Apart from a couple of scuffles at Mong Kok, Occupy has continued peacefully. The demonstrators have defied a court injunction making their occupying the roads illegal. The scuffles took place when civilians tried to clear the roads. The police and the authorities and their supporters have from time admonished the protesters to abide by the rule of law, declaring that their actions will do untold damage to Hong Kong. Other commentators have pointed out that so far Occupy appears to have little effect on Hong Kong position as a hub of international trade, banking and commerce. But it is true that local small shopkeepers , taxi and lorry drivers are losing income which they can ill afford to lose.
According to one poll the Association of Students Scholasticism are more popular than any of the political parties. The problem is, as many have pointed out, they do not seem to have an exit strategy. They wrote a letter asking a former chief executive to help them meet the Chinese president. He refused, saying there was no point in it. Occupy is now in its sixth week and it seems that the government of Hong Kong and Beijing are prepared to sit it out till the student are worn out.
Student leader Joshua Wong Chi-fung was recorded in The New York Times as saying,” I would like to remind all the members of the ruling class in Hong Kong today that they are stealing our future. But the day will come when we decide over your future. No matter what happens to the protest movement one day we will demand the democracy that belongs to us, for time is on our side!”
In the China Morning Post of the 5th of November there was an interview with one of the leaders of the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989, Zhou Fengsuo. For 25 years he was on Beijing’s most wanted list. He now lives in the USA. After arriving in Hong Kong, he went to Admiralty, where he spent the night with the students. Weeping at the memory of what happened all those years ago, he was impressed by what he saw, contrasting the maturity of the Hong Kong protesters with the naïvity of his own generation. However, he thought it would strengthen the cause of Occupy if they had thought out how to end it with dignity.
One academic from Singapore has commented that both his own city and Hong Kong suffer from extreme inequality and badly needed more democracy as the only way to reduce this. The same could be said of most of the world.
According to one poll the Association of Students Scholasticism are more popular than any of the political parties. The problem is, as many have pointed out, they do not seem to have an exit strategy. They wrote a letter asking a former chief executive to help them meet the Chinese president. He refused, saying there was no point in it. Occupy is now in its sixth week and it seems that the government of Hong Kong and Beijing are prepared to sit it out till the student are worn out.
Student leader Joshua Wong Chi-fung was recorded in The New York Times as saying,” I would like to remind all the members of the ruling class in Hong Kong today that they are stealing our future. But the day will come when we decide over your future. No matter what happens to the protest movement one day we will demand the democracy that belongs to us, for time is on our side!”
In the China Morning Post of the 5th of November there was an interview with one of the leaders of the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989, Zhou Fengsuo. For 25 years he was on Beijing’s most wanted list. He now lives in the USA. After arriving in Hong Kong, he went to Admiralty, where he spent the night with the students. Weeping at the memory of what happened all those years ago, he was impressed by what he saw, contrasting the maturity of the Hong Kong protesters with the naïvity of his own generation. However, he thought it would strengthen the cause of Occupy if they had thought out how to end it with dignity.
One academic from Singapore has commented that both his own city and Hong Kong suffer from extreme inequality and badly needed more democracy as the only way to reduce this. The same could be said of most of the world.