The National Security Law is set to be enacted on June 30. Hong Kong is descending into a police state. The annual demonstration on July 1 – with a similar likeness to the annual candlelight vigil on June 4 -- has been rejected by a “letter of objection”. All forms of protests are likely to be criminalized. How should Hongkongers confront this looming blanket of fear?

There have been plenty of debates over which provisions of the law are the most troublesome when the inevitable major crackdown arrives. It really does not matter what is written into the law and what is left out, because the law means everything and anything the Chinese Communist Party wants it to mean. It also does not matter if the expected mass arrests — and, worse, extradition across the border — of the most prominent pro-democracy figures will take place on the first day of the law’s enactment, or in a month when the world’s spotlight is no longer on Hong Kong. The purpose of the law is to instill a kind of fear that silences everyone.

As if the threats of lengthy imprisonment, torture, and extradition are not enough, the authorities are also emboldening regime supporters to turn on pro-democracy Hongkongers. Last August, Cathay Pacific staff had already been dismissed for posting messages as simple as “Go Hong Kong!”. Recently, the pro-regime “blue” camp has circulated a campaign to snitch on “yellow [democracy] supporters, traitors, police haters, arrested people, cockroaches [protesters]," doctors, nurses, reporters, teachers, students, lawyers, social workers, artists, business owners, civil servants, and owners, managers and staff of yellow businesses.”

The authorities cannot police everyone in every neighborhood and every office. Creating a network of informers can decapitate a once-vibrant civil society. According to James Scott , the foremost expert on domination and resistance at Yale University, this imposition of surveillance and atomization aims to have the subjects under domination engage in mutual predation just for self-survival.

How should Hongkongers keep up the fight? We can take lessons from other extremely repressive cases.

Aung San Suu Kyi (before she became a defender of ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya) upheld “freedom from fear” against military dictatorship. She argued that, “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” The list of fear includes the “fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure” (Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991: 1980, 184). “Fearlessness,” then, served as “the sharpest weapon” against the military junta.

In apartheid-era South Africa, the most effective tactics, according to Walter Wink and Kurt Schock , were: “labor strikes, slowdowns, sit-downs, stoppages, and stayaways; bus boycotts, consumer boycotts, and school boycotts; funeral demonstrations; non-cooperation with government appointed functionaries; non-payment of rent; violation of government bans on peaceful meetings; defiance of segregation orders on beaches and restaurants, theaters, and hotels; and the shunning of black police and soldiers.”

Even before the formal enactment of the National Security Law, Hong Kong has already become more repressive than the apartheid regime in various respects. Violation of government bans on peaceful gatherings have been rendered “unlawful assemblies” liable to rioting charges. The shunning of police subjects one to pepper sprays and arrests. Consumer boycotts have brought harassment and thuggish attacks upon pro-democracy businesses. Medical workers who staged a one-week strike in February have been warned of legal consequences. Civil servants who organized a union and a “referendum” on striking have been denied promotions. Students who planned a class boycott have been reprimanded and given disciplinary actions. Students are also warned against singing songs that are deemed “political” and forming human chains. Even silence is not permitted when individuals and groups, from the heads of universities to the top executives of HSBC, have been compelled to openly pledge support for the law.

The protest tactics that will remain viable under extreme domination are to be “decentralized, diversified, and daily” – or the “3Ds”. Protests do not have to amass large numbers. The real challenge is to sustain the struggle over time.

When any concentrated gatherings for demonstrations, human chains, sing-alongs are to be criminalized, take decentralized actions . When strikes, boycotts, and sit-ins are risky, try stayaways by calling in sick. When calling in sick is also difficult, attempt work slowdowns and practice deliberate inefficiency. Show non-obedience in the absence of direct supervision. Denmark under Nazi occupation is a prime example of how massive work slowdowns both enhanced camaraderie among the general population and put a drag on Germany’s’ war efforts.

When the usual protest methods are rendered illegal, devise different, diversified tactics that the authorities cannot ban: Withdraw money from mainland banks, light a candle by the window every night, take advantage of funerals and other social gatherings to share solidarity with the like-minded.

When it is not possible to attend public protests to commemorate key dates and events, integrate decentralized and diversified forms of resistance into the daily life. Maintain the existing networks of trust to counter the policy of “divide and rule”. Volunteer in community work to expand the trusted circles to sustain the civil society.

In the darkest days when Myanmar was seen in the same breath as North Korea, Aung San Suu Kyi insisted on not giving up. The bleak but telling cases of Myanmar, South Africa, and Denmark all show that there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

(Victoria Tin-bor Hui is Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. She has recently written on “China’s new national security law for Hong Kong will erode Hong Kong’s autonomy,” , “Today’s Macau, Tomorrow’s Hong Kong”? What Future for “One Country, Two Systems”? ,’ “Beijing’s Hard and Soft Repression in Hong Kong,” “Beijing’s All-Out Crackdown on the Anti-Extradition Protests.” )

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