Socialists\n can only applaud when workers around the world struggle for political \ndemocracy and freedom to organise as this is essential for the eventual \nstruggle for socialism. After all, if workers are not willing to \nstruggle for what they hold to be legitimate democratic rights, they are\n unlikely to strive for the transformation of society, or have the \nwherewithal to effect that transformation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\n Hong Kong, hundreds of thousands have carried out a campaign to protect\n and extend the limited democratic rights which were granted to them \nwhen the People\u2019s Republic of China took it over in 1997 under an \nagreement called \u2018one country, two systems\u2019, where there is extensive \ndevolution of administrative powers giving Hong Kong a degree of limited\n sovereignty. Due to anomalies this created, Beijing pressured the Hong \nKong Legislative Council to amend some of their legal independence and \npermit the extradition of suspects to mainland China to face trial. This\n was perceived as undermining the freedom of political dissidents. The \nextradition bill has been withdrawn yet the protests continue unabated. \nThey have now evolved into a direct challenge to Beijing as well as to \nthe local authorities. Protesters are provocatively using slogans such \nas \u2018Free Hong Kong\u2019 and \u2018Hong Kong is not China\u2019. This battle for basic \npolitical democracy is a battle against authoritarianism and to take the\n power out of the iron grip of Hong Kong and Chinese elites and \u2013 or so \nis the hope of the demonstrators \u2013 place it in the hands of ordinary \npeople.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\n protests are a repetition of the 2014 Umbrella Movement but because of \nthe informal amorphous structure of the 2019 protests it is proving \nharder for the authorities to clamp down upon it. They organise through \nsocial media on the instant messaging apps like Telegram, on dozens of \nInstagram sites and online forums. There are no high-profile leaders to \narrest. Unlike those 2014 protests, when leaders like Joshua Wong became\n widely known, activists are deliberately staying anonymous, using \npseudonyms, making it difficult for the authorities to effectively \ntarget. It is a movement without leaders. Alex Chow, one of the 2014 \nleaders at the time, had the premonition that \u2018People will come back \nagain, and they will come back with stronger force\u2019 and concerning the \npresent movement, he confirms it is leader-free. It\u2019s not an issue of \nhaving \u2018no leader, it simply means that everyone is a leader,\u2019 one \n22-year-old Hong Kong student was reported as saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\n are those on the Left who equate anti-capitalism with anti-Americanism \nand so claim that those involved in the Hong Kong democracy movement are\n being manipulated by the CIA and its many fronts. Some protestors have \nbeen highlighted who, in an effort to lobby for diplomatic support and a\n means to capture the attention of the global media, waved the Stars and\n Stripes and others sang the British national anthem, \u2018God Save the \nQueen\u2019. For sure, some countries seek to take advantage of the political\n instability but to assert that the protesters are pawns being \ncontrolled by foreign powers is a wild exaggeration. Some governments \nmight support the protests in Hong Kong to advance their own interests, \nbut it doesn\u2019t mean that the whole movement is promoted by them. What is\n disappointing but not unsurprising is that the protests are not \nresonating with mainland Chinese, who also believe that the protesters \nare dupes of Western propaganda, with Beijing concentrating its \nreporting on the violence of the demonstrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Be\n water!\u2019 is an expression protesters have deployed, a phrase borrowed \nfrom Bruce Lee, who used it to describe his kung fu known for its \nflexibility and creativity to press an advantage and pull back when a \nstrategic retreat is needed. It reflects the flash mob strategy being \nemployed to confront the police. However, the demonstrators need to \nguard against inevitably self-defeating violence that suffering and \nresentment are so likely to prompt. Non-violent resistance is a more \neffective method. A non-violent movement that challenges a \nwell-entrenched dictatorship must be prepared for a long struggle and \nnumerous casualties. After all, only one side is committed to \nnon-violence. To combat despots with violence is to cede to them the \nchoice of battleground and tactics. Amateurs using violence against \nexperts is the quickest way to defeat. At the time of writing, China has\n doubled the number of troops garrisoned in Hong Kong, including \nspecialised anti-riot units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\n can do little in support of our fellow-workers in Hong Kong except to \nvoice our solidarity while at the same time maintaining our constant \ncampaigning for socialism as the real hope of humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ALJO<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n From November 2019<\/a> Issue Socialist Standard Material World<\/a> article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Socialists can only applaud when workers around the world struggle for political democracy and freedom to organise as this is essential for the eventual struggle for socialism. After all, if workers are not willing to struggle for what they hold to be legitimate democratic rights, they are unlikely to strive for the transformation of society,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2789"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2812,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789\/revisions\/2812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}