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http://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/558-Tear-Gas-First-Anniversary/52267934_DZTVgJ#!i=4389497201&k=PkhrdGX
The 28 September 2015 marked the first anniversary of the start of the Umbrella Movement. The earlier student protests bolstered as tens of thousands joined the streets in support of universal suffrage. Those numbers bolstered to over 200,000 after the police fired tear gas and aimed shotguns at peaceful HongKongers.
Hong Kong’s students of all ages put the topic of universal suffrage in Hong Kong front and centre both locally and globally, so there was double sadness yesterday as the stage in front of the Lennon Wall was devoid of students and full of the same old politicians who expel a lot of hot-air but have achieved little; and who last year sat on coat-tails of a social movement for their own benefit.
The last twelve months have exposed China’s desire to destroy Hong Kong, to turn it into just another subjugated Chinese city with laws not worth the paper they’re printed on. Where the wealthy plunder, protected by politicised uniformed thugs masquerading as a police force.
Quite why they want to do this, when Hong Kong has provided such an effective way for rich mainlanders to squirrel their money out of China and stash it safely in countries where contracts and laws have real meaning. Currently Hong Kong is an expendable pawn in the factions battle in the mainland and until that battle is resolved, we’re going to suffer.
Some may say that last year’s street demonstrations achieved nothing – well you weren’t there… To those of us who were, it was a defining moment, a collective realisation that we must not let Hong Kong the place we love and call home slip quietly into the night. That we are HongKongers and proud of it and we will be heard.
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