1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:22,720 *36C3 preroll music* 2 00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:26,900 Herald: Our next talk is going to be translated into German and possibly into 3 00:00:26,900 --> 00:00:36,220 French. So there is a link you can all go to. It's streaming.c3lingo.org. You can go 4 00:00:36,220 --> 00:00:42,150 there for translations and we're about to start the talk called "What the world can 5 00:00:42,150 --> 00:00:48,570 learn from Hong Kong" and it's going to take 90 minutes because apparently we can 6 00:00:48,570 --> 00:00:56,220 learn a lot from Hong Kong. So buckle up. It's going to be a long ride. And our 7 00:00:56,220 --> 00:01:06,210 speaker Katharin Tai is a University of Oxford alumni and a PhD candidate at 8 00:01:06,210 --> 00:01:09,210 M.I.T.. So let's welcome Katharin on stage. 9 00:01:09,210 --> 00:01:12,850 Let's give her a big round of applause. 10 00:01:12,850 --> 00:01:16,990 *Applause* 11 00:01:16,990 --> 00:01:22,520 All yours. Katharin Tai: Thank you. Hello, everyone. 12 00:01:22,520 --> 00:01:28,110 Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me to C3. For starters, I'd also like to thank 13 00:01:28,110 --> 00:01:32,200 the brave people who are planning to translate what I'm about to say, despite 14 00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:36,750 knowing how fast I usually speak. So quick round of applause for the translators over 15 00:01:36,750 --> 00:01:45,170 there in the boxes. *applause* 16 00:01:45,170 --> 00:01:49,460 So my name's Katharin. As the dear Harald, I actually don't know your name 17 00:01:49,460 --> 00:01:54,960 mentioned, I'm a PhD student at M.I.T. where I study Political Science. I 18 00:01:54,960 --> 00:01:59,500 also work as a freelance journalist on the side and in my capacity as a freelance 19 00:01:59,500 --> 00:02:03,390 journalist I, amongst other things, covered the Hong Kong protests over the 20 00:02:03,390 --> 00:02:09,140 past seven months which as you can possibly imagine was quite eventful. I 21 00:02:09,140 --> 00:02:13,239 think one important caveat for this talk is I am not originally from Hong Kong and 22 00:02:13,239 --> 00:02:17,780 I think the people who you should probably listening to and who I would love to put 23 00:02:17,780 --> 00:02:22,170 on the stage in many cases are people who go to great lengths to protect their own 24 00:02:22,170 --> 00:02:25,550 anonymity and to protect their own identity. And so these are people who 25 00:02:25,550 --> 00:02:28,950 would not put themselves on the stage. So what I'm going to try to do is I'm going 26 00:02:28,950 --> 00:02:32,830 to tell you to the best of my ability the things that I've learned from them and 27 00:02:32,830 --> 00:02:37,880 from the people who go out on the streets and protest in Hong Kong but in general, 28 00:02:37,880 --> 00:02:42,860 my talk will be interspersed with references to journalists and some 29 00:02:42,860 --> 00:02:47,170 activists in Hong Kong who I recommend you follow them because ultimately they are 30 00:02:47,170 --> 00:02:54,300 the ones who know best. But what do I want to do? For starters, because this is 90 31 00:02:54,300 --> 00:02:57,849 minutes, so I want to give you a quick heads up. I'm going to give a quick 32 00:02:57,849 --> 00:03:03,450 overview of why and how things are happening, so historically and politically 33 00:03:03,450 --> 00:03:08,380 and we will also be showcasing some amazing protest art. And then I want to 34 00:03:08,380 --> 00:03:12,020 talk about the incredible strategies that protesters have been using and that 35 00:03:12,020 --> 00:03:18,160 they've been using for over half a year now and that's helped them to essentially 36 00:03:18,160 --> 00:03:22,459 keep going for more than half a year in the face of what is truly an incredibly 37 00:03:22,459 --> 00:03:26,629 strong government. So also, we want to talk about technology because, of course, 38 00:03:26,629 --> 00:03:31,520 it's C3. So it's incredibly important that we recognize the very high tech things 39 00:03:31,520 --> 00:03:36,349 that the protesters have been using to defend themselves against the police, such 40 00:03:36,349 --> 00:03:40,900 as catapults. *Short video starts playing* 41 00:03:40,900 --> 00:03:44,740 *Group shouting* K: This was recently at the Chinese 42 00:03:44,740 --> 00:03:58,370 University of Hong Kong but there are more catapults. But seriously, like I said, I'm 43 00:03:58,370 --> 00:04:02,650 going to start with some historical political background and then I'm going to 44 00:04:02,650 --> 00:04:06,810 move on and explain the political demands and the protest strategies that the 45 00:04:06,810 --> 00:04:10,280 protesters have been using and in the end, I'm going to give kind of like a bit like 46 00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:15,700 a quick preview of what we can maybe expect to happen in the next few years and 47 00:04:15,700 --> 00:04:23,010 what you can do to stay informed. So what is happening and why? Can I have light on 48 00:04:23,010 --> 00:04:30,090 the audience for a second? I don't know who I talk to about this. Great. So I want 49 00:04:30,090 --> 00:04:34,530 to know, I want to get a quick sense of how much people know about Hong Kong's 50 00:04:34,530 --> 00:04:40,880 politics. So if you know why the years 1997 and 2047 are meaningful for Hong Kong 51 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:46,790 politics, please raise your hand. Wow. Thank you. That's definitely more than I 52 00:04:46,790 --> 00:04:50,480 expected. I hope this won't bore you then. Thanks for the lights, that's fine, 53 00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:54,510 although I actually like seeing the audience, that's quite good. I'm still 54 00:04:54,510 --> 00:04:59,240 going to give a quick overview. Some of you may know that Hong Kong was a British 55 00:04:59,240 --> 00:05:06,830 colony until 1997. So it was under British colonial rule for more than 100 years. 56 00:05:06,830 --> 00:05:11,340 Once the British lease of Hong Kong was up, the British negotiated an agreement 57 00:05:11,340 --> 00:05:17,800 with the Chinese government to return Hong Kong to China. Ironically, this event was 58 00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:22,650 called the Handover, where Hong Kong was literally taken by a colonial power and 59 00:05:22,650 --> 00:05:27,401 handed over to a different government. Ironically also it is that it's called the 60 00:05:27,401 --> 00:05:32,000 return to China because the current Chinese government was not even in power 61 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:37,790 when Hong Kong was last part of what you could consider China. But at this Handover 62 00:05:37,790 --> 00:05:43,530 event or before this Handover event, the British and the Chinese signed an 63 00:05:43,530 --> 00:05:48,320 important document, which was the Sino- British Joint Declaration, which says 64 00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:52,370 that... which essentially says the rights and freedoms, including those of the 65 00:05:52,370 --> 00:05:58,729 person, of speech, of the press, of assembly, of academic research and of 66 00:05:58,729 --> 00:06:02,620 religious belief will be ensured by law in the Hong Kong Special Administrative 67 00:06:02,620 --> 00:06:08,260 Region. Why are they writing something like this? Hong Kong was a colony but 68 00:06:08,260 --> 00:06:11,911 because it was essentially used as a big and important commercial center, it did 69 00:06:11,911 --> 00:06:16,150 have a lot of kind of like societal freedoms. So people were able to protest 70 00:06:16,150 --> 00:06:20,840 to the extent that colonial law allowed it. And there was, for example, freedom of 71 00:06:20,840 --> 00:06:25,889 the press and there were worries in the UK and also in Hong Kong, a lot of Hong 72 00:06:25,889 --> 00:06:29,730 Kongers were extremely worried about this, about what might happen to these freedoms, 73 00:06:29,730 --> 00:06:35,240 when they would essentially go become part of China, which is not democratic. It's 74 00:06:35,240 --> 00:06:39,580 not a democracy. It wasn't a democracy in the 80s or the 90s either. This is 75 00:06:39,580 --> 00:06:44,110 something like... these anxieties were obviously exacerbated by the fact that in 76 00:06:44,110 --> 00:06:49,980 89, the Chinese government suppressed a student protest in Tiananmen Square. Hong 77 00:06:49,980 --> 00:06:53,380 Kongers knew about this. And so they were watching from just across the border and 78 00:06:53,380 --> 00:06:56,450 they were looking at the students in Tiananmen and Beijing. And they were 79 00:06:56,450 --> 00:07:01,590 wondering, is this going to be us next? This whole thing, this whole idea that 80 00:07:01,590 --> 00:07:05,700 Hong Kong's freedom will be guaranteed is called One Country, Two Systems. And so 81 00:07:05,700 --> 00:07:09,320 the idea is that Hong Kong gets to maintain its own government in some ways. 82 00:07:09,320 --> 00:07:12,859 It gets to maintain its own legal system and it gets to maintain all these 83 00:07:12,859 --> 00:07:17,850 political freedoms that in many ways are not guaranteed in mainland China. In 84 00:07:17,850 --> 00:07:23,759 addition to that, Hong Kong does not have democracy in the sense that most people 85 00:07:23,759 --> 00:07:29,000 understand it. But the Hong Kong basic law says that the ultimate aim is the 86 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:33,130 selection of the chief executive, which is the head of government in Hong Kong, by 87 00:07:33,130 --> 00:07:37,000 universal suffrage, upon nomination, by a broadly representative nominating 88 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:41,470 committee in accordance with democratic procedures. So basically this could be 89 00:07:41,470 --> 00:07:46,389 read as there will also be democracy at some point, maybe. Depending on how we 90 00:07:46,389 --> 00:07:51,820 define all of these terms. So in 97, the Chinese government decided that what Hong 91 00:07:51,820 --> 00:07:58,639 Kong is going to get is essentially a government that is basically appointed by 92 00:07:58,639 --> 00:08:02,910 Beijing. There's... it's a bit more complicated, but essentially the Hong Kong 93 00:08:02,910 --> 00:08:07,270 chief executive is appointed in Beijing and people get to vote for their 94 00:08:07,270 --> 00:08:11,099 parliament, but the parliament doesn't really have... they can't come up 95 00:08:11,099 --> 00:08:14,980 with the laws and say we want to pass this law so they can essentially veto bills 96 00:08:14,980 --> 00:08:18,780 that come from the government. But Hong Kongers basically get to elect their 97 00:08:18,780 --> 00:08:23,369 opposition in free and fair elections. Or part of their opposition. But they do not 98 00:08:23,369 --> 00:08:29,500 get to elect their government. So that's where we're starting in 97. So I think 99 00:08:29,500 --> 00:08:35,639 this is important to understand because while Hong Kong is part of China legally, 100 00:08:35,639 --> 00:08:39,459 it has a special status that makes it very different politically. And that's 101 00:08:39,459 --> 00:08:43,210 something that became very obvious in the years following the handover as well. 102 00:08:43,210 --> 00:08:48,729 Antony Dapiran, a lawyer who works in Hong Kong, has called the city a city of 103 00:08:48,729 --> 00:08:53,519 protest. And you can see this, for example, because since the Handover there 104 00:08:53,519 --> 00:08:57,650 has been a range of protests, all of them have been political and a lot of them have 105 00:08:57,650 --> 00:09:05,499 been in some ways related to China. These are just some examples. One was in 2003, 106 00:09:05,499 --> 00:09:11,989 the protest against Article 23, which was an anti-subversion law. So basically it 107 00:09:11,989 --> 00:09:18,079 was an anti-... So it was basically seen as a way for the government to get rid of 108 00:09:18,079 --> 00:09:22,889 people who they disagreed with politically. People protested against it. 109 00:09:22,889 --> 00:09:28,850 And the reform was stalled. In 2012, a lot of students protested against a curriculum 110 00:09:28,850 --> 00:09:35,069 reform that people essentially denounced as brainwashing. They said it would be 111 00:09:35,069 --> 00:09:41,730 painting democracy in a bad light and was painting China as too positive. Again, the 112 00:09:41,730 --> 00:09:46,350 protest succeeded. There were a range of other protests as well in the 2000s that, 113 00:09:46,350 --> 00:09:50,860 for example, protested for maintaining important buildings, what people called 114 00:09:50,860 --> 00:09:55,999 Hong Kong heritage. A lot of those unfortunately failed. So there's been ups 115 00:09:55,999 --> 00:09:59,659 and downs. But it's in no way the case that Hong Kong wasn't free. People were 116 00:09:59,659 --> 00:10:03,510 able to go out on the streets, people went out on the streets in thousands and people 117 00:10:03,510 --> 00:10:07,350 had political rallies such as out of university, as you see in the picture in 118 00:10:07,350 --> 00:10:15,699 the background. And then 2014 happened. I'm sure people have seen this. This was 119 00:10:15,699 --> 00:10:20,050 the Umbrella Revolution in 2014. I took this picture when I was actually at Occupy 120 00:10:20,050 --> 00:10:25,749 Central and I studied for my own mid-term exams at the Student Study Center. What 121 00:10:25,749 --> 00:10:29,429 had happened was that the promise of maybe democracy that I was talking about 122 00:10:29,429 --> 00:10:34,869 earlier, people thought that Beijing had broken it because in that year, Beijing 123 00:10:34,869 --> 00:10:39,769 had essentially published it's plan for electoral reform and said that, yes, you 124 00:10:39,769 --> 00:10:44,500 get universal suffrage, so everyone gets to vote, but we still pick the candidates. 125 00:10:44,500 --> 00:10:49,159 So people felt cheated and didn't think that that was what they were owed. And 126 00:10:49,159 --> 00:10:52,999 people went into the streets and people occupied a part of the center of the city 127 00:10:52,999 --> 00:10:59,269 for two full months and two full weeks, which was extremely impressive. This is 128 00:10:59,269 --> 00:11:03,079 basically one of the major roads in the middle of Hong Kong. It's usually full of 129 00:11:03,079 --> 00:11:06,479 cars. You couldn't possibly walk there, but people reclaimed it and made it into a 130 00:11:06,479 --> 00:11:10,170 protest village. People built their own institutions. People organized tutoring 131 00:11:10,170 --> 00:11:13,769 services. It was an incredible feeling. People, when there were there, were 132 00:11:13,769 --> 00:11:17,450 incredibly optimistic and were telling me it will be fine. We just need to work 133 00:11:17,450 --> 00:11:21,589 together. And if I asked them, how are you going to get democracy, though? They were 134 00:11:21,589 --> 00:11:26,389 like, I don't know how exactly it's going to happen, but it will happen. But what 135 00:11:26,389 --> 00:11:30,959 actually happened is that the protest camp was cleared out by police and by the 136 00:11:30,959 --> 00:11:35,059 government and there were fights internally in the democracy movement over 137 00:11:35,059 --> 00:11:39,360 how to continue. And so there was a lot of disagreement. And what followed was 138 00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:44,319 essentially a long period of political depression, right? People had been able to 139 00:11:44,319 --> 00:11:48,160 bring thousands of people onto the streets, but the government didn't even... 140 00:11:48,160 --> 00:11:53,379 except for one conversation, sit down and negotiate with them. One person who I 141 00:11:53,379 --> 00:11:59,999 interviewed last year, so almost two years ago now, told me at the time that if the 142 00:11:59,999 --> 00:12:04,029 government doesn't even listen to us when we bring so many people out on the 143 00:12:04,029 --> 00:12:08,759 streets, then I don't know what can change anything politically. The one thing that 144 00:12:08,759 --> 00:12:13,470 umbrella has taught me is that there are no bounds to how disappointed I can be in 145 00:12:13,470 --> 00:12:20,129 my government. In addition to this feeling of depression, you had several other 146 00:12:20,129 --> 00:12:24,119 incidents that made people feel like the promise of One Country, Two Systems, that 147 00:12:24,119 --> 00:12:28,149 Hong Kong would really be separate from mainland China at least until 47 wasn't 148 00:12:28,149 --> 00:12:34,500 being kept. One of these examples are the bookseller abductions from 2015. The 149 00:12:34,500 --> 00:12:38,049 people, there were 3 booksellers who were abducted, probably by the Chinese 150 00:12:38,049 --> 00:12:43,800 government, one in Thailand, one in southern China and one in Hong Kong 151 00:12:43,800 --> 00:12:47,329 itself. So these are people who were essentially selling books that were, 152 00:12:47,329 --> 00:12:52,399 honestly, a lot of it was probably rumors and kind of gossip, but they were very 153 00:12:52,399 --> 00:12:57,170 critical of the Chinese government and they suddenly turned up in China again. So 154 00:12:57,170 --> 00:13:00,389 imagine you're a Hong Konger and you've grown up in a city where you're being 155 00:13:00,389 --> 00:13:03,669 told you have your own legal system and you have nothing to fear from 156 00:13:03,669 --> 00:13:07,509 China. Because if you don't go, it's your own government that is in charge for you. 157 00:13:07,509 --> 00:13:11,069 But then you hear about these people who are grabbed off the street in your own 158 00:13:11,069 --> 00:13:14,750 hometown and who suddenly turn up in China, possibly making a public 159 00:13:14,750 --> 00:13:22,450 confession. So that looks bad. In 2016, this is also important, people had been... 160 00:13:22,450 --> 00:13:26,309 the Fishbowl Revolution happened, which is also where this beautiful piece of art 161 00:13:26,309 --> 00:13:32,189 comes from. The Fishbowl Revolution was the protest in part of Hong Kong called 162 00:13:32,189 --> 00:13:37,629 Mong Kok. And basically what happened was that people decided that violent means 163 00:13:37,629 --> 00:13:41,947 might be what is needed to actually oppose the government to get political change. In 164 00:13:41,947 --> 00:13:46,050 2014, people had been peaceful and they had tried, but nobody listened. So if that 165 00:13:46,050 --> 00:13:50,267 doesn't work, some people thought we need to try new methods. So there 166 00:13:50,267 --> 00:13:55,410 was something that could be called a riot. And there were really... like 167 00:13:55,410 --> 00:13:59,763 clashes between the... like between police forces and protesters. People were tearing 168 00:13:59,763 --> 00:14:03,479 up the pavement, throwing bricks at the police. Police was throwing some bricks 169 00:14:03,479 --> 00:14:09,360 back. So that happened. And then from between 2016 and 18, another 170 00:14:09,360 --> 00:14:13,449 thing that was important happened, which is that after Umbrella, there were fights 171 00:14:13,449 --> 00:14:17,489 about what to do. And some people decided we will go and throw bricks at the police 172 00:14:17,489 --> 00:14:21,509 during the Fishbowl Revolution. Some other people decided we want to work through the 173 00:14:21,509 --> 00:14:26,239 institutions and we want to get elected into the legislative council, into the 174 00:14:26,239 --> 00:14:30,809 parliament, and we want to change the system from within. But what happened was 175 00:14:30,809 --> 00:14:35,829 that 6 candidates, and then later even 6 elected parliamentarians were all 176 00:14:35,829 --> 00:14:40,850 disqualified for, in some cases not credibly promising that they essentially 177 00:14:40,850 --> 00:14:46,660 will uphold the Hong Kong basic law. Again, there are legal reasons for this. 178 00:14:46,660 --> 00:14:52,220 Some of these disqualifications were later overturned by courts. Some, I think, are 179 00:14:52,220 --> 00:14:57,119 still, still stand. But I think what's really important is that what a lot of 180 00:14:57,119 --> 00:15:01,119 people felt was, again, that this was kind of like a broken promise. Right. They were 181 00:15:01,119 --> 00:15:05,069 like even within the system that we have. So we get to elect so few people. But even 182 00:15:05,069 --> 00:15:08,719 within that system, you don't let us elect the people we want to. You disqualify 183 00:15:08,719 --> 00:15:11,939 candidates. This is something that had never happened before. And then you also 184 00:15:11,939 --> 00:15:15,120 disqualify people after they've been elected. So you have democratically 185 00:15:15,120 --> 00:15:19,329 elected representatives of the people who essentially protest it as part of an oath 186 00:15:19,329 --> 00:15:24,109 taking ceremony. And those people then also got kicked out. So that looks bad. 187 00:15:24,109 --> 00:15:29,709 This means if you're, I'm not going to date myself, but if you're my age and 188 00:15:29,709 --> 00:15:34,360 you're a Hong Konger, you first lived under British colonialism. Where the 189 00:15:34,360 --> 00:15:38,480 British colonial government was in charge of your feet. And then post 97, you were 190 00:15:38,480 --> 00:15:42,069 just kind of like handed over to the Chinese government. Maybe at the age of 191 00:15:42,069 --> 00:15:46,549 like 4, 5, 6, depending on how old you were. But at no point did you actually get 192 00:15:46,549 --> 00:15:51,169 a choice. But you also grew up with a lot more political freedom than a lot of 193 00:15:51,169 --> 00:15:54,709 people in mainland China. You had no Internet censorship and people in Hong 194 00:15:54,709 --> 00:15:58,039 Kong talk very openly about a lot of things that the Chinese government has 195 00:15:58,039 --> 00:16:01,910 done. And so you're very aware of things such as the Tiananmen massacre and you're 196 00:16:01,910 --> 00:16:05,799 afraid that those things might maybe happen to you in 47, when you know there's 197 00:16:05,799 --> 00:16:09,660 an expiration date on all the freedoms that you have. But in 47, you might also 198 00:16:09,660 --> 00:16:14,159 be part of that and those things might also be what happens to you. But at the 199 00:16:14,159 --> 00:16:17,660 same time, what you'd also seen is that you'd seen freedoms eroded and you saw all 200 00:16:17,660 --> 00:16:22,679 these signs that made you think that the promises, the promise of those 50 years of 201 00:16:22,679 --> 00:16:25,929 freedom and of a separate political system, that that was an empty promise and 202 00:16:25,929 --> 00:16:28,990 that China was not intending to keep it. And this, I think, is also really 203 00:16:28,990 --> 00:16:32,859 important that a lot of people who I spoke to that tell me China doesn't want 1 204 00:16:32,859 --> 00:16:37,382 country, 2 systems. And if they don't want it, they will undermine it if they can. So 205 00:16:37,382 --> 00:16:41,059 one person who I spoke to is in his 20s said China just wants one country, one 206 00:16:41,059 --> 00:16:45,229 system, and it's going to do whatever it wants to achieve that. And that's the 207 00:16:45,229 --> 00:16:48,689 mindset, I think, that we need to understand to know why people are going 208 00:16:48,689 --> 00:16:54,350 out on the streets right now. So people are scared of China. People think, people 209 00:16:54,350 --> 00:16:58,889 don't trust the Chinese legal system. And what happens in 2019 is that the 210 00:16:58,889 --> 00:17:04,550 government introduces an extradition bill. Previously, one of the ways the Hong Kong 211 00:17:04,550 --> 00:17:08,770 legal system was kept separate from China is that it couldn't extradite people to 212 00:17:08,770 --> 00:17:12,850 China. So if someone commits a crime in China and flees to Hong Kong, the Hong 213 00:17:12,850 --> 00:17:17,740 Kong government cannot send that person to China for prosecution. But what happened 214 00:17:17,740 --> 00:17:22,360 is that someone committed a crime in Taiwan, which Hong Kong considers to be 215 00:17:22,360 --> 00:17:27,399 part of China. And that person. So this person was a Hong Kong citizen. He killed 216 00:17:27,399 --> 00:17:32,799 his girlfriend and fled to Hong Kong, was convicted of a couple of credit card fraud 217 00:17:32,799 --> 00:17:36,490 charges. But because the Hong Kong courts didn't have jurisdiction, they couldn't 218 00:17:36,490 --> 00:17:39,800 actually get him for the murder of his girlfriend. And so the Hong Kong 219 00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:42,760 government said, okay, look, we're going to get an extradition bill so we can start 220 00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:48,320 extraditing people to Taiwan, including, and then also start extraditing people to 221 00:17:48,320 --> 00:17:56,860 China. I mean, what do you think people thought about that? They weren't happy. So 222 00:17:56,860 --> 00:18:03,330 on June 9th, one million people, estimated, went on the street to protest 223 00:18:03,330 --> 00:18:07,290 against the extradition bill. And this is where we're starting, right? This is where 224 00:18:07,290 --> 00:18:11,049 the political movement starts. I want to give you an overview of what's happened 225 00:18:11,049 --> 00:18:16,570 over the past 7 months, because it's easy in hindsight to forget just the scale of a 226 00:18:16,570 --> 00:18:22,830 lot of what happened. So on June 9th we get, official numbers are 240000. So 227 00:18:22,830 --> 00:18:27,585 that's the police. The organizers say 1 million people. On June 12th, we get 40000 228 00:18:27,585 --> 00:18:31,440 people who essentially gather around the government headquarter and prevent the 229 00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:35,620 bill from being read a second time, from being discussed. And the police used tear 230 00:18:35,620 --> 00:18:39,389 gas, rubber bullets and beanbag rounds against protesters that were largely 231 00:18:39,389 --> 00:18:44,369 unarmed and in some cases held umbrellas to essentially defend themselves. People 232 00:18:44,369 --> 00:18:48,679 were really mad at that and so on June 16th, the largest protest march in Hong 233 00:18:48,679 --> 00:18:53,990 Kong history happened with an estimated of 2 million people, which is a sizable 234 00:18:53,990 --> 00:19:01,503 proportion of the city's population. So people are protesting on July 21st. I 235 00:19:01,503 --> 00:19:05,720 think this is one of the events that people really need to know about. Well, 236 00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:09,690 there was a protest in the center of Hong Kong in a metro station further north in 237 00:19:09,690 --> 00:19:15,600 Yuen Long. Suddenly, a group of 20, 25 men in white t-shirts turned up and started 238 00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:18,949 beating people. So just started indiscriminately beating people up who 239 00:19:18,949 --> 00:19:24,179 were on the metro. We all know this because there was a journalist in the same 240 00:19:24,179 --> 00:19:28,240 metro station and she was live streaming the entire thing. So for 40 minutes, she 241 00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:34,000 was live streaming violence that people in Hong Kong had never really seen before. 242 00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:38,065 People are used to being relatively safe. Hong Kong has a pretty low crime rate. And 243 00:19:38,065 --> 00:19:41,689 there was this incredibly vicious violence they were all seeing on their screens. So 244 00:19:41,689 --> 00:19:45,519 everyone knew this. Like at some point there were thousands, tens of thousands of 245 00:19:45,519 --> 00:19:49,610 people in this live stream. And yet the police was doing nothing. And it didn't 246 00:19:49,610 --> 00:19:55,350 turn up until after these people had disappeared. And I think within that day 247 00:19:55,350 --> 00:19:59,191 they may be arrested. I think within a couple of days they didn't arrest anyone. 248 00:19:59,191 --> 00:20:04,519 And then later they arrested 3 people. But so far, nothing has come of that. That was 249 00:20:04,519 --> 00:20:08,850 really a turning point where people lost a lot of trust in institutions that they 250 00:20:08,850 --> 00:20:13,429 used to have before because they decided that ultimately when in doubt, if there's 251 00:20:13,429 --> 00:20:17,948 some gangster beating me up, if the person is politically for the government, I 252 00:20:17,948 --> 00:20:21,430 cannot trust the police to come and save me. And a lot of people, especially 253 00:20:21,430 --> 00:20:25,159 wealthier, more well-off, middle class people, that's the point when they change 254 00:20:25,159 --> 00:20:28,879 their mind. Maybe before they said the extradition bill isn't that bad, I don't 255 00:20:28,879 --> 00:20:32,660 mind, it will be fine. But that was the moment when they saw those people getting 256 00:20:32,660 --> 00:20:36,066 beaten up. They looked at them and they were like, that could have been me. And 257 00:20:36,066 --> 00:20:38,836 that's when they said, now something needs to happen and something needs to be done 258 00:20:38,836 --> 00:20:45,108 about this government. So more people go out in the pouring rain. An estimated 1.7 259 00:20:45,108 --> 00:20:51,019 million people protesting. August 31 the estimate is tens of thousands, but this 260 00:20:51,019 --> 00:20:54,585 was an illegal march, so the protest wasn't allowed. So people went out to 261 00:20:54,585 --> 00:20:58,100 protest despite it being illegal. They knew they could be charged with like 262 00:20:58,100 --> 00:21:03,096 illegal assembly. Maybe a riot which carries up to 10 years. After that, the 263 00:21:03,096 --> 00:21:06,609 government essentially stopped allowing protest marches and they were like, maybe 264 00:21:06,609 --> 00:21:10,789 if we don't allow you to protest, people won't come out to protest. Didn't work out 265 00:21:10,789 --> 00:21:17,410 on October 1st, Chinese National Day, thousands demonstrated on the streets 266 00:21:17,410 --> 00:21:22,929 again. And this is the first day someone was shot with a life round. So a protester 267 00:21:22,929 --> 00:21:28,693 in his 20s was shot by a policeman at close range. On October 4th, again, 268 00:21:28,693 --> 00:21:32,190 thousands of people out in the streets. The government tries to ban masks, so they 269 00:21:32,190 --> 00:21:35,809 went to prevent people from hiding their faces. And you see what people do in 270 00:21:35,809 --> 00:21:39,960 reaction to that. They put on masks and they go out and protest because it's Hong Kong 271 00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:45,534 On November 8th, the first person died in the context of the protests. A young 272 00:21:45,534 --> 00:21:50,950 man who fell from a building near a police action saved and in a coma for several 273 00:21:50,950 --> 00:21:54,680 days and then died on November 8th. This picture is from one of the vigils 274 00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:59,470 for him. And several days later, the second person died in the context of the 275 00:21:59,470 --> 00:22:04,299 protest, an old man who was probably just a bystander at a clash between police and 276 00:22:04,299 --> 00:22:10,330 protesters. He was hit in his face, in the head by a brick and died several days 277 00:22:10,330 --> 00:22:15,860 later. Also after a coma. This was what set off the most extreme and the most 278 00:22:15,860 --> 00:22:20,760 violent days of protests in Hong Kong that we have seen this year and possibly ever. 279 00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:25,669 Where people started occupying university campuses and had real battles with police 280 00:22:25,669 --> 00:22:29,510 to essentially defend those campuses against police. And the whole thing 281 00:22:29,510 --> 00:22:34,379 culminated on November 18th in police essentially laying siege to an entire 282 00:22:34,379 --> 00:22:38,509 university, trapping people inside and thousands of people going out to protest 283 00:22:38,509 --> 00:22:42,660 and trying to essentially break through the police cordon from the outside and 284 00:22:42,660 --> 00:22:46,549 rescue the people who were inside, who were afraid of the police, who didn't want 285 00:22:46,549 --> 00:22:50,389 to come up because they'd seen videos of police violence over the past few months 286 00:22:50,389 --> 00:22:53,550 and they were scared because they said, I don't know what's going to happen if I go 287 00:22:53,550 --> 00:22:57,739 out, but who also said we have fought for so many months at this point. So this was 288 00:22:57,739 --> 00:23:01,280 November, right? So a month ago, they were saying we have fought it for so many 289 00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:06,360 months, we cannot just give up. We need to at least try. One thing that happened as 290 00:23:06,360 --> 00:23:12,299 part of that was that people coordinate an absolutely insane exit from the besieged 291 00:23:12,299 --> 00:23:18,829 university where they basically came down from a footbridge. Some of these people 292 00:23:18,829 --> 00:23:22,759 are climbing, but some of them are just falling down. And then you have 293 00:23:22,759 --> 00:23:26,870 motorcyclists waiting for them down the bridge. All of this is coordinated online. 294 00:23:26,870 --> 00:23:31,250 And we don't know how many people are going out that way, but maybe 50 or 100 295 00:23:31,250 --> 00:23:35,139 men were able to escape arrest. 296 00:23:35,139 --> 00:23:44,029 *Video playing, human voices, photo shutters, motorcycle noises* 297 00:23:44,029 --> 00:23:51,329 It's kind of like getting down and being picked up by motorbikes. The sieges 298 00:23:51,329 --> 00:23:55,571 eventually ended. Kind of a lot of people were arrested. I think more than a 299 00:23:55,571 --> 00:23:59,420 thousand people were arrested around the university that was occupied. But several 300 00:23:59,420 --> 00:24:02,740 days later, there were district council elections, which are basically local 301 00:24:02,740 --> 00:24:08,129 elections in Hong Kong and this was the electoral map before the elections. Red are 302 00:24:08,129 --> 00:24:12,820 pro-government parties and yellow are pro- democracy parties. There was a record 303 00:24:12,820 --> 00:24:17,100 turnout, the highest ever in the history of Hong Kong. And the pro-democracy camp 304 00:24:17,100 --> 00:24:25,450 made the map to this. *applause* 305 00:24:25,450 --> 00:24:29,470 One thing that's important to bear in mind is that Hong Kong uses the first-past-the- 306 00:24:29,470 --> 00:24:34,200 post system. So you win in your district if you gain an absolute majority. So these 307 00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:39,249 seats actually don't translate into that much of a electoral difference. So I think 308 00:24:39,249 --> 00:24:43,990 it was 60/40. So with 60% for pro- democracy, but especially compared to what 309 00:24:43,990 --> 00:24:47,139 the districts had looked like before, this was an incredible achievement and I also 310 00:24:47,139 --> 00:24:49,590 think this is one thing that's really important, recognize that there's a lot of 311 00:24:49,590 --> 00:24:52,850 organizational work that went through this. So people put in a lot of time, no 312 00:24:52,850 --> 00:24:56,730 love like work to make sure that people went out and would be able to vote and the 313 00:24:56,730 --> 00:25:05,029 people knew who they were voting for. So here we are in December. By the count of 314 00:25:05,029 --> 00:25:11,779 the activist and writer Kong Tsung-gan there have been 6152 arrests, at least, 315 00:25:11,779 --> 00:25:15,470 possibly more. 921 people have been prosecuted. So there's an incredible 316 00:25:15,470 --> 00:25:21,760 backlog and there have been 774 protests that includes smaller ones. That was as of 317 00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:26,340 December 23. Since then, there have been several more hundred arrests. So we're 318 00:25:26,340 --> 00:25:31,350 probably getting closer, much closer to 6500, 6600. And that's where we are after 319 00:25:31,350 --> 00:25:39,589 7 months of protest in Hong Kong. This is somewhat depressing, but it's also 320 00:25:39,589 --> 00:25:43,660 incredibly impressive that people have been able to keep going for such a long 321 00:25:43,660 --> 00:25:49,200 time. These people who are going out into the streets are not just walking for half 322 00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:53,029 an hour or an hour and then go home and are like, oh, yeah, no, it's fine. People 323 00:25:53,029 --> 00:25:57,019 are entering real battles with police and essentially running and hiding from police 324 00:25:57,019 --> 00:26:01,760 for, in some cases for hours. A lot of people have been driven to physical 325 00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:06,140 exhaustion. A lot of people aren't doing well mentally because that's incredibly 326 00:26:06,140 --> 00:26:09,979 depressing. There's a lot of anxiety. People are very scared of what could 327 00:26:09,979 --> 00:26:13,789 happen to them if they do get arrested. And so one thing that I want to now focus 328 00:26:13,789 --> 00:26:18,350 on is how they've been able to just keep this going for such a long time. Hong Kong 329 00:26:18,350 --> 00:26:22,570 is such a tiny place. And if you look at the resources that the Chinese government 330 00:26:22,570 --> 00:26:26,380 has access to, that the Hong Kong government has access to. How can a 331 00:26:26,380 --> 00:26:34,049 protest keep going for so long? I think I have a few answers. The first answer is 332 00:26:34,049 --> 00:26:40,100 that they are very clear demands that the movement has. The first is a complete 333 00:26:40,100 --> 00:26:44,200 withdrawal of the extradition bill. So the blog that I was talking about earlier that 334 00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:52,410 was fulfilled in September. The second is the release of arrested protesters without 335 00:26:52,410 --> 00:26:56,179 chargers. So they're saying we want all those 6..., more than 6000 people, those 336 00:26:56,179 --> 00:26:59,910 should be released and they should be able to go home without being charged because 337 00:26:59,910 --> 00:27:03,240 they were trying to make their government listen to them because there is no other 338 00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:07,110 way you can get your government to listen to you if you cannot vote. The only thing 339 00:27:07,110 --> 00:27:10,929 you can do is you can go out on the street. The third demand is the withdrawal 340 00:27:10,929 --> 00:27:16,610 of the characterization of protests as a right of old. Any protest is a riot. This 341 00:27:16,610 --> 00:27:19,539 is a bit technical, but the basic gist of it is that there is a law that the British 342 00:27:19,539 --> 00:27:25,389 colonial administration introduced which allows police to classify a lot of 343 00:27:25,389 --> 00:27:30,120 protests as riots. It's like a pretty broad definition. It's pretty vague. And 344 00:27:30,120 --> 00:27:35,610 that if you're convicted of rioting, that carries up to 10 years in prison. So I 345 00:27:35,610 --> 00:27:40,450 think roughly a third of arrested protesters has been under 18. Imagine you 346 00:27:40,450 --> 00:27:43,070 are 14 years old and you're out in the streets and you find out that you could be 347 00:27:43,070 --> 00:27:50,299 charged with rioting and you're looking at a 10 year prison sentence. Let's... That's 348 00:27:50,299 --> 00:27:54,440 very scary. The first demand. Which is one of the ones that has some of the most 349 00:27:54,440 --> 00:28:00,220 support in the population. Currently at 72 percent as of December 8th is an 350 00:28:00,220 --> 00:28:04,960 independent investigation to police brutality because people don't trust the 351 00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:08,400 government watchdog. That is essentially staffed by people who the government gets 352 00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:12,820 to pick. And they have has been. There were a few international experts on that 353 00:28:12,820 --> 00:28:15,600 panel, but all of them resigned because they said this is actually a joke and we 354 00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,880 don't think we can actually do anything meaningful about this. So people want an 355 00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,580 independent investigation. I specifically did not include images of protest 356 00:28:22,580 --> 00:28:27,309 brutality in my presentation. But if you think you can take the violence, I would 357 00:28:27,309 --> 00:28:32,309 urge you to actually go look them up. There's a lot of material online. Hong 358 00:28:32,309 --> 00:28:34,960 Kong Free Press has documented a lot of these cases and reports on the legal 359 00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:40,350 follow up on them as well. This has not been good. And I think it's also something 360 00:28:40,350 --> 00:28:44,769 that the violence was especially disproportionate and shocking for people 361 00:28:44,769 --> 00:28:48,530 because people are used to being safe. People are not used to living in a country 362 00:28:48,530 --> 00:28:53,070 where the police just comes and beats them up or where the police just put like 363 00:28:53,070 --> 00:28:56,870 stomps their foot on the head of an arrested protester who's already lying on 364 00:28:56,870 --> 00:28:59,610 the ground. They're not used to like watching police kicks, like just kick 365 00:28:59,610 --> 00:29:02,641 someone who's already on the ground. They're also don't, ... they're also not 366 00:29:02,641 --> 00:29:08,899 used to, ... they're also not used to police arresting teenagers. So, yeah, 367 00:29:08,899 --> 00:29:14,169 that's number four. And number five is real universal sufefrage. This is currently 368 00:29:14,169 --> 00:29:19,629 at 70 percent support in the broader population. So the idea is, essentially, 369 00:29:19,629 --> 00:29:25,169 people say, we want that democracy that promised, if you meet us in 97 or what we 370 00:29:25,169 --> 00:29:29,519 think you..., like that promise that we think you made us. We want that. And this 371 00:29:29,519 --> 00:29:31,159 is also something that has been strengthened, especially over the past few 372 00:29:31,159 --> 00:29:35,929 months, because until a year ago, maybe people thought it doesn't matter that much 373 00:29:35,929 --> 00:29:39,369 if I elect the government because things will be fine and most people are competent 374 00:29:39,369 --> 00:29:42,100 who are in government. But if the past seven months they've been watching a 375 00:29:42,100 --> 00:29:45,260 government that essentially refused to listen to any of the protesters and 376 00:29:45,260 --> 00:29:51,309 pretended like that none of their demands were in any way politically legitimate. So 377 00:29:51,309 --> 00:29:53,659 now people like... now a lot of people who are fired a year ago saying, well, now we 378 00:29:53,659 --> 00:29:57,100 need democracy because we've seen what happens if you have a government that 379 00:29:57,100 --> 00:30:01,369 doesn't represent the people it's supposed to represent. I think this is an important 380 00:30:01,369 --> 00:30:05,779 strategy because it means that everyone who goes out, knows what they're 381 00:30:05,779 --> 00:30:09,460 protesting for. So since July, people have been going out on the streets and they 382 00:30:09,460 --> 00:30:13,889 say: These are the five things we want. This is what we want. Nothing else. 383 00:30:13,889 --> 00:30:17,450 Notably, independence is not part of this list, although the Chinese government 384 00:30:17,450 --> 00:30:21,809 likes to say that the protesters are separatists. Independence is not a demand 385 00:30:21,809 --> 00:30:27,850 of the movement and also has pretty low support in Hong Kong. But instead, because 386 00:30:27,850 --> 00:30:32,159 you have these five demands, it's very catchy. People have even come up with the 387 00:30:32,159 --> 00:30:35,730 protest slogan..., with a protest sign. Right? So whenever you see pictures of 388 00:30:35,730 --> 00:30:38,509 protest, you will see people just holding up their hands like this because they're 389 00:30:38,509 --> 00:30:41,669 like five demands. And then they put up another thing and they're saying not one 390 00:30:41,669 --> 00:30:47,179 less. So that's one guiding slogan that they've been using. And it's been memed. 391 00:30:47,179 --> 00:30:53,080 Everything gets memed in the Hong Kong protests. So, for example, if you're 392 00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:57,360 disappointed with the new Star Wars movie, go to Hong Kong, because there's a lot of 393 00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:02,639 very entertaining Star Wars content that includes protesters. So on the left, you 394 00:31:02,639 --> 00:31:07,890 can see at the bottom again, it says five demands, not one less. And the image on 395 00:31:07,890 --> 00:31:24,120 the right also has that in Chinese. Strategy number two. Be water. This is an 396 00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:28,269 image by an artist,... that essentially,... so you've seen some of the 397 00:31:28,269 --> 00:31:32,390 images where people cover their faces to protect themselves against tear gas. They 398 00:31:32,390 --> 00:31:36,649 protect themselves so they can't be identified. And so there was a week when 399 00:31:36,649 --> 00:31:42,130 people started drawing the Pokemons of the Hong Kong protests. And this was an image 400 00:31:42,130 --> 00:31:46,570 for be water. Be water has essentially been a guiding principle of the movement 401 00:31:46,570 --> 00:31:51,570 since the very beginning. And it's based on a Bruce Lee quote. He's a martial 402 00:31:51,570 --> 00:31:58,010 artist. He was in a bunch of like kung fu films from Hong Kong. And he said, empty 403 00:31:58,010 --> 00:32:04,809 your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. Now you put water in a cup. It 404 00:32:04,809 --> 00:32:08,809 becomes the cup. You put water in a bottle. It becomes the bottle. You put it 405 00:32:08,809 --> 00:32:15,580 in a teapot. It becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. So the 406 00:32:15,580 --> 00:32:19,580 idea of be water is that you essentially accumulate and gather people in places 407 00:32:19,580 --> 00:32:24,080 unexpectedly and very quickly and in the end you disappear as quickly as possible. 408 00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:28,159 There were scenes where protests of thousands in the center of Hong Kong just 409 00:32:28,159 --> 00:32:32,790 kind of like dissipated and disappeared into nothingness. This is how you can 410 00:32:32,790 --> 00:32:37,259 avoid police capture in many cases. Right. Like you don't sit and you don't stay in a 411 00:32:37,259 --> 00:32:41,940 place like people did with Occupy Central in 2014. You leave once the police turns 412 00:32:41,940 --> 00:32:46,350 up, but you don't even have to wait for the police to show up to know that they're 413 00:32:46,350 --> 00:32:52,499 coming. Because what people have started doing is that essentially you get maps 414 00:32:52,499 --> 00:32:56,159 where they have,... or you have scouting channels first, where people, when they 415 00:32:56,159 --> 00:33:00,929 see police, they just submit a report to the,... like to the telegram channel. So 416 00:33:00,929 --> 00:33:03,580 there are bots where you can submit reports. You say, I've seen a police unit. 417 00:33:03,580 --> 00:33:10,190 It's going from here to this place. That direction, this many policemen. And that 418 00:33:10,190 --> 00:33:12,500 gets posted on a telegram channel with a hashtag for the location that there were 419 00:33:12,500 --> 00:33:19,090 seen in. One person who I interviewed, who's middle class, doing really well. I 420 00:33:19,090 --> 00:33:21,480 asked him what the protest changed about him. And he said it really changed my 421 00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:25,809 frame of mind because now I got used to observing the deployment of police 422 00:33:25,809 --> 00:33:29,440 whenever I see it. I got alerted to a siren and once I see it, I will 423 00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:38,379 immediately send the info onto a telegram channel. These reports then also get 424 00:33:38,379 --> 00:33:47,539 turned into maps. So this was Christmas Eve in Hong Kong. So people got a white 425 00:33:47,539 --> 00:33:51,610 Christmas, not because there was snow, but because there was a lot of tear gas. And 426 00:33:51,610 --> 00:33:54,400 the reports that people sent in are essentially turned into a map that you can 427 00:33:54,400 --> 00:34:00,980 use to strategically avoid being captured by police. And also that, for example, 428 00:34:00,980 --> 00:34:04,470 some relatives of mine wanted to go to Hong Kong and they said, well, we are 429 00:34:04,470 --> 00:34:07,210 worried about going into areas of protest. And I was like, well, you can use this map 430 00:34:07,210 --> 00:34:10,570 and you can avoid. You can see really easily in which, ... into which areas you 431 00:34:10,570 --> 00:34:13,540 really shouldn't go. And basically, if there are a lot of icons in the place, 432 00:34:13,540 --> 00:34:17,630 that means a lot of stuff is happening there. If there are ..., if you have like 433 00:34:17,630 --> 00:34:23,450 the puppy logo, that means police units, cars means police cars. You see some water 434 00:34:23,450 --> 00:34:28,310 drops kind of like in the middle towards the left. That means there's a water 435 00:34:28,310 --> 00:34:33,030 cannon right there that you probably want to avoid. And there's also different signs 436 00:34:33,030 --> 00:34:38,799 for the different police units. So they're Raptors. And those are predators, the 437 00:34:38,799 --> 00:34:44,369 dinosaur logos. And in addition to that, you kind of have the, you know, at what 438 00:34:44,369 --> 00:34:49,099 time the report was submitted, you can verify a report you see further down 439 00:34:49,099 --> 00:34:54,020 towards the lower part of the map. There's a camera sign. And so that means that 440 00:34:54,020 --> 00:34:58,000 there are life feeds from that place. So if you want to know what's going on at a 441 00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:00,770 particular place, a lot of Hong Kong journalists are live streaming the 442 00:35:00,770 --> 00:35:03,160 protests. And so you can go and just watch a livestream to see what's really 443 00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:07,220 happening on the ground. Right like there. And there's even a Web site that compiles 444 00:35:07,220 --> 00:35:11,940 up to nine live streams at the same time. So you can just watch all of them at the 445 00:35:11,940 --> 00:35:16,690 same time on your screen to make sure you know what's happening. These maps are 446 00:35:16,690 --> 00:35:23,010 extremely useful. And there is no way of saying how many people they've helped in 447 00:35:23,010 --> 00:35:26,980 avoiding arrest. But one friend of mine who was talking to another protester in 448 00:35:26,980 --> 00:35:30,630 July said, that he was going home from a protest, and he was wearing the 449 00:35:30,630 --> 00:35:34,420 distinctive black shirts that protesters usually wear. He didn't have any change of 450 00:35:34,420 --> 00:35:39,990 clothes and he wanted to avoid arrest. And he told his friends. And so within a few 451 00:35:39,990 --> 00:35:45,099 minutes, they sent him a screenshot of Google Maps where you could just see where 452 00:35:45,099 --> 00:35:49,660 they'd just shown him, this is your escape route. Just going around all the police 453 00:35:49,660 --> 00:35:53,060 units that they could see on the map, using only open sourced, crowd sourced 454 00:35:53,060 --> 00:35:56,860 information that was all made freely available online and that people put on 455 00:35:56,860 --> 00:36:15,500 maps like this. *Applause* I think it's worth clapping for, like because these are 456 00:36:15,500 --> 00:36:21,650 people's lives, right? If there are only 10 people that got to escape police arrest 457 00:36:21,650 --> 00:36:24,650 because of these things, we don't know to how many years those people could be sent 458 00:36:24,650 --> 00:36:27,720 to the prison. They could just be sent its defiance. Maybe they could send us to 459 00:36:27,720 --> 00:36:30,970 prison in three years. But all of that is time. All of that is time in people's 460 00:36:30,970 --> 00:36:35,490 lives and the lives of people who have been going out to protest and all of that 461 00:36:35,490 --> 00:36:39,619 was saved thanks to people crowdsourcing and open sourcing all of this information. 462 00:36:39,619 --> 00:36:42,660 And that's an incredible effort that people have been making for months now and 463 00:36:42,660 --> 00:36:51,520 an incredibly important institution that really has helped people. The next part of 464 00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:56,721 be water is decentralized decision making. One of the reasons I talked about the 465 00:36:56,721 --> 00:37:00,450 history of Hong Kong protests before and all of that political stuff is because I 466 00:37:00,450 --> 00:37:05,010 think it's very important to understand where people are coming from. People of 467 00:37:05,010 --> 00:37:08,600 all ages are protesting. But it's really young people who are disproportionally 468 00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:13,200 against the government and against the bill. I think especially, ... I think 469 00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:18,221 earlier in June or July, the numbers were that 59 percent of people under 16 oppose 470 00:37:18,221 --> 00:37:22,260 the extradition bill. That's almost 100 percent amongst people who are not even 471 00:37:22,260 --> 00:37:27,359 eligible to vote. Not even close to being eligible to vote. But these people have 472 00:37:27,359 --> 00:37:31,720 also been protesting for a very long time, and they've also learned from the past. 473 00:37:31,720 --> 00:37:35,270 One thing that they've learned from 2014 is that you if you're a leader, you get 474 00:37:35,270 --> 00:37:40,790 arrested and you get put in prison. Joshua Wong, who you may have heard of, is one of 475 00:37:40,790 --> 00:37:44,930 the people who that happened to him. Another person who that happened to his 476 00:37:44,930 --> 00:37:50,970 Edward Lung, who was a leading figure of the fishbowl riots of 2016. He's currently 477 00:37:50,970 --> 00:37:56,069 still serving time in prison. But how do you organize a movement without having 478 00:37:56,069 --> 00:38:03,780 political leaders? You well, you do the whole crowd intelligence thing. Right. 479 00:38:03,780 --> 00:38:06,850 Like you start having grassroots decision making, you have a leaderless movement. 480 00:38:06,850 --> 00:38:11,120 Hong Kong is not the first time this has happened. The Gezi protests in Istanbul in 481 00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:18,450 2013 were doing something similar. And now it's happening on Hong Kong. So you 482 00:38:18,450 --> 00:38:21,589 have,... if you have no leaders, you have nobody who the government can arrest to 483 00:38:21,589 --> 00:38:25,700 cripple the movement. They can maybe arrest one person. They can arrest a 484 00:38:25,700 --> 00:38:28,750 hundred people. They can arrest 6000 people. But all of those people are only 485 00:38:28,750 --> 00:38:34,250 drops in the bigger movement and in that wave that we were talking about earlier. 486 00:38:34,250 --> 00:38:41,430 So how does political decision making work if you have thousands of people? So there 487 00:38:41,430 --> 00:38:47,270 are telegram groups primarily and there there's also a forum called LIHGK. That's 488 00:38:47,270 --> 00:38:51,060 a bit like reddit. And then people just have political discussions on those. In 489 00:38:51,060 --> 00:38:55,520 addition to that, people often have groups on whatsup. People have Facebook groups 490 00:38:55,520 --> 00:39:00,490 like my parents are like probably not on telegram, but kind of like the equivalent 491 00:39:00,490 --> 00:39:05,630 of the children. Their generation has groups on Facebook. And that's where 492 00:39:05,630 --> 00:39:08,869 people are talking about what they think should happen, about strategic questions, 493 00:39:08,869 --> 00:39:13,319 about questions in terms of what their aims should be. And so it's just kind of 494 00:39:13,319 --> 00:39:16,430 happening on all these platforms. And so if you have an idea or if you have an 495 00:39:16,430 --> 00:39:19,450 argument that you think is important, you share it. And if people agree with you, 496 00:39:19,450 --> 00:39:24,711 they start sharing it further on. So decision making is kind of like,... has 497 00:39:24,711 --> 00:39:28,579 like a snowball effect where you can see once you are in different groups like 498 00:39:28,579 --> 00:39:32,750 arguments that people agree with keep reappearing, like in 10, 15, 20 groups or 499 00:39:32,750 --> 00:39:37,329 people start rephrasing them. And so that's how we kind of like consensus is 500 00:39:37,329 --> 00:39:41,990 often being built. At the same time, if you want to,... if you have an idea for a 501 00:39:41,990 --> 00:39:45,710 really cool protest action such as you want people to form a human chain across 502 00:39:45,710 --> 00:39:49,440 part of Hong Kong, which is something that they did and someone just came up with it 503 00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,650 and posted about it online and then someone made a poster for it and more 504 00:39:52,650 --> 00:39:57,220 people made posters and lots of people said this is a great idea. And so they 505 00:39:57,220 --> 00:40:01,049 just did it. I hope that especially hackers can empathize with this idea that 506 00:40:01,049 --> 00:40:05,069 someone has a cool idea, just does it. And then people recognize that it is cool and 507 00:40:05,069 --> 00:40:08,720 kind of go along with it. And that's how a lot of the movement has been working for 508 00:40:08,720 --> 00:40:14,319 the past few months as well. Another example of this is the December 1st 509 00:40:14,319 --> 00:40:19,119 protest where thousands of people came out because someone, just like basically the 510 00:40:19,119 --> 00:40:22,609 equivalent of a Reddit user in his 20s had just said, "well, I thought we should try 511 00:40:22,609 --> 00:40:25,930 to have a protest again." And all of a sudden the government actually gave him 512 00:40:25,930 --> 00:40:29,670 permission. And there were thousands of people, again, out on the streets because 513 00:40:29,670 --> 00:40:38,450 anyone can register protest. One thing that's hard is decision-making. Some of 514 00:40:38,450 --> 00:40:41,150 these groups have thousands of people. I think I'm in several telegram groups that 515 00:40:41,150 --> 00:40:48,500 have maybe 60-70 thousand members. So often people use polling to essentially 516 00:40:48,500 --> 00:40:52,839 make decisions. I don't know whether you know the poll function of telegram? 517 00:40:52,839 --> 00:40:57,260 Basically, the admins can send in a poll and say these are your four options. Do 518 00:40:57,260 --> 00:41:01,880 you think we should do A, B, C, or D and then just, kind of, vote. And that's how a 519 00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:06,260 lot of the -- especially -- decision making and discussion on demands or 520 00:41:06,260 --> 00:41:12,280 deadlines that people were trying to set was happening earlier in the movement. But 521 00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:17,160 it's also something that people can use if they need to make strategic decisions 522 00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:23,599 quickly on the spot. On August 12th, people occupied the Hong Kong airport, 523 00:41:23,599 --> 00:41:27,640 which is an incredibly important international hub, and where they managed 524 00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:34,670 to paralyze the entire airport. The Hong Kong government announced that day that 525 00:41:34,670 --> 00:41:40,200 flights would stop taking off at 4 p.m. and there started being rumors that the 526 00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:44,900 police would essentially come in and start clearing out the airport violently with 527 00:41:44,900 --> 00:41:49,020 tear gas. And police was deploying increasingly more people towards the 528 00:41:49,020 --> 00:41:52,329 airport. Because you have all these telegram channels, you see that people 529 00:41:52,329 --> 00:41:55,799 take pictures of police. They post them and you see, "Oh, my God, all this police 530 00:41:55,799 --> 00:42:00,520 is coming towards the airport, I am here. They cut off the metro. So you cannot take 531 00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:04,880 the train back into the city. The Hong Kong airport is on an island. You cannot 532 00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:08,359 get away from there." And so there was a lot of heated discussion back and forth 533 00:42:08,359 --> 00:42:12,359 that day. And people were discussing, "Is it safe?" "Is it not safe?" And 534 00:42:12,359 --> 00:42:15,660 ultimately, there was one channel that had, I think, 60000 followers and the 535 00:42:15,660 --> 00:42:20,520 admins kept asking, should we stay or shall we go? And the ratios kept 536 00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:25,130 changing towards leaving. And then suddenly it was 70 to 30 percent. And 537 00:42:25,130 --> 00:42:27,130 people were like, OK, this is it, we're leaving. And that was kind of the moment 538 00:42:27,130 --> 00:42:31,620 when you could see people changing their mind, right on the spot. There was nobody 539 00:42:31,620 --> 00:42:34,039 who said, "We're now leaving," not a single person who said "We're now going 540 00:42:34,039 --> 00:42:38,520 back." But just thousands of people who were watching and who said, "This looks 541 00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:43,991 too dangerous. We need to stay safe and we need to go home." The result of that was a 542 00:42:43,991 --> 00:42:49,770 mass exodus where people literally walked for hours, as you can see on this picture, 543 00:42:49,770 --> 00:42:53,590 just across streets. Because, buses were full and stopped running, The metro had 544 00:42:53,590 --> 00:42:59,680 stopped running, but they needed to get back home. One of the funniest things I 545 00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:05,680 think that I've heard of as part of the be water and grassroots discussion strategy; 546 00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:10,460 I was talking to Chiffon Young, who's the China correspondent for the German paper, 547 00:43:10,460 --> 00:43:15,130 Die Zeit and she was reporting from a small group that was building street 548 00:43:15,130 --> 00:43:21,690 blockades in Hong Kong. And there they were practicing grassroots decision making 549 00:43:21,690 --> 00:43:25,260 in person. So, they built a blockade. They hear police is coming, so scouts are 550 00:43:25,260 --> 00:43:28,450 telling them. They leave and they run to the metro. But then they need to know 551 00:43:28,450 --> 00:43:31,609 where they're going next, because there's no plan. Because if you have no plan, the 552 00:43:31,609 --> 00:43:35,030 police can't know your plan and can't wait for you there. But also, you have no plan. 553 00:43:35,030 --> 00:43:39,240 So you have five people, 10 people who are just shouting at each other on the metro 554 00:43:39,240 --> 00:43:42,700 platform. So one says "We want to go here," and the other person says "We're 555 00:43:42,700 --> 00:43:45,860 going there." And maybe after five minutes of shouting, they decide; "OK, we have 556 00:43:45,860 --> 00:43:53,220 reached consensus." Swarm intelligence. *laughers* But it works. It's chaotic, but it works 557 00:43:53,220 --> 00:43:59,150 because it really makes it hard to figure out where people are. Another really hard 558 00:43:59,150 --> 00:44:03,900 thing of this whole grassroots decision making and bottom up decision making has 559 00:44:03,900 --> 00:44:09,400 been how do you correct course if you make mistakes? How do you correct those 560 00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:12,059 mistakes, if there's nobody who can tell someone that they need to stop doing these 561 00:44:12,059 --> 00:44:16,260 things? Again, this was something you could observe during the airport protests, 562 00:44:16,260 --> 00:44:23,461 where people occupied the entire departure hall. And at some point -- I think they 563 00:44:23,461 --> 00:44:28,309 said it was a citizen's arrest but -- they basically tied a person to one of those 564 00:44:28,309 --> 00:44:32,550 luggage carts, who they thought was an undercover policeman from China, and beat 565 00:44:32,550 --> 00:44:37,890 that person up. I think he was led away in the end, but it was an incredibly ugly 566 00:44:37,890 --> 00:44:43,690 scene, and when you were watching it, it felt a lot like mob violence. But what 567 00:44:43,690 --> 00:44:47,380 happened after? A lot of people were saying, well, "This is a sign that this 568 00:44:47,380 --> 00:44:51,289 whole leaderless movement thing is not working. And you cannot actually change 569 00:44:51,289 --> 00:44:53,700 anything about your behavior. There's nobody who can tell these people that they 570 00:44:53,700 --> 00:44:57,020 need to change their mind." But what happened afterwards is that you saw the 571 00:44:57,020 --> 00:45:01,230 same thing that I was describing earlier. People saw that this was bad. And people 572 00:45:01,230 --> 00:45:04,589 agreed that that was bad! So people were going around and everyone kept encouraging 573 00:45:04,589 --> 00:45:09,640 everyone else; "You need to be careful. Don't use violence. If you think someone 574 00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:13,130 is an undercover cop, who's spying on you, you can't just beat that person up." 575 00:45:13,130 --> 00:45:16,660 Afterwards, there was one scene where people ran into someone who they thought 576 00:45:16,660 --> 00:45:20,500 was maybe a cop from mainland China. And so instead of beating him up, they all 577 00:45:20,500 --> 00:45:30,440 stood around him and started taking selfies with him. *cheerful laughter* In addition to that, 578 00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:37,210 increasingly you see people... pushing people, pulling people back. And so people 579 00:45:37,210 --> 00:45:42,829 are saying, "Well, this is something you can't do, you can't attack this person." 580 00:45:42,829 --> 00:45:46,821 So if there's a person who's tempers may be running really high, often there will 581 00:45:46,821 --> 00:45:50,220 be people around the person who say, "No, we're going to pull you back." People 582 00:45:50,220 --> 00:45:54,170 tried to write guidelines. They said you need to be careful about journalists. 583 00:45:54,170 --> 00:45:57,240 Don't accuse people of being fake journalists, all these things. So was a 584 00:45:57,240 --> 00:46:01,710 lot of like self correction and self control coming out of that moment. I 585 00:46:01,710 --> 00:46:04,349 thought that was really interesting and really important because was one sign the 586 00:46:04,349 --> 00:46:09,160 course correction can happen even if you have thousands of people. But it requires 587 00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:13,240 everyone to participate and requires people to be willing to essentially 588 00:46:13,240 --> 00:46:24,369 interrogate the things that they had done and also possibly admit mistakes. Strategy 589 00:46:24,369 --> 00:46:29,930 four: anonymity. Again, I think it may be something that hackers can empathize with. 590 00:46:29,930 --> 00:46:34,220 I know there is, as usual, a lot of talks about how to maintain your security and 591 00:46:34,220 --> 00:46:41,190 anonymity online. For people in Hong Kong, this has become incredibly important. The 592 00:46:41,190 --> 00:46:44,730 thing about feeling like your political system is being eroded and all the 593 00:46:44,730 --> 00:46:49,819 securities and certainties and rights you had disappearing slowly is that you don't 594 00:46:49,819 --> 00:46:54,510 know, months line has moved, so you don't blow anymore. A lot of people I've spoken 595 00:46:54,510 --> 00:46:59,140 to don't feel like they can speak politically anymore so they don't know 596 00:46:59,140 --> 00:47:01,780 what the consequences are going to be. Instead, what people do is they start 597 00:47:01,780 --> 00:47:05,309 changing their names on their Facebook accounts, for example, because something 598 00:47:05,309 --> 00:47:09,160 that they would have said openly like a year ago, they no longer dare to say under 599 00:47:09,160 --> 00:47:13,109 their own name. There are people who've been fired probably for the things that 600 00:47:13,109 --> 00:47:20,339 they said on Facebook, such as a person who was a union leader with a Hong Kong 601 00:47:20,339 --> 00:47:28,760 airline, Cathay Pacific. So, anonymity is enforced both in person and online. Also, 602 00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:31,930 again, through a lot of kind of like community control and people supporting 603 00:47:31,930 --> 00:47:36,329 each other and essentially enforcing these rules with each other. Online it's very 604 00:47:36,329 --> 00:47:39,860 much a social rule. So if you're kind of like in a working group on Telegram and 605 00:47:39,860 --> 00:47:43,369 people are starting to chat kind of about personal stuff, then usually there will be 606 00:47:43,369 --> 00:47:46,460 someone who tells everyone else, no, get back to work. Stop talking about that 607 00:47:46,460 --> 00:47:50,490 stuff. You're disclosing too much about yourself. One phrase that people keep 608 00:47:50,490 --> 00:47:55,550 using is they say there are ghosts. So the operational assumption is that in any 609 00:47:55,550 --> 00:47:58,220 group, there will be someone who is listening. So you especially in these 610 00:47:58,220 --> 00:48:03,170 bigger groups who cannot ever assume that there is no police in there. So you can do 611 00:48:03,170 --> 00:48:06,690 your work, but assume that you're being watched while you're doing anything that 612 00:48:06,690 --> 00:48:12,040 you're doing. Another thing that they're doing is that there are several channels 613 00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:18,150 that are dedicated to cybersecurity. And there is one channel, for example, that 614 00:48:18,150 --> 00:48:21,420 started passing around, kind of like JPEGs that had instructions for how to 615 00:48:21,420 --> 00:48:25,130 set your telegram settings, because you need to assume that a lot of the people 616 00:48:25,130 --> 00:48:27,950 who you're working with don't have a lot of interest necessarily in technology and 617 00:48:27,950 --> 00:48:32,049 maybe have the highest priority going out to protest. And so it helps that there are 618 00:48:32,049 --> 00:48:35,670 easy rules, Right? So people send around these instructions that say you toggle 619 00:48:35,670 --> 00:48:40,160 these things on your telegram settings, make sure that nobody can see your phone 620 00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:43,529 number who isn't already a contact of yours or you change this thing and that 621 00:48:43,529 --> 00:48:48,000 means that your account essentially self- destructs if you're inactive for seven 622 00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:51,690 days. And so in many ways, a lot of this is about the social kind of the social 623 00:48:51,690 --> 00:48:56,099 enforcement and also breaking things down and making them assess as accessible as 624 00:48:56,099 --> 00:49:01,010 possible. Another thing is that there's a telegram account that alerts people to 625 00:49:01,010 --> 00:49:04,510 people who have been arrested. And the operational assumption is that if you've 626 00:49:04,510 --> 00:49:08,770 been arrested, you're compromised. And so it posts the names and the telegram 627 00:49:08,770 --> 00:49:12,549 handles the people who have been captured by police and tells people delete this 628 00:49:12,549 --> 00:49:15,620 person's contact, like delete this person from all of your chats like you cannot 629 00:49:15,620 --> 00:49:19,100 also be compromised. So that's another way they're trying to kind of maintain that 630 00:49:19,100 --> 00:49:25,700 very basic security. I don't know how well this is working, to be very honest. I 631 00:49:25,700 --> 00:49:28,349 haven't really heard any reports of people who have been arrested for stuff that 632 00:49:28,349 --> 00:49:33,849 they've done on telegram. But that might also just be that it hasn't been reported 633 00:49:33,849 --> 00:49:37,210 or we don't know about this. It's also possible that the police has been just 634 00:49:37,210 --> 00:49:41,890 very busy mass arresting people at protests and that they have all this data 635 00:49:41,890 --> 00:49:46,420 and they might be watching people. It might come back around to that later on. 636 00:49:46,420 --> 00:49:49,240 Sometimes people have actually been able to identify the telegram handles or think 637 00:49:49,240 --> 00:49:54,750 they've been able to identify the telegram handles of policemen, which led to several 638 00:49:54,750 --> 00:50:00,650 people being kicked out of groups. But again, so the police is probably watching, 639 00:50:00,650 --> 00:50:06,470 but we don't know how much information they have access to. In real life, you can 640 00:50:06,470 --> 00:50:11,599 see kind of on the lower right corner, the usual outfit that people are wearing. 641 00:50:11,599 --> 00:50:16,329 These are front liners who are tend to be more directly involved in clashes with the 642 00:50:16,329 --> 00:50:20,400 police. That's the people who cover their faces with usually gas masks, sometimes 643 00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:24,700 just simple surgical masks. They're wearing goggles and hard hats to protect 644 00:50:24,700 --> 00:50:31,140 against projectiles, pepper spray, water cannons, tear gas, the things you 645 00:50:31,140 --> 00:50:35,359 encounter in the streets of Hong Kong these days. In addition to that, people 646 00:50:35,359 --> 00:50:40,650 have all of these umbrellas which they use to hide each other's identities. For 647 00:50:40,650 --> 00:50:43,990 example, if people are building a street blockade, then you always have some people 648 00:50:43,990 --> 00:50:47,090 who are building who kind of like building the blockade. And there's other people who 649 00:50:47,090 --> 00:50:50,470 are holding up umbrellas to prevent them from being photographed, especially given 650 00:50:50,470 --> 00:50:55,029 how much covered the protests are. This is especially important because there are 651 00:50:55,029 --> 00:50:57,670 reporters and media around all the time and people want to make sure that they 652 00:50:57,670 --> 00:51:02,880 don't accidentally end up on camera while committing what is probably a crime. 653 00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:08,640 There's other ways this is being used as well. For example, when people were 654 00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:12,500 destroying cameras in the metro stations in some cases because people were very 655 00:51:12,500 --> 00:51:15,609 aware of the fact that they were being filmed by someone who they couldn't talk 656 00:51:15,609 --> 00:51:20,030 to or people have asked individuals to delete pictures and videos when they've 657 00:51:20,030 --> 00:51:23,710 seen them film them. But they've also destroyed essentially these cameras on the 658 00:51:23,710 --> 00:51:27,590 metro. And again, then you will have someone kind of like cover you with an 659 00:51:27,590 --> 00:51:31,700 umbrella to avoid a person being filmed in the middle of essentially committing 660 00:51:31,700 --> 00:51:40,840 vandalism. The other thing is that people have these, so this kind of uniform, what 661 00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:43,590 you can also see here, so people are essentially is wearing black for the 662 00:51:43,590 --> 00:51:47,970 protests, which also means that you have no recognizable marks like on yourself, 663 00:51:47,970 --> 00:51:51,370 like in the moment. And then when you kind of practice to be water, if you hear 664 00:51:51,370 --> 00:51:56,490 police is coming, you go into a side street. And often there are people who are 665 00:51:56,490 --> 00:51:59,890 not participating in the protests, like personally directly, but to, for example, 666 00:51:59,890 --> 00:52:05,000 donate regular clothing. That's basically clothes like any clothes that aren't 667 00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:09,950 black. This was particularly like in the summer when you had these mass protests, 668 00:52:09,950 --> 00:52:13,390 like people would just bring T-shirts into metro stations. So people were often 669 00:52:13,390 --> 00:52:18,070 leaving with the last train. And so people were just rushed to metro stations. You 670 00:52:18,070 --> 00:52:21,200 kind of like see people changing inside streets to make sure they get out of those 671 00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:27,750 very recognizable black gear and to essentially change into these clothes. So 672 00:52:27,750 --> 00:52:32,200 HongKongers have basically managed to build the world's largest black block, 673 00:52:32,200 --> 00:52:38,420 which is another way of maintaining anonymity. 674 00:52:38,420 --> 00:52:44,940 *Applause* The government recognizes that this is a 675 00:52:44,940 --> 00:52:51,000 problem for them. And they tried in October to address this by implementing a 676 00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:56,880 mask ban. So they're essentially like the mask ban itself says that anyone who wears 677 00:52:56,880 --> 00:53:01,920 a mask at a lawful rally or a march or an unlawful or unauthorized assembly or 678 00:53:01,920 --> 00:53:06,710 during a riot. So even if you go to a peaceful protest, but you cover your face, 679 00:53:06,710 --> 00:53:10,849 you can be sentenced up to one year in prison simply for trying to hide your 680 00:53:10,849 --> 00:53:16,829 face. This is a law that was implemented under the emergency ordinance, which 681 00:53:16,829 --> 00:53:20,369 essentially is kind of like a national security law that gives the government 682 00:53:20,369 --> 00:53:24,810 sweeping powers in particular emergency situations. It is currently unclear to 683 00:53:24,810 --> 00:53:29,630 what extent this is constitutional. So this mask ban has been challenged in court 684 00:53:29,630 --> 00:53:34,760 multiple times and it's currently still making its way through the courts. But 685 00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:39,349 it's also possible that basically Beijing might come in and say we have the ultimate 686 00:53:39,349 --> 00:53:43,180 right to interpret the Hong Kong basic law. So we will say that this law has to 687 00:53:43,180 --> 00:53:46,589 be constitutional. So this is something that we just need to wait out. But I think 688 00:53:46,589 --> 00:53:51,700 it's a sign where we can see that the government wants to essentially limit 689 00:53:51,700 --> 00:53:54,940 people's ability to maintain their anonymity. And people were really pissed 690 00:53:54,940 --> 00:53:58,309 at this. Like this was announced on a Friday, just kind of like during the 691 00:53:58,309 --> 00:54:03,420 workday. And after like in the afternoon, once people got off work, people went out 692 00:54:03,420 --> 00:54:07,550 on the streets like people were just like turning up, like schoolchildren in the 693 00:54:07,550 --> 00:54:11,119 school uniforms, people in their office clothing. Just everyone put on a mask and 694 00:54:11,119 --> 00:54:14,850 was like, we want to keep this right, because that day at midnight, the mask ban 695 00:54:14,850 --> 00:54:18,579 was supposed to be implemented. So you had less than 24 hours notice and it went into 696 00:54:18,579 --> 00:54:31,160 force the next day. Strategy five: Division of Labor. This, again, is 697 00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:34,619 something that I think is very interesting and uniquely Hong Kong, very uniquely Hong 698 00:54:34,619 --> 00:54:39,569 Kong, like the be water strategy. So there is this idea climbing the hill in 699 00:54:39,569 --> 00:54:45,270 different ways. This is again a lesson that people learn from through 2014, 700 00:54:45,270 --> 00:54:49,750 because post 2014 and also in 2014 itself, one of the biggest weaknesses of the pro- 701 00:54:49,750 --> 00:54:53,970 democracy movement was that there was a lot of internal division. People really 702 00:54:53,970 --> 00:54:59,040 disagreed over tactics and there were fights over who was leading the movement 703 00:54:59,040 --> 00:55:03,640 and who should be listened to and what the right strategy was. People have now kind 704 00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:08,300 of come to the opposite extreme. But people are saying whatever you do, 705 00:55:08,300 --> 00:55:10,770 everyone is climbing the mountains. Everyone's trying to get to the top and 706 00:55:10,770 --> 00:55:14,630 everyone's using their own ways of getting there. And everyone's using their own 707 00:55:14,630 --> 00:55:21,849 their own path, essentially. Hence the mountain imagery. I think one example that 708 00:55:21,849 --> 00:55:26,849 really illustrates this very clearly was a person who's kind of like middle aged and 709 00:55:26,849 --> 00:55:30,450 works in the finance industry in Hong Kong. So they're very well off, have 710 00:55:30,450 --> 00:55:34,799 profited from the system as it exists and but also support the protests. And they 711 00:55:34,799 --> 00:55:38,490 said I did not get involved in the protesters destructive actions and I would 712 00:55:38,490 --> 00:55:42,690 never. But I will try my best to give them more support and delivering materials, 713 00:55:42,690 --> 00:55:48,250 donations and my presence. So you can see that there's a very clear differentiation 714 00:55:48,250 --> 00:55:52,539 between the goal that people have and kind of like the methods, like there's a lot of 715 00:55:52,539 --> 00:55:55,470 people who say, I disagree with those methods, but essentially I will not 716 00:55:55,470 --> 00:56:01,089 undermine people who are working towards our same goal – the five demands – in 717 00:56:01,089 --> 00:56:07,220 different ways. This is also something that's notable because in 2016, violence 718 00:56:07,220 --> 00:56:12,369 was something that was condemned. I cannot speak to that many other contexts but for 719 00:56:12,369 --> 00:56:15,710 example, in the US, where I study, and similarly in Germany, once protesters use 720 00:56:15,710 --> 00:56:19,710 violence, even if it is just destruction of things, often there is a lot of 721 00:56:19,710 --> 00:56:23,410 pushback and people say that has delegitimized you. This is something that 722 00:56:23,410 --> 00:56:27,180 is not really working that well in Hong Kong anymore. So there are clearly people 723 00:56:27,180 --> 00:56:30,920 who disagree with vandalism and also there people who are against the protesters 724 00:56:30,920 --> 00:56:35,300 because of vandalism, that's very clear. Based on the polls, I would say maybe 30, 725 00:56:35,300 --> 00:56:39,119 40 percent, but I'd have to check the exact numbers. But there are a lot of 726 00:56:39,119 --> 00:56:42,529 people who say, even if I disagree with you, I will still support you, because our 727 00:56:42,529 --> 00:56:56,480 overall goal is what is most important. *Applause* I want to give two examples quickly of how 728 00:56:56,480 --> 00:57:03,120 this can work. So one example of this is that people have gained an increasing 729 00:57:03,120 --> 00:57:06,470 economic understanding of how politics works. So rather than saying we just want 730 00:57:06,470 --> 00:57:11,589 to change laws, there also say we need to attack, for example, and we need to hold 731 00:57:11,589 --> 00:57:18,050 accountable companies that are supporting the government and we need to make people 732 00:57:18,050 --> 00:57:24,180 and government supporting companies make feel the pain for essentially their 733 00:57:24,180 --> 00:57:28,309 political support for them. So people have started boycotting stores that don't 734 00:57:28,309 --> 00:57:31,420 support the protests. And again, this is something that is all collected online 735 00:57:31,420 --> 00:57:36,119 where you have these incredible resources, where you have entire maps. So, you know, 736 00:57:36,119 --> 00:57:38,790 you can make these custom Google Maps. So there's custom Google Maps that tell you 737 00:57:38,790 --> 00:57:44,140 which stores in Hong Kong support the protests. And there's entire lists for 738 00:57:44,140 --> 00:57:47,599 different sectors where, for example, like for food, it says these stores are for us 739 00:57:47,599 --> 00:57:52,260 and these stores are against us. And one of the people I spoke to was incredibly 740 00:57:52,260 --> 00:57:57,030 amazed at this. They're almost 40 years old. They've lived in Hong Kong for a long 741 00:57:57,030 --> 00:58:02,470 time and were often very frustrated with how unpolitical the city was. But they 742 00:58:02,470 --> 00:58:06,040 said now it's the exact opposite and everything has become political. So they 743 00:58:06,040 --> 00:58:08,100 said wherever you get your lunch, where you get your coffee, even what kind of 744 00:58:08,100 --> 00:58:11,579 public transport you take, everything is now political and everything you use to 745 00:58:11,579 --> 00:58:16,150 show which political side you're on. And the idea is really to essentially hurt 746 00:58:16,150 --> 00:58:19,910 stores that much that it becomes unviable to be against the protest movement 747 00:58:19,910 --> 00:58:26,890 economically. Some people also use the lists for essentially vandalism against 748 00:58:26,890 --> 00:58:30,390 stores. This is special. Been seen with, for example, Starbucks because the people 749 00:58:30,390 --> 00:58:34,190 who own the Starbucks franchise in Hong Kong have very vocally opposed the 750 00:58:34,190 --> 00:58:38,210 protests. And so in some cases, that means also hurting them financially by throwing 751 00:58:38,210 --> 00:58:51,089 in windows. *Applause* Another example was the same person who I spoke to had by the time I 752 00:58:51,089 --> 00:58:54,970 spoke to them a couple of weeks ago, stopped going out to protests. And this 753 00:58:54,970 --> 00:58:59,599 really surprised me because I met them during the protests in 2014. And I thought 754 00:58:59,599 --> 00:59:03,230 if there was one person who's middle aged and who would still go out, then that's 755 00:59:03,230 --> 00:59:07,029 you – in terms of the people who I know – but they were like, well, I decided that I 756 00:59:07,029 --> 00:59:10,750 have different skills and that my design skills are something that I can use better 757 00:59:10,750 --> 00:59:14,480 in a different place. And so because at the time, people were already working 758 00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:18,000 towards the district council elections and they were still working, I don't know 759 00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:22,039 what, like 60 hour weeks or something crazy. But they decided that they would 760 00:59:22,039 --> 00:59:25,500 start working with a campaign for one of the local, for one of the people who was a 761 00:59:25,500 --> 00:59:28,710 candidate for the district council, who was a person who had never been in 762 00:59:28,710 --> 00:59:34,030 politics before. And this interview was like, well, I can help this person. I'm 763 00:59:34,030 --> 00:59:37,270 going to be able to help them get elected. And so they went, essentially did social 764 00:59:37,270 --> 00:59:41,440 media and like a lot of campaigning or designing for them. And that's kind of 765 00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:44,730 like a good sign. I think that's a good example for the different types of effort 766 00:59:44,730 --> 00:59:50,140 that went into that district council election victory as well. Right. So 767 00:59:50,140 --> 00:59:51,140 there's all these people who made a choice that this is something that they care 768 00:59:51,140 --> 00:59:55,789 about and that again, they're all climbing the mountain in different ways. And these 769 00:59:55,789 --> 01:00:00,019 people decided that their way is supporting local politicians to get 770 01:00:00,019 --> 01:00:09,589 elected into the district councils. The other thing is that this division of labor 771 01:00:09,589 --> 01:00:12,359 doesn't only happen in kind of like in terms of what you choose that you're 772 01:00:12,359 --> 01:00:19,279 doing, but that's also an incredibly sophisticated and very well defined 773 01:00:19,279 --> 01:00:22,540 division of labor. So this is kind of like a representation of kind of what the 774 01:00:22,540 --> 01:00:25,990 movement is supposed to be like. So there's this idea that like we're all Hong 775 01:00:25,990 --> 01:00:28,309 Kongers and we're all part of this movement and it doesn't matter what we're 776 01:00:28,309 --> 01:00:31,210 doing, we're all part of the same thing. And so that's kind of like a diversity 777 01:00:31,210 --> 01:00:35,380 that gets represented a lot. And that kind of appears in a lot of protest art as 778 01:00:35,380 --> 01:00:42,130 well. The most distinctive group that you've definitely seen are frontliners. So 779 01:00:42,130 --> 01:00:45,650 this is these are people who wear kind of like the most recognizable uniform, 780 01:00:45,650 --> 01:00:49,490 they're all in black so they cannot be identified, they wear gas masks to protect 781 01:00:49,490 --> 01:00:53,940 themselves against pepper spray and tear gas, goggles for the same reason, hard 782 01:00:53,940 --> 01:01:01,680 hats, they often have gloves to be able to grab teargas canisters that are being 783 01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:07,320 thrown at them. In some cases, they have water bottles to extinguish the tear gas 784 01:01:07,320 --> 01:01:12,500 canisters to essentially avoid being affected by the tear gas itself. And this 785 01:01:12,500 --> 01:01:16,140 is kind of like how you signal that you're, sometimes they're called the 786 01:01:16,140 --> 01:01:19,930 Braves, but essentially, this is about as radical as you can look as part of the 787 01:01:19,930 --> 01:01:22,460 Hong Kong protest movement. These are the people who are going to be in clashes with 788 01:01:22,460 --> 01:01:26,730 police. You can see that one of them is about to probably grab a brick. But these 789 01:01:26,730 --> 01:01:37,079 are frontliners. One particular type of front liner are the – I'm missing the 790 01:01:37,079 --> 01:01:41,700 English word right now – basically there's the people are supposed to extinguish 791 01:01:41,700 --> 01:01:49,269 fires usually. Firefighters, yes. Sorry. Firefighters, except instead of fighting 792 01:01:49,269 --> 01:01:54,700 fire, they're fighting teargas and so on the right, you can see someone from an 793 01:01:54,700 --> 01:01:59,040 incredibly iconic scene where someone used like a metal tin that they usually use to 794 01:01:59,040 --> 01:02:03,490 steam fish and he like he extinguished the teargas with water and then put the metal 795 01:02:03,490 --> 01:02:07,619 tin just on the teargas. And people were making fun for like how protest ready 796 01:02:07,619 --> 01:02:14,740 people are just by having your regular Chinese kitchen. On the left this is a 797 01:02:14,740 --> 01:02:18,180 reference to a strategy that people have been using and where essentially they put 798 01:02:18,180 --> 01:02:23,269 a traffic cone on a tear gas canister the moment like they find it. And so one 799 01:02:23,269 --> 01:02:27,599 person holds the traffic cone. One person puts water in at the top to extinguish the 800 01:02:27,599 --> 01:02:31,420 tear gas. And then some cases, people also put it into plastic bags that are full 801 01:02:31,420 --> 01:02:35,609 with water twisting or tear gas and in some cases, throw it back at the police. 802 01:02:35,609 --> 01:02:38,849 And I think I have a video of this happening, actually. 803 01:02:38,849 --> 01:03:15,680 *Video playing* It's also you can see they didn't do this 804 01:03:15,680 --> 01:03:22,869 for the first time, right? So they've been doing this for a while. It's sad in many 805 01:03:22,869 --> 01:03:26,200 ways that these are young people who have to do that and who feel that it's like a 806 01:03:26,200 --> 01:03:29,539 thing that they need to do to be able to be heard. But it's also something that was 807 01:03:29,539 --> 01:03:33,299 a video out of Chile a couple of weeks ago where essentially Chilean protesters were 808 01:03:33,299 --> 01:03:36,609 using a similar strategy to extinguish tear gas. And someone who was apparently 809 01:03:36,609 --> 01:03:40,140 from Chile posted it somewhere saying, thank you, Hong Kong. So they clearly 810 01:03:40,140 --> 01:03:43,640 there's been some like, oh, let's see how we can adopt these strategies for what's 811 01:03:43,640 --> 01:03:47,450 happening in Chile itself, which I think is an important thing to look at as well, 812 01:03:47,450 --> 01:03:50,770 because in some ways, Hong Kongers have learned from other places but also now 813 01:03:50,770 --> 01:03:53,260 people are looking at Hong Kong and looking at these strategies and adopting 814 01:03:53,260 --> 01:04:00,130 them in other instances. Another important group are peaceful protesters. I am very 815 01:04:00,130 --> 01:04:02,930 thankful that someone memed all of them, all of the important group, so I have 816 01:04:02,930 --> 01:04:06,460 these like standard images that I can use. And this is really the only thing that you 817 01:04:06,460 --> 01:04:10,440 kind of like need for a peaceful protester. You just need a surgical mask, 818 01:04:10,440 --> 01:04:15,289 maybe a hat to protect your identity a bit more. And that's it. You just need to go 819 01:04:15,289 --> 01:04:18,559 out in the street. These are the people who frontliners in many ways feel like 820 01:04:18,559 --> 01:04:23,500 they're defending. When I was talking to a few people who are still in high school 821 01:04:23,500 --> 01:04:26,990 and who essentially are frontliners and who've been in clashes with the police 822 01:04:26,990 --> 01:04:30,259 directly and when I asked them why they're doing it, they're saying I don't even know 823 01:04:30,259 --> 01:04:34,819 whether we can get our political aims, but the very least I can do is I can be one 824 01:04:34,819 --> 01:04:38,020 more person who is there and when the police advances, I'm going to be one more 825 01:04:38,020 --> 01:04:40,900 person who can make sure that the police doesn't get to the peaceful protesters 826 01:04:40,900 --> 01:04:44,410 behind me, because they're not equipped to deal with teargas and they're not equipped 827 01:04:44,410 --> 01:04:48,349 to deal with that pepper spray. So I will be here and I will give them enough time 828 01:04:48,349 --> 01:05:02,019 so they can retreat and go home. But there's a lot of kind of like lionization 829 01:05:02,019 --> 01:05:05,460 of frontliners because they're kind of like the heroes of the movement, they're 830 01:05:05,460 --> 01:05:09,740 flashy heroes. But also everyone knows that the movement is not going to succeed 831 01:05:09,740 --> 01:05:15,130 in any way, it wasn't be able to keep going because just of frontliners, right. 832 01:05:15,130 --> 01:05:19,039 So peaceful protesters are essentially the heart of the movement as well, the people 833 01:05:19,039 --> 01:05:23,390 who keep coming out in numbers. So there's a lot of reminders that we all need to 834 01:05:23,390 --> 01:05:27,849 work together. This is kind of this idea, we cannot be divided. So it goes back to 835 01:05:27,849 --> 01:05:31,309 this idea: we all climb the mountain in different ways, right. So we are all 836 01:05:31,309 --> 01:05:35,539 important. And in both of these kind of like pieces of art you can see now, right, 837 01:05:35,539 --> 01:05:38,630 you can see the recognizable frontliner on the left in both cases because he has the 838 01:05:38,630 --> 01:05:42,630 hard hat and a bit more gear is kind of like ready to get into a fight with the 839 01:05:42,630 --> 01:05:46,400 police. But next to the frontliner you in both cases have someone who just put on a 840 01:05:46,400 --> 01:05:50,710 mask, maybe came straight from the office, maybe straight from school. And those 841 01:05:50,710 --> 01:05:53,770 people are working together because if only if you had only one of those, you 842 01:05:53,770 --> 01:06:05,289 probably wouldn't be able to keep going for half a year. *Applause* Another group that I 843 01:06:05,289 --> 01:06:11,519 think is really interesting is logistics, because people have now adopted all all 844 01:06:11,519 --> 01:06:14,180 these strategies to how they can kind of like deal with the things that police is 845 01:06:14,180 --> 01:06:19,259 throwing at them. So a year ago or even couple of months ago, teargas was still 846 01:06:19,259 --> 01:06:23,800 something that kind of like made people leave and made people go away. A water 847 01:06:23,800 --> 01:06:26,829 cannon would scare people away, but people have really adapted and teargas doesn't do 848 01:06:26,829 --> 01:06:31,990 that much in Hong Kong anymore, to be very honest. One person who's 19 and who I talk 849 01:06:31,990 --> 01:06:34,671 to and was like, doesn't the teargas stink. And they were like, well, the first 850 01:06:34,671 --> 01:06:44,760 time, yes, but then you get used to it and you just keep going. And to do that, you 851 01:06:44,760 --> 01:06:47,960 need kind of all this gear, right? Like, you need to be equipped. You need to have 852 01:06:47,960 --> 01:06:50,960 hardhats. You need to have all these umbrellas. And so there are people kind of 853 01:06:50,960 --> 01:06:53,349 like in the background for collecting material near a big protest sites where 854 01:06:53,349 --> 01:06:56,220 they know there will be protests and then they're carrying them, kind of like in 855 01:06:56,220 --> 01:07:01,059 cartons. In some cases, they're collecting different types of shields. And so when it 856 01:07:01,059 --> 01:07:04,000 comes to a clash with the police, they make sure that stuff gets passed on to the 857 01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:07,029 front lines. I didn't include it in the presentation, but there's incredible 858 01:07:07,029 --> 01:07:11,289 videos of, in some cases, maybe a kilometer long human chain where you just 859 01:07:11,289 --> 01:07:15,390 have like tons of peaceful protesters, like passing things on to make sure that 860 01:07:15,390 --> 01:07:18,650 things get to the people who were in the clash with the police. And logistics are 861 01:07:18,650 --> 01:07:21,010 the people who make sure that the stuff is around. It is kind of like at these 862 01:07:21,010 --> 01:07:25,990 collection points and is then given to the people who really need it. It's also, one 863 01:07:25,990 --> 01:07:29,910 person I spoke to who does a lot of logistics said I am not someone who would 864 01:07:29,910 --> 01:07:34,160 fight with the police in this movement, but I still want to give some help. And so 865 01:07:34,160 --> 01:07:38,869 I decided to manage resources such as medical resources or protest gear. And so 866 01:07:38,869 --> 01:07:41,590 medical resources, for example, might be like saline solution, which you can use to 867 01:07:41,590 --> 01:07:46,860 wash people's eyes out if they have been affected by pepper spray or teargas. And 868 01:07:46,860 --> 01:07:50,410 so this is someone who said, I am not a frontliner and I'm not going to be part of 869 01:07:50,410 --> 01:07:55,930 that. But I will be right there. I think these people are doing important work. I'm 870 01:07:55,930 --> 01:07:59,730 going to do exactly what I can within my power to make sure that they have what 871 01:07:59,730 --> 01:08:12,440 they need. *Applause* First aiders are incredibly important in the movement as well, because 872 01:08:12,440 --> 01:08:16,740 people have started to mistrust hospitals a lot, because people are worried that the 873 01:08:16,740 --> 01:08:20,790 government might go and get their hospital records. So if they get injured as part of 874 01:08:20,790 --> 01:08:25,160 a clash with police, that might include getting beaten up by police. There've been 875 01:08:25,160 --> 01:08:28,520 people, there was one person who was shot in the chest and who tried to run from the 876 01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:33,549 police, almost succeeded, but then was arrested. But so if someone like that 877 01:08:33,549 --> 01:08:39,110 doesn't trust the hospitals, doesn't go to a hospital, first aiders are the ones who 878 01:08:39,110 --> 01:08:42,730 are going to treat those injuries. So these people are around and are visibly 879 01:08:42,730 --> 01:08:47,730 marked as first aiders and make sure that people get as much medical treatment as 880 01:08:47,730 --> 01:08:52,400 they need to the extent that they're able to. There was one incredibly hard 881 01:08:52,400 --> 01:08:56,250 situation for them, I think in November, when people were occupying the Chinese 882 01:08:56,250 --> 01:08:59,550 University of Hong Kong. And there was a real battle where you basically had a 883 01:08:59,550 --> 01:09:04,950 front line, like you kind of see it in like movies where someone is trying to 884 01:09:04,950 --> 01:09:07,790 take in a castle or something like that, right. So the real battle line where 885 01:09:07,790 --> 01:09:11,960 people kept getting hit and injured and first aiders kept running in and out, 886 01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:15,030 grabbing people and carrying them to a big sports field that was just full of injured 887 01:09:15,030 --> 01:09:23,770 people where they were treating all of them. And all of these are volunteers. 888 01:09:23,770 --> 01:09:30,810 *applause* There's more people in the background, and 889 01:09:30,810 --> 01:09:34,601 I could keep going about this, my friends will be able to attest to the fact that I 890 01:09:34,601 --> 01:09:40,270 can talk about this for an hour or longer. I think one other group of people that I 891 01:09:40,270 --> 01:09:44,500 wanted to quickly talk about are the people who drive like the school buses. 892 01:09:44,500 --> 01:09:50,410 School buses are code for cars that go to protest sites and pick people up. So for 893 01:09:50,410 --> 01:09:55,450 example, when the people were stuck, or people were stuck at the airport, you 894 01:09:55,450 --> 01:09:58,950 could see that literally thousands of Hongkongers grab their own cars and just 895 01:09:58,950 --> 01:10:03,270 drove out and said we will pick people up. And so they post on Telegram and they say, 896 01:10:03,270 --> 01:10:07,790 hey, I'm a parent, I'm going to pick up my children. I have space for three people 897 01:10:07,790 --> 01:10:13,410 *laughs* And then there's even there's also code for. So this why used that image 898 01:10:13,410 --> 01:10:17,750 cause it's like the parents taking care of the kids. It's a very, very wholesome 899 01:10:17,750 --> 01:10:23,871 imagery. And they have this, this code essentially where they're saying: if you 900 01:10:23,871 --> 01:10:29,020 say that you have stationery in your car, that means that you have clothes to change 901 01:10:29,020 --> 01:10:31,641 in. So if someone is wearing all black you have some other clothes that they can 902 01:10:31,641 --> 01:10:36,140 change in. And so there's entire telegram channels where just every post is just 903 01:10:36,140 --> 01:10:39,160 someone going from A to B. It says when they're leaving, it says how much space 904 01:10:39,160 --> 01:10:46,120 they have. It also often says if there's a female driver so people can feel safe. And 905 01:10:46,120 --> 01:10:49,161 to make sure that you don't get accidently picked up by undercover cops people are 906 01:10:49,161 --> 01:10:53,540 maintaining an inofficial database of cars that they've identified to undercover cop 907 01:10:53,540 --> 01:10:58,330 cars. And so there's a telegram bot. And if you like, so these posters, once you 908 01:10:58,330 --> 01:11:01,980 have someone's license plate, you go to the bot and you're like, is this a cop and 909 01:11:01,980 --> 01:11:13,340 the bot will tell you yes or no. *applause* 910 01:11:13,340 --> 01:11:19,540 In addition to that you have thousands, countless working groups where people are 911 01:11:19,540 --> 01:11:24,601 just kind of working around the clock. This is an example of a PR translation 912 01:11:24,601 --> 01:11:32,370 working group that basically translated this particular poster from originally 913 01:11:32,370 --> 01:11:35,590 Chinese into a bunch of languages, one of them is German on the left, another is 914 01:11:35,590 --> 01:11:40,870 Korean on the right. And it says: Hong Kong is facing a humanitarian crisis. What I 915 01:11:40,870 --> 01:11:43,470 think is interesting about this is that some of these groups are basically working 916 01:11:43,470 --> 01:11:48,850 around the clock. So something happens in Hong Kong during the day, by evening often 917 01:11:48,850 --> 01:11:52,300 protest art comes out that kind of like is reframing an incident or is trying to 918 01:11:52,300 --> 01:11:56,910 explain what purchases did if they feel like they need to explain themselves. And 919 01:11:56,910 --> 01:12:01,430 then when Hongkongers sleep, people who live in Europe, but who many cases are 920 01:12:01,430 --> 01:12:05,120 still from Hong Kong and people who live in the United States work through their 921 01:12:05,120 --> 01:12:11,500 evenings and through their mornings. So by the time Hongkongers wake up, they often 922 01:12:11,500 --> 01:12:15,080 can have these messages in different languages. And so this happened doing the 923 01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:19,530 airport protest, where on the 13th of the morning, people just woke up and had 924 01:12:19,530 --> 01:12:22,840 posters in like ten different languages that explain what was happened in Hong 925 01:12:22,840 --> 01:12:30,920 Kong, printed them and went to the airport straight away at 8:00 a.m.. 926 01:12:30,920 --> 01:12:34,810 *applause* I want to share one more story, because I 927 01:12:34,810 --> 01:12:40,140 think this is really one of the most gut wrenching examples of what people have 928 01:12:40,140 --> 01:12:43,910 been able to achieve just by cooperating and also by being completely anonymous 929 01:12:43,910 --> 01:12:50,310 together, where during the Pope, Poly, during the siege at the Polytechnic 930 01:12:50,310 --> 01:12:53,161 University, Hong Kong. So when hundreds of people were stuck on that university and 931 01:12:53,161 --> 01:12:58,540 didn't want to go out. Suzanne Sataline reported for Quartz that there was at 932 01:12:58,540 --> 01:13:02,000 least one person and probably more who managed to get out from the university 933 01:13:02,000 --> 01:13:05,680 through the sewers. So this person went down into the sewers, wading through 934 01:13:05,680 --> 01:13:10,510 probably knee, like kind of chest high waste water, in the dark, not knowing 935 01:13:10,510 --> 01:13:13,700 where they were going. And then actually were able to escape the university that 936 01:13:13,700 --> 01:13:18,730 way. Because they were talking to people on telegram who had dug up maps of the 937 01:13:18,730 --> 01:13:22,180 Hong Kong sewage system and like directed this person, they were telling them, this 938 01:13:22,180 --> 01:13:27,310 is where you go. You hit kind of like, you hit like a crossroads and then you take a 939 01:13:27,310 --> 01:13:30,700 left, like this is where you take a right. And then the last moment they actually, 940 01:13:30,700 --> 01:13:33,790 the plans were changed. And so they were told, you cannot go to the exit we 941 01:13:33,790 --> 01:13:38,230 initially told you because we've seen police there. Right? Telegram channels, 942 01:13:38,230 --> 01:13:40,750 again, like all of this comes back together. And so they're watching police 943 01:13:40,750 --> 01:13:43,750 moving in that you can't go there. There's police there. Instead, we need to send you 944 01:13:43,750 --> 01:13:47,250 to a different exit. So he goes to that exit and there's someone there waiting for 945 01:13:47,250 --> 01:13:53,540 him who lifts, who lifts the lid, lets him out of the fucking sewage system. And then 946 01:13:53,540 --> 01:13:57,100 there's people waiting for them there, a "school bus" who grabs them and takes them 947 01:13:57,100 --> 01:14:00,710 somewhere else. And that's how he got out of the university. And he still doesn't 948 01:14:00,710 --> 01:14:10,710 know any of those people. They're all still strangers. 949 01:14:10,710 --> 01:14:16,310 *applause* The strategy number 6, that I think is 950 01:14:16,310 --> 01:14:20,000 important, are counter narratives. So the Hong Kong government and the Beijing 951 01:14:20,000 --> 01:14:23,660 government have a very clear framing for what how they want to frame the entire 952 01:14:23,660 --> 01:14:27,000 protest, right. So they want to say these are vandals, these are rioters, they have 953 01:14:27,000 --> 01:14:30,800 no legitimate demands, they just want to destroy things, nothing about them is 954 01:14:30,800 --> 01:14:36,090 legitimate, or democratic, or politically justified in any way. People realize that 955 01:14:36,090 --> 01:14:41,370 maybe memes are nice, but memes are maybe not enough. So part of the movement, 956 01:14:41,370 --> 01:14:47,940 actually Kim, started creating a citizen's press conference where people anonymously 957 01:14:47,940 --> 01:14:50,950 basically hold a press conference. And you can see that press is coming there, right, 958 01:14:50,950 --> 01:14:55,130 because you have all the official mics. And so all these new media outlets 959 01:14:55,130 --> 01:14:59,330 actually going there and talking to them. In the background you have someone who's 960 01:14:59,330 --> 01:15:02,750 interpreting this into sign language. Because they essentially know we need to, 961 01:15:02,750 --> 01:15:06,790 at least somehow, try to get control of the narrative again ourselves to make sure 962 01:15:06,790 --> 01:15:15,200 there's not just a government who gets to define what is happening. The last 963 01:15:15,200 --> 01:15:19,910 strategy that I want to talk about is related to both counter narratives, but 964 01:15:19,910 --> 01:15:23,370 also to organizing and mobilizing, which is the last thing that I want to talk 965 01:15:23,370 --> 01:15:28,580 about. So as an introduction to that, I want to show you a video that in many ways 966 01:15:28,580 --> 01:15:33,110 I think demonstrates some of the capacity that people have been able to build. What 967 01:15:33,110 --> 01:15:39,150 I'm going to show you is a protest anthem called Glory for Hong Kong. As I 968 01:15:39,150 --> 01:15:41,980 said earlier, Hong Kong was a city that was first under colonial rule by the 969 01:15:41,980 --> 01:15:48,080 British and is now under rule by China without people really getting a choice at 970 01:15:48,080 --> 01:15:53,790 any point. And so in early September people crowdsourced an anthem for the city 971 01:15:53,790 --> 01:15:58,900 online and someone composed it and published it on September 11th. And 972 01:15:58,900 --> 01:16:39,940 several days later someone had arranged for an orchestra. And right after that 973 01:16:39,940 --> 01:18:05,410 this video went online. *Video plays (orchestra/choir)**applause* 974 01:18:05,410 --> 01:18:09,250 I think everyone who is interested in the meaning of that song, I would recommend 975 01:18:09,250 --> 01:18:12,420 that you go and read Vivienne Chow's article about it in The New York Times 976 01:18:12,420 --> 01:18:16,730 because she wrote from a musical and cultural perspective about what it meant 977 01:18:16,730 --> 01:18:20,020 for her to have grown up in a city where there was never a song that she identified 978 01:18:20,020 --> 01:18:23,000 with. And for this to be the first time, that was kind of like an anthem for what 979 01:18:23,000 --> 01:18:30,230 she considers her home. So I would recommend you all go and read that. In the 980 01:18:30,230 --> 01:18:32,470 long term a lot of the strategies that I've talked about have been able to 981 01:18:32,470 --> 01:18:36,271 sustain the movement and have been able to help people and individuals avoid arrest 982 01:18:36,271 --> 01:18:40,431 in the short term. But the question is how sustainable this entire movement is in the 983 01:18:40,431 --> 01:18:46,700 long run. I think the orchestra it's like a fun, they call themselves Black 984 01:18:46,700 --> 01:18:53,140 Blorchestra, by the way. It's a fun example of how people can just get tons of 985 01:18:53,140 --> 01:18:56,470 people together and suddenly come up with an entire orchestra and fund that entire 986 01:18:56,470 --> 01:19:00,780 thing with like pretty good production value, I just downloaded a shitty version. 987 01:19:00,780 --> 01:19:04,890 But, so that's happening, right, people are building all these groups, building 988 01:19:04,890 --> 01:19:08,180 all these new ties. A lot of times they building these ties with people who they 989 01:19:08,180 --> 01:19:12,740 don't know and who are anonymous to them. But in a lot of other cases, one person 990 01:19:12,740 --> 01:19:16,540 who I spoke to said that essentially they've started exercising together as a 991 01:19:16,540 --> 01:19:22,330 neighborhood because he says that we cannot trust the police to save us. And if 992 01:19:22,330 --> 01:19:24,310 someone from the government comes to attack us we want to be able to defend 993 01:19:24,310 --> 01:19:28,570 ourselves. So then he's also like organizing this in kind of like small 994 01:19:28,570 --> 01:19:32,120 neighborhood groups. So there's all these people who have lived in an anonymous 995 01:19:32,120 --> 01:19:36,140 major metropolis for years and probably barely talk to each other, but who now 996 01:19:36,140 --> 01:19:40,140 basically getting together and starting to do things together and trying to keep 997 01:19:40,140 --> 01:19:44,440 these things going to protect themselves. Another thing is that there has been a 998 01:19:44,440 --> 01:19:50,230 push for building and creating unions. So labor unions, more than 24 have been 999 01:19:50,230 --> 01:19:55,180 formed its entire year across a range of sectors. There were several attempts at 1000 01:19:55,180 --> 01:19:59,000 organizing strikes in Hong Kong over the summer and a lot of those weren't very 1001 01:19:59,000 --> 01:20:03,001 successful because people still went to work in many cases. But so people are 1002 01:20:03,001 --> 01:20:06,750 essentially organizing more long term and trying to get people to join unions, so 1003 01:20:06,750 --> 01:20:14,270 they have organizing capacity for the long run. And again, this is a picture from the 1004 01:20:14,270 --> 01:20:18,230 district council elections. It's incredibly important to recognize the 1005 01:20:18,230 --> 01:20:23,680 organizational capacity that went into the elections. There are all these people out 1006 01:20:23,680 --> 01:20:27,770 there now that know how to mobilize and have now partaken in like a political 1007 01:20:27,770 --> 01:20:31,750 campaign and the electoral campaign and all of that is knowledge that now exists 1008 01:20:31,750 --> 01:20:35,460 amongst young people, amongst older people. And all of these are organizations 1009 01:20:35,460 --> 01:20:43,560 and things that hopefully people will be able to build on in the long run. So what 1010 01:20:43,560 --> 01:20:47,520 next? I think it's important to recognize that what people have been able to do in 1011 01:20:47,520 --> 01:20:51,930 Hong Kong is incredible from an organizational capacity and also has meant 1012 01:20:51,930 --> 01:20:55,610 that people have given up a lot. In many cases. And people have gone broke, there 1013 01:20:55,610 --> 01:20:58,100 are young people who have been kicked out of their homes by their parents because 1014 01:20:58,100 --> 01:21:01,900 they don't see eye to eye politically. Some people have just spent all their 1015 01:21:01,900 --> 01:21:06,720 money on protest gear. Other people are facing charges of up to 10 years in 1016 01:21:06,720 --> 01:21:09,440 prison. And because of the incredible backlog, might not know for a very long 1017 01:21:09,440 --> 01:21:14,390 time what's going to happen. People are scared of the police. And so one big 1018 01:21:14,390 --> 01:21:17,960 question is how things will be able to keep going. And I think one thing that if 1019 01:21:17,960 --> 01:21:20,860 you talk to someone from Hong Kong who was part of the protest movement and that's 1020 01:21:20,860 --> 01:21:25,100 also incredibly important to recognize that everyone in Hong Kong, both, also 1021 01:21:25,100 --> 01:21:28,040 people on both sides, right. Like everyone in Hong Kong, these are people and these 1022 01:21:28,040 --> 01:21:32,750 are not people who are just kind of like acting out like a geopolitical game, like 1023 01:21:32,750 --> 01:21:36,130 risk or something, but these are real people there who are really going to the 1024 01:21:36,130 --> 01:21:43,040 limits in many cases. More specifically there is a rally planned and announced for 1025 01:21:43,040 --> 01:21:48,280 January 1st. They're still waiting for their letter of no objection, which means 1026 01:21:48,280 --> 01:21:52,750 they don't know yet whether it will be a legal rally or not. And so this is really 1027 01:21:52,750 --> 01:21:55,520 going to be them trying, their movement trying to show that they're going to be 1028 01:21:55,520 --> 01:22:02,180 able to keep going through 2020 and maybe longer. The unrest and discontent is not 1029 01:22:02,180 --> 01:22:06,080 going to go away. I think that's very clear. So many people have been 1030 01:22:06,080 --> 01:22:10,410 politicized over the past few months and so many people have lost trust in their in 1031 01:22:10,410 --> 01:22:13,410 their government and in very fundamental institutions such as hospitals and the 1032 01:22:13,410 --> 01:22:18,050 police. And that's something that's not just going to go away because that's going 1033 01:22:18,050 --> 01:22:22,700 to be a problem that will haunt the government for a long time to come. 1034 01:22:22,700 --> 01:22:26,040 Especially remember that number, almost a hundred percent of people under 16 oppose 1035 01:22:26,040 --> 01:22:30,120 the extradition bill and those people are deeply involved, incredibly politicized. 1036 01:22:30,120 --> 01:22:34,420 And so, if anything, the people who are coming up are more anti government, are 1037 01:22:34,420 --> 01:22:40,580 more willing to go protest than anyone who's already out in the streets. The 1038 01:22:40,580 --> 01:22:45,080 things things that you can do. Go and follow Hong Kong journalists and support 1039 01:22:45,080 --> 01:22:49,640 them. If you're on Twitter, Laurel Chor and Hong Kong hermit, I've linked both of 1040 01:22:49,640 --> 01:22:54,330 them, have Twitter lists where you can follow local journalists who've been 1041 01:22:54,330 --> 01:22:57,430 living in Hong Kong, who grew up in the city, who have been reporting on the 1042 01:22:57,430 --> 01:23:01,330 protests for months, in some cases for years. A lot of these people have already 1043 01:23:01,330 --> 01:23:04,331 reported on the Umbrella Revolution. So go and follow those people because they 1044 01:23:04,331 --> 01:23:07,740 essentially have the best information. They speak the language and they will be 1045 01:23:07,740 --> 01:23:13,270 able to report firsthand. And you'll also run into those crazy livestream web sites. 1046 01:23:13,270 --> 01:23:16,580 You should also follow and donate to Hong Kong Free Press, which is an independent 1047 01:23:16,580 --> 01:23:20,310 media outlet, was formed after the umbrella protests. And it's been doing 1048 01:23:20,310 --> 01:23:23,410 some incredible coverage. They hired a really good photographer who took a bunch 1049 01:23:23,410 --> 01:23:27,750 of the pictures that you saw here. And she also was arrested by police at some point 1050 01:23:27,750 --> 01:23:36,120 for participating in a riot. So, yeah, go do that, follow those people. This is a 1051 01:23:36,120 --> 01:23:40,080 story that is not over and it will not be over anytime soon. And so the only thing I 1052 01:23:40,080 --> 01:23:43,080 can tell you is to go to the source and listen to the people who are right on the 1053 01:23:43,080 --> 01:23:49,860 ground. Last but not least: I can only speak about things that pertain to China, 1054 01:23:49,860 --> 01:23:54,620 because that's my area of expertise or in this case, Hong Kong. But this has been a 1055 01:23:54,620 --> 01:23:57,540 year with a lot of protest movements all over the world. And Hong Kongers are by 1056 01:23:57,540 --> 01:24:02,010 far from the only people who went onto the streets at great, immense personal risk to 1057 01:24:02,010 --> 01:24:07,050 stand up to their governments. In India, in student protests against an anti-Muslim 1058 01:24:07,050 --> 01:24:11,730 exclusion law, I think 17 or 20 people were killed in the past few weeks and the 1059 01:24:11,730 --> 01:24:14,750 Iraqi government just gunned down protesters that went out to protest for 1060 01:24:14,750 --> 01:24:20,520 political rights. People have been protesting in Chile, in Iran, in Syria 1061 01:24:20,520 --> 01:24:25,830 and a bunch of places. And those things might not be as well covered necessarily 1062 01:24:25,830 --> 01:24:29,560 as Hong Kong. I certainly don't read about them as much, but that's also my personal 1063 01:24:29,560 --> 01:24:33,580 interest. But I would encourage you, I think if you care about the things that 1064 01:24:33,580 --> 01:24:36,640 people are doing in Hong Kong that they're trying to achieve, I would urge you to 1065 01:24:36,640 --> 01:24:41,350 inform yourself about the things that are happening in other places as well. And in 1066 01:24:41,350 --> 01:24:44,910 a lot of cases, people who are in these places recognize that they stand for 1067 01:24:44,910 --> 01:24:46,950 similar things, right? They want their governments to listen to them and they 1068 01:24:46,950 --> 01:24:52,020 want to be represented. On the left, you have a grafitti from Lebanon, where in the 1069 01:24:52,020 --> 01:24:55,690 middle you can see the Hong Kong slogan, five demands, not one less, in Chinese, 1070 01:24:55,690 --> 01:24:59,480 stenciled on the wall. And on the left and the right, you have Iraqi and Lebanese 1071 01:24:59,480 --> 01:25:03,620 protest slogans that called for the for all corrupt government officials to 1072 01:25:03,620 --> 01:25:08,870 resign, regardless of which ethnic and religious faction they're part of. Whereas 1073 01:25:08,870 --> 01:25:12,730 on the right you have a protest poster from someone from Hong Kong who just lists 1074 01:25:12,730 --> 01:25:18,040 all the protests that they say we're fighting for the same thing. We're 1075 01:25:18,040 --> 01:25:20,500 fighting for freedom and justice. And so we we should feel like we're part of the 1076 01:25:20,500 --> 01:25:24,870 same thing. And so I just want to urge you that if you care about any of these 1077 01:25:24,870 --> 01:25:30,080 things, then you should probably care about it in more than one place. Thank you. 1078 01:25:30,080 --> 01:25:58,700 *applause, exclamation* 1079 01:25:58,700 --> 01:26:02,210 Herald (H): Thank you, Katharin. I don't know if I told you, but I asked for this 1080 01:26:02,210 --> 01:26:05,890 shift specifically because of your talk. K: Thank you. *lauthing* 1081 01:26:05,890 --> 01:26:12,380 H: It was everything I expected and more. So we have time for two or three 1082 01:26:12,380 --> 01:26:16,880 questions. Go take one question from the Internet, because there is a lot of people 1083 01:26:16,880 --> 01:26:22,890 who couldn't make it. Signal Angel: Yeah. So it seems that 1084 01:26:22,890 --> 01:26:31,290 Telegram is a used a lot during protests. And one of the IRC users mentions that 1085 01:26:31,290 --> 01:26:36,850 it's centralized and asks if there were any problems with this centralized and 1086 01:26:36,850 --> 01:26:42,570 controlled thing and if they are attempts to move this to decentralized 1087 01:26:42,570 --> 01:26:48,380 communication solutions. K: Thank you. So I think. Oh, I just saw 1088 01:26:48,380 --> 01:26:56,220 that I misspelled MIT in my email. That's very smart. Um. *laughter* The telegram question is 1089 01:26:56,220 --> 01:27:00,770 important. So Telegram has actually come under DDOS attacks for multiple times. The 1090 01:27:00,770 --> 01:27:03,670 first time was in the summer and there was another time later like a couple of weeks 1091 01:27:03,670 --> 01:27:09,170 ago. So that shows clearly that Telegram is a vulnerability in some ways, right? In 1092 01:27:09,170 --> 01:27:12,250 the summer after the DDOS attack, Telegram said that they think it was a nation state 1093 01:27:12,250 --> 01:27:18,000 actor just based on the volume of the DDOS attack. So that is kind of like a point of 1094 01:27:18,000 --> 01:27:24,950 vulnerability. In reaction to that and another DDOS attack on LHKG, there was 1095 01:27:24,950 --> 01:27:28,640 some discussions of moving to other platforms, but those ultimately didn't pan 1096 01:27:28,640 --> 01:27:33,500 out. So I think organizationally it is probably not ideal to be working on a 1097 01:27:33,500 --> 01:27:37,870 centralized platform. But the crucial question is whether you have alternatives 1098 01:27:37,870 --> 01:27:42,091 that people can get on easily, because you're organizing so many people and you 1099 01:27:42,091 --> 01:27:46,230 really want like the smallest amount of friction possible. And I think that is the 1100 01:27:46,230 --> 01:27:50,250 biggest challenge. So the more kind of like proposals for using different apps 1101 01:27:50,250 --> 01:27:53,570 that, for example, work without Internet for the worst case scenario, that the 1102 01:27:53,570 --> 01:27:57,610 government might switch up the Internet in Hong Kong. But my read is that those 1103 01:27:57,610 --> 01:28:00,721 ultimately didn't pan out because those are not necessarily apps that people are 1104 01:28:00,721 --> 01:28:04,840 used to that might not be as easy to use. And also because there is kind of like an 1105 01:28:04,840 --> 01:28:10,280 institutional stickiness. So I think it would probably take some kind of disaster 1106 01:28:10,280 --> 01:28:14,970 like either Telegram getting blocked or taken down in Hong Kong or kind of like 1107 01:28:14,970 --> 01:28:17,880 being completely taken down by DDOS attack for people to actually switch to another 1108 01:28:17,880 --> 01:28:21,730 platform. So I think there I agree it's when I started from a security 1109 01:28:21,730 --> 01:28:25,340 perspective, it's probably not ideal. But their biggest challenge is the kind of the 1110 01:28:25,340 --> 01:28:28,800 organizational challenge of getting people to move wholesale to completely different 1111 01:28:28,800 --> 01:28:33,710 platform. H: Thank you. And now one question from 1112 01:28:33,710 --> 01:28:40,200 the audience. Microphone number three. It's the last question. So make it count. 1113 01:28:40,200 --> 01:28:45,730 Q: That's a lot of responsibility. But I really wanted to ask about police 1114 01:28:45,730 --> 01:28:54,040 brutality. You mentioned that people were surprised by police brutality. But how can 1115 01:28:54,040 --> 01:29:00,670 it be a surprise. So it's only new police force from continental China whom became 1116 01:29:00,670 --> 01:29:05,440 suddenly brutal or people were not paying attention or was police brainwashed? 1117 01:29:05,440 --> 01:29:11,100 K: Thank you. That's a good question. And I don't think we have absolute answers to 1118 01:29:11,100 --> 01:29:14,850 this. The reason people were surprised is that the Hong Kong police force used to 1119 01:29:14,850 --> 01:29:18,660 have an incredibly good reputation as a police force that was very reasonable and 1120 01:29:18,660 --> 01:29:22,870 appropriate in its use of force. And that's clearly a reputation that's 1121 01:29:22,870 --> 01:29:27,090 completely gone down the drain over the past few months. The thing about police 1122 01:29:27,090 --> 01:29:30,850 coming in from China is something there are repeated reports, but they're always 1123 01:29:30,850 --> 01:29:35,540 incidental. And I haven't really seen any large scale verified reports that there 1124 01:29:35,540 --> 01:29:39,780 was any like major influx of mainland police officers into the Hong Kong police. 1125 01:29:39,780 --> 01:29:44,770 So it's probably not that. I think one thing that people observed after the 1126 01:29:44,770 --> 01:29:48,180 Umbrella Movement was that there was kind of like a siege mentality within the 1127 01:29:48,180 --> 01:29:51,930 police itself so that they kind of felt like they were being assaulted by the 1128 01:29:51,930 --> 01:29:55,870 entirety of society. So it's possible that that was kind of like kind of like the 1129 01:29:55,870 --> 01:30:00,810 formation of like increasingly strictly drawn lines and camps where the police 1130 01:30:00,810 --> 01:30:03,760 felt like they're under assault from everyone else and that they're justified 1131 01:30:03,760 --> 01:30:07,940 in using force. Which might be one of the explanations why they've also been so 1132 01:30:07,940 --> 01:30:12,670 opposed to kind of like an independent investigation. In addition to that, 1133 01:30:12,670 --> 01:30:18,220 another thing is that they've also been completely operating at capacity. So we 1134 01:30:18,220 --> 01:30:23,450 know that they've paid, I think, 900 million Hong Kong dollars to something an 1135 01:30:23,450 --> 01:30:27,820 absurd amount in overtime pay to the police. So I think one thing is also that 1136 01:30:27,820 --> 01:30:31,270 these are people who in many cases are not trained in dealing with the events that 1137 01:30:31,270 --> 01:30:34,260 they're supposed to be dealing with. And so it seems that they are possibly 1138 01:30:34,260 --> 01:30:39,240 reacting by lashing out and in more violent ways than like would probably be 1139 01:30:39,240 --> 01:30:41,580 appropriate. So it might just also be a lack of training, but there's no 1140 01:30:41,580 --> 01:30:43,741 definitive answer. H: Thank you 1141 01:30:43,741 --> 01:30:47,430 K: Thanks H: Katherin Tai, who has been heroically 1142 01:30:47,430 --> 01:30:52,180 standing here for 90 minutes talking nonstop, which is hard! So, people, a huge 1143 01:30:52,180 --> 01:30:53,470 round of applause. 1144 01:30:53,470 --> 01:30:54,470 *applause* 1145 01:30:54,470 --> 01:30:57,870 *postroll music* 1146 01:30:57,870 --> 01:31:26,000 subtitles created by c3subtitles.de in the year 20??. 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