150,000 turnout in Hong Kong for 20th anniversary of "6/4" massacre
Thursday, 4 June 2009.
Vincent Kolo, chinaworker.info
20 years after the terrible massacre of protesting youth and workers in Beijing on June 4 1989, tens of thousands of Hong Kong people flooded Victoria Park for this year's candle-lit vigil to remember the fallen. "We will never forget June 4," the crowd chanted. The park, filled to overflowing, was a magnificent sight as tens of thousands of candles shimmered in the hot night. And a roar of approval went up when the organisers announced that the turnout had broken all records - with an estimated 150,000 people. This was three times larger than the mobilisation last year.
The turnout was very siginificant, not just showing the depth of feeling in Hong Kong over "6/4" and the crushing of demands for democratic rights in mainland China, but also as evidence of a radicalisation that is sweeping through Hong Kong society as the economic crisis bites and unemployment has almost doubled in a year. Perhaps even more significantly, the monster turnout in Hong Kong will have a ripple effect across China, despite the best efforts of the misnamed 'communist' regime to smother all discussion and debate about the events of 1989.
The large turnout of young people lays to rest the idea, much discussed in recent weeks, that the youth of Hong Kong are apathetic or uninterested in the struggles of the past. As the BBC's veteran correspondent John Simpson summed up the mood this night in Hong Kong: "the scene in Hong Kong seems very reminiscent of Tiananmen Square itself 20 years ago, with the same sort of idealism, the same sort of youthful feeling."
All those opposing the Chinese regime's anti-democratic and repressive practises, which have gone into overdrive in the period before this "6/4" anniversary, will draw enormous encouragement and hope from the mobilisation in Hong Kong. This is a deafening answer to the Chinese dictatorship's attempts to blot out the memory of the Tiananmen movement, which at its height numbered millions and developed into a revolutionary movement for political and social change. It is also a huge embarrassment, to say the least, for Chief Executive Donald Tsang, Beijing's local satrap, whose outrageous statement two weeks ago in attempting to belittle the 1989 massacre has caused a popular backlash. The huge turnout in Victoria Park was in that sense also a vote of no confidence by the people of Hong Kong in Tsang and his administration.
Chinaworker.info intends to carry a full report from the Hong Kong vigil, including a report on the work and intervention of supporters of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) at the vigil. The political shockwaves from this event will undoubtedly have a big effect not just in Hong Kong, but also on developments in mainland China in the coming months.
Post comment
You must be logged in to post comments
