Old soldiers never die, the spirit of a liberal Hong Kong lives on | He Qinglian
It is the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In 2021, Hong Kong is different from the past as the commemorative activities for the June Fourth Incident, which have been carried out for 31 years, are forcibly banned amidst the fearful ambience of the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law. Nevertheless, the silhouette of Uncle Wah and the candlelight vigils in Victoria Park have become an iconic landscape of a liberal Hong Kong that will forever remain in the memories of several generations.
Such commemorative events are invaluable for China because, since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, the city was the only place under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) jurisdiction where related memorial activities can be held in public. However, starting last year, the Hong Kong authorities have forbidden the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (the Alliance) from holding candlelight vigils in Victoria Park on the grounds of epidemic prevention. With June 4th approaching again this year, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Security, John Lee, urged the public not to participate in unauthorized activities and warned that no one should participate in, publicize or promulgate such rallies, or they would be in violation of the law. There have been two recent court decisions in Hong Kong regarding public events that clearly demonstrated that participation in an unauthorized assembly, whether it be violent or not, is an offense punishable by up to five years in prison.
Although authorities can prohibit the people of Hong Kong from holding public assemblies, they cannot undo the history of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The June Fourth Incident in 1989 will be remembered in three forms:
It was the first time since the founding of the CCP with an unprecedented degree of popular participation that all Chinese students, intellectuals and citizens of China united voluntarily and launched a large-scale political movement in pursuit of democracy.
It blossomed in China, but its impact reached the international community. The bloody crackdown was widely reported around the world by television, fax and other means of communication. It exposed the cruelty of communist dictatorship to the people of the Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe and socialist countries, and contributed to the rapid political changes that led to the overthrow of communist regimes by the opposition in various countries.
It dismantled the legitimacy of the CCP. Before the Tiananmen Square protests and even after the end of the Cultural Revolution, the CCP did everything in the name of the people. Since the June Fourth massacre, the Chinese people have realized that this regime under the CCP has nothing to do with the people.
Hong Kong people will pay tribute in their own ways
The annual commemorative activities for the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Hong Kong not only represent Hongkongers’ own dreams of freedom and pursuit of democracy, but also reflect the sense of responsibility of the people of Hong Kong: the best way to remind people not to forget the June Fourth Incident and to continue on the road to democracy is to commemorate the dead. The incessant candlelights in Victoria Park expressed the aspirations of Hong Kong people. I believe that what Democratic Party Chairman Lo Kin-hei told the media will definitely become a reality: the Alliance, the democrats and many members of the public have strong emotions for the June Fourth Incident, thus regardless of the ultimate decision of the Alliance, Hong Kong people will use their own ways to mourn the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
The situation in Hong Kong today and the determination of Hong Kong people reminded me of an incident from my trip to Hawaii in 2000. That time I visited the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, where six veterans had gathered. Only after reading the description did I learn that since the end of World War II, more than a hundred survivors of the sunken battleship have made a pact to meet at the USS Arizona Memorial one particular day each year to sing the soldiers’ folklore song “Old soldiers never die.” General Douglas MacArthur delivered his famous address to a joint meeting of Congress at the Capitol on April 19th, 1951, which was known as the Old Soldiers Never Die speech. With the passage of time, the veterans of the warships withered away, and some of the surviving ones needed to be accompanied by the younger generation. And yet, for the sake of their collective past, and for the sake of the catastrophe that mankind, especially the United States, cannot ever forget, they continued to live up to the famous words of General MacArthur’s speech, “old soldiers never die, they just fade away.”
The famous World War II general with his iconic corn cob pipe will be remembered for his great achievements in the war. Alas, time has the same eroding effect on all people and things, and even the great ones will grow old. In his speech, he said, “The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that ‘old soldiers never die; they just fade away.’”
A rose will always be a rose, even if only one or two petals and the stalk remain, it still reminds the world of the beauty and splendor it once had. All those who witnessed the Tiananmen Square Massacre, all those who held commemorative activities at the ends of the earth, and the people of Hong Kong who persevered for the longest time, will one day recede from the center of the political arena. Yet old soldiers never die, and the spirit of the June Fourth Incident will live on. Whether or not commemorative activities will be held, the people and events associated with this event will go down in history.
(He Qinglian, US-based scholar)
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