{"id":215849,"date":"2019-10-23T18:05:14","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T01:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=215849"},"modified":"2021-09-14T17:21:50","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T00:21:50","slug":"the-teens-and-young-adults-behind-hks-protest-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2019\/10\/the-teens-and-young-adults-behind-hks-protest-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"The Teens and Young Adults Behind HK’s Protest Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Youths in their teens and early twenties make up a significant proportion of the protesters in Hong Kong. Living regular lives on weekdays and donning protest gear to attend rallies on weekends has become the new routine for the city’s young protesters, many of whom are ordinary high school students and recent college graduates working their first entry-level jobs. As demonstrations continue past the 100th day mark, the South China Morning Post’s Jeffie Lam looks at the phenomenon of Hong Kong’s youth-led movement<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

At 17, Sophia is one of the tens of thousands of teenagers who make up the backbone of the movement. They give up their weekends to press on with the protests, week after week, risking tear gas, beanbag rounds, rubber bullets, sponge-tipped pellets and the metal batons of the riot police. What about the arrests of more than 2,600 of their comrades and the injuries sustained by hundreds others? Bring it on, they seem to say.<\/p>\n

University students have typically been at the forefront of social movements the world over. In Hong Kong, it has been no different \u2013 except that the undergraduates have been joined by spirited teenagers like Sophia. Secondary school students, some as young as 12, also fuel the protests with an idealism and innocence \u2013 if not naivete \u2013 that in turn draws sympathy, guilt and worry from older adults that young people could be trading their future for seemingly impossible dreams of democracy and a Hong Kong with its own distinct characteristics.<\/p>\n

[…] While there have yet to be findings suggesting hard core protesters are getting younger, political scientist Dr Samson Yuen Wai-hei, of Lingnan University, said the secondary school students\u2019 involvement in the protests was unprecedented.<\/p>\n

Almost two-fifths of the 12,231 protesters cumulatively polled in 19 protests from June to August were younger than 24 and about 11.8 per cent of them were 19 or below.\u00a0[Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The protests, which began in June over the now-suspended extradition bill<\/a>, have since evolved into a direct challenge to the city\u2019s government and calls for genuine universal suffrage, among other demands<\/a>. At This American Life, Ira Glass spoke to several Hong Kong youth who are risking arrest and injury to press on with the rallies. These young protesters, many of whom were born in 1997, the year when Hong Kong was handed back to China from the British, make up a unique generation who have taken it upon themselves to defend the democratic rights and freedoms promised in the Hong Kong Basic Law<\/strong><\/a>, a promise that was supposed to be upheld for 50 years until the one country, two systems model expires in 2047.<\/sup><\/p>\n

Ira Glass: 2047 is coming, and this is a very grand thing to say, but so many of these cursed generation kids feel like they have a special destiny. Alex preferred to speak to us through an interpreter. She’s a frontline protester, builds barricades, has been arrested.<\/p>\n

Alex [SPEAKING CHINESE]<\/p>\n

Interpreter: I think we’re actually lucky because we grew up with people who thought the same way. And we realized that when we turn 50, it’s the end of our freedoms. I’m 22 now, and I imagine that when I’m 25, that’s really half way until the bomb explodes. And so if we don’t do anything, by the time we’re 50 years old, it would be awful. I don’t want our children to have the same battle. And then when we’re 50, we’ll look back and think that we didn’t do enough. Our birthday is like a countdown to the end. And so more so than other people, I feel like my generation, we have a duty to do more.<\/p>\n

Ira Glass: Again, here’s Katherine.<\/p>\n

Katherine: If we were born earlier, probably I would become my dad and mom. And if I were born later, I would probably become those little kids speaking Mandarin better than Cantonese. So I am happy that I am born in 1997. We are in the middle. We have the chance to know what is freedom, and we are experiencing that our freedom is being taken away. And that’s why we are the group who step up first to fight for it. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With the protest movement taking a violent turn in recent weeks<\/a>, questions are being raised about the troubling reality of active youth participation in increasingly violent clashes with the police. Radicals have launched attacks on the subway system<\/a> and businesses with connections to mainland China<\/a>. As tensions escalate, some protesters have started using petrol bombs<\/a> to set roads and other objects on fire, at times as a deliberate tactic to stall the police’s advance. At the Stand News’ Humans of Hong Kong, three youths who used fire in the protests were interviewed to recount their journey of becoming \u201cfire magicians.\u201d<\/strong><\/a> Like other protesters, these individuals started out as a peaceful demonstrators but turned to violent confrontational tactics following increased police brutality<\/a>. In addition, many of them participated in the Umbrella Movement in 2014<\/a> and saw how its non-violent protest method failed to promote change from within the system<\/a>. Despite the heavy risks involved in setting public property on fire, an act punishable with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, these young protesters felt compelled to act:<\/p>\n

Heng and Chi participated in the Umbrella Movement five years ago when they were in secondary school. They witnessed the failure of the \u201cPRN\u201d protest model, and didn\u2019t feel like coming out to join the march on June 9. The first time they came out was on June 12. \u201cWhen I saw that even the peaceful rally outside Citic Tower was cleared out with tear gas, many people with no gear suffered and it almost caused a stampede,\u201d Chi said. \u201cI knew this was not the same as 2014. I decided to join every time from then on.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the start, as a \u201cPRN\u201d protester, she made up the numbers and helped to pass along supplies, fleeing when she saw tear gas. Later, she plucked up the courage and put out burning tear gas canisters \u2013 the transformation happened within one or two months. But Chi still thinks she was not doing enough. \u201cEvery time I went home to watch the news, I saw many fellows on the frontline who were either injured or arrested. I felt very useless, and I couldn\u2019t do anything to help.\u201d When someone in Telegram groups suggested using \u201cfire magic\u201d to step up the defence, she felt that it suited her somewhat. \u201cAfter all, I\u2019m a girl, I\u2019m not very tall, and I can\u2019t really fight. I\u2019ll only be a burden at the front, so why don\u2019t I pick a post that allows me to move around more flexibly?\u201d It wasn\u2019t as if she didn\u2019t struggle to make this decision, but it didn\u2019t take her long. \u201cPerhaps, long ago, I already thought that the \u2018PRN\u2019 model can\u2019t achieve anything. Yet I just hadn\u2019t put thought to action, but my mind was ready. The only thing I considered at the time was, was I capable of doing this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Chi and her teammates first carried \u201cfire magic\u201d to the frontline in late August, which makes them a relatively early batch of \u201cfire magicians\u201d. Fearful of slipping up at her first try, she didn\u2019t throw it at the most urgent moment. She launched the bottle at the front of the police\u2019s cordon, when the two sides were facing off and a barrage of tear gas canisters were fired at the frontliners. At once, the glass broke, and the fire was started with success. \u201cI thought I\u2019d be really afraid. I thought I would be too scared to throw it. But when the moment came, then, I just felt like, I finally\u2026I suppose we can call this a revolution now? I finally saw that in this revolution, I existed for a purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stepping into mid-September, having used it for four to five times, Chi felt more confident in grasping the best timing and angle for hurling the bombs. She usually positions herself between the second and the fourth row on the flanks. The use of fire serves as an obstacle to buy time for the frontline protesters to retreat. \u201cOn October 1, a magician in Tuen Mun used fire really beautifully. At the time the riot police were charging forward to make arrests, someone threw a bomb from a distance, the fire spread very fast. The whole column of riot police and the tactical unit were stopped, and all our fellows there could withdraw and escape. That\u2019s the ideal thing we hope to achieve every time when we use fire.\u201d\u00a0[Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With young protesters making personal sacrifices and risking it all for their ideals, many have begun drafting farewell letters and carrying them in their backpacks<\/strong><\/a> in case they don’t make it home from the protests. From The New York Times:
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