has involved mourning for decades now -- but, since 2020, for Hong Kong as well as the victims of the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989 (and those who have continued to seek justice for them, and so many others, all these years).

 

For three decades, Hong Kongers held a candlelight vigil in Victoria Park on June 4th to remember, mourn and remind the world about the Tiananmen Square Massacre.  However, in 2020, the event was banned by the authorities from taking place in Victoria Park, officially for "social distancing" measures, even though it takes place outdoors and it could so easily have been arranged for the candlelight vigil's participants to socially distance since it is a largely sedentary affair.

 

Then last year, to stop people from going to mourn on June 4th, the police closed off what is the largest urban park on Hong Kong Island for much of the day.  And this year, they went further and closed off Victoria Park late yesterday (June 3rd) and will keep it closed through to early tomorrow morning (June 5th).   Plus fill it -- and its surrounding areas, and much of the rest of Hong Kong (including Mongkok) -- with ridiculously large numbers of police officers, all itching to arrest people for carrying and lighting candles and such. 

 

And yet Hong Kong resolved to commemorate the events of June 4th, 1989, and often in unorthodox ways.   Heck, even the Wuhan coronavirus appeared to join in making sure people remembered this date: since this June 4th saw Hong Kong recording 446 new Covid cases, including 64 imported ones!

 

Over on at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, four students created miniature figurines of the statue of the Goddess of Democracy that used to grace the campus, hid them in various parts of the campus and then invited their fellow students to mount a search of  them.  And in Causeway Bay yesterday evening, artists-activists did so in creative ways that weren't without risk.  In fact, a middle-aged woman ended up being taken away and arrested by 18 police officers for -- and I really wish I was kidding -- standing by herself in a public place on the eve of June 4th and whittling a potato!  

And some people really couldn't keep away from Victoria Park today.  61-year-old Mr Chan brought an electronic candle with "Never forget June 4" written in Chinese characters to the park this afternoon.  He told the Hong Kong Free Press that he has commemorated the victims who died in the 1989 crackdown at Victoria Park for more than 30 years.  "I'm not scared of being arrested. I'm a cancer patient. It would be a trouble for them to take me to the hospital", he declared to the press!  

 

As the AFP's Holmes Chan noted: "Despite the lack of a candlelight vigil, there are still small signs of remembrance.  Some people in Causeway Bay turned on their cell phone torches, some left LED candles in a phone booth, others distributed these small stickers with candles drawn on." ""In Causeway Bay I've seen dozens of people lighting cell phone torches, though they don't want to be filmed. "We can't make a big fuss, but there are still small ways... to tell everyone they are not alone," one young woman told me", he also Tweeted.

 

Of course not everyone went to Victoria Park or Causeway Bay today.  Some people didn't even feel in the mood to leave their homes today.  And some people opted to head away from the madding crowd for a good part of the day and walk their dogs.  But even they did so because they felt and knew that this was no ordinary (Satur)day in Hong Kong.  As the Hong Konger who goes by Goose Lee on Twitter shared this evening:  "Today is always a sad and difficult day for Hongkongers but this year feels particularly hard. Love to everyone who went for a walk tonight and love to everyone who stayed home. What matters is that we all remember and will continue to do so."   

 

As The Guardian's editorial on Hong Kong today noted: There has been "remarkable, creative resistance [in] a city which most [outsiders] had previously regarded as apolitical, conservative and motivated largely by money".  And this year, Hong Kongers feel compelled to mourn all the more -- because this time around, we are mourning the loss of our ability to protest in Hong Kong as well as the victims of the Tiananmen Square Massacre itself.

 

A New York Times piece entitled "Mourning Tiananmen's Victims, and the Hong Kong That Was" has the following quotes from historian Jeff Wasserstrom: “Hong Kong was where you kept alive the memory of what had happened in Beijing in 1989. But now June 4 is also keeping attention back on Hong Kong at a time when the world’s moving on from that... It’s also becoming the commemoration of the Hong Kong commemoration" that may no longer involve large public gatherings but continues to be carried out in Hong Kong nonetheless.  For it is indeed the case that, against the odds, Hong Kong is not (yet) part of the People's Republic of Amnesia.