The largest student demonstrations and occupations in Hong Kong's history is currently unfurling – what is increasingly being called the “Umbrella Revolution” in reference to the sea of umbrellas being used as cover against both pepper-spraying riot police and the rays of the sun (the latter a common practice in Northeast Asia). What began as a Hong Kong-wide class boycott on Monday September 22 with around 10,000 university and college students congregating on the Chinese University of Hong Kong campus for speeches and volunteer lectures on civil disobedience – moving across town to a sit-in on Wednesday the 24th in front of the main Hong Kong government buildings in the district of Admiralty – by the night of Monday September 29 morphed into an unprecedented occupation of four major districts in Hong Kong involving at least 80,000 people, predominantly students. Three major arteries running through Admiralty, Central, and parts of Wan Chai (a roughly 2.5km by 500 meter area) – constituting the core business and government skyscrapers in Hong Kong, and encompassing the headquarters of the 6,000-strong People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China Hong Kong garrison – in addition to the largest intersection in Causeway Bay (Hong Kong's busiest shopping neighborhood) and the main thoroughfare in Mong Kok and Jordan (Nathan Road) across the harbor in Kowloon (one of the most densely populated districts in the world), are in complete lock-down with multiple barricades and throngs of students blocking all traffic.
This stunning accomplishment that has shocked everyone (including the students themselves) follows violent police repression on Saturday and Sunday of an intensity not seen on the streets of Hong Kong since 1967, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tried to spread the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) to the then-British colony. The main organizer of the week-long boycott of classes, the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS), had planned on ending the strike and sit-in in front of the government buildings on Friday evening, but late that night some 200 or so students stormed a police line and fence to occupy a square within the government complex. The police reacted violently with batons and pepper spray, making over 70 arrests, including one of the most high profile student leaders, 17 year-old Joshua Wong, co-founder of the mostly high school student group Scholarism. As news of the violent police repression swiftly spread, masses of students and other supporters poured into the whole area, eventually blocking major roads (on Monday afternoon there were still some abandoned BMWs and public buses in the middle of the road surrounded by throngs of students).
On Saturday, the three co-founders of the group Occupy Central with Love and Peace announced the commencement of Occupy Central, moved forward from its initial start-date of Wednesday October 1 (a public holiday in China, including Hong Kong, commemorating the 65th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic). Two professors and a clergyman initiated plans in January 2013 to occupy what is now a comparatively tiny section of Central, the downtown core of Hong Kong. Some students accused the co-founders of Occupy Central of opportunism and hijacking the student-initiated mass sit-in, but others welcomed the extra support. By Monday the three co-founders moved out of the main government building area, with at least one moving to the occupation in Kowloon across the harbor – hence the epicenter of Admiralty remains almost entirely student-driven.
On Monday scores of businesses could not open due to being in the occupied zones, and over 200 public transportation lines were either cancelled or heavily diverted, the former including the iconic double-decker trams. According to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (the territory's de facto central bank), “23 banks including HSBC and Standard Chartered had closed a total of 44 branches, offices and cash machines.” Both the Hong Kong dollar and the Hang Seng stock index fell on Monday morning. Hong Kong air and noise pollution plummeted from the absence of traffic, with eerie scenes of major thoroughfares several blocks from the epicenter being virtually empty on Monday afternoon (before being filled again with students and supporters by Monday evening). The City Hall was forced to shut down for the first time since Typhoon Wanda in 1962.
Screw Us and We Multiply
In the aftermath of Sunday's violent police repression of peaceful and unarmed students (many of them teenagers) – according to the police themselves firing tear gas 87 times in nine separate areas – support has been broadening and deepening, with thousands more on the streets from the after-work crowd on Monday and Tuesday. The Confederation of Trade Unions and the Professional Teachers Union both called on its members to strike in support of the students. At least 1,000 social workers, high school and university teachers joined the strike, as well as pupils from at least 31 schools. HKFS extended the student class boycott indefinitely. The Chairperson of Swire Beverages Employees General Union, distributor of Coca Cola in Hong Kong, announced to cheering students in Admiralty that more than 200 workers joined the strike, while 100 more reduced their hours. There were also reports of some taxi drivers striking. Even certain chief executives supported the strike, with for example CEO Spencer Wong of the McCann advertising firm informing employees: “It's up to you whether you come to work of [sic] not. The company will not punish anyone who supports something more important than work.” This is a sharp turnaround from July when the Big Four global accounting firms published a joint warning against Occupy Central of impending chaos if they had their way. A number of legislators, especially from the Civic and Democratic Parties, have also expressed support, with some even being arrested on Saturday and Sunday.
But the vast majority of the initiative, leadership, and involvement remains with the students, many of them protesting for the first time. There is a constant stream of supplies pouring into the occupied zones, from water bottles to sodium chloride (first-aid against tear gas) and surgical masks to food and sleeping mats. Support and donations arrive from all walks of life and ages, from a pre-teen helping with cleanup to a 92 year-old lady chanting on the frontlines. There is no centralized chain of command, with the occupations now far beyond the control of either the leadership of the HKFS or Occupy Central with Peace and Love, with many spontaneous actions sprouting across the occupied zones (such as small groups bringing large objects from afar to construct more and increasingly elaborate barricades along the streets). Perhaps most significantly, even more students poured onto the streets after the leadership of HKFS and Occupy Central on Sunday night urged students to return home, as rumors swirled of the impending use of rubber bullets by riot police and increasing fears of a Tiananmen Square-like crack-down in which at least 2,600 students were massacred in 1989 (while many riot police brandished military-style rifles before being taken off the streets by Monday afternoon, thankfully none were used).
The core demand is for universal suffrage to decide Hong Kong's Chief Executive Officer (what is essentially its mayor), rather than the changes proposed by Beijing on August 29th that would render it impossible for any anti-CCP candidate to run for office. From Monday morning, another demand being increasingly shouted is for the current Chief Executive C.Y. Leung to step down, and initiate a new reform proposal committee.
What is clear is that the ramped up police repression on Sunday failed spectacularly, echoing a sign popular in Madison, Wisconsin in spring 2011: “Screw us and we multiply.” There was widespread outrage over the violent police tactics on unarmed, overwhelmingly peaceful and non-aggressive students, many of them simply quietly sitting around. Yet, as mentioned above, the police fired tear gas 87 times in nine separate areas, according to their own estimate. Incidentally, the stockpile and use of tear gas is banned by the 1993 UN Chemical Weapons Convention, of which China is a signatory. Apart from using tear gas against South Korean farmers during the 2005 WTO protests, the streets of Hong Kong have not seen this chemical weapon since 1967.
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