In the many years I had come to the port city, I had never seen it like this. Hong Kong was in a state of siege. Arriving on August 5, the day of the General Strike, I was greeted by shuttered shops in Causeway Bay. It wasn’t even 5PM and this, one of the major metro shopping venues in a city known for its commercial appeal and late nights, wore a look of desolation. At 6PM, the waitress at the café I was at apologetically interrupted me to say that they’d be closing shortly to allow their employees to get home should trouble arise. There less for the coffee than the chance to check email and the news over the free Wi-Fi, I saw reports on several websites of companies and shops that had either not opened that day or, like the café, had sent their staff home early lest transportation be disrupted. As I walked back to my lodging, I saw clutches of black-clad young men and women by Times Square, all
I had never seen Hong
Kong like this.
The impetus for the
protests had been the introduction, earlier this year, of a bill by Carrie Lam,
Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, that would extradite criminal suspects to be tried
in China. In September, Lam gave in to one of the demands of the protestors,
which was the withdrawal
of the bill. But the damage had already been done,
the protest movement having grown in strength in its demand for democratic
reforms. In 2014, as well, demands for democracy had been made during the Umbrella
Revolution, brollies again serving as symbols of protest, a
method of self-defense, and as tools of anti-surveillance. The movement was
short-lived; this time, the umbrellas are yet to be put away as the protestors
continue to question
the relationship between Hong Kong and China, a matter
that was never fully resolved at the end of British colonialism in the region.
Hong Kong was one of the
first foreign cities I had traveled to on my own as an adult. I was 21 and
journeying between California and my family in Goa on my first trip to see them
after having immigrated to the United States. A personally significant trip, my
transit stop in Hong Kong will always hold a special place in my memory for
this coming of age journey. But it was part of a larger moment in history. It
was 1995, and in just over a year Hong Kong was to transition
between the United Kingdom, which had held it for 99 years, and China. The next
time I was to travel to Hong Kong on a similar transit stop, I had the
opportunity to visit Macau. It was 1999, the year that Portugal’s lease
on the island would terminate, causing Macau to also become
part of China. The handover would close out a half-millennium of Portuguese
colonialism in Asia, a sweep that extended to my own homeland. Goa, of the Estado
da Índia, was held by the Portuguese between 1510 and 1961.
I hadn’t been the first
person in my family to visit these last vestiges of European empires in Asian
lands, but despite our limited travels between these regions and our own, the
influence of the islands’ cultures had long been a part of my family’s life. On
his own visit to Hong Kong and Macau a few years ahead of me, my father had taken
photographs of blue and white porcelain which were reminiscent of the bits of
crockery that still remain in my grandparents’ home as in other Goan households.
The
Lusophone world had connected various parts of Asia, such
as Goa, Timor, and Macau, though some other intra-Asian connections even
predated the arrival of the Portuguese in any of these places. 
On my first trips to Hong
Kong and Macau, I was given the phone numbers of Goan friends of the family in
either place. In the years to come, I would learn of iconic figures whose
familial histories bore evidence of the cultural and sanguinal ties between
these lands, among them the recently deceased China
Machado. Born in 1929, Machado was one of the first models of
color to achieve international fame, her lineage jointly Chinese, Goan, and
Portuguese.
Given these connections, for
me Hong Kong and Macau have always seemed akin to Goa in being lands whose
cultures developed from various strands of political, social, and cultural
movements and machinations. Small places with complexly interwoven strands of
diverse cultures, these enclaves imbibed and transmuted the influences that
arrived from afar, localizing and making them their own. This is not to suggest
that all was well in these colonial outposts. Political resistance cropped up
at many points in the histories of these lands. But it is precisely these
nuances of local culture and history, confrontations included, that get lost in
how the contemporary moment recounts the pasts of these territories, especially
in the face of nationalism.
Unlike Hong Kong and
Macau, the end of European rule in Goa didn’t come about as the result of an
agreement. A two-day war concluded on December 19, 1961, in which the Indian
army marched into Goa and easily defeated the meagre Portuguese military forces
there. While there had been various permutations of Goan political thought on
the matter of colonialism, including pro-and anti-Portuguese and Indian
factions, ultimately Goans were not given a choice in the matter of the
governance of their own land. The Indian annexation of Goa curtailed its
people’s self-emancipatory efforts and made of the formerly Portuguese Indian
territory a colony of a postcolony. The irony is palpable given that it had
only been in 1947 that India had ousted its own British colonizers through
self-determination.
As the week of my visit
this August wore on in Hong Kong, things remained tense even when there were no
public moments of action in the streets. Between the leftover signs in train
subways from previous protests and the groupings of activists during a mid-week
strike, it became clear that the movement wasn’t without its divisions. Despite
the singularity of purpose of the protests, which was to challenge China’s hold
on the island, and the ubiquitous use of black apparel, masks, and umbrellas
that were the uniform adopted by the protestors, there were such peculiarities
as the presence of American
flags. This symbolic equivalence between the United States
and democracy gives one pause, especially in light of the current revelations
surrounding President Trump’s phone
call
to the Ukraine. And then there have been attacks
against protestors, demonstrating that not everyone on the
island is necessarily of the same mind despite the steadfastness of the
movement.
As I watched history
unfold in Hong Kong, I had to wonder if I was being given a glimpse into what
things might have been like when Goans worked out their own questions about
colonialism in the first half of the twentieth century, even when there were
groups at odds with one another. I was in awe of the sheer feat of organization
the youth on Hong Kong’s streets had pulled off in amassing the presence of so
many in different parts of the city. In their day, how had Goans spread word
about secret meetings as well as public actions? Questions such as these are
left generally unanswered in textbooks of history read by students in Goa
today, the focus of the subject being the inculcation of a monolithic national
heritage, and one with a right-wing
bent.
On August 12, which was
to be my final day in the city, a massive protest was put into place, its execution
an act of political genius. Protestors
had taken over the airport to draw international attention to
goings-on in Hong Kong. When I attempted to catch the express train out of Hong
Kong Station, black-clad protestors urged me and other travelers to turn back,
their concern genuine. As one of them explained to me, she didn’t want me to
have any trouble at the airport. I was rather moved, thinking that this young
woman could be no older than any one of my college students – the same age I
was when I first came to this city.
I had tried calling my carrier,
but the lines were tied up. The airline’s website still showed that my
I decamped from the
airport and made my way to a friend’s place. It wouldn’t be till the next day
before I heard from the airline about new travel arrangements and, once again,
made my way back to the airport. Again, protestors were everywhere and I
thought I might for a second day be unable to leave for Goa. As with the first
trip I had made to Hong Kong, I was once more traveling between two former
European colonies which, at different points in their histories, had shared the
fate of their political destinies being charted by people not of their own
lands. Amidst the chaos, I made it out of Hong Kong and learned upon touching
down that the flights after mine had been grounded.
Over the past three decades, I have now been
in Hong Kong at three important junctures in its contemporary history: pre- and
post-handover and, now, during what can only be called a new revolution. That the
city’s youth are at the forefront of this moment is a fact
that needs underscoring. There are parallels to be seen here with other
instances of political action in history where young people have led the charge,
including the Civil
Rights era of the 1950s and 60s in the United States. But it
isn’t just the past from which one may draw examples of youth leadership, what
with the attention young
leaders have been able to bring to that most pressing concern
of our time: climate change.
Even so, the youth-led
revolution in Hong Kong is revelatory not only for what it has made known to
the world about the desire for political change in that territory. As I have
been musing, it also harkens back to Goa’s struggles with coloniality. If this
moment in Hong Kong is an aperture through which to see the past, what Hong
Kong also may lead us to see is that there are other places in the world where
political action is ongoing but not as visible.
In July this year, I
visited Hebron in Palestine and learned of the work of a non-violent group
called Youth Against
Settlements who have been struggling against the
incursions of Israeli settlements in their hometown. Closer to Goa, on August 5
– the day I arrived in Hong Kong – India abrogated
the special status of the disputed region of Kashmir,
thereby removing any veneer of democracy the country might have heretofore
displayed in its dealings with the region. As in Palestine, Kashmiri activists
continue to rail against the violation of their rights, even as the international
community looks the other way. Akin to these other parts of the world, what we
see in Hong Kong are the issues that have lingered on from the colonial past
and the rise of postcolonial nationalism. What we are also bearing witness to
is a period of uncertainty for Hong Kong’s future. Between history and what is
to come, Hong Kong harbors in this current moment a profound time of change. In
this demonstration of the power of protest, Hong Kongers validate the ability
of minorities to speak out in determining the destinies of their own land and,
in so doing, remind us that similar struggles exist elsewhere.
To read the published version, visit The Good Men Project.
