Why Postcolonial Theory Is Not Helping Hong Kong
July 17, 2019
10 minute read
byMelissa Chen
It was a scene that seemed anachronistic and perplexing to Western observers. For a few brief moments on July 1st 2019, the 22nd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China, the British colonial flag made an appearance on the lectern of the Hong Kong legislative chamber. For the young protesters who had stormed and occupied the building, it was a symbolic way to simultaneously express their unique Hong Kong identity and showcase their discontent with Chinese rule. There, it hung in the very chamber where laws were signed, bearing both the Union Jack and the Coat of Arms, the latter of which features a Chinese dragon and a crowned British lion gently grasping on to a pearl, calling to mind the exotic, panegyrical name bestowed upon the former British colony now known as the Special Administrative Region of China – the Pearl of the Orient.
Over recent weeks, political turmoil raged in the form of mass demonstrations that saw 1 in 7 Hong Kong residents take to the streets to protest an extradition bill that would have allowed alleged suspects to be deported to stand trial in Mainland China, where the legal system is subject to the arbitrariness and discretion of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The fear that any dissident could be targeted isn’t unfounded as stories about billionaires and booksellers being kidnapped by Beijing operatives, only to be prosecuted in show trials on the Mainland and in some cases even tortured in jail, are well known. The extradition bill left almost no room for doubt about China’s ambitions to further override the civil rights guaranteed to the people of Hong Kong by the Sino-British Joint Declaration and renege on the agreed-upon “One Country, Two Systems” framework.
Elsewhere, Union Jack flags were handed out and flown in the streets. As photographs of these flag-bearing protesters, many of whom cut across demographic lines, began making the rounds on social media, two things became apparent: a) the uneasy reluctance of mainstream Western media to conduct any sort of meaningful analysis of these scenes and b) the ready willingness of some quarters of Twitter to engage in vitriolic attacks of the Hong Kong protesters, accusing them of being complicit in colonialism.
For those who embrace the ideological frameworks of various forms of “Social Justice” Theory including postcolonialism, decolonialism, critical race theory and intersectional feminism, seeing the Asian inhabitants of a former colony raise its colonial flag simply does not compute. Within this ideological conception of the world there is a very simple understanding of power dynamics in which oppression must always come from people seen as having dominant identities – white, male, western, heterosexual, cisgender, ablebodied and thin – and be inflicted upon those seen as having marginalized identities – people of color, colonized or indigenous people, women, LGBT, disabled and fat people. When all of these elements are considered together, we get the framework of ‘intersectionality’ and it is through the language and activism of intersectional scholars and activists that most people encounter these ideas.
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Hong Kong-Many Flying The Union Jack
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Originally Posted by Kathianne
