Though numbers are neutral, their combinations are evocative of something. 7.21, 8.31 and 6.4, all of which are given meanings, have become curses on the dictators.

People’s memories are then handed down from generation to generation, with one number combination representing a historical memory, a curse cast by the people. Irrespective of whether the debts in history are settled, the remembrances will subsist on.

The rulers have always wanted to wipe out people’s memories. Recently, Chan Tin Chu, the Senior Superintendent of the New Territories North Regional Headquarters, has come out to misrepresent the 7.21 incident as a fight between two gangs of people in a bid to divert attention and erase from history the calamitous sordid collusion between the authorities and the triads that went on behind the scene. Nonetheless, the two number combinations are reminiscent of the vivid bloody recollections.

Even though the offenders on 7.21 were triads while the ones on 8.31 law enforcers, the two events grossly resemble each other: firstly, ordinary citizens were indiscriminately attacked; secondly, the assaulted were all black-dressed citizens; thirdly, the perpetrators were well organized and did it according to a plan; fourthly, the government covered up the facts afterward with narratives sprinkled with mistakes.

In terms of nature, the two incidents are not at all different from each other, thereby palpably correlated and pertaining to one political scheme that was carried out twice with only one single objective – threatening citizens with large scale collective violence that produces bloody horrible scenes in an attempt to curb street protests.

Who maneuvered the two occurrences? Who made the decisions of strategic importance to organize things and call it into action? That is the crucial point. The reasons why Hong Kong people are so obsessed with the two number combinations are that the correlation between the two happenings is not yet clarified, that decision makers are not yet investigated and that the debt of blood is not yet settled.

The two number combinations, 7.21 and 8.31, are clear and simple enough for a 3-year old kid to remember, to learn by heart the episodes behind them, to hack back to a debt of blood, to recollect the history.

For this reason, unless the government takes a stance to safeguard the rule of law of Hong Kong and faces up to the two tragic cases by conducting business impartially, investigating the matters openly, justly and fairly, and ferreting out the “black hands” behind the conspiracy and punishing them with severity, the two number combinations will be kept in Hong Kongers’ minds for good. Every year at the 6.4 assembly, people call those responsible for it to account for the massacre. Every year at the 7.21 and 8.31 assemblies, people call the police and the triads to account for the tragedies. It goes on without end.

Neither are the people armed nor empowered. What the people have is memory, which is a curse on the autocratic regime, regardless of during upheavals or peacetime. Debts of blood have never been wiped out from history. Hong Kongers’ hatred will be handed down from generation to generation and the people will keep cursing with the numbers.

(Ngan Shun Kau is a veteran publisher and writer. His publications and works are award-winning.)

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