This week, the Chief Executive endorsed a bill to “ensure patriots govern Hong Kong”, which will be tabled in March. The bill introduces an explicit disqualification mechanism covering the Legislative Council and District Council elections. Setting out “nine sins”, the proposed legislation stipulates that those who advocate Hong Kong independence and self-determination, those who coerce the government to change its policies by “unlawful means”, those who seek “foreign interventions” and those who oppose Beijing ruling Hong Kong under the Basic Law and the National Security Law, etc. will be disqualified. It is predictable that any disqualified legislators or district councilors will be subject to the treatment for Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching—being demanded repayment of their salaries and other compensations.

The Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Tsang Kwok-wai, even said that if the legislative amendments are passed, the four incumbent District Council members, Fergus Leung Fong-wai, Tiffany Yuen Ka-wai, Lester Shum and Cheng Tat-hung, who were disqualified by the Returning Officer from the Legislative Council election originally scheduled for last year, will be unseated, as they were found to have failed to be loyal to the HKSAR and uphold the Basic Law.

The proposed legislation is clearly vague and merely serves the purpose to crack down on the opposition. The announcement of the proposed legislation is followed by a heated debate about whether district councilors should take the oath in consideration of the resources they have access to, the gesture of not kowtowing to Beijing and the mandate that they won in 2019.

I do not have an answer to the question. Never taken up any role in the polity and currently living abroad, I cannot and should not judge anyone’s decision, simply because I am not the one to bear any of the risks and consequences of those decisions. Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches.

On social media, a lot of people are angry or upset at the news. It is completely normal to be furious and frustrated. But we should always bear in mind that we suffer from it not because we deserve it, but because this is the cost of fighting against an authoritarian regime. We knew things would get worse before it gets better when the Movement started in 2019. It is not an easy idea to stomach when the society is changing like never before and we are struggling to survive. It is not fun to embrace the fact that we are all miserable living in such a political and social environment. What is worse is that we know more are coming.

I have been reading the book “If This Was a Man” by Italian Jewish writer Primo Levi over the past few weeks. It is a famous book that details the situation in concentration camp during WWII. Everything was taken away from Levi when he was captured and sent to the camp. His belongings, his name and his dignity as a human being no longer belonged to him. He was subject to the worst and most inhumane treatment in history, and that was his daily routine. The feelings of hope and despair entwined throughout the whole book. The book detailed how he and others tried to preserve themselves in such a condition. In Levi’s writing, one can see both the weakest and strongest moments of the will to live on, and the kindest and ugliest aspects of human nature. Inside the camp, the distinction between good and evil, cowardice and bravery, happiness and suffering, ceased to exist. It was all about survival and nothing more.

I was deeply pained and soothed by the book at the same time. Like a lot you, I have been feeling tormented every day by what has been happening in Hong Kong. There seems to be no ending to all the heart-breaking news. Or at least I am not sure if I will live long enough to see the ending. The book gives an insight into how to deal with this mentality, how to preserve yourself, your dignity and humanity in dire straits. The key to that is all about details in daily life—wash your face, be disciplined and don’t let things slide.

I want to end this opinion piece with the quote that I find most inspiring from the book: “That precisely because the Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts, we must not become beasts; that even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization. We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last—the power to refuse our consent. So we must certainly wash our faces without soap in dirty water and dry ourselves on our jackets. We must polish our shoes, not because the regulation states it, but for dignity and propriety. We must walk erect, without dragging our feet, not in homage to Prussian discipline but to remain alive, not to begin to die.”

(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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