To: Detroit/Seattle
Workers' Voice mailing list
September 10, 2019
RE: Mary Scully defends Hong Kong protests
By Joseph Green, Detroit Workers' Voice
The democratic movement is now in its 14th week. It has persisted despite over 1,000 arrests, the brutality of the police, the firings of movement supporters among workers at Cathay Pacific airline, which is the official flag carrier of Hong Kong, and the certainty that the Chinese authorities are keeping track of whose demonstrating. It has continued and expanded despite differences in the movement over the aims of the movement and how to protest. It has continued despite the stubbornness of Chinese and Hong Kong governments, and the propaganda campaign from Beijing that the demonstrators are "terrorists" and, "traitors", and the threats that there will be "no concessions", "no mercy", and "the end is near".
At the beginning of September, a new element was added to the movement with the student boycott. Tens of thousands of high students boycotted class the first day of school, and planned to continue the boycott for one day each week, while tens of thousands students demonstrated at colleges and considered a two-week strike.
The protest movement has involved as much of two million people (out of a total Hong Kong population of seven million). After over three months, on September 4, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam finally made a concession. She announced that the extradition bill, which would allow residents of Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China for trial and punishment, wouldn't simply be shelved, but withdrawn. This was a major crack in the "no concessions" policy.
But the movement regards this concession as too little, and too late. The demonstrators have also been demanding an investigation into the brutality of police actions against them. Moreover the struggle against the extradition bill has reignited the struggle for direct suffrage in Hong Kong, which doesn't exist at present, so that the current Hong Kong government doesn't represent the people, but the pro-Beijing business interests and circles.
The movement in Hong Kong is one of the major democratic movements around the world. The people of Hong Kong have never received all the rights they were promised under the "one country, two systems" deal between Britain and Beijing that reunited Hong Kong with mainland China, and the Chinese government has said at times that it thinks the promises it made when regaining Hong Kong have "no practical significance". The demonstrators see that even what rights they have now are threatened by the government, whereas the supposedly communist but actually state-capitalist government in China is worried that no part of China should be allowed such rights. Indeed, while Hong Kong doesn't have all rights it was promised, the people still have more rights than the people of mainland China, such as the right to say what they think, the existence of a better press, full access to the internet, a more moderate legal system, the right to commemorate the Tienanmen Square massacre of 1989, etc. The demonstrators see these rights being whittled away even before the 50-year period of "one country, two systems" ends in 2047, and they feel that they must act now as they won't have a chance later. <>
The left is supposed to support the mass struggle against oppression, but a good part of the left is washing its hands of the movement in Hong Kong. The people of Hong Kong have no possibility of serious support anywhere except from other oppressed people around the world, and it is a real tragedy when supposed leftists seek to paralyze such support. Below we reproduce a Facebook comment of August 18 from Mary Scully where she vigorously defends the Hong Kong movement. It is important not only to support the Hong Kong movement, but to fight the sickness in the left that manifests itself in supporting the oppressor, and not the oppressed. And so her comment is quite valuable.
We differ with Scully on one issue, though. She identifies those who oppose the Hong Kong as simply Stalinists. But it is not just Stalinists who oppose the movement. Some Trotskyists do as well, such as the International Communist League (Spartacists), who write sickening things like "Hong Kong: No to Counterrevolutionary Rampage" (Workers Vanguard No. 1160), and denounce the movement as "anti-communist". Another example is the Workers World Party, which has a Trotskyist background, which repeatedly denounces the demonstrators, such as in the demagogic August 16 article "Follow the money behind Hong Kong protests".
Moreover, the denigration of the popular movement also comes from a broader trend in the left than Stalinists or Trotskyists. Anti-imperialism has been a strong part of American radicalism for a long time. But with the many defeats suffered by the left, a type of pseudo-anti-imperialism has become widespread; it is a standpoint that has no faith in the masses of the people. It sees US and Western imperialism as all powerful, and supports various reactionary governments as the only possible opposition that could stand up against them. We call this "non-class anti-imperialism", because it detaches anti-imperialism from support of the mass and class struggles around the world. In so doing, it tears the heart and soul out of real anti-imperialism.
From Mary Scully, FB, Aug. 18:
It is necessary to respond to Stalinist attacks on the Hong Kong protests drawing crowds from 400,000 to 1.7 million for the past eleven consecutive weeks. It should surprise no one that the same political hacks who denounce popular protests in Nicaragua, Venezuela, & Russia, support the Assad regime & bombing of civilians, deny the Uyghur & Rohingya genocides, support Duterte's vigilante war on the poor, are now denouncing the Hong Kong protests as "an attack on socialism." They've been denouncing them since the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests.
One of the main demands of the Hong Kong movement is opposition to China's Extradition Law where those charged with a crime can be extradited to, prosecuted & jailed in mainland China. Stalinists support the Extradition Law, presenting it as a law where accused rapists, murderers, robbers, & other common criminals would be prosecuted on the mainland. For what reason they would have to be prosecuted hundreds of miles from the scene of the crimes is not elaborated. In fact, those China would be extraditing are political activists from the 2014 protests; those who protest & demand justice for the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989; those who annually honor labor organizer & dissident Li Wangyang who was jailed for 21 years of hard labor, torture, & solitary confinement, charged with 'counterrevolutionary propaganda, incitement, & subversion' for supporting the Tiananmen Square movement. During imprisonment, he lost his sight & hearing from torture & was released to a hospital for treatment of diabetes & heart disease. Although unable to stand on his own, he was found hanged in his hospital room which Chinese officials declared a suicide. He was an extraordinary man & should be honored. But Hong Kong protesters who honor him every year & demand justice would be arrested, extradited, & prosecuted in mainland China where they would face the same fate Li Wangyang did. Let's be clear. It isn't that Stalinists are obtuse & really believe common criminals are the target here. It's that their politics support political repression, gulags, mass murder of dissidents.
As for that rubbish about the protests being "an
attack on socialism"? Let me just say that if the people of Hong Kong
do not like the kind of socialism that China is--the sweatshop, child
labor, Uyghur genocide, Tibet occupation, arming Rohingya genocide,
neoliberal plunder of Africa, politically repressive, gulag,
environmentally reckless, working people living in dog kennels kind of
socialism--then they are exactly the kind of socialists that the world
needs, especially in contrast to the thugs that lead the Chinese
Communist Party. But even if the protesters do not want any kind of
socialism, they have a right to protest for that point of view whether
Stalinist hacks like Freedom Road Socialists, Max Blumenthal, Ben
Norton think they do or not.
(For more from Mary Scully see her blog at https://www.maryscullyreports.com/)<>
Back to main
page,
how to order CV,
write us!
Posted on September 10, 2019
http://www.communistvoice.org
e-mail: mail@communistvoice.org