Hong Kong’s “anti-extradition” movement marks four years: Book bans, speech bans, self-censorship and Hong Kong people being “re-educated” – BBC News 中文

Ms. Ou currently has to take care of related coordinating work in the school. She said that before the Education Bureau came to the school for inspections last year, she called the Chinese liberal arts and history teachers together to inspect the library collections in the school and removed books that seemed sensitive.

“We even took away Professor Lu Dale’s non-political books on Hong Kong culture, thinking they were safe, but they (the Bureau of Education) still found the so-called banned books, which were English books about Chinese history. Of course they didn’t explain. The reason for the fight, but everyone guessed it was because of the mention of ‘June 4th’.”

In May of this year, the Hong Kong Public Library removed more than 200 sensitive books, most of which were written by pro-democracy figures, under the name of “cleaning up illegal or national security” books. This move caused social uproar. But in fact, this kind of political censorship has already penetrated into primary and secondary school campuses.

“The English literature department of our school has used George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” as a textbook for many years. Colleagues in the English department will ask, can it still be taught now?” Xu Xu, another director of the commune department who teaches in a traditional famous school The teacher (pseudonym) said.

She was also put in charge of national security education at the school after 2019, and she said her colleagues felt uneasy about the vague standards. “The bureau has never announced the list of banned books, nor has it clearly stipulated what cannot be said, but only some curriculum objectives and guidelines, and you have to guess what you can’t say.”

She said that according to the school’s staffing arrangement, teachers of other subjects must also teach junior high school civics. The authorities have threatened to substantially revise the relevant courses, but the textbooks for this school year will still maintain the original version, which involves Hong Kong’s political system and democratic values. “We have adopted the most conservative approach. Let the teacher follow the script for this part, but my colleagues are still very nervous and keep asking me, can these things be taught?”

According to the Hong Kong Police Force, from June 9, 2019 to December 31, 2022, the police arrested 10,279 people during demonstrations, of which 4,010 were students. Since the “National Security Law” came into effect on June 30, 2020, more than 250 people have been arrested for violating the law, ranging in age from 15 to 90 years old.

Zhong Jianhua, a Hong Kong social policy and public administration scholar who has immigrated to the UK, pointed out to BBC Chinese that Hong Kong has entered an era of authoritarianism, and authoritarian governance is based on power rather than tangible provisions and laws.

“In fact, there is no standard. It depends on the governance team at the time. The “National Security Law” is the best example. Mainland China has used this method for a long time. The law is left to the official interpretation, sometimes relaxed, sometimes tightened. When some people cannot know the objective standards, they can only guess by themselves, and he also wants you to guess, so you naturally dare not touch sensitive things, which is a typical characteristic of authoritarian politics.”

Teachers in Hong Kong are walking on eggshells, and students have also learned to set their own limits. Teacher Xu said that she taught the history of Hong Kong in the Secondary One class this year. She talked about the “Kowloon Riot” and “June 7 Riot” in 1966 and 1967. The British Hong Kong government dispatched military and police force to suppress it. “Some students asked, teacher, do you think the police are doing the right thing? Some students took advantage of the momentum to ask, do you think the Hong Kong police did the right thing in 2019? I thought this was a good opportunity to start a rational discussion, but before I responded, there was The other students said loudly, “Shh, don’t talk about this!”

“Leaving aside the sensitive police power, in another section I taught about multiculturalism and race in Hong Kong, citing the Basic Law that all people have equal rights regardless of skin color, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, etc. At this time, some students booed and said, Is there freedom of speech in Hong Kong? Other students can’t wait to stop it.”

Teacher Xu said frankly that students are affected by the social environment, and self-censorship from the bottom up is very serious. “In 2019, we can still discuss the advantages and disadvantages of demonstrations in class, and think rationally. After three years, even if I want to discuss students, they don’t want to participate. The academic atmosphere is very poor. The government’s ‘re-education’ is very successful. , everyone can’t express themselves freely.”

Chen Jialuo, a professor of the Department of Politics and International Relations at Hong Kong Baptist University, pointed out to BBC Chinese that the government has created ripple effects through continuous suppression and arrests in the past three years. “Everything is national security. This kind of atmosphere that is boundless and boundless, makes citizens make adjustments and avoid everything.”

He said that people in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union also experienced this kind of life in history. After the failure of the “Prague Spring” in Czechoslovakia in 1968, the enlightened government collapsed, and then Deputy Prime Minister Husak promoted “normalization” in the country. “(normalization) plan, launching political purges and high-handed governance, imprisoning dissidents and using the secret police to monitor the people, people silenced themselves out of fear, and society gradually returned to “normal”.

The late former Czech President Václav Havel (Václav Havel) described it as a “post-totalitarianism” at the time. Everyone has a red line in their hearts, which has rooted and internalized political authority and has become part of the surveillance system in disguise. . Chen Jialuo said: “The same is true in Hong Kong today. There is no need for the government to take action. The line in the hearts of the people is already lower than the dotted line drawn by the government.”

This kind of social atmosphere made “Hong Kong Drifters” reporter Andy (Andy) feel familiar. He said that the “Hong Kong Drifters” friends around him are all liberals and occasionally discuss current affairs, but everyone is very vigilant. “Always in the middle of the conversation, someone asks in a panic whether the call will be recorded and whether it will be reported. Everyone has left China, but they are still in a state of panic. In the past, it was only with mainlanders, but now with It’s the same with Hong Kong friends chatting, they will say, don’t talk anymore, be careful of being caught by the national security.”

Andy moved to Hong Kong in 2018 and joined the English-language media. In 2019, he covered the “anti-extradition” movement on the front line and experienced the dramatic changes in the press in recent years.

He said that at the beginning of the movement, the police set up the “Orange Belt” blockade to prevent the reporters present from filming. “I arrived first, and when I saw the orange belt, I wanted to turn around and leave. Then a large group of Hong Kong journalists arrived. They saw the orange belt and all yelled at the police for obstructing the freedom of the press. The police knew that they were wrong, and soon let the media in. It was only at that moment that I realized that I had a problem. I used to be detained for questioning when I ran news in mainland China. I was very afraid of the police. My instinct was to run away. dogs, but Hong Kong journalists are well aware of their rights.”

However, during the “anti-extradition” movement, the power of the police was expanded. A few months later, when he encountered similar incidents during his interviews, the reporters became outraged. On July 1, 2020, the day after the “National Security Law” came into effect, some citizens took to the streets to protest, and the reporters at the scene even took the initiative to avoid the police line of defense. This change made him very sad. “I came to Hong Kong to work for freedom of the press. How did I know that in just a few months, Hong Kong journalists have become like mainland journalists like me? The whole environment has changed.”

After 2019, the role of the media as the fourth power and the public watchdog has been greatly weakened. Many media organizations such as “Apple Daily”, “Stand News”, and “Zhongxin” were forced to suspend operations, and a large number of journalistic work According to Reporters Without Borders’ annual press freedom index, Hong Kong plummeted from 73rd in 2019 to 140th in 2023.

In addition to tangible suppression, there are also invisible transformations. Radio Television Hong Kong, Cable News, and Now News successively suffered major personnel shocks, airborne government officials and pro-China people who had no broadcasting experience to serve as high-level officials, causing disputes over the handling of many news stories.

Maple (pseudonym), a senior reporter working in a TV station, described that “stance is the most important thing, and professionalism is the second”. Bad money drives out good money. With the departure of the interview director and senior colleagues of the “founder of Taiwan” one after another, she was also interested in it a year ago. Lan Shan resigned. “In the past, TVB News was accused of being a ‘river crab’ (a homonym for “harmony”), and it also experienced this kind of personnel change, but it was a process that lasted ten years. Now we have completed it within two years, and the transformation has come extremely fast. The rapidity and hugeness of this incident have wiped out all the credibility we have accumulated over the years.”

The objective effect of the decline in the professional level of the media is that the official discourse power has increased. Maple said that there are junior reporters left in the newsroom. They lack practical experience, and their superiors can’t help. Fa, which allows the official to monopolize the entire discourse.”

She added that many trump card political discussion programs on the TV station have been changed, eliminating the original host, and instead inviting officials and members of the Legislative Council to promote policies. Almost all representatives of the faction were detained, and no one appeared on the show to voice their opposition. “Let’s not talk about politics. Even if it is about transportation, medical care and other livelihood issues, if the government did something wrong in the past, it would definitely be scolded to pieces, but now no one speaks out, and everything is lightly let go.”

After 2019, a wave of immigrants broke out in Hong Kong. Among them, 150,000 people applied for BNO visas-that is, British National (Overseas) visas-to immigrate to the UK. According to a survey conducted by the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce in April this year, 74% of enterprises are facing a shortage of talents, and 70% of employees who leave their jobs are due to immigration.

However, while the people voted with their feet, the government publicized that the “National Security Law” has “put order out of chaos” in Hong Kong. Xing” new stage. The SAR government has also launched a series of activities such as “Hello Hong Kong” and “Happy Hong Kong” to actively “tell the story of Hong Kong” to the outside world.

Zhong Jianhua, a scholar who has immigrated to the UK, said that these political slogans are like “Newspeak” in Orwell’s political fable novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. rule. “This is the magic wand of words commonly used by authoritarian governments. The so-called ‘patriots governing Hong Kong’, ‘patriots’ are defined by him, and the so-called ‘perfect electoral system’ is essentially to exclude dissidents and regress democracy, but he uses neutral, Packaging with positive and beautiful words will change everyone’s perception.”

He said that this set of language techniques has been very successful in mainland China. The people have been immersed and polluted for a long time, and they will gradually be dominated by this logic. “This is the reason for the phenomenon of ‘little pink’. Hong Kong people have experienced a civilized stage, and they still have Internet freedom. Compared with the Chinese people, their anti-epidemic ability will be higher, but in the long run, can they compete with the regime’s long-term brainwashing?” , which is cause for concern.”

He continued that officials are using language to manipulate narratives and set the tone for political events. “If you set the tone, you can’t discuss it anymore. The source of the ‘anti-extradition’ movement is that Hong Kong citizens worry that the revision of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance violates the protection of the rule of law, but the officials can’t use the dialectical process to convince you. ‘Color Revolution’, speak some conclusive slogans, put the nature of the whole matter into his frame, so there is no need for debate.”

In August 2019, an official from the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council of China publicly stated for the first time that the anti-revision demonstrations were a “color revolution.” Since then, officials have repeatedly referred to them as “black violence” and “foreign forces.” In April 2023, when Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, visited Hong Kong, he also pointed out that although the Hong Kong version of the “color revolution” of the amendment storm failed to succeed, it was a scar that would never be erased in Hong Kong’s history, as if hanging in the air. The alarm bell above your head must always be vigilant against the resurgence of street violence, the “soft confrontation” insurrection, and overseas chaos in Hong Kong.

Subsequently, Hong Kong government officials closely followed Xia Baolong’s argument. During the recent organ donation controversy, Chief Executive Lee Kar-chao emphasized the need to be vigilant against national security risks and guard against “soft confrontation.” Hong Kong police this week arrested four people suspected of stealing other people’s data and using it to attempt to cancel organ donation registration. Li Jiachao responded that “some shameless people created the illusion of a large number of cancellation registrations, and the methods used are similar to those of the ‘2019 black riots. , The Hong Kong version of Color Revolution’ is similar, using various reasons to sow conflicts, creating illusions that do not match reality and creating damage.”

Scholar Chen Jialuo said: “Any livelihood issue can be elevated to the level of a ‘color revolution’. If you are slightly dissatisfied, he will help you figure it out. That is called ‘soft confrontation’.”

Civil servants have to adapt to this new political context. Jing En (pseudonym), who works in the middle level of the trade department of the Hong Kong government, revealed to BBC Chinese that some commonly used words have become sensitive. Copywriting, so as not to remind people of the demonstration slogan “Hong Kong people, come on.”

She also said that in recent years, almost every document has been changed beyond recognition after being submitted. Top officials will add political terms and slogans from mainland China, and put Hong Kong policy under the framework of national policy. “’14th Five-Year Plan’, ‘Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area’, ‘One Belt, One Road’, these words must be added to any document now, and political correctness comes first. Some obviously urgent projects cannot be allocated resources, and these national policies The related projects can be very generous.”

She also noticed that domestic officialdom terms began to infiltrate the civil service system. “I opened the email that day, and our emails were all written in English, but the attachment actually said something like ‘a serious problem’, which is not a word that Hong Kong people are used to, and everyone rolled their eyes when they saw it.”

After the “anti-extradition” movement in 2019, the authorities required civil servants to swear an oath of support for the “Basic Law” and allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and even deleted “political neutrality” from the “Civil Servant Code”, and civil servants were also required to complete more “political tasks.” When former Chinese President Jiang Zemin passed away in December 2022, the Hong Kong government rarely asked all civil servants to watch the memorial meeting and observe three minutes of silence.

Jing En recalled that at that time, every department vacated the conference room, and all colleagues had to put down their work and go in to observe silently, unless they were “survived” if they asked for leave that day. “It’s superfluous, because there are KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) on it, and each department has to take photos and upload them to the Facebook page to hand in homework. There are more and more things that make everyone roll their eyes, but there is no way, and you dare not Do it, everyone is tacitly helpless.”

Under the National Security Law, the education sector also has more “front work” to do. The authorities stipulate that primary and secondary schools must hold flag-raising ceremonies every week and participate in inland study tours. Teacher Ou, who teaches communal affairs, said: “I know it’s a political mission, but when I take students to the mainland for investigation, I also want them to learn something. After all, it is not a bad thing to know the national conditions. How do you know that the delegation arranged by the Education Bureau will go back and forth on the same day?” In Foshan, 7 hours out of 11 hours are spent on transportation and meals, and the short trip has no educational significance, it is just doing it.”

The authorities have also stipulated that every subject must have an element of safeguarding national security, even arts subjects are no exception. “Our physical education teacher thought for a long time before he thought of how to add some national security elements. For example, when explaining ball games, he said that just as citizens must abide by the law, players must also abide by the rules of the game. In fact, it is completely random, which is very absurd.”

Professor Chen Jialuo said that after 2019, Hong Kong will “return to China for the second time”, and the new style of work in the new era and the new normal is imitation. “Everyone has to be very pretentious. Fighting red, fighting left, fighting bad, of course we are very embarrassed, but those in power are very happy to see it. This is part of the means of maintaining stability. Regulate everyone’s superficial layer. You have to make progress in society. To climb is to show loyalty.”

He quoted the story of the uncle who sold vegetables during the “normalization” period mentioned in his masterpiece “The Power of the Powerless” by former Czech President Havel. Unite!” poster, the slogan is not his real idea, he just conforms to the regime so as not to get himself into trouble.

“Hong Kong has also formed a culture of duplicity, and it is getting closer and closer to mainland China. The regime doesn’t care whether you are sincere, but only cares whether you are obedient and cooperative. When the advertisements on the exterior walls of buildings and newspapers are overwhelming, to him It’s like having a cheerleading squad to prove how popular you are. Compared with police and guns every day, this is the only low-cost way to maintain stability.”

Political scholars have pointed out that under the current system and political atmosphere, how much Hong Kong can preserve its former values ​​will depend on the cooperation of the people.

Scholar Zhong Jianhua quoted Havel’s proposition that in the post-totalitarian era, “living in truth” should be “lived in truth”. Professor Chen Jialuo believes that not leaving his post is also a kind of persistence. “The key is how well-behaved the people who stay are, and how serious they are.”

Teacher Ou, a middle school teacher, said that she tried to “do as little as possible” in the patriotic activities in the school stipulated by the authorities. For example, the weekly flag-raising ceremony should have “speeches under the national flag”, but she did not fully implement it. “I have many relatives and friends in the mainland, some of whom are teachers. They say that schools in the mainland don’t do ‘speeches under the national flag’ every week. Mainlanders are very smart. They don’t need to implement it seriously when they receive orders and receive funds. Hong Kong is too crazy, too smart, too stupid.”

Teacher Xu also pointed out that the current teaching of commune subjects avoids the important and ignores the trivial, and underplays the issue of “violating conscience”. “You forced me to say that 2019 is a ‘color revolution’. I really can’t tell, so let the students go back and read their notes. Anyway, this subject has been castrated. Why should I be so serious about helping the government to do ‘political propaganda’? Or when you want to explain ‘improving the electoral system’ and ‘patriots governing Hong Kong’, you can say it as a half-joke—if you look at it from a humorous perspective, Hong Kong is quite funny now.”

She said that because the social science subject in the university entrance examination was changed to only have two levels of “standard” and “failure”, and the difficulty of reaching the standard is very low, the attitude of students in class has become perfunctory, and less than one adult will concentrate on listening to the class. “They either don’t cooperate, make noise and rebellion, or just ignore you and do other subjects by themselves. Hong Kong’s education system is very utilitarian, but now there are no even liberal arts subjects. Students are more concerned about themselves and don’t care about society. The atmosphere of indifference and cynicism is very strong, and it will be scary to breed a group of intelligent but amoral elites in the future.”

Teacher Xu admitted that it is difficult to inspire students in teaching under the current system, so she shifted the focus of her work to extracurricular activities, organizing study tours and workshops for interested students, and cultivating the humanistic spirit of the next generation in a limited space. “There are still many issues worthy of concern in society, such as housing, poverty, and environmental protection issues. To teach students to understand these issues, at least let them know how to care for others.”

Jing En, a middle-level civil servant, said that after 2019, people who are willing to express their loyalty will get promoted very quickly.

“It is understandable that the people above want to flatter, but we will not follow blindly. The suggestions submitted will definitely be written according to professional judgment. If you really want to add political slogans, use a compromise method and add them in an inconspicuous place. The number of items (meeting the requirements) counts. I don’t know how long I can last, but at least I have to feel at ease and not be too disgusting.”