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On Conflict:
Canto
versus THE
Lunar New Year riots in Hong Kong (Photo credits: Bloomberg)
ON CONFLICT: CHINA VERSUS THE CANTONESE | CHIBA ZAREEN
As a Chinese-Indian individual,
CHIBA, ZAREEN
onese @Zarcchi
I was I initially hoping to discuss my ethnic heritage and its historical value in colonial and modern Hong Kong, but I was woken last night to a string of news reports of riots on the streets of Mong Kok on the first evening of the Chinese New Year, the densest district of Hong Kong, and was reminded that there’s a much bigger issue on the table that threatens the loss of identity of a city. That is not to say that the lives and history of ethnic minorities are secondary to political ideology, but when I see riots in a city that otherwise has known little violence in recent decades, I know the city is more divided than ever, and that it’s at the tipping point. It is difficult to explain in detail the chronology of events, but I will do so to the best of my ability and in brief below.
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Hand-over to China with estabished One-Country, Two Systems in 1997 (Photo credits: SCMP)
FUNDING THE FUTURE | CHIBA ZAREEN
For those of you who know little about Hong Kong, it is a unique city with a One-Country, Two-Systems political philosophy which China as its motherland and democracy in its heart. it was colonized by the British in WWII for an agreement of 100 years due to its strategic geography as a shipping port, and eventually returned in 1997 to China to become an international finance hub with relative autonomy. It is proud of its high literacy rates, the Cantonese language and its market transparency, but less proud of its Gini coefficient, and even less proud of the fact that it must constantly question its loyalty to itself or to its country.
In recent years, pro-Beijing party members as well as market forces have allowed for increasing influences of mainland China on Hong Kong’s culture and traditions, from the silent replacement of our local language with Mandarin, housing shortages due to mainland speculators lapping up flats, obstetrics wards filled with pregnant Mainland mothers, to some degrees our universities’ academic freedoms and our people’s right to free speech. Every social issue that holds the discontent of the local people will harbour logic that traces back to the actions of our mainland counterparts.
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Last year we had the Umbrella revolution which made international headlines; in later weeks Hong Kong has been thrust again into the spotlight with the kidnapping of local booksellers of banned Chinese books, and today morning, because of the prosecution of local Lunar New Year street hawkers (a local tradition), a riot ensued where radical “Localists” assaulted police officers and committed arson. It has been many years since Hong Kong has seen such violence, especially in the highly symbolic period of the Chinese New Year, and now because of the acts of a few radical localists, all the efforts of scholars, students and the
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general public in preserving our city’s identity has now been tainted by violence. There is unrest on all our continents, and it is correct to fight for the preservation of heritage and tradition, but it is imperative to do it sans bloodshed—or each step forward will be replaced by two painful steps back. In this Year of the Monkey, I wish you all peace and good fortune in all things, and a little redemption for the pains we have already suffered since the outset of 2016.
CHIBA, ZAREEN @Zarcchi
FUNDING THE FUTURE | CHIBA ZAREEN
Hawkers fleeing law enforcers in Sham Shui Po in old Hong Kong (Photo credits: SCMP)
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