A report from the League member in Hong Kong on the demonstration.
It was big: reports vary from 40,000 to 250,000; I think 100,000 minimum. We left Victoria Park with the start of the demonstration at 3:00pm, and by mobile phone accounts people were still leaving the park at 5:30. There wasn’t enough room at the final assembly point for the whole of the march to squeeze in.
People attending were very diverse – many old people (I am one of them; 50 is a respectable old age here) and families. The democracy movement specifically targeted seniors with the slogan that they want to be able to elect the Chief Executive before they die! The demands are for universal suffrage of the chief executive and electoral reform. Currently, the only elections are for district councils with minimal powers and for half of the legislative council (Legco). The chief executive and part of the Legco are appointed by the People’s Assembly in China. The rest of Legco is made up of interest groups: chambers of commerce, professional bodies, etc.
Many political strands were there. Mostly bourgeois democratic organisations and “professionals”; the Law Society, the Teachers Union, and the chief of the last of the colonial service led the march. Falungon, a persecuted religious sect, was there in force, as were anti-communist, pro-Taiwanese nationalists (the KMT just won the election in Taiwan) and the Catholic church – the Bishop of Hong Kong spoke.
There were also many grassroots organisations. The most interesting was a group calling themselves “Battle Bus”. This is a campaign group that grow out of a community council house anti-privatisation campaign. Many grannies were there, including one who took the government to court last week over the privatisation of public areas (shopping centres, recreation areas, car parks which used to belong to the district council housing corporation) around her council block. This group was the only one with an explicitly anticapitalist, anti-globalisation stance.
There was another group, which came out of the anti-Article 23 (constitutional reform) campaign, and which forced the last chief executive to resign last year with two demonstrations of half a million people. Given the population of Hong Kong is about six million, half a million strong demos are very big!
As for the Trotskyist left, there is a group loosely attached to the 4th International – called May 4th group. They have a Legco member who is nicknamed “long hair”. He is very much a one man band, regularly performing stunts in the Legco meetings, and getting arrested often. He is very popular with the media here, because of his antics and his trademark long hair. He was mobbed as a celebrity on the demonstration.
It is unclear from what he says that he stands for socialism. He reminds me of Ozzy Osbourne! He does have a manifesto, which includes human rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights and enviromental issues, etc. A very minimum programme indeed! The group does not identify themselves openly as Trotskyist, and carry out entry tactics into other groups. But, by all accounts, everyone know them as “the Trots”.
Policing was very relaxed, but we are an orderly type of people. No one even walks on the grass! One interesting organisational arrangement – all groups have stalls with PA systems along the route of the march previously arranged with the march organisers and when their contingent goes pass, there is great jubilation, shouting and speechifying. All of which delays the demo no end! It took us 4 hours to walk 2 miles.
Looking forward to the WTO, which will of course be smaller.