This week marks the second anniversary of the outbreak of the movement. More than 10,000 people were arrested and 2,608 prosecuted as the cases poured through the courts and court reports continued to appear on social media. In the Magistrates’ Court, some were sentenced to eight months in prison for possession of a laser pointer, others were sentenced to six months in prison for possession of a zip-tie, while others were acquitted or sentenced to 100 hours of community service orders.

short, Hong Kong did not change the way as expected. Crackdowns happen in different sectors on a daily basis, colleagues and friends are mostly in jail or in exile. I live in constant fear of reading news and looking at notification bubbles that always bring me bad news. I have tried to make it easier to cope with by convincing myself that I knew bad news would keep coming on end but in vain.

Some who fled the city and vowed never to return claim that ‘Hong Kong is dead’ and everyone should leave. They said leaving the fight behind to start anew is ‘pragmatic’ and ‘realistic’ because we have been fighting a losing battle since 2019, and we have paid a high price for fighting against the world’s strongest authoritarian regime; it is hopeless.

But truth be told, when were we actually hopeful when we were fighting for democracy? If we were after hopes, we should have given up in 2014 or even earlier. And for those who wonder if it is the pro-democratic camp that went too far last year that leads to more crackdowns, particularly those in the name of the national security law, the reality is that any movement or force that has the potential, and merely the potential, to break free from the grasp of the regime will face the fate of being completely stifled.

Hong Kong is pursuing democratization, going from semi-democracy to full democracy. But China? The opposite, totalitarianism. So, there is a serious contradiction between what Hong Kong aspires after and what China expects our system to become, to the point that Beijing thinks that Hong Kong poses a great danger, and so it brings us down with its mighty power. As to every action there is always reaction acting in the opposite direction, Hongkongers just resist as a normal reaction to Beijing limiting our freedoms.

Everything that is not explicitly supporting the regime becomes the target. It is clear enough that it is only a matter of time before we reach this point: for an evolving democratic movement cannot remain in the realm of the ‘controllable’ forever.

So, the dire straits we are in is inevitable. Now what? We seem doomed in this fight. However hard we tried, people were still arrested, convicted and sentenced or forced into exile. Any reasonable person can call it hopeless. But why were there more than 5,000 people outside Victoria Park on June 4? Why did people still gather outside Pacific Place to mourn for Leung Ling-kit?

Because it has never been hopes that drive us down this path. We were fuelled by the anger and discontent with the illegitimate and unjust regime which responded with the equivalence of ‘noted with thanks’ to 1 million people taking to the streets. Now we have been fuelled by the grief and anger at what took place over the last 600 days.

Facing extreme dire straits is not the end of the movement. A lot of us have been worried but certain that this is not the end of our pursuit of freedom and democracy. ‘It is not the end of my activism,’ said Gwyneth Ho on a call with poor video quality that I could hardly see her face. ‘Going into exile should not be yours too,’ she added. She later wrote in custody, ‘We assess the cost we are willing to bear then we pay the price—not only for ourselves, but for the movement.’ We simply do not want to conform to the views and expectations of the regime and mainstream opinion on political prisoners or diaspora- we should recognize the ‘reality’ and reject what we thought and did.

This experience is painful but necessary. We are all in this together. I do not know when all the suffering will end or how we can achieve what we have been fighting for. We started without a clear blueprint, but we actively declined the injustice that we witnessed, and tried to shape Hong Kong to be the one we wanted it to be. We have made history, and we are now bearing the weight of history to face the reality and give up false hope.

(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.)

Glacier Kwong’s article can be found in our Columnist section.

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