RIOTERS IN HONG KONG WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE US

Andre Vltchek

CHINA DAILY HONK KONG—

A few days ago, I received a letter from a person in Hong Kong. Not from a fan of my writing, on the contrary, or should I put it more precise: “from a person who is standing clearly at the other side of the barricade”.

She tried to explain why some people in Hong Kong are “losing trust in the government”, and why “Hong Kong does not want to be like Mainland China, where internet is censored and some topics are not allowed to be discussed.”

Generally, she addressed things which are commonly tackled by those who are running around the streets, clad in ninja-style outfits, brutalizing Hong Kong for already several months. But at least, she wanted to talk, to explain, in a polite way. Although, the end of her email was banal and, should I say, “bizarre”:

“Hong Kong people are losing hope and trust towards the government, people are afraid of the Chinese government of all the things that they have done and been doing. And some try to get foreign countries’ attention, not as a friend, not because Hong Kong people admire them, but because the Chinese government see them as the enemy, and the involvement of foreign countries, as well as the call of HK independence, can piss them off.”

This email arrived in the same time when the entire world rose, in outrage, against the cold-blooded murder of an African-American person, Mr. George Floyd.

Tens of thousands were marching in Tokyo and Buenos Aires, in London and Paris. In the West, protesters clashed with the riot police, and many people were badly injured, while thousands were arrested. Water cannons were used, streets got barricaded.

I have been writing on the topic constantly, from the start, also giving interviews to various media outlets, all over the world. And I kept repeating that what occurred to Mr. Floyd, has been happening to people in countless countries, ever to the countries themselves, in all corners of our world: Western neo-colonialist powers have been kneeling on their neck, killing them, cutting their flow of oxygen. In many poor nations, people are kept in unimaginable misery, or being killed so the West can get raw materials and labor almost for free. I worked in some of the toughest, most desperate parts of the world, making films, writing books and reporting. Therefore I know.

A young woman who wrote to me an email from Hong Kong never mentioned any of these horrors, committed by the United States, Canada, U.K. and others. Most likely, she knew nothing about them. Most definitely, she never went out of her way to find out what the West is doing to her fellow human beings. For her, that “censored internet” or inability to discuss certain topics “openly” has been the highest “crime” she could imagine. Or that is how she was told to think.

That is how most of people around her like are conditioned to think.

Years ago, I spoke to “Occupy Central” participants, and to the recent partakers in the riots of 2019 and 2020: they knew absolutely nothing about the barbarities committed by the NATO countries, all over the world.

Now imagine China; a country with distinct, successful socialist model. Country which is not attacking, not occupying anybody. Extremely peaceful country which is trying to improve life of all of its citizens, even of the inhabitants of poor countries on all continents.

China is being attacked, provoked, insulted, on all fronts. Precisely by the West, which does not want to lose its grip on global power. China is being pushed towards a military conflict.

Social media, mass media, all sorts of propaganda are unleashed against Beijing. Lies about China’s revolutionary past are fabricated and disseminated, lies about the Tiananmen Square “events”; in fact, any types of lies that could hurt, destabilize or at least confuse this great and brave nation.

What is China supposed to do? Just receive punches? Just tolerate fabrications?

No! China is obliged to defend itself and its people. It cannot just let all that destructive propaganda, openly geared at ruining the state, enter the airways and social media. In the past, China let down its guards, and it let to Period of Humiliation, when the West occupied, divided and ransacked the nation.

And Beijing does precisely that - it is identifying and stopping fake news and the extremist, hostile, vile ideological infiltration and attacks. And it does it in a ‘mild way’, because China’s ‘censorship’ is nowhere as advanced and brutal as that in the West. This, the rioters, also refuse to acknowledge!

*

Individuals in Hong Kong who are disrupting city’s life while insulting their motherland, are stuck in their little world, of selfish preoccupations, and self-interests. Again, they were conditioned to feel and think this way.

They are totally lacking knowledge; the global context.

The entire world is waking up, condemning barbaric killing of Mr. George Floyd by a group of deranged racist cops in Minneapolis. People on all continents are symbolically connecting that murder to the countless horrible events committed by the Western imperialism during more than 500 years. But many young kids in Hong Kong, including the one who wrote to me an email, are mainly preoccupied with their social media; their little fragmented universes of mobile phone, tablets and “me-me-me spaces”.

As world is boiling, the rioters look increasingly ridiculous and irrelevant.

Global priority now is to safe billion of human beings who cannot breathe under the booth of the Western imperialism. But it appears that the Hong Kong rioters, who are conditioned to fight against their own country over few petty privileges, will never understand what is really happening in Minneapolis, and in fact, all over the world!

*

[First published by China Daily Hong Kong]