I am so pleased that my friends on the show Worldview on WBEZ 91.5 FM Chicago had me back on to discuss the Hong Kong protests and the recent mass arrests there. The host Jerome McDonnell wanted to discuss a number of issues with me, including the significance of the date August 31 to the 2014 Umbrella Movement, the (non)ideological stances of the protesters and the issues of (non)representation in a leaderless movement, the ramifications of ‘one country, two systems’ for the question of rule of law, and the future of the protests. My reflection on working through each of these themes is that it was not unlike giving an undergraduate lecture. There were quite a few technical terms that I found myself having to define as I was speaking, including ‘black hand’ and ‘white terror.’
As usual, my interpretations represent no one except for me, and in the context of a rapidly developing story, that ‘me’ is but a snapshot in time. The tentative arguments I make are, if you will, the work of a scholarly observer, and as I’ve clarified numerous times in the past, I have never claimed to be a ‘Hong Kong person.’ I also note that analytical commentary on protests is not the same as participating in them, and my comments are descriptive, not prescriptive. Just as I did as the lead editor of Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement (Palgrave, 2016), my aim is to offer analysis based on what we know to be facts, not invented opinions. Needless to say, scholars like me also have minds of our own, so as is always the case, our views do not represent anyone except for ourselves. This understanding is the basis for the academic freedom that enables the dialogue and conversation that helps us to understand the world, instead of imposing on it models, theories, and conjectures that lead more to confusion than clarity. It also means that all errors of judgment are strictly my own and that acknowledging them is how we come together to grow in knowledge.
My previous interviews on Worldview on Hong Kong can be found on their site as well. These include reflections on the third anniversary of the Umbrella Movement in 2017, the trial of the Occupy 9, the legacy of Tiananmen on its thirtieth anniversary, the anti-extradition amendment bill demonstrations in the context of Hong Kong as a city of protests, and the suspension of that bill, with some comments in the last one that date it to what we knew in the news then, as opposed to what we are learning now from Reuters. As always, I am thankful to my friends on Worldview for covering international news with such a critical eye and attentiveness to local specificities, and with everyone else who has followed their own trials and tribulations in the world of public radio, I sincerely hope that their show can be saved.
Justin K.H. Tse 