“Hong Kong allows our people to hold the annual June 4 candlelight vigils. They have a right to express their views, to remember whatever happened 30 years ago”
Sometimes a history, an event, is better understood if we begin with the here and the now, and then "rewind" space/time, to use a cliché borrowed from the filmic and the mechanical, to see how we arrived at this place and this moment.
The vigil in Hong Kong, reported in this Guardian article, took place on 4th June 2019 in Victoria Park. Queen Victoria's name is used for many places across the world-wide territories that were once part of the British Empire, and Hong Kong is no exception.
Sometimes a history, an event, is better understood if we begin with the here and the now, and then "rewind" space/time, to use a cliché borrowed from the filmic and the mechanical, to see how we arrived at this place and this moment.
The vigil in Hong Kong, reported in this Guardian article, took place on 4th June 2019 in Victoria Park. Queen Victoria's name is used for many places across the world-wide territories that were once part of the British Empire, and Hong Kong is no exception.
"More than 100,000 people have gathered in Hong Kong for a candlelight vigil to mark the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre."
Come and See
An example of "rewinding" back through time in the art of cinema can be found in the last scene of the Soviet Russian film Come and See by Elem Klimov.
The film's original title was "Kill Hitler". The film focuses upon the Nazi German occupation of Belarus, and primarily upon the events witnessed by a young Belarusian partisan teenager named Flyora, who, against his parents' wishes, joins the Belarusian resistance movement, and thereafter depicts the Nazi atrocities and human suffering inflicted upon the populace.
An example of "rewinding" back through time in the art of cinema can be found in the last scene of the Soviet Russian film Come and See by Elem Klimov.
The film's original title was "Kill Hitler". The film focuses upon the Nazi German occupation of Belarus, and primarily upon the events witnessed by a young Belarusian partisan teenager named Flyora, who, against his parents' wishes, joins the Belarusian resistance movement, and thereafter depicts the Nazi atrocities and human suffering inflicted upon the populace.
"Come and See was shot only on Belarusian soil. The events with the people, the peasants, actually happened as shown in the film. The film doesn't have any professional actors. Even the language spoken in the film is Belarusian. What was important was that all the events depicted in the film really did happen in Belarus."
Holloway, Ron (1986). "Interview with Elem Klimov". Kinema.
The original Belarusian title of the film derives from Chapter 6 of The Apocalypse of John, where in the first, third, fifth, and seventh verse is written "ідзі і глядзі" (English: "Come and see", Greek: Ἐρχου καὶ ἴδε, Erchou kai ide) as an invitation to look upon the destruction caused by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Chapter 6, verses 7–8 have been cited as being particularly relevant to the film:
The original Belarusian title of the film derives from Chapter 6 of The Apocalypse of John, where in the first, third, fifth, and seventh verse is written "ідзі і глядзі" (English: "Come and see", Greek: Ἐρχου καὶ ἴδε, Erchou kai ide) as an invitation to look upon the destruction caused by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Chapter 6, verses 7–8 have been cited as being particularly relevant to the film:
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see! And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
The last scenes of the film show the main protagonist, the boy Flyora, who, after witnessing horrors beyond words, wanders out of a scorched Belarusian village in the direction of the Germans who have commited atrocity after atrocity. He then discovers that these Germans have been ambushed by the partisans. Returning to the village he finds that his fellow partisans have captured eleven of the Germans and their Ukrainian collaborators, including their commander.
While some of the captured men plead for their lives and deflect blame. Most of the collaborators are then forced to douse the Germans with petrol but the disgusted group shoots them all before they can be set on fire.
As the partisans leave, Flyora notices a framed portrait of Adolf Hitler in a puddle and proceeds to shoot it numerous times. As he does so, a montage of clips from Hitler's life play in reverse, but when Hitler is shown as a baby on his mother's lap, Flyora stops shooting and cries.
While some of the captured men plead for their lives and deflect blame. Most of the collaborators are then forced to douse the Germans with petrol but the disgusted group shoots them all before they can be set on fire.
As the partisans leave, Flyora notices a framed portrait of Adolf Hitler in a puddle and proceeds to shoot it numerous times. As he does so, a montage of clips from Hitler's life play in reverse, but when Hitler is shown as a baby on his mother's lap, Flyora stops shooting and cries.
The event is the biggest and traditionally the only major commemoration of the incident allowed in China. Taiwan also marked the massacre with a vigil and exhibition on “Tank man” – the man photographed standing in front of tanks on 5 June 1989.
On the mainland, all talk of the Chinese army’s killing of thousands of peaceful student protesters is forbidden. But Hong Kong has had a level of independence under the “one country, two systems” rule enacted after Britain relinquished control to China in 1997.
Public spaces in the shadow of EmpireOn Tuesday evening, crowds filled the six football pitches of Victoria Park, suggesting the number of attendees could break the 2012 record of 180,000.
The streets leading to the park were lined with pro-democracy stalls and demonstrators handing out posters and flyers.
Victoria Park
The park includes tennis courts, a swimming pool, a bowling green and other sports facilities such as the central lawn, basketball courts, football pitches and multiple children's areas and playgrounds.
Only 5.4% of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong do not show any signs of exploitation or forced labor, revealed a study by local non-profit human rights organization Justice Centre Hong Kong on Tuesday.
Hong Kong has one of the highest ratios of domestic workers in the world, with more than 336,000 among the 7.2 million in the city, comprising 10% of the total working population.
The study surveyed over 1,000 domestic workers, almost all either from the Philippines (51%) or Indonesia (46%).
“Migrant domestic workers are uniquely vulnerable to forced labor because the nature of their occupation can blur work-life boundaries and isolate them behind closed doors,” the study states. “They are often overworked and undervalued.”
According to government statistics, the city's average working hours is 40 to 50 hours a week. Meanwhile, the study shows that domestic workers work on average 71.4 hours a week (11.9 hours a day, six days a week), mostly due to the live-in rule, which requires migrant domestic workers to live with their employers, blurring work and rest boundaries.
Over a third of domestic workers still work before or after they leave for their one rest day, not getting the full 24 hours of rest mandated under Hong Kong employment law.
There is a statue of Queen Victoria, seated, at the main entrance of the park on Causeway Road. This statue was originally located in Statue Square.
The statue of the Queen should have been made not in bronze but in marble, an error that was not discovered until the bronze statue was almost completed. It was officially unveiled at the centre of the square on 28 May 1896, the day officially appointed for the celebration of the 77th birthday of the Queen
The fact that this statue to Victoria was cast in bronze led to its removal from its location in Statue Square by the Japanese Empire during its occupation of Hong Kong, to be melted down, along with other statues from the square. After the war the statues were brought back to Hong Kong, and in 1952 Queen Victoria's statue was restored and placed in Victoria Park.
So, every Sunday, in the shadow of the statue Queen Victoria, and the history of British rule, Indonesian domestic workers gather together and create a shared social fabric on their day of rest.
In contemporary Hong Kong, along with many places worldwide, there is a freedom to gather together, and also to exploit vulnerable migrants, alongside the precious freedom to demonstrate and mark a moment in history.
“The whole of China is silenced, and we have a window, or a loudspeaker for that in Hong Kong, to tell the world what happened.”
Lee was a young labour organiser in 1989, sent to the student protests in Tiananmen Square with funds activists had raised in Hong Kong.
“I heard the gunshots and saw the tanks rolling in, the rickshaws taking injured people,” he said. “It went from high hope to despair for me.”
Lee was detained and forced to apologise before being allowed to return to Hong Kong, where he now runs the June 4th Museum. He says many visitors are mainlanders, and the museum has been targeted by harassment and vandalism.
“When I came back from Beijing 20 years ago, people told me to make sure you tell the world the truth,” he said.
As night fell in Hong Kong, thousands of candles flickered. People cried as the crowd joined in songs, before chanting slogans and the date of the incident. Footage of the massacre was broadcast on a giant screen and some turned away as the recorded sound of Chinese guns rang out. The crowd broke its silence to yell at an image of the then Chinese leader, Li Peng.
A proposed Hong Kong bill to allow the transfer of fugitives to mainland China, which many fear will be the end of Hong Kong as a safe haven, was a constant theme at the vigil.Will this freedom to demonstrate in a public place, to fight for justice and liberty, to express a view, be taken away? This is a real possibility!
There are widespread fears the new law could be used to target political dissidents and attending the vigil may soon become too dangerous.
Claudia Mo, a pro-democracy legislator, said: “It may sound exaggerated to outsiders, but if you look at China and how it practises its rule of law, if there is such a thing, it’s anything goes.”
