First the Tiananmen massacre, now attempts to erase it from memory show China’s desperation
Symbols of democracy are being dismantled in Hong Kong. Recently, the University of Hong Kong removed a statue called ‘Pillar of Shame’, erected to commemorate Beijing’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square. The next day, two more universities followed suit. The Chinese University of Hong Kong brought down the ‘Goddess of Democracy’ statue on its campus. Lingnan University removed a relief sculpture. The actions come on the heels of the first election to Hong Kong’s legislature after changes to electoral laws allowed only pro-China ‘patriots’ to contest. The majority of the Hong Kongers rejected the election by refusing to vote. Is the removal of the statues an attempt by Beijing to erase all memories of the 1989 massacre? The Tiananmen Square massacre remains a delicate issue in mainland China. It is a taboo topic in Chinese politics amid sustained attempts to erase it from public memory. To date, there is no official acknowledgement that the military wrongfully opened fire at the protesters. There is no official confirmation of the death tally either. Only last week, some pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong were sent to jail for inciting people to take part in a banned vigil last year for the Tiananmen victims. It is part of the crackdown on all forms of anti-democracy protests. Hong Kong was the one city in China that assiduously remembered the Tiananmen victims every year. Thousands of people gathered annually to back the demand for democracy the victims died for.
The students kept the issue alive on the campuses of the island’s universities by erecting installations and statues. They symbolised the freedoms the island enjoyed under the very nose of mainland China. The removal of the statues, therefore, may also serve the larger purpose of erasing signs of democracy, making it easier for Hong Kong to no longer look different from the mainland. The removal of the statues is the latest in a chain of events since 2014 to disprove that the island’s autonomy is set in stone by calling for Beijing to have a “comprehensive jurisdiction” over Hong Kong. Western intellectuals call it an attempt to mould Hong Kong in Beijing’s authoritarian image. It began with electoral reforms in Hong Kong that people protested by taking to the streets. The protests reached their peak in 2019 when millions opposed a Bill that proposed the extradition of arrested Hong Kongers to the mainland. The angry protesters defaced the Chinese national emblem atop the Central Liaison Office. The Government took it as a challenge to its claims over Hong Kong. The island subsequently saw the enforcement of a draconian natural security law that brought the mainland’s security apparatus to Hong Kong. Any protest could now be treated as an act of separatism, subversion, terrorism or collusion with foreign powers with severe penalties. Then came the revised laws to keep people with protest histories out of the electoral fray. And now the statues have come down. Systematically.