2014-11-03
Zhou Fengsuo (L) visits the June 4th Museum in Hong Kong’s Tsimshatsui district, Nov. 3, 2014.
RFA
Twenty-five years after he played a leading role in the 1989 pro-democracy protests on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, exiled activist Zhou Fengsuo has joined another student-led mass movement—in Hong Kong.
Zhou camped out overnight alongside hundreds of others occupying a major highway close to government headquarters in Hong Kong’s Admiralty district after arriving in the semiautonomous Chinese city on Sunday.
His arrival at the site prompted strong emotions for Zhou and Occupy Central protesters alike, many of whom weren’t yet born during the 1989 mass occupation of Tiananmen Square.
But the bloodshed that followed when then supreme leader Deng Xiaoping sent People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers in with machine-guns and tanks to regain control of the capital has been commemorated by huge crowds in Hong Kong every year since it happened.
Hong Kong, which has maintained considerable freedom of speech and expression since its 1997 handover to Chinese rule, remains the only city under Beijing’s rule where public mourning of those who died in the crackdown is permitted.
Earlier this year, pro-democracy campaigners in Hong Kong set up a small, privately run museum dedicated to the movement and the massacre of June 4, 1989.
Return of support
On Monday, Zhou paid a visit to the museum in the bustling shopping district of Tsimshatsui, telling RFA that he wanted to return Hong Kong’s long-running support for his generation’s bid for more democracy.
“The biggest support we had on the Square in 1989 was from Hong Kong, and I have always wanted to help Hong Kong people fight for democracy and universal suffrage,” Zhou said. “So I am here to show my support.”
He said the police use of tear gas and pepper spray on unarmed protesters wielding only umbrellas—giving the “Umbrella Movement” its name—had also motivated him to travel from his home in the United States.
“To see the Hong Kong police firing tear gas and threatening them with [tear-gas] guns, made me think of 1989,” Zhou said. “I felt that now was the time to come and stand alongside them.”
Occupy protesters are still encamped on three main sites in the former British colony, but numbers have dwindled from a peak of hundreds of thousands after tear gas was deployed on Sept. 28, and especially since talks between protesters and the government reached an apparent stalemate last month.
Anti-Occupy protesters say they are gaining wider support among the general public, who have said they wish to see a return to business as usual.
Meanwhile, protesters face the possibility of forced eviction from their campsites, should police move to clear barricades from the highway following civil injunctions brought by the transportation industry.
‘Victory already won’
Zhou said he believes Occupy protesters have already won a huge victory, however.
“This is a very hard road to travel,” Zhou said. “Of course it is. And I think it’ll take a lot more time. But the future is in their hands.”
