No candlelight vigil at Victoria Park this June 4th but Hong Kongers still remember the Tiananmen Square Massacre

  

By HKWuliff; featuring Alfred

 

Today marks the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.  Once again, there was no candlelight vigil held at Victoria Park; unlike before 2020.  And for the second consecutive day, the police apprehended people in neighboring Causeway Bay who sought to publicly mourn the civilians killed by the People's Liberation Army in Beijing that summer.  (Update: confirmation's been received that arrests were made yesterday.)    

What's been happening in Hong Kong -- actually, not just today but for some years now -- is, as one political studies professor over in Britain Tweeted, "desperately sad".  But as long-time Hong Kong observer Shibani Mahtani was moved to suggest: "What is notable aren’t the waves of arrests over the past 24 hours - it is that some Hong Kongers are still risking so much to commemorate a vigil that for some years faded out of importance, as a proxy for everything that has happened since June 4, 2019."

 

Amidst the frustration and tragedy, let's pay tribute to and honour the commitment to remember of, in the words of Bloomberg's Matthew Brooker, "These brave, fearless people" -- who include Chow Hang-tung here in Hong Kong (who was placed in solitary confinement by her jailers immediately after she announced that she would go on a 34-hour hunger strike to commemorate] the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre) and the Tiananmen Mothers over in Mainland China.

Also, do not underestimate the ability of Hong Kongers to find ways to "quietly protest" and undertake to ensure that Hong Kong remains outside the borders of the People's Republic of Amnesia.  One interesting method that a number of people have come up with this year: placing bets for 8-9-6-4 at the horse races today!

On a personal note: unlike last year, when I spent all of June 4th at home as well as depressed, I decided to venture out to, among other things, go view a film today.  And I have to say I chose well: because not only did Female Agents tell the story of heroines and heroes resisting against evil in an occupied land but one of this French film's final scenes involved an individual lighting candles in memory of fallen comrades -- in her case, after the enemy was finally overcome.