It is overwhelming every morning to check my phone and see the news of Hong Kong. All we see are misery, anger and pain, from the 12 asylum seekers to the government’s response. It seems that hope is dim and it is nothing but a losing battle. However, a recent visit I paid to the former Stasi Headquarters, the current Campus for Democracy in Berlin, has changed my mind and made me feel somehow more empowered and optimistic.

The Stasi, which was the official secret service of East Germany , played a vital role in aiding the East German dictatorship to stay in power during the Cold War. It was founded to serve as the political police of the GDR (German Democratic Republic), and was mainly responsible for intelligence gathering and surveillance. Their task was to suppress resistance to the communist regime in Germany after part of Germany was occupied by the Soviet Red Army, through monitoring daily activities of the population in East Germany by infiltration, spying and covert methods. The exhibitions, located at where the headquarters of Stasi were, detail how the Peaceful Revolution and the fall of the Berlin War took place.

The historical facts are quite familiar to Hong Kongers as it is part of our secondary school curriculum in Hong Kong. When I was a student in the city, those were simply plain information to be revised and remembered for passing an examination. I never thought one day I would be standing on the historic sites of the Peaceful Revolution, finding it highly relatable to myself, to what we have encountered in recent years.

Frank Ebert, who has been working in the Archive of the Opposition to the GDR since 1993, was an active member of the opposition when he was younger. He used to work in the Environmental Library (Umweltbibliothek) in Berlin. In the basement of the Zion Church, he and his colleagues printed secretly the journal Umweltblätter, which was the only GDR printing work not controlled by the state and the most important organ of the GDR opposition until the fall of the Wall.

He pointed casually at a photo displayed at the exhibition and said, “Oh this is my friend Tim,” and told us about what happened to his colleagues and friends, “They were arrested, detained, and put in jail.” We then realised there were a lot of parallels between the actors of the Peaceful Revolution and that of the movement in Hong Kong. The images displayed also reminded me of Hong Kong—water cannons targeted at unarmed protesters, umbrellas used as defensive tools, archives being created to document history so that it would not be forgotten…

I asked him how he pulled through all the difficult times—being arrested for demonstrating against the rigged GDR local elections, witnessing the printing machine being confiscated by the GDR authorities, experiencing friends being taken away from them, and being apprehended time and again. He said because he thought things ought to change in East Germany, and he had expectations of the place where he was born and raised.

Speaking of the case of the 12 asylum seekers, he said raising awareness would be the way to go for. In his time, his colleagues had faced numerous arrests. However, the Umweltbibliothek was one of the most prominent organisations of opposition. He mentioned that when his friends and colleagues were captured, they would create as much awareness as possible to keep them safe, even though it might not be what the detainees wanted.

The most encouraging part of the visit is not standing on where history happened, but knowing that others went through similar incidents, and that they survived and created changes in the world. It is not impossible to achieve democracy in a place where an authoritarian regime is now in control. “Someone made it, and so can we.” This thought stayed with me and empowered me to be more optimistic about the work we are doing.

At the East Side Gallery, there is a text written on the remains of the Berlin Wall that says “Du hast gelernt was Freiheit heisst und das vergiss nie mehr”, which in English means “you have learnt what freedom means, and never forget that.” I would love to share it with all my fellow Hong Kongers, we shall not forget what freedom means and fight on.

(Glacier Kwong, born and raised in Hong Kong, became a digital rights and political activist at the age of 15. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Law and working on the course for Hong Kong in Germany. Her work has been published on Washington Post, TIME, etc.)

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