What are they fighting for?
1. The right to vote for their own governing officials
2. The right to nominate candidates for election
When the Chinese government took over, they promised that Hong Kong would be a special territory. A city with 2 systems. The cause of these protests started when the Chinese government tried to take back their words. They’re still promising the people the right to vote but there are conditions. The candidates that will be nominated are those that have the PRC’s backing. The average person or politician would be unable to participate. Only the elite of Hong Kong are given this right to nominate the candidates. These elites, all or in part, usually claim they support the PRC. This effectively guarantees that anyone voted into office will be representative of the PRC and not the Hong Kong people. The Hong Kong people are fighting back for this very reason. They want a say in their governing body that will ensure their basic freedoms. That’s the really basic version of what’s happening in Hong Kong right now.
I also want to talk about the protests right now but I think the media has talked enough about those already. What they report are the confrontations between the Hong Kong people and the police. I want to stress though that the Hong Kong people are trying to keep these protests as civil as possible. They don’t intend to hurt anyone nor do they want to cause an uprising. They just want to share their voice and be heard. I witnessed this when I joined the protest in admiralty. The people were calm and some even brought things to occupy their time with. Students were passing out water, snacks, first aid and other things protestors might need. Other students would be collecting garbage from the streets or directing pedestrian to less crowded streets. They would carry metal fences to block off traffic but do this without bothering pedestrians. Their operations were efficient, clean and civil. For a protest of this size, no stores were broken into, no cars were burned and no vandalism was caused. Even though the police are in a difficult position, they did have a choice in using violence against the people. Though they may not be allowed to take the side of or even protect the citizens, they could have chosen not to use the pepper spray, tear gas, nor attack the people. The police should have known better and acted differently. These confrontations drew my attention to the cause and really pushed me to learn more about what they were fighting for. Even though personally I might not be able to do much, I still want to do as much as I can to spread knowledge of this movement for Hong Kong’s right to universal suffrage.