Gag power

On Tiananmen’s twentieth anniversary, it's fear of public angst boiling into active protest in a cauldron of online mobilisation and propaganda that led to an official blockade of many websites.

In popular lingo, Blogger, Flickr, Twitter, Livejournal, Tumblr, the Huffington Post, Microsoft's Live.com, Hotmail, MSN Space blog tool and search engine Bing (Fox News) were GFWd or great fire walled (WSJ) couple of days before the d-day.

You Tube got the axe recently when a super popular spoof video on government censorship led to million plus hits from around the globe.

Google reportedly had to fall in line with sarkari diktats to be unblocked. Wikipedia, Facebook and MySpace too have been at the receiving end at some point of time.

Chinese government’s hassles with the Internet arise from the harm it does to its image and legitimacy. It is a crack that lets in too much of light.

Look at the possibilities-

The unknown and undocumented tragedies of hundred flowers campaign, cultural revolution and the long march would had crashed servers if cheenis had online access back then.

The impact of clips and personal experiences from ground zero on six four flashing on millions of computer screens is unimaginable.

While it is easy to clamp on erring and belligerent reporters, editors and newspapers, the Internet presents a unique dilemma for law enforcers. The plethora of social networking websites, online newspapers and blogs has made pursuit of the non-conformist tough, endless and more technology driven.

Luckily for people living in Hong Kong, ‘freedom of speech’ is still not off limits. Though the local media does toe the government stand, delicate issues are still debated and reported in newspapers and discussed unbridled online.

Hong Kong is the only city in China where wide scale demonstrations and gatherings are allowed and tolerated.

It is this rare privilege which enables Hong Kongers and mainlanders to congregate year after year at Victoria Park in Causeway Bay and light candles in reverence and in defiance of government stand on T.

Last night nearly 150,000 people gathered in Victoria Park. It was overwhelming for someone like me who has grown familiar to everyday cribs of local apathy to social issues. If numbers can speak, the event sent across a very powerful message.

Check this SCMP video of yesterday's vigil:

http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.d53bd88267636ee6a3e27910cba0a0a0/?ss=News&s=Video&bcpid=1873859731&bclid=1557820190&bctid=25326003001

It is quite ironic that the shrewd tool of economic development, which the government uses to woo people, restricts its own actions when it comes to governing Hong Kong.

PS:

I worried about chances of any violence or police action as I hung on the fringe of the massive crowd. However to the best of my knowledge no one was manhandled or barred from expressing their views.

Policemen acted like efficient cogs ensuring crowds did not block roads and traffic flowed smoothly. Even at the Causeway MTR station, trains waited an extra two minutes to take in more people.

The only thing I wondered about was how many would had turned up if authorities had cracked down. For me it is a defining point in understanding the power of protest. I read somewhere about some Tiannanmen student leaders who are now settled in the US and run businesses that have investments in China. Is that not a tacit giving in or is it affirmation of the fact that youth’s idealism metamorphoses into cynicism and acceptance of the status quo with age.

It also appears that branding the pro democratic protests as a student unrest is a slight misnomer. Participation and deaths of common people is under represented in popular discourse.

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/48304,features,the-tiananmen-square-myth-both-china-and-the-west-distorted-the-truth-about-the-massacre-human-rights-amnesty-deng-xiaoping

I also read about the tanker-man who stood, shopping bags in hand before advancing tanks 20 years ago.