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Longer reads on the protests

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  1. #1

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    Post Longer reads on the protests

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/05...es-the-answer/

    Calling for protesters to always remain nonviolent winds up normalizing further state violence as an acceptable response when protesters hit back. Even if protesters only resort to violence after attacks by security forces, it is painted as “both sides” being violent in “clashes,” despite inequalities in firepower or protesters condemning violence within their ranks.


    The icons of nonviolent resistance were often less strictly opposed to violence than commonly believed


    Gandhi, like Thoreau, was personally committed to nonviolence and thought it was the most moral strategy, but he recognized not everyone was willing to risk the same self-sacrifice as him. And if you weren’t willing to die resisting nonviolently, Gandhi thought it was better to undertake violent resistance in self-defense than to be a coward.


    More problematic for nonviolent resistance advocates, however, are questions about the evidence used to proclaim the consistently superior effectiveness of nonviolence. Studies of nonviolent resistance were reinvigorated by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan’s 2011 book Why Civil Resistance Works, which found that nonviolent movements are on average more likely to achieve their goals.

    But many movements have a mix of nonviolent mass protests and more violent, radical flanks that engage in unarmed collective violence with sticks, stones, fists, or Molotov cocktails. As Chenoweth and co-authors recently acknowledged, evidence on the effects of radical flanks is mixed. Sometimes violence by protesters may backfire and alienate the public, but other times, when the government is viewed as illegitimate or corrupt and protesters as justified, it may have no effect or even bolster support for protesters’ cause. In more authoritarian settings, it may not be possible to stage a sustained protest without some degree of violent resistance to security forces, who would otherwise sweep protesters off the streets.


    In a perfect world, protesters—and governments—would not resort to violence. But if anti-authoritarian protesters feel they have no other way out from under a violent, repressive government, then solidarity and pressure on the government, not moralizing, is the best way to support the movement.


    Underlining is mine. I note SCMP reporting is often wooly or misleading on who started the conflict, mentioning the use of tear gas and thrown objects, but as with the most recent TST peaceful protest, either carrying the police statements wholesale or making the police actions sound like more than a response to walking on the roads (or nothing at all).


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    Good one in the New Yorker.

    I remember this journalist frantically asking for help from fellow journalists when this happened.

    The growth of this us-and-them mentality was evident everywhere. At the Tai Po Lennon Wall, I saw posters denouncing mainlanders as “mainland cunts.” Mandarin speakers often told me how unwelcome they were made to feel, and sometimes went on to talk about Cantonese speakers in vituperative terms. I experienced this animus myself a few days later, at a daytime rally in a park, when a group of peaceful protesters grew suspicious of me because I spoke Mandarin rather than Cantonese, and had a distinctly mainland accent. (I was born in Chongqing and immigrated to the United States when I was eight.) Everyone was sure that Beijing had operatives on the ground covertly monitoring the demonstrations: who was to say that I wasn’t one of them? When I told the group that I was an American journalist, they challenged me to prove it. The most worrying moment came when I pulled out my passport and American press credentials. Surrounded by a tight ring of people yelling that I was almost certainly a Communist Party agent, I could feel a nasty momentum building. Eventually, I began to record the scene, which helped disperse the crowd. But hostility lingered: I was definitely not one of them.
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...the-citys-soul
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    Not too long a read, but certainly worth reading John Bercow's opinions on the protests.

    It is possible to speak out for human rights and democracy and still trade where trade is desirable – because China, ultimately, is pragmatic and will sell us goods and services we wish to buy and buy those which we wish to sell. But at all costs the one thing we must not sell is our values – we must stand by them and defend them, and defend those in Hong Kong who are fighting for them on the frontlines.

    https://www.newstatesman.com/world/a...e-know-it-dead
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    https://comparativist.substack.com/p...fter-the-storm

    Interesting take from an observer.

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    That article by Bercow is brilliant. It partially makes up for his awful kowtowing to the EU.

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    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-asia-china-50832918

    Worth a read for the different perspectives. I feel for all the parties involved.

    The parts that disturbed me were policemen not interested in upholding the law, and people who share the same values being left by the wayside.
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    Not exactly a long read and it does not fit into the current police thread... its a long "watch".

    SCMP Video documents an off duty policeman who is also a medic/first-aider.

    https://youtu.be/oCqkgOWzrxY


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    Xi Dada's doctrine of forced homogenization of all subjects of the CCP is of direct relevance to Hong Kong as well.


    Planting the Seed: Ethnic Policy in Xi Jinping’s New Era of Cultural Nationalism
    Publication: China Brief Volume: 19 Issue: 22
    By: James Leibold
    December 31, 2019


    Previous acts of resistance in Tibet and Xinjiang have hardened Xi’s resolve to transform ethnic cultures and identities, and the ongoing rebellion in Hong Kong reinforces this imperative.

    In fact, the perceived successes of the Party’s mass internment strategy in Xinjiang—with Party officials regularly asserting the absence of “terror attacks”—is encouraging the expansion of cultural nationalist tactics throughout Chinese society.

    Instead he called for a re-doubling of effort and a more proactive and energetic role for the Party in guiding this process of fusion forward.

    The directive calls for the updating of methods and “vehicles” for instilling patriotism across Chinese society—including the promotion of “red tourism,” flag raising ceremonies, commemorative activities, and the celebration of traditional Zhonghua festivals and culture. Here ethnic minorities must conform to Han norms, with Uyghurs forced to eat pork dumplings when celebrating Chinese New Year and Tibetans asked to don “Han clothing”

    Education is now the forefront of ethnic work. The Directive insists the Party actively “guide the people in establishing and persisting with the correct view of the fatherland, nation, culture and history, and constantly enhance the sense of belonging, identity, dignity and honor of the Zhonghua nation”. Local study sessions are being held in Xinjiang, Tibet and other minority areas, where patriotic and ethnic unity education is now dubbed “an engineering project of the soul”

    It is unclear how far Xi Jinping is willing to push in this direction—the Xinjiang leaks suggest significant internal dissent—but the perceived successes of the Party’s approach in manufacturing stability in Xinjiang and Tibet are driving the Party deeper into the lives of its citizens, Han and minority alike. The Party’s heavy-handed approach to nation-building might ultimately prove counter-productive: rather than planting the seed of patriotism and unity, it is sowing mistrust and resentment among significant segments of the population who find the Party’s message unpalatable.

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