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<i>36C3 preroll music</i>

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Herald: Our next talk is going to be[br]translated into German and possibly into

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French. So there is a link you can all go[br]to. It's streaming.c3lingo.org. You can go

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there for translations and we're about to[br]start the talk called "What the world can

0:00:42.150,0:00:48.570
learn from Hong Kong" and it's going to[br]take 90 minutes because apparently we can

0:00:48.570,0:00:56.220
learn a lot from Hong Kong. So buckle up.[br]It's going to be a long ride. And our

0:00:56.220,0:01:06.210
speaker Katharin Tai is a University of[br]Oxford alumni and a PhD candidate at

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M.I.T.. So let's welcome Katharin on[br]stage.

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Let's give her a big round of applause.

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<i>Applause</i>

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All yours.[br]Katharin Tai: Thank you. Hello, everyone.

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Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me to[br]C3. For starters, I'd also like to thank

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the brave people who are planning to[br]translate what I'm about to say, despite

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knowing how fast I usually speak. So quick[br]round of applause for the translators over

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there in the boxes. [br]<i>applause</i>

0:01:45.170,0:01:49.460
So my name's Katharin. As the dear Harald,[br]I actually don't know your name

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mentioned, I'm a PhD student at[br]M.I.T. where I study Political Science. I

0:01:54.960,0:01:59.500
also work as a freelance journalist on the[br]side and in my capacity as a freelance

0:01:59.500,0:02:03.390
journalist I, amongst other things,[br]covered the Hong Kong protests over the

0:02:03.390,0:02:09.140
past seven months which as you can[br]possibly imagine was quite eventful. I

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think one important caveat for this talk[br]is I am not originally from Hong Kong and

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I think the people who you should probably[br]listening to and who I would love to put

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on the stage in many cases are people who[br]go to great lengths to protect their own

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anonymity and to protect their own[br]identity. And so these are people who

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would not put themselves on the stage. So[br]what I'm going to try to do is I'm going

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to tell you to the best of my ability the[br]things that I've learned from them and

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from the people who go out on the streets[br]and protest in Hong Kong but in general,

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my talk will be interspersed with[br]references to journalists and some

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activists in Hong Kong who I recommend you[br]follow them because ultimately they are

0:02:47.170,0:02:54.300
the ones who know best. But what do I want[br]to do? For starters, because this is 90

0:02:54.300,0:02:57.849
minutes, so I want to give you a quick[br]heads up. I'm going to give a quick

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overview of why and how things are[br]happening, so historically and politically

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and we will also be showcasing some[br]amazing protest art. And then I want to

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talk about the incredible strategies that[br]protesters have been using and that

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they've been using for over half a year[br]now and that's helped them to essentially

0:03:18.160,0:03:22.459
keep going for more than half a year in[br]the face of what is truly an incredibly

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strong government. So also, we want to[br]talk about technology because, of course,

0:03:26.629,0:03:31.520
it's C3. So it's incredibly important that[br]we recognize the very high tech things

0:03:31.520,0:03:36.349
that the protesters have been using to[br]defend themselves against the police, such

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as catapults.[br]<i>Short video starts playing</i>

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<i>Group shouting</i>[br]K: This was recently at the Chinese

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University of Hong Kong but there are more[br]catapults. But seriously, like I said, I'm

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going to start with some historical[br]political background and then I'm going to

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move on and explain the political demands[br]and the protest strategies that the

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protesters have been using and in the end,[br]I'm going to give kind of like a bit like

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a quick preview of what we can maybe[br]expect to happen in the next few years and

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what you can do to stay informed. So what[br]is happening and why? Can I have light on

0:04:23.010,0:04:30.090
the audience for a second? I don't know[br]who I talk to about this. Great. So I want

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to know, I want to get a quick sense of[br]how much people know about Hong Kong's

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politics. So if you know why the years[br]1997 and 2047 are meaningful for Hong Kong

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politics, please raise your hand. Wow.[br]Thank you. That's definitely more than I

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expected. I hope this won't bore you then.[br]Thanks for the lights, that's fine,

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although I actually like seeing the[br]audience, that's quite good. I'm still

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going to give a quick overview. Some of[br]you may know that Hong Kong was a British

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colony until 1997. So it was under British[br]colonial rule for more than 100 years.

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Once the British lease of Hong Kong was[br]up, the British negotiated an agreement

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with the Chinese government to return Hong[br]Kong to China. Ironically, this event was

0:05:17.800,0:05:22.650
called the Handover, where Hong Kong was[br]literally taken by a colonial power and

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handed over to a different government.[br]Ironically also it is that it's called the

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return to China because the current[br]Chinese government was not even in power

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when Hong Kong was last part of what you[br]could consider China. But at this Handover

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event or before this Handover event, the[br]British and the Chinese signed an

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important document, which was the Sino-[br]British Joint Declaration, which says

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that... which essentially says the rights[br]and freedoms, including those of the

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person, of speech, of the press, of[br]assembly, of academic research and of

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religious belief will be ensured by law in[br]the Hong Kong Special Administrative

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Region. Why are they writing something[br]like this? Hong Kong was a colony but

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because it was essentially used as a big[br]and important commercial center, it did

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have a lot of kind of like societal[br]freedoms. So people were able to protest

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to the extent that colonial law allowed[br]it. And there was, for example, freedom of

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the press and there were worries in the UK[br]and also in Hong Kong, a lot of Hong

0:06:25.889,0:06:29.730
Kongers were extremely worried about this,[br]about what might happen to these freedoms,

0:06:29.730,0:06:35.240
when they would essentially go become part[br]of China, which is not democratic. It's

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not a democracy. It wasn't a democracy in[br]the 80s or the 90s either. This is

0:06:39.580,0:06:44.110
something like... these anxieties were[br]obviously exacerbated by the fact that in

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89, the Chinese government suppressed a[br]student protest in Tiananmen Square. Hong

0:06:49.980,0:06:53.380
Kongers knew about this. And so they were[br]watching from just across the border and

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they were looking at the students in[br]Tiananmen and Beijing. And they were

0:06:56.450,0:07:01.590
wondering, is this going to be us next?[br]This whole thing, this whole idea that

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Hong Kong's freedom will be guaranteed is[br]called One Country, Two Systems. And so

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the idea is that Hong Kong gets to[br]maintain its own government in some ways.

0:07:09.320,0:07:12.859
It gets to maintain its own legal system[br]and it gets to maintain all these

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political freedoms that in many ways are[br]not guaranteed in mainland China. In

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addition to that, Hong Kong does not have[br]democracy in the sense that most people

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understand it. But the Hong Kong basic law[br]says that the ultimate aim is the

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selection of the chief executive, which is[br]the head of government in Hong Kong, by

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universal suffrage, upon nomination, by a[br]broadly representative nominating

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committee in accordance with democratic[br]procedures. So basically this could be

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read as there will also be democracy at[br]some point, maybe. Depending on how we

0:07:46.389,0:07:51.820
define all of these terms. So in 97, the[br]Chinese government decided that what Hong

0:07:51.820,0:07:58.639
Kong is going to get is essentially a[br]government that is basically appointed by

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Beijing. There's... it's a bit more[br]complicated, but essentially the Hong Kong

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chief executive is appointed in Beijing[br]and people get to vote for their

0:08:07.270,0:08:11.099
parliament, but the parliament doesn't[br]really have... they can't come up

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with the laws and say we want to pass this[br]law so they can essentially veto bills

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that come from the government. But Hong[br]Kongers basically get to elect their

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opposition in free and fair elections. Or[br]part of their opposition. But they do not

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get to elect their government. So that's[br]where we're starting in 97. So I think

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this is important to understand because[br]while Hong Kong is part of China legally,

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it has a special status that makes it very[br]different politically. And that's

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something that became very obvious in the[br]years following the handover as well.

0:08:43.210,0:08:48.729
Antony Dapiran, a lawyer who works in[br]Hong Kong, has called the city a city of

0:08:48.729,0:08:53.519
protest. And you can see this, for[br]example, because since the Handover there

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has been a range of protests, all of them[br]have been political and a lot of them have

0:08:57.650,0:09:05.499
been in some ways related to China. These[br]are just some examples. One was in 2003,

0:09:05.499,0:09:11.989
the protest against Article 23, which was[br]an anti-subversion law. So basically it

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was an anti-... So it was basically seen[br]as a way for the government to get rid of

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people who they disagreed with[br]politically. People protested against it.

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And the reform was stalled. In 2012, a lot[br]of students protested against a curriculum

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reform that people essentially denounced[br]as brainwashing. They said it would be

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painting democracy in a bad light and was[br]painting China as too positive. Again, the

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protest succeeded. There were a range of[br]other protests as well in the 2000s that,

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for example, protested for maintaining[br]important buildings, what people called

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Hong Kong heritage. A lot of those[br]unfortunately failed. So there's been ups

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and downs. But it's in no way the case[br]that Hong Kong wasn't free. People were

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able to go out on the streets, people went[br]out on the streets in thousands and people

0:10:03.510,0:10:07.350
had political rallies such as out of[br]university, as you see in the picture in

0:10:07.350,0:10:15.699
the background. And then 2014 happened.[br]I'm sure people have seen this. This was

0:10:15.699,0:10:20.050
the Umbrella Revolution in 2014. I took[br]this picture when I was actually at Occupy

0:10:20.050,0:10:25.749
Central and I studied for my own mid-term[br]exams at the Student Study Center. What

0:10:25.749,0:10:29.429
had happened was that the promise of maybe[br]democracy that I was talking about

0:10:29.429,0:10:34.869
earlier, people thought that Beijing had[br]broken it because in that year, Beijing

0:10:34.869,0:10:39.769
had essentially published it's plan for[br]electoral reform and said that, yes, you

0:10:39.769,0:10:44.500
get universal suffrage, so everyone gets[br]to vote, but we still pick the candidates.

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So people felt cheated and didn't think[br]that that was what they were owed. And

0:10:49.159,0:10:52.999
people went into the streets and people[br]occupied a part of the center of the city

0:10:52.999,0:10:59.269
for two full months and two full weeks,[br]which was extremely impressive. This is

0:10:59.269,0:11:03.079
basically one of the major roads in the[br]middle of Hong Kong. It's usually full of

0:11:03.079,0:11:06.479
cars. You couldn't possibly walk there,[br]but people reclaimed it and made it into a

0:11:06.479,0:11:10.170
protest village. People built their own[br]institutions. People organized tutoring

0:11:10.170,0:11:13.769
services. It was an incredible feeling.[br]People, when there were there, were

0:11:13.769,0:11:17.450
incredibly optimistic and were telling me[br]it will be fine. We just need to work

0:11:17.450,0:11:21.589
together. And if I asked them, how are you[br]going to get democracy, though? They were

0:11:21.589,0:11:26.389
like, I don't know how exactly it's going[br]to happen, but it will happen. But what

0:11:26.389,0:11:30.959
actually happened is that the protest camp[br]was cleared out by police and by the

0:11:30.959,0:11:35.059
government and there were fights[br]internally in the democracy movement over

0:11:35.059,0:11:39.360
how to continue. And so there was a lot of[br]disagreement. And what followed was

0:11:39.360,0:11:44.319
essentially a long period of political[br]depression, right? People had been able to

0:11:44.319,0:11:48.160
bring thousands of people onto the[br]streets, but the government didn't even...

0:11:48.160,0:11:53.379
except for one conversation, sit down and[br]negotiate with them. One person who I

0:11:53.379,0:11:59.999
interviewed last year, so almost two years[br]ago now, told me at the time that if the

0:11:59.999,0:12:04.029
government doesn't even listen to us when[br]we bring so many people out on the

0:12:04.029,0:12:08.759
streets, then I don't know what can change[br]anything politically. The one thing that

0:12:08.759,0:12:13.470
umbrella has taught me is that there are[br]no bounds to how disappointed I can be in

0:12:13.470,0:12:20.129
my government. In addition to this feeling[br]of depression, you had several other

0:12:20.129,0:12:24.119
incidents that made people feel like the[br]promise of One Country, Two Systems, that

0:12:24.119,0:12:28.149
Hong Kong would really be separate from[br]mainland China at least until 47 wasn't

0:12:28.149,0:12:34.500
being kept. One of these examples are the[br]bookseller abductions from 2015. The

0:12:34.500,0:12:38.049
people, there were 3 booksellers who were[br]abducted, probably by the Chinese

0:12:38.049,0:12:43.800
government, one in Thailand, one in[br]southern China and one in Hong Kong

0:12:43.800,0:12:47.329
itself. So these are people who were[br]essentially selling books that were,

0:12:47.329,0:12:52.399
honestly, a lot of it was probably rumors[br]and kind of gossip, but they were very

0:12:52.399,0:12:57.170
critical of the Chinese government and[br]they suddenly turned up in China again. So

0:12:57.170,0:13:00.389
imagine you're a Hong Konger and you've[br]grown up in a city where you're being

0:13:00.389,0:13:03.669
told you have your own legal system and [br]you have nothing to fear from

0:13:03.669,0:13:07.509
China. Because if you don't go, it's your[br]own government that is in charge for you.

0:13:07.509,0:13:11.069
But then you hear about these people who[br]are grabbed off the street in your own

0:13:11.069,0:13:14.750
hometown and who suddenly turn up in[br]China, possibly making a public

0:13:14.750,0:13:22.450
confession. So that looks bad. In 2016,[br]this is also important, people had been...

0:13:22.450,0:13:26.309
the Fishbowl Revolution happened, which is[br]also where this beautiful piece of art

0:13:26.309,0:13:32.189
comes from. The Fishbowl Revolution was[br]the protest in part of Hong Kong called

0:13:32.189,0:13:37.629
Mong Kok. And basically what happened was[br]that people decided that violent means

0:13:37.629,0:13:41.947
might be what is needed to actually oppose[br]the government to get political change. In

0:13:41.947,0:13:46.050
2014, people had been peaceful and they[br]had tried, but nobody listened. So if that

0:13:46.050,0:13:50.267
doesn't work, some people thought [br]we need to try new methods. So there

0:13:50.267,0:13:55.410
was something that could be called a[br]riot. And there were really... like

0:13:55.410,0:13:59.763
clashes between the... like between police[br]forces and protesters. People were tearing

0:13:59.763,0:14:03.479
up the pavement, throwing bricks at the[br]police. Police was throwing some bricks

0:14:03.479,0:14:09.360
back. So that happened. And then[br]from between 2016 and 18, another

0:14:09.360,0:14:13.449
thing that was important happened, which[br]is that after Umbrella, there were fights

0:14:13.449,0:14:17.489
about what to do. And some people decided[br]we will go and throw bricks at the police

0:14:17.489,0:14:21.509
during the Fishbowl Revolution. Some other[br]people decided we want to work through the

0:14:21.509,0:14:26.239
institutions and we want to get elected[br]into the legislative council, into the

0:14:26.239,0:14:30.809
parliament, and we want to change the[br]system from within. But what happened was

0:14:30.809,0:14:35.829
that 6 candidates, and then later even 6[br]elected parliamentarians were all

0:14:35.829,0:14:40.850
disqualified for, in some cases not[br]credibly promising that they essentially

0:14:40.850,0:14:46.660
will uphold the Hong Kong basic law.[br]Again, there are legal reasons for this.

0:14:46.660,0:14:52.220
Some of these disqualifications were later[br]overturned by courts. Some, I think, are

0:14:52.220,0:14:57.119
still, still stand. But I think what's[br]really important is that what a lot of

0:14:57.119,0:15:01.119
people felt was, again, that this was kind[br]of like a broken promise. Right. They were

0:15:01.119,0:15:05.069
like even within the system that we have.[br]So we get to elect so few people. But even

0:15:05.069,0:15:08.719
within that system, you don't let us elect[br]the people we want to. You disqualify

0:15:08.719,0:15:11.939
candidates. This is something that had[br]never happened before. And then you also

0:15:11.939,0:15:15.120
disqualify people after they've been[br]elected. So you have democratically

0:15:15.120,0:15:19.329
elected representatives of the people who[br]essentially protest it as part of an oath

0:15:19.329,0:15:24.109
taking ceremony. And those people then[br]also got kicked out. So that looks bad.

0:15:24.109,0:15:29.709
This means if you're, I'm not going to[br]date myself, but if you're my age and

0:15:29.709,0:15:34.360
you're a Hong Konger, you first lived[br]under British colonialism. Where the

0:15:34.360,0:15:38.480
British colonial government was in charge[br]of your feet. And then post 97, you were

0:15:38.480,0:15:42.069
just kind of like handed over to the[br]Chinese government. Maybe at the age of

0:15:42.069,0:15:46.549
like 4, 5, 6, depending on how old you[br]were. But at no point did you actually get

0:15:46.549,0:15:51.169
a choice. But you also grew up with a lot[br]more political freedom than a lot of

0:15:51.169,0:15:54.709
people in mainland China. You had no[br]Internet censorship and people in Hong

0:15:54.709,0:15:58.039
Kong talk very openly about a lot of[br]things that the Chinese government has

0:15:58.039,0:16:01.910
done. And so you're very aware of things[br]such as the Tiananmen massacre and you're

0:16:01.910,0:16:05.799
afraid that those things might maybe[br]happen to you in 47, when you know there's

0:16:05.799,0:16:09.660
an expiration date on all the freedoms[br]that you have. But in 47, you might also

0:16:09.660,0:16:14.159
be part of that and those things might[br]also be what happens to you. But at the

0:16:14.159,0:16:17.660
same time, what you'd also seen is that[br]you'd seen freedoms eroded and you saw all

0:16:17.660,0:16:22.679
these signs that made you think that the[br]promises, the promise of those 50 years of

0:16:22.679,0:16:25.929
freedom and of a separate political[br]system, that that was an empty promise and

0:16:25.929,0:16:28.990
that China was not intending to keep it.[br]And this, I think, is also really

0:16:28.990,0:16:32.859
important that a lot of people who I spoke[br]to that tell me China doesn't want 1

0:16:32.859,0:16:37.382
country, 2 systems. And if they don't want[br]it, they will undermine it if they can. So

0:16:37.382,0:16:41.059
one person who I spoke to is in his 20s[br]said China just wants one country, one

0:16:41.059,0:16:45.229
system, and it's going to do whatever it[br]wants to achieve that. And that's the

0:16:45.229,0:16:48.689
mindset, I think, that we need to[br]understand to know why people are going

0:16:48.689,0:16:54.350
out on the streets right now. So people[br]are scared of China. People think, people

0:16:54.350,0:16:58.889
don't trust the Chinese legal system. And[br]what happens in 2019 is that the

0:16:58.889,0:17:04.550
government introduces an extradition bill.[br]Previously, one of the ways the Hong Kong

0:17:04.550,0:17:08.770
legal system was kept separate from China[br]is that it couldn't extradite people to

0:17:08.770,0:17:12.850
China. So if someone commits a crime in[br]China and flees to Hong Kong, the Hong

0:17:12.850,0:17:17.740
Kong government cannot send that person to[br]China for prosecution. But what happened

0:17:17.740,0:17:22.360
is that someone committed a crime in[br]Taiwan, which Hong Kong considers to be

0:17:22.360,0:17:27.399
part of China. And that person. So this[br]person was a Hong Kong citizen. He killed

0:17:27.399,0:17:32.799
his girlfriend and fled to Hong Kong, was[br]convicted of a couple of credit card fraud

0:17:32.799,0:17:36.490
charges. But because the Hong Kong courts[br]didn't have jurisdiction, they couldn't

0:17:36.490,0:17:39.800
actually get him for the murder of his[br]girlfriend. And so the Hong Kong

0:17:39.800,0:17:42.760
government said, okay, look, we're going[br]to get an extradition bill so we can start

0:17:42.760,0:17:48.320
extraditing people to Taiwan, including,[br]and then also start extraditing people to

0:17:48.320,0:17:56.860
China. I mean, what do you think people[br]thought about that? They weren't happy. So

0:17:56.860,0:18:03.330
on June 9th, one million people,[br]estimated, went on the street to protest

0:18:03.330,0:18:07.290
against the extradition bill. And this is[br]where we're starting, right? This is where

0:18:07.290,0:18:11.049
the political movement starts. I want to[br]give you an overview of what's happened

0:18:11.049,0:18:16.570
over the past 7 months, because it's easy[br]in hindsight to forget just the scale of a

0:18:16.570,0:18:22.830
lot of what happened. So on June 9th we[br]get, official numbers are 240000. So

0:18:22.830,0:18:27.585
that's the police. The organizers say 1[br]million people. On June 12th, we get 40000

0:18:27.585,0:18:31.440
people who essentially gather around the[br]government headquarter and prevent the

0:18:31.440,0:18:35.620
bill from being read a second time, from[br]being discussed. And the police used tear

0:18:35.620,0:18:39.389
gas, rubber bullets and beanbag rounds[br]against protesters that were largely

0:18:39.389,0:18:44.369
unarmed and in some cases held umbrellas[br]to essentially defend themselves. People

0:18:44.369,0:18:48.679
were really mad at that and so on June[br]16th, the largest protest march in Hong

0:18:48.679,0:18:53.990
Kong history happened with an estimated of[br]2 million people, which is a sizable

0:18:53.990,0:19:01.503
proportion of the city's population. So[br]people are protesting on July 21st. I

0:19:01.503,0:19:05.720
think this is one of the events that[br]people really need to know about. Well,

0:19:05.720,0:19:09.690
there was a protest in the center of Hong[br]Kong in a metro station further north in

0:19:09.690,0:19:15.600
Yuen Long. Suddenly, a group of 20, 25 men[br]in white t-shirts turned up and started

0:19:15.600,0:19:18.949
beating people. So just started[br]indiscriminately beating people up who

0:19:18.949,0:19:24.179
were on the metro. We all know this[br]because there was a journalist in the same

0:19:24.179,0:19:28.240
metro station and she was live streaming[br]the entire thing. So for 40 minutes, she

0:19:28.240,0:19:34.000
was live streaming violence that people in[br]Hong Kong had never really seen before.

0:19:34.000,0:19:38.065
People are used to being relatively safe.[br]Hong Kong has a pretty low crime rate. And

0:19:38.065,0:19:41.689
there was this incredibly vicious violence[br]they were all seeing on their screens. So

0:19:41.689,0:19:45.519
everyone knew this. Like at some point[br]there were thousands, tens of thousands of

0:19:45.519,0:19:49.610
people in this live stream. And yet the[br]police was doing nothing. And it didn't

0:19:49.610,0:19:55.350
turn up until after these people had[br]disappeared. And I think within that day

0:19:55.350,0:19:59.191
they may be arrested. I think within a[br]couple of days they didn't arrest anyone.

0:19:59.191,0:20:04.519
And then later they arrested 3 people. But[br]so far, nothing has come of that. That was

0:20:04.519,0:20:08.850
really a turning point where people lost a[br]lot of trust in institutions that they

0:20:08.850,0:20:13.429
used to have before because they decided[br]that ultimately when in doubt, if there's

0:20:13.429,0:20:17.948
some gangster beating me up, if the person[br]is politically for the government, I

0:20:17.948,0:20:21.430
cannot trust the police to come and save[br]me. And a lot of people, especially

0:20:21.430,0:20:25.159
wealthier, more well-off, middle class[br]people, that's the point when they change

0:20:25.159,0:20:28.879
their mind. Maybe before they said the[br]extradition bill isn't that bad, I don't

0:20:28.879,0:20:32.660
mind, it will be fine. But that was the[br]moment when they saw those people getting

0:20:32.660,0:20:36.066
beaten up. They looked at them and they[br]were like, that could have been me. And

0:20:36.066,0:20:38.836
that's when they said, now something needs[br]to happen and something needs to be done

0:20:38.836,0:20:45.108
about this government. So more people go[br]out in the pouring rain. An estimated 1.7

0:20:45.108,0:20:51.019
million people protesting. August 31 the[br]estimate is tens of thousands, but this

0:20:51.019,0:20:54.585
was an illegal march, so the protest[br]wasn't allowed. So people went out to

0:20:54.585,0:20:58.100
protest despite it being illegal. They[br]knew they could be charged with like

0:20:58.100,0:21:03.096
illegal assembly. Maybe a riot which[br]carries up to 10 years. After that, the

0:21:03.096,0:21:06.609
government essentially stopped allowing[br]protest marches and they were like, maybe

0:21:06.609,0:21:10.789
if we don't allow you to protest, people[br]won't come out to protest. Didn't work out

0:21:10.789,0:21:17.410
on October 1st, Chinese National Day,[br]thousands demonstrated on the streets

0:21:17.410,0:21:22.929
again. And this is the first day someone[br]was shot with a life round. So a protester

0:21:22.929,0:21:28.693
in his 20s was shot by a policeman at [br]close range. On October 4th, again,

0:21:28.693,0:21:32.190
thousands of people out in the streets.[br]The government tries to ban masks, so they

0:21:32.190,0:21:35.809
went to prevent people from hiding their[br]faces. And you see what people do in

0:21:35.809,0:21:39.960
reaction to that. They put on masks and they[br]go out and protest because it's Hong Kong

0:21:39.960,0:21:45.534
On November 8th, the first person died[br]in the context of the protests. A young

0:21:45.534,0:21:50.950
man who fell from a building near a police[br]action saved and in a coma for several

0:21:50.950,0:21:54.680
days and then died on November 8th.[br]This picture is from one of the vigils

0:21:54.680,0:21:59.470
for him. And several days later, the[br]second person died in the context of the

0:21:59.470,0:22:04.299
protest, an old man who was probably just[br]a bystander at a clash between police and

0:22:04.299,0:22:10.330
protesters. He was hit in his face, in[br]the head by a brick and died several days

0:22:10.330,0:22:15.860
later. Also after a coma. This was what[br]set off the most extreme and the most

0:22:15.860,0:22:20.760
violent days of protests in Hong Kong that[br]we have seen this year and possibly ever.

0:22:20.760,0:22:25.669
Where people started occupying university[br]campuses and had real battles with police

0:22:25.669,0:22:29.510
to essentially defend those campuses[br]against police. And the whole thing

0:22:29.510,0:22:34.379
culminated on November 18th in police[br]essentially laying siege to an entire

0:22:34.379,0:22:38.509
university, trapping people inside and[br]thousands of people going out to protest

0:22:38.509,0:22:42.660
and trying to essentially break through[br]the police cordon from the outside and

0:22:42.660,0:22:46.549
rescue the people who were inside, who[br]were afraid of the police, who didn't want

0:22:46.549,0:22:50.389
to come up because they'd seen videos of[br]police violence over the past few months

0:22:50.389,0:22:53.550
and they were scared because they said, I[br]don't know what's going to happen if I go

0:22:53.550,0:22:57.739
out, but who also said we have fought for[br]so many months at this point. So this was

0:22:57.739,0:23:01.280
November, right? So a month ago, they were[br]saying we have fought it for so many

0:23:01.280,0:23:06.360
months, we cannot just give up. We need to[br]at least try. One thing that happened as

0:23:06.360,0:23:12.299
part of that was that people coordinate an[br]absolutely insane exit from the besieged

0:23:12.299,0:23:18.829
university where they basically came down[br]from a footbridge. Some of these people

0:23:18.829,0:23:22.759
are climbing, but some of them are just[br]falling down. And then you have

0:23:22.759,0:23:26.870
motorcyclists waiting for them down the[br]bridge. All of this is coordinated online.

0:23:26.870,0:23:31.250
And we don't know how many people are[br]going out that way, but maybe 50 or 100

0:23:31.250,0:23:35.139
men were able to escape arrest.

0:23:35.139,0:23:44.029
<i>Video playing, human voices,[br]photo shutters, motorcycle noises</i>

0:23:44.029,0:23:51.329
It's kind of like getting down and being[br]picked up by motorbikes. The sieges

0:23:51.329,0:23:55.571
eventually ended. Kind of a lot of people[br]were arrested. I think more than a

0:23:55.571,0:23:59.420
thousand people were arrested around the[br]university that was occupied. But several

0:23:59.420,0:24:02.740
days later, there were district council[br]elections, which are basically local

0:24:02.740,0:24:08.129
elections in Hong Kong and this was the[br]electoral map before the elections. Red are

0:24:08.129,0:24:12.820
pro-government parties and yellow are pro-[br]democracy parties. There was a record

0:24:12.820,0:24:17.100
turnout, the highest ever in the history[br]of Hong Kong. And the pro-democracy camp

0:24:17.100,0:24:25.450
made the map to this.[br]<i>applause</i>

0:24:25.450,0:24:29.470
One thing that's important to bear in mind[br]is that Hong Kong uses the first-past-the-

0:24:29.470,0:24:34.200
post system. So you win in your district[br]if you gain an absolute majority. So these

0:24:34.200,0:24:39.249
seats actually don't translate into that[br]much of a electoral difference. So I think

0:24:39.249,0:24:43.990
it was 60/40. So with 60% for pro-[br]democracy, but especially compared to what

0:24:43.990,0:24:47.139
the districts had looked like before, this[br]was an incredible achievement and I also

0:24:47.139,0:24:49.590
think this is one thing that's really[br]important, recognize that there's a lot of

0:24:49.590,0:24:52.850
organizational work that went through[br]this. So people put in a lot of time, no

0:24:52.850,0:24:56.730
love like work to make sure that people[br]went out and would be able to vote and the

0:24:56.730,0:25:05.029
people knew who they were voting for. So[br]here we are in December. By the count of

0:25:05.029,0:25:11.779
the activist and writer Kong Tsung-gan[br]there have been 6152 arrests, at least,

0:25:11.779,0:25:15.470
possibly more. 921 people have been[br]prosecuted. So there's an incredible

0:25:15.470,0:25:21.760
backlog and there have been 774 protests[br]that includes smaller ones. That was as of

0:25:21.760,0:25:26.340
December 23. Since then, there have been[br]several more hundred arrests. So we're

0:25:26.340,0:25:31.350
probably getting closer, much closer to[br]6500, 6600. And that's where we are after

0:25:31.350,0:25:39.589
7 months of protest in Hong Kong.[br]This is somewhat depressing, but it's also

0:25:39.589,0:25:43.660
incredibly impressive that people have[br]been able to keep going for such a long

0:25:43.660,0:25:49.200
time. These people who are going out into[br]the streets are not just walking for half

0:25:49.200,0:25:53.029
an hour or an hour and then go home and[br]are like, oh, yeah, no, it's fine. People

0:25:53.029,0:25:57.019
are entering real battles with police and[br]essentially running and hiding from police

0:25:57.019,0:26:01.760
for, in some cases for hours. A lot of[br]people have been driven to physical

0:26:01.760,0:26:06.140
exhaustion. A lot of people aren't doing[br]well mentally because that's incredibly

0:26:06.140,0:26:09.979
depressing. There's a lot of anxiety.[br]People are very scared of what could

0:26:09.979,0:26:13.789
happen to them if they do get arrested.[br]And so one thing that I want to now focus

0:26:13.789,0:26:18.350
on is how they've been able to just keep[br]this going for such a long time. Hong Kong

0:26:18.350,0:26:22.570
is such a tiny place. And if you look at[br]the resources that the Chinese government

0:26:22.570,0:26:26.380
has access to, that the Hong Kong[br]government has access to. How can a

0:26:26.380,0:26:34.049
protest keep going for so long? I think I[br]have a few answers. The first answer is

0:26:34.049,0:26:40.100
that they are very clear demands that the[br]movement has. The first is a complete

0:26:40.100,0:26:44.200
withdrawal of the extradition bill. So the[br]blog that I was talking about earlier that

0:26:44.200,0:26:52.410
was fulfilled in September. The second is[br]the release of arrested protesters without

0:26:52.410,0:26:56.179
chargers. So they're saying we want all[br]those 6..., more than 6000 people, those

0:26:56.179,0:26:59.910
should be released and they should be able[br]to go home without being charged because

0:26:59.910,0:27:03.240
they were trying to make their government[br]listen to them because there is no other

0:27:03.240,0:27:07.110
way you can get your government to listen[br]to you if you cannot vote. The only thing

0:27:07.110,0:27:10.929
you can do is you can go out on the[br]street. The third demand is the withdrawal

0:27:10.929,0:27:16.610
of the characterization of protests as a[br]right of old. Any protest is a riot. This

0:27:16.610,0:27:19.539
is a bit technical, but the basic gist of[br]it is that there is a law that the British

0:27:19.539,0:27:25.389
colonial administration introduced which[br]allows police to classify a lot of

0:27:25.389,0:27:30.120
protests as riots. It's like a pretty[br]broad definition. It's pretty vague. And

0:27:30.120,0:27:35.610
that if you're convicted of rioting, that[br]carries up to 10 years in prison. So I

0:27:35.610,0:27:40.450
think roughly a third of arrested[br]protesters has been under 18. Imagine you

0:27:40.450,0:27:43.070
are 14 years old and you're out in the[br]streets and you find out that you could be

0:27:43.070,0:27:50.299
charged with rioting and you're looking at[br]a 10 year prison sentence. Let's... That's

0:27:50.299,0:27:54.440
very scary. The first demand. Which is one[br]of the ones that has some of the most

0:27:54.440,0:28:00.220
support in the population. Currently at 72[br]percent as of December 8th is an

0:28:00.220,0:28:04.960
independent investigation to police[br]brutality because people don't trust the

0:28:04.960,0:28:08.400
government watchdog. That is essentially[br]staffed by people who the government gets

0:28:08.400,0:28:12.820
to pick. And they have has been. There[br]were a few international experts on that

0:28:12.820,0:28:15.600
panel, but all of them resigned because[br]they said this is actually a joke and we

0:28:15.600,0:28:18.880
don't think we can actually do anything[br]meaningful about this. So people want an

0:28:18.880,0:28:22.580
independent investigation. I specifically[br]did not include images of protest

0:28:22.580,0:28:27.309
brutality in my presentation. But if you[br]think you can take the violence, I would

0:28:27.309,0:28:32.309
urge you to actually go look them up.[br]There's a lot of material online. Hong

0:28:32.309,0:28:34.960
Kong Free Press has documented a lot of[br]these cases and reports on the legal

0:28:34.960,0:28:40.350
follow up on them as well. This has not[br]been good. And I think it's also something

0:28:40.350,0:28:44.769
that the violence was especially[br]disproportionate and shocking for people

0:28:44.769,0:28:48.530
because people are used to being safe.[br]People are not used to living in a country

0:28:48.530,0:28:53.070
where the police just comes and beats them[br]up or where the police just put like

0:28:53.070,0:28:56.870
stomps their foot on the head of an[br]arrested protester who's already lying on

0:28:56.870,0:28:59.610
the ground. They're not used to like[br]watching police kicks, like just kick

0:28:59.610,0:29:02.641
someone who's already on the ground.[br]They're also don't, ... they're also not

0:29:02.641,0:29:08.899
used to, ... they're also not used to[br]police arresting teenagers. So, yeah,

0:29:08.899,0:29:14.169
that's number four. And number five is[br]real universal sufefrage. This is currently

0:29:14.169,0:29:19.629
at 70 percent support in the broader[br]population. So the idea is, essentially,

0:29:19.629,0:29:25.169
people say, we want that democracy that[br]promised, if you meet us in 97 or what we

0:29:25.169,0:29:29.519
think you..., like that promise that we[br]think you made us. We want that. And this

0:29:29.519,0:29:31.159
is also something that has been[br]strengthened, especially over the past few

0:29:31.159,0:29:35.929
months, because until a year ago, maybe[br]people thought it doesn't matter that much

0:29:35.929,0:29:39.369
if I elect the government because things[br]will be fine and most people are competent

0:29:39.369,0:29:42.100
who are in government. But if the past[br]seven months they've been watching a

0:29:42.100,0:29:45.260
government that essentially refused to[br]listen to any of the protesters and

0:29:45.260,0:29:51.309
pretended like that none of their demands[br]were in any way politically legitimate. So

0:29:51.309,0:29:53.659
now people like... now a lot of people who[br]are fired a year ago saying, well, now we

0:29:53.659,0:29:57.100
need democracy because we've seen what[br]happens if you have a government that

0:29:57.100,0:30:01.369
doesn't represent the people it's supposed[br]to represent. I think this is an important

0:30:01.369,0:30:05.779
strategy because it means that everyone[br]who goes out, knows what they're

0:30:05.779,0:30:09.460
protesting for. So since July, people have[br]been going out on the streets and they

0:30:09.460,0:30:13.889
say: These are the five things we want.[br]This is what we want. Nothing else.

0:30:13.889,0:30:17.450
Notably, independence is not part of this[br]list, although the Chinese government

0:30:17.450,0:30:21.809
likes to say that the protesters are[br]separatists. Independence is not a demand

0:30:21.809,0:30:27.850
of the movement and also has pretty low[br]support in Hong Kong. But instead, because

0:30:27.850,0:30:32.159
you have these five demands, it's very[br]catchy. People have even come up with the

0:30:32.159,0:30:35.730
protest slogan..., with a protest sign.[br]Right? So whenever you see pictures of

0:30:35.730,0:30:38.509
protest, you will see people just holding[br]up their hands like this because they're

0:30:38.509,0:30:41.669
like five demands. And then they put up[br]another thing and they're saying not one

0:30:41.669,0:30:47.179
less. So that's one guiding slogan that[br]they've been using. And it's been memed.

0:30:47.179,0:30:53.080
Everything gets memed in the Hong Kong[br]protests. So, for example, if you're

0:30:53.080,0:30:57.360
disappointed with the new Star Wars movie,[br]go to Hong Kong, because there's a lot of

0:30:57.360,0:31:02.639
very entertaining Star Wars content that[br]includes protesters. So on the left, you

0:31:02.639,0:31:07.890
can see at the bottom again, it says five[br]demands, not one less. And the image on

0:31:07.890,0:31:24.120
the right also has that in Chinese.[br]Strategy number two. Be water. This is an

0:31:24.120,0:31:28.269
image by an artist,... that[br]essentially,... so you've seen some of the

0:31:28.269,0:31:32.390
images where people cover their faces to[br]protect themselves against tear gas. They

0:31:32.390,0:31:36.649
protect themselves so they can't be[br]identified. And so there was a week when

0:31:36.649,0:31:42.130
people started drawing the Pokemons of the[br]Hong Kong protests. And this was an image

0:31:42.130,0:31:46.570
for be water. Be water has essentially[br]been a guiding principle of the movement

0:31:46.570,0:31:51.570
since the very beginning. And it's based[br]on a Bruce Lee quote. He's a martial

0:31:51.570,0:31:58.010
artist. He was in a bunch of like kung fu[br]films from Hong Kong. And he said, empty

0:31:58.010,0:32:04.809
your mind, be formless, shapeless, like[br]water. Now you put water in a cup. It

0:32:04.809,0:32:08.809
becomes the cup. You put water in a[br]bottle. It becomes the bottle. You put it

0:32:08.809,0:32:15.580
in a teapot. It becomes the teapot. Now[br]water can flow or it can crash. So the

0:32:15.580,0:32:19.580
idea of be water is that you essentially[br]accumulate and gather people in places

0:32:19.580,0:32:24.080
unexpectedly and very quickly and in the[br]end you disappear as quickly as possible.

0:32:24.080,0:32:28.159
There were scenes where protests of[br]thousands in the center of Hong Kong just

0:32:28.159,0:32:32.790
kind of like dissipated and disappeared[br]into nothingness. This is how you can

0:32:32.790,0:32:37.259
avoid police capture in many cases. Right.[br]Like you don't sit and you don't stay in a

0:32:37.259,0:32:41.940
place like people did with Occupy Central[br]in 2014. You leave once the police turns

0:32:41.940,0:32:46.350
up, but you don't even have to wait for[br]the police to show up to know that they're

0:32:46.350,0:32:52.499
coming. Because what people have started[br]doing is that essentially you get maps

0:32:52.499,0:32:56.159
where they have,... or you have scouting[br]channels first, where people, when they

0:32:56.159,0:33:00.929
see police, they just submit a report to[br]the,... like to the telegram channel. So

0:33:00.929,0:33:03.580
there are bots where you can submit[br]reports. You say, I've seen a police unit.

0:33:03.580,0:33:10.190
It's going from here to this place. That[br]direction, this many policemen. And that

0:33:10.190,0:33:12.500
gets posted on a telegram channel with a[br]hashtag for the location that there were

0:33:12.500,0:33:19.090
seen in. One person who I interviewed,[br]who's middle class, doing really well. I

0:33:19.090,0:33:21.480
asked him what the protest changed about[br]him. And he said it really changed my

0:33:21.480,0:33:25.809
frame of mind because now I got used to[br]observing the deployment of police

0:33:25.809,0:33:29.440
whenever I see it. I got alerted to a[br]siren and once I see it, I will

0:33:29.440,0:33:38.379
immediately send the info onto a telegram[br]channel. These reports then also get

0:33:38.379,0:33:47.539
turned into maps. So this was Christmas[br]Eve in Hong Kong. So people got a white

0:33:47.539,0:33:51.610
Christmas, not because there was snow, but[br]because there was a lot of tear gas. And

0:33:51.610,0:33:54.400
the reports that people sent in are[br]essentially turned into a map that you can

0:33:54.400,0:34:00.980
use to strategically avoid being captured[br]by police. And also that, for example,

0:34:00.980,0:34:04.470
some relatives of mine wanted to go to[br]Hong Kong and they said, well, we are

0:34:04.470,0:34:07.210
worried about going into areas of protest.[br]And I was like, well, you can use this map

0:34:07.210,0:34:10.570
and you can avoid. You can see really[br]easily in which, ... into which areas you

0:34:10.570,0:34:13.540
really shouldn't go. And basically, if[br]there are a lot of icons in the place,

0:34:13.540,0:34:17.630
that means a lot of stuff is happening[br]there. If there are ..., if you have like

0:34:17.630,0:34:23.450
the puppy logo, that means police units,[br]cars means police cars. You see some water

0:34:23.450,0:34:28.310
drops kind of like in the middle towards[br]the left. That means there's a water

0:34:28.310,0:34:33.030
cannon right there that you probably want[br]to avoid. And there's also different signs

0:34:33.030,0:34:38.799
for the different police units. So they're[br]Raptors. And those are predators, the

0:34:38.799,0:34:44.369
dinosaur logos. And in addition to that,[br]you kind of have the, you know, at what

0:34:44.369,0:34:49.099
time the report was submitted, you can[br]verify a report you see further down

0:34:49.099,0:34:54.020
towards the lower part of the map. There's[br]a camera sign. And so that means that

0:34:54.020,0:34:58.000
there are life feeds from that place. So[br]if you want to know what's going on at a

0:34:58.000,0:35:00.770
particular place, a lot of Hong Kong[br]journalists are live streaming the

0:35:00.770,0:35:03.160
protests. And so you can go and just watch[br]a livestream to see what's really

0:35:03.160,0:35:07.220
happening on the ground. Right like there.[br]And there's even a Web site that compiles

0:35:07.220,0:35:11.940
up to nine live streams at the same time.[br]So you can just watch all of them at the

0:35:11.940,0:35:16.690
same time on your screen to make sure you[br]know what's happening. These maps are

0:35:16.690,0:35:23.010
extremely useful. And there is no way of[br]saying how many people they've helped in

0:35:23.010,0:35:26.980
avoiding arrest. But one friend of mine[br]who was talking to another protester in

0:35:26.980,0:35:30.630
July said, that he was going home from a[br]protest, and he was wearing the

0:35:30.630,0:35:34.420
distinctive black shirts that protesters[br]usually wear. He didn't have any change of

0:35:34.420,0:35:39.990
clothes and he wanted to avoid arrest. And[br]he told his friends. And so within a few

0:35:39.990,0:35:45.099
minutes, they sent him a screenshot of[br]Google Maps where you could just see where

0:35:45.099,0:35:49.660
they'd just shown him, this is your escape[br]route. Just going around all the police

0:35:49.660,0:35:53.060
units that they could see on the map,[br]using only open sourced, crowd sourced

0:35:53.060,0:35:56.860
information that was all made freely[br]available online and that people put on

0:35:56.860,0:36:15.500
maps like this. <i>Applause</i> I think it's[br]worth clapping for, like because these are

0:36:15.500,0:36:21.650
people's lives, right? If there are only[br]10 people that got to escape police arrest

0:36:21.650,0:36:24.650
because of these things, we don't know to[br]how many years those people could be sent

0:36:24.650,0:36:27.720
to the prison. They could just be sent its[br]defiance. Maybe they could send us to

0:36:27.720,0:36:30.970
prison in three years. But all of that is[br]time. All of that is time in people's

0:36:30.970,0:36:35.490
lives and the lives of people who have[br]been going out to protest and all of that

0:36:35.490,0:36:39.619
was saved thanks to people crowdsourcing[br]and open sourcing all of this information.

0:36:39.619,0:36:42.660
And that's an incredible effort that[br]people have been making for months now and

0:36:42.660,0:36:51.520
an incredibly important institution that[br]really has helped people. The next part of

0:36:51.520,0:36:56.721
be water is decentralized decision making.[br]One of the reasons I talked about the

0:36:56.721,0:37:00.450
history of Hong Kong protests before and[br]all of that political stuff is because I

0:37:00.450,0:37:05.010
think it's very important to understand[br]where people are coming from. People of

0:37:05.010,0:37:08.600
all ages are protesting. But it's really[br]young people who are disproportionally

0:37:08.600,0:37:13.200
against the government and against the[br]bill. I think especially, ... I think

0:37:13.200,0:37:18.221
earlier in June or July, the numbers were[br]that 59 percent of people under 16 oppose

0:37:18.221,0:37:22.260
the extradition bill. That's almost 100[br]percent amongst people who are not even

0:37:22.260,0:37:27.359
eligible to vote. Not even close to being[br]eligible to vote. But these people have

0:37:27.359,0:37:31.720
also been protesting for a very long time,[br]and they've also learned from the past.

0:37:31.720,0:37:35.270
One thing that they've learned from 2014[br]is that you if you're a leader, you get

0:37:35.270,0:37:40.790
arrested and you get put in prison. Joshua[br]Wong, who you may have heard of, is one of

0:37:40.790,0:37:44.930
the people who that happened to him.[br]Another person who that happened to his

0:37:44.930,0:37:50.970
Edward Lung, who was a leading figure of[br]the fishbowl riots of 2016. He's currently

0:37:50.970,0:37:56.069
still serving time in prison. But how do[br]you organize a movement without having

0:37:56.069,0:38:03.780
political leaders? You well, you do the[br]whole crowd intelligence thing. Right.

0:38:03.780,0:38:06.850
Like you start having grassroots decision[br]making, you have a leaderless movement.

0:38:06.850,0:38:11.120
Hong Kong is not the first time this has[br]happened. The Gezi protests in Istanbul in

0:38:11.120,0:38:18.450
2013 were doing something similar. And now[br]it's happening on Hong Kong. So you

0:38:18.450,0:38:21.589
have,... if you have no leaders, you have[br]nobody who the government can arrest to

0:38:21.589,0:38:25.700
cripple the movement. They can maybe[br]arrest one person. They can arrest a

0:38:25.700,0:38:28.750
hundred people. They can arrest 6000[br]people. But all of those people are only

0:38:28.750,0:38:34.250
drops in the bigger movement and in that[br]wave that we were talking about earlier.

0:38:34.250,0:38:41.430
So how does political decision making work[br]if you have thousands of people? So there

0:38:41.430,0:38:47.270
are telegram groups primarily and there[br]there's also a forum called LIHGK. That's

0:38:47.270,0:38:51.060
a bit like reddit. And then people just[br]have political discussions on those. In

0:38:51.060,0:38:55.520
addition to that, people often have groups[br]on whatsup. People have Facebook groups

0:38:55.520,0:39:00.490
like my parents are like probably not on[br]telegram, but kind of like the equivalent

0:39:00.490,0:39:05.630
of the children. Their generation has[br]groups on Facebook. And that's where

0:39:05.630,0:39:08.869
people are talking about what they think[br]should happen, about strategic questions,

0:39:08.869,0:39:13.319
about questions in terms of what their[br]aims should be. And so it's just kind of

0:39:13.319,0:39:16.430
happening on all these platforms. And so[br]if you have an idea or if you have an

0:39:16.430,0:39:19.450
argument that you think is important, you[br]share it. And if people agree with you,

0:39:19.450,0:39:24.711
they start sharing it further on. So[br]decision making is kind of like,... has

0:39:24.711,0:39:28.579
like a snowball effect where you can see[br]once you are in different groups like

0:39:28.579,0:39:32.750
arguments that people agree with keep[br]reappearing, like in 10, 15, 20 groups or

0:39:32.750,0:39:37.329
people start rephrasing them. And so[br]that's how we kind of like consensus is

0:39:37.329,0:39:41.990
often being built. At the same time, if[br]you want to,... if you have an idea for a

0:39:41.990,0:39:45.710
really cool protest action such as you[br]want people to form a human chain across

0:39:45.710,0:39:49.440
part of Hong Kong, which is something that[br]they did and someone just came up with it

0:39:49.440,0:39:52.650
and posted about it online and then[br]someone made a poster for it and more

0:39:52.650,0:39:57.220
people made posters and lots of people[br]said this is a great idea. And so they

0:39:57.220,0:40:01.049
just did it. I hope that especially[br]hackers can empathize with this idea that

0:40:01.049,0:40:05.069
someone has a cool idea, just does it. And[br]then people recognize that it is cool and

0:40:05.069,0:40:08.720
kind of go along with it. And that's how a[br]lot of the movement has been working for

0:40:08.720,0:40:14.319
the past few months as well. Another[br]example of this is the December 1st

0:40:14.319,0:40:19.119
protest where thousands of people came out[br]because someone, just like basically the

0:40:19.119,0:40:22.609
equivalent of a Reddit user in his 20s had[br]just said, "well, I thought we should try

0:40:22.609,0:40:25.930
to have a protest again." And all of a[br]sudden the government actually gave him

0:40:25.930,0:40:29.670
permission. And there were thousands of[br]people, again, out on the streets because

0:40:29.670,0:40:38.450
anyone can register protest. One thing[br]that's hard is decision-making. Some of

0:40:38.450,0:40:41.150
these groups have thousands of people. I[br]think I'm in several telegram groups that

0:40:41.150,0:40:48.500
have maybe 60-70 thousand members. So[br]often people use polling to essentially

0:40:48.500,0:40:52.839
make decisions. I don't know whether you[br]know the poll function of telegram?

0:40:52.839,0:40:57.260
Basically, the admins can send in a poll[br]and say these are your four options. Do

0:40:57.260,0:41:01.880
you think we should do A, B, C, or D and[br]then just, kind of, vote. And that's how a

0:41:01.880,0:41:06.260
lot of the -- especially -- decision[br]making and discussion on demands or

0:41:06.260,0:41:12.280
deadlines that people were trying to set[br]was happening earlier in the movement. But

0:41:12.280,0:41:17.160
it's also something that people can use if[br]they need to make strategic decisions

0:41:17.160,0:41:23.599
quickly on the spot. On August 12th,[br]people occupied the Hong Kong airport,

0:41:23.599,0:41:27.640
which is an incredibly important[br]international hub, and where they managed

0:41:27.640,0:41:34.670
to paralyze the entire airport. The Hong[br]Kong government announced that day that

0:41:34.670,0:41:40.200
flights would stop taking off at 4 p.m.[br]and there started being rumors that the

0:41:40.200,0:41:44.900
police would essentially come in and start[br]clearing out the airport violently with

0:41:44.900,0:41:49.020
tear gas. And police was deploying[br]increasingly more people towards the

0:41:49.020,0:41:52.329
airport. Because you have all these[br]telegram channels, you see that people

0:41:52.329,0:41:55.799
take pictures of police. They post them[br]and you see, "Oh, my God, all this police

0:41:55.799,0:42:00.520
is coming towards the airport, I am here.[br]They cut off the metro. So you cannot take

0:42:00.520,0:42:04.880
the train back into the city. The Hong[br]Kong airport is on an island. You cannot

0:42:04.880,0:42:08.359
get away from there." And so there was a[br]lot of heated discussion back and forth

0:42:08.359,0:42:12.359
that day. And people were discussing, "Is[br]it safe?" "Is it not safe?" And

0:42:12.359,0:42:15.660
ultimately, there was one channel that[br]had, I think, 60000 followers and the

0:42:15.660,0:42:20.520
admins kept asking, should we stay or[br]shall we go? And the ratios kept

0:42:20.520,0:42:25.130
changing towards leaving. And then[br]suddenly it was 70 to 30 percent. And

0:42:25.130,0:42:27.130
people were like, OK, this is it, we're[br]leaving. And that was kind of the moment

0:42:27.130,0:42:31.620
when you could see people changing their[br]mind, right on the spot. There was nobody

0:42:31.620,0:42:34.039
who said, "We're now leaving," not a[br]single person who said "We're now going

0:42:34.039,0:42:38.520
back." But just thousands of people who[br]were watching and who said, "This looks

0:42:38.520,0:42:43.991
too dangerous. We need to stay safe and we[br]need to go home." The result of that was a

0:42:43.991,0:42:49.770
mass exodus where people literally walked[br]for hours, as you can see on this picture,

0:42:49.770,0:42:53.590
just across streets. Because, buses were[br]full and stopped running, The metro had

0:42:53.590,0:42:59.680
stopped running, but they needed to get[br]back home. One of the funniest things I

0:42:59.680,0:43:05.680
think that I've heard of as part of the be[br]water and grassroots discussion strategy;

0:43:05.680,0:43:10.460
I was talking to Chiffon Young, who's the[br]China correspondent for the German paper,

0:43:10.460,0:43:15.130
Die Zeit and she was reporting from a[br]small group that was building street

0:43:15.130,0:43:21.690
blockades in Hong Kong. And there they[br]were practicing grassroots decision making

0:43:21.690,0:43:25.260
in person. So, they built a blockade. They[br]hear police is coming, so scouts are

0:43:25.260,0:43:28.450
telling them. They leave and they run to[br]the metro. But then they need to know

0:43:28.450,0:43:31.609
where they're going next, because there's[br]no plan. Because if you have no plan, the

0:43:31.609,0:43:35.030
police can't know your plan and can't wait[br]for you there. But also, you have no plan.

0:43:35.030,0:43:39.240
So you have five people, 10 people who are[br]just shouting at each other on the metro

0:43:39.240,0:43:42.700
platform. So one says "We want to go[br]here," and the other person says "We're

0:43:42.700,0:43:45.860
going there." And maybe after five minutes[br]of shouting, they decide; "OK, we have

0:43:45.860,0:43:53.220
reached consensus." Swarm intelligence. <i>laughers</i>[br]But it works. It's chaotic, but it works

0:43:53.220,0:43:59.150
because it really makes it hard to figure[br]out where people are. Another really hard

0:43:59.150,0:44:03.900
thing of this whole grassroots decision[br]making and bottom up decision making has

0:44:03.900,0:44:09.400
been how do you correct course if you make[br]mistakes? How do you correct those

0:44:09.400,0:44:12.059
mistakes, if there's nobody who can tell[br]someone that they need to stop doing these

0:44:12.059,0:44:16.260
things? Again, this was something you[br]could observe during the airport protests,

0:44:16.260,0:44:23.461
where people occupied the entire departure[br]hall. And at some point -- I think they

0:44:23.461,0:44:28.309
said it was a citizen's arrest but -- they[br]basically tied a person to one of those

0:44:28.309,0:44:32.550
luggage carts, who they thought was an[br]undercover policeman from China, and beat

0:44:32.550,0:44:37.890
that person up. I think he was led away in[br]the end, but it was an incredibly ugly

0:44:37.890,0:44:43.690
scene, and when you were watching it, it[br]felt a lot like mob violence. But what

0:44:43.690,0:44:47.380
happened after? A lot of people were[br]saying, well, "This is a sign that this

0:44:47.380,0:44:51.289
whole leaderless movement thing is not[br]working. And you cannot actually change

0:44:51.289,0:44:53.700
anything about your behavior. There's[br]nobody who can tell these people that they

0:44:53.700,0:44:57.020
need to change their mind." But what[br]happened afterwards is that you saw the

0:44:57.020,0:45:01.230
same thing that I was describing earlier.[br]People saw that this was bad. And people

0:45:01.230,0:45:04.589
agreed that that was bad! So people were[br]going around and everyone kept encouraging

0:45:04.589,0:45:09.640
everyone else; "You need to be careful.[br]Don't use violence. If you think someone

0:45:09.640,0:45:13.130
is an undercover cop, who's spying on you,[br]you can't just beat that person up."

0:45:13.130,0:45:16.660
Afterwards, there was one scene where[br]people ran into someone who they thought

0:45:16.660,0:45:20.500
was maybe a cop from mainland China. And[br]so instead of beating him up, they all

0:45:20.500,0:45:30.440
stood around him and started taking selfies[br]with him. <i>cheerful laughter</i> In addition to that,

0:45:30.440,0:45:37.210
increasingly you see people... pushing[br]people, pulling people back. And so people

0:45:37.210,0:45:42.829
are saying, "Well, this is something you[br]can't do, you can't attack this person."

0:45:42.829,0:45:46.821
So if there's a person who's tempers may[br]be running really high, often there will

0:45:46.821,0:45:50.220
be people around the person who say, "No,[br]we're going to pull you back." People

0:45:50.220,0:45:54.170
tried to write guidelines. They said you[br]need to be careful about journalists.

0:45:54.170,0:45:57.240
Don't accuse people of being fake[br]journalists, all these things. So was a

0:45:57.240,0:46:01.710
lot of like self correction and self[br]control coming out of that moment. I

0:46:01.710,0:46:04.349
thought that was really interesting and[br]really important because was one sign the

0:46:04.349,0:46:09.160
course correction can happen even if you[br]have thousands of people. But it requires

0:46:09.160,0:46:13.240
everyone to participate and requires[br]people to be willing to essentially

0:46:13.240,0:46:24.369
interrogate the things that they had done[br]and also possibly admit mistakes. Strategy

0:46:24.369,0:46:29.930
four: anonymity. Again, I think it may be[br]something that hackers can empathize with.

0:46:29.930,0:46:34.220
I know there is, as usual, a lot of talks[br]about how to maintain your security and

0:46:34.220,0:46:41.190
anonymity online. For people in Hong Kong,[br]this has become incredibly important. The

0:46:41.190,0:46:44.730
thing about feeling like your political[br]system is being eroded and all the

0:46:44.730,0:46:49.819
securities and certainties and rights you[br]had disappearing slowly is that you don't

0:46:49.819,0:46:54.510
know, months line has moved, so you don't[br]blow anymore. A lot of people I've spoken

0:46:54.510,0:46:59.140
to don't feel like they can speak[br]politically anymore so they don't know

0:46:59.140,0:47:01.780
what the consequences are going to be.[br]Instead, what people do is they start

0:47:01.780,0:47:05.309
changing their names on their Facebook[br]accounts, for example, because something

0:47:05.309,0:47:09.160
that they would have said openly like a[br]year ago, they no longer dare to say under

0:47:09.160,0:47:13.109
their own name. There are people who've[br]been fired probably for the things that

0:47:13.109,0:47:20.339
they said on Facebook, such as a person[br]who was a union leader with a Hong Kong

0:47:20.339,0:47:28.760
airline, Cathay Pacific. So, anonymity is[br]enforced both in person and online. Also,

0:47:28.760,0:47:31.930
again, through a lot of kind of like[br]community control and people supporting

0:47:31.930,0:47:36.329
each other and essentially enforcing these[br]rules with each other. Online it's very

0:47:36.329,0:47:39.860
much a social rule. So if you're kind of[br]like in a working group on Telegram and

0:47:39.860,0:47:43.369
people are starting to chat kind of about[br]personal stuff, then usually there will be

0:47:43.369,0:47:46.460
someone who tells everyone else, no, get[br]back to work. Stop talking about that

0:47:46.460,0:47:50.490
stuff. You're disclosing too much about[br]yourself. One phrase that people keep

0:47:50.490,0:47:55.550
using is they say there are ghosts. So the[br]operational assumption is that in any

0:47:55.550,0:47:58.220
group, there will be someone who is[br]listening. So you especially in these

0:47:58.220,0:48:03.170
bigger groups who cannot ever assume that[br]there is no police in there. So you can do

0:48:03.170,0:48:06.690
your work, but assume that you're being[br]watched while you're doing anything that

0:48:06.690,0:48:12.040
you're doing. Another thing that they're[br]doing is that there are several channels

0:48:12.040,0:48:18.150
that are dedicated to cybersecurity. And[br]there is one channel, for example, that

0:48:18.150,0:48:21.420
started passing around, kind of like JPEGs[br]that had instructions for how to

0:48:21.420,0:48:25.130
set your telegram settings, because you[br]need to assume that a lot of the people

0:48:25.130,0:48:27.950
who you're working with don't have a lot[br]of interest necessarily in technology and

0:48:27.950,0:48:32.049
maybe have the highest priority going out[br]to protest. And so it helps that there are

0:48:32.049,0:48:35.670
easy rules, Right? So people send around[br]these instructions that say you toggle

0:48:35.670,0:48:40.160
these things on your telegram settings,[br]make sure that nobody can see your phone

0:48:40.160,0:48:43.529
number who isn't already a contact of[br]yours or you change this thing and that

0:48:43.529,0:48:48.000
means that your account essentially self-[br]destructs if you're inactive for seven

0:48:48.000,0:48:51.690
days. And so in many ways, a lot of this[br]is about the social kind of the social

0:48:51.690,0:48:56.099
enforcement and also breaking things down[br]and making them assess as accessible as

0:48:56.099,0:49:01.010
possible. Another thing is that there's a[br]telegram account that alerts people to

0:49:01.010,0:49:04.510
people who have been arrested. And the[br]operational assumption is that if you've

0:49:04.510,0:49:08.770
been arrested, you're compromised. And so[br]it posts the names and the telegram

0:49:08.770,0:49:12.549
handles the people who have been captured[br]by police and tells people delete this

0:49:12.549,0:49:15.620
person's contact, like delete this person[br]from all of your chats like you cannot

0:49:15.620,0:49:19.100
also be compromised. So that's another way[br]they're trying to kind of maintain that

0:49:19.100,0:49:25.700
very basic security. I don't know how well[br]this is working, to be very honest. I

0:49:25.700,0:49:28.349
haven't really heard any reports of people[br]who have been arrested for stuff that

0:49:28.349,0:49:33.849
they've done on telegram. But that might[br]also just be that it hasn't been reported

0:49:33.849,0:49:37.210
or we don't know about this. It's also[br]possible that the police has been just

0:49:37.210,0:49:41.890
very busy mass arresting people at[br]protests and that they have all this data

0:49:41.890,0:49:46.420
and they might be watching people. It[br]might come back around to that later on.

0:49:46.420,0:49:49.240
Sometimes people have actually been able[br]to identify the telegram handles or think

0:49:49.240,0:49:54.750
they've been able to identify the telegram[br]handles of policemen, which led to several

0:49:54.750,0:50:00.650
people being kicked out of groups. But[br]again, so the police is probably watching,

0:50:00.650,0:50:06.470
but we don't know how much information[br]they have access to. In real life, you can

0:50:06.470,0:50:11.599
see kind of on the lower right corner, the[br]usual outfit that people are wearing.

0:50:11.599,0:50:16.329
These are front liners who are tend to be[br]more directly involved in clashes with the

0:50:16.329,0:50:20.400
police. That's the people who cover their[br]faces with usually gas masks, sometimes

0:50:20.400,0:50:24.700
just simple surgical masks. They're[br]wearing goggles and hard hats to protect

0:50:24.700,0:50:31.140
against projectiles, pepper spray, water[br]cannons, tear gas, the things you

0:50:31.140,0:50:35.359
encounter in the streets of Hong Kong[br]these days. In addition to that, people

0:50:35.359,0:50:40.650
have all of these umbrellas which they use[br]to hide each other's identities. For

0:50:40.650,0:50:43.990
example, if people are building a street[br]blockade, then you always have some people

0:50:43.990,0:50:47.090
who are building who kind of like building[br]the blockade. And there's other people who

0:50:47.090,0:50:50.470
are holding up umbrellas to prevent them[br]from being photographed, especially given

0:50:50.470,0:50:55.029
how much covered the protests are. This is[br]especially important because there are

0:50:55.029,0:50:57.670
reporters and media around all the time[br]and people want to make sure that they

0:50:57.670,0:51:02.880
don't accidentally end up on camera while[br]committing what is probably a crime.

0:51:02.880,0:51:08.640
There's other ways this is being used as[br]well. For example, when people were

0:51:08.640,0:51:12.500
destroying cameras in the metro stations[br]in some cases because people were very

0:51:12.500,0:51:15.609
aware of the fact that they were being[br]filmed by someone who they couldn't talk

0:51:15.609,0:51:20.030
to or people have asked individuals to[br]delete pictures and videos when they've

0:51:20.030,0:51:23.710
seen them film them. But they've also[br]destroyed essentially these cameras on the

0:51:23.710,0:51:27.590
metro. And again, then you will have[br]someone kind of like cover you with an

0:51:27.590,0:51:31.700
umbrella to avoid a person being filmed in[br]the middle of essentially committing

0:51:31.700,0:51:40.840
vandalism. The other thing is that people[br]have these, so this kind of uniform, what

0:51:40.840,0:51:43.590
you can also see here, so people are[br]essentially is wearing black for the

0:51:43.590,0:51:47.970
protests, which also means that you have[br]no recognizable marks like on yourself,

0:51:47.970,0:51:51.370
like in the moment. And then when you kind[br]of practice to be water, if you hear

0:51:51.370,0:51:56.490
police is coming, you go into a side[br]street. And often there are people who are

0:51:56.490,0:51:59.890
not participating in the protests, like[br]personally directly, but to, for example,

0:51:59.890,0:52:05.000
donate regular clothing. That's basically[br]clothes like any clothes that aren't

0:52:05.000,0:52:09.950
black. This was particularly like in the[br]summer when you had these mass protests,

0:52:09.950,0:52:13.390
like people would just bring T-shirts into[br]metro stations. So people were often

0:52:13.390,0:52:18.070
leaving with the last train. And so people[br]were just rushed to metro stations. You

0:52:18.070,0:52:21.200
kind of like see people changing inside[br]streets to make sure they get out of those

0:52:21.200,0:52:27.750
very recognizable black gear and to[br]essentially change into these clothes. So

0:52:27.750,0:52:32.200
HongKongers have basically managed to[br]build the world's largest black block,

0:52:32.200,0:52:38.420
which is another way of maintaining[br]anonymity.

0:52:38.420,0:52:44.940
<i>Applause</i>[br]The government recognizes that this is a

0:52:44.940,0:52:51.000
problem for them. And they tried in[br]October to address this by implementing a

0:52:51.000,0:52:56.880
mask ban. So they're essentially like the[br]mask ban itself says that anyone who wears

0:52:56.880,0:53:01.920
a mask at a lawful rally or a march or an[br]unlawful or unauthorized assembly or

0:53:01.920,0:53:06.710
during a riot. So even if you go to a[br]peaceful protest, but you cover your face,

0:53:06.710,0:53:10.849
you can be sentenced up to one year in[br]prison simply for trying to hide your

0:53:10.849,0:53:16.829
face. This is a law that was implemented[br]under the emergency ordinance, which

0:53:16.829,0:53:20.369
essentially is kind of like a national[br]security law that gives the government

0:53:20.369,0:53:24.810
sweeping powers in particular emergency[br]situations. It is currently unclear to

0:53:24.810,0:53:29.630
what extent this is constitutional. So[br]this mask ban has been challenged in court

0:53:29.630,0:53:34.760
multiple times and it's currently still[br]making its way through the courts. But

0:53:34.760,0:53:39.349
it's also possible that basically Beijing[br]might come in and say we have the ultimate

0:53:39.349,0:53:43.180
right to interpret the Hong Kong basic[br]law. So we will say that this law has to

0:53:43.180,0:53:46.589
be constitutional. So this is something[br]that we just need to wait out. But I think

0:53:46.589,0:53:51.700
it's a sign where we can see that the[br]government wants to essentially limit

0:53:51.700,0:53:54.940
people's ability to maintain their[br]anonymity. And people were really pissed

0:53:54.940,0:53:58.309
at this. Like this was announced on a[br]Friday, just kind of like during the

0:53:58.309,0:54:03.420
workday. And after like in the afternoon,[br]once people got off work, people went out

0:54:03.420,0:54:07.550
on the streets like people were just like[br]turning up, like schoolchildren in the

0:54:07.550,0:54:11.119
school uniforms, people in their office[br]clothing. Just everyone put on a mask and

0:54:11.119,0:54:14.850
was like, we want to keep this right,[br]because that day at midnight, the mask ban

0:54:14.850,0:54:18.579
was supposed to be implemented. So you had[br]less than 24 hours notice and it went into

0:54:18.579,0:54:31.160
force the next day. Strategy five:[br]Division of Labor. This, again, is

0:54:31.160,0:54:34.619
something that I think is very interesting[br]and uniquely Hong Kong, very uniquely Hong

0:54:34.619,0:54:39.569
Kong, like the be water strategy. So there[br]is this idea climbing the hill in

0:54:39.569,0:54:45.270
different ways. This is again a lesson[br]that people learn from through 2014,

0:54:45.270,0:54:49.750
because post 2014 and also in 2014 itself,[br]one of the biggest weaknesses of the pro-

0:54:49.750,0:54:53.970
democracy movement was that there was a[br]lot of internal division. People really

0:54:53.970,0:54:59.040
disagreed over tactics and there were[br]fights over who was leading the movement

0:54:59.040,0:55:03.640
and who should be listened to and what the[br]right strategy was. People have now kind

0:55:03.640,0:55:08.300
of come to the opposite extreme. But[br]people are saying whatever you do,

0:55:08.300,0:55:10.770
everyone is climbing the mountains.[br]Everyone's trying to get to the top and

0:55:10.770,0:55:14.630
everyone's using their own ways of getting[br]there. And everyone's using their own

0:55:14.630,0:55:21.849
their own path, essentially. Hence the[br]mountain imagery. I think one example that

0:55:21.849,0:55:26.849
really illustrates this very clearly was a[br]person who's kind of like middle aged and

0:55:26.849,0:55:30.450
works in the finance industry in Hong[br]Kong. So they're very well off, have

0:55:30.450,0:55:34.799
profited from the system as it exists and[br]but also support the protests. And they

0:55:34.799,0:55:38.490
said I did not get involved in the[br]protesters destructive actions and I would

0:55:38.490,0:55:42.690
never. But I will try my best to give them[br]more support and delivering materials,

0:55:42.690,0:55:48.250
donations and my presence. So you can see[br]that there's a very clear differentiation

0:55:48.250,0:55:52.539
between the goal that people have and kind[br]of like the methods, like there's a lot of

0:55:52.539,0:55:55.470
people who say, I disagree with those[br]methods, but essentially I will not

0:55:55.470,0:56:01.089
undermine people who are working towards[br]our same goal – the five demands – in

0:56:01.089,0:56:07.220
different ways. This is also something[br]that's notable because in 2016, violence

0:56:07.220,0:56:12.369
was something that was condemned. I cannot[br]speak to that many other contexts but for

0:56:12.369,0:56:15.710
example, in the US, where I study, and[br]similarly in Germany, once protesters use

0:56:15.710,0:56:19.710
violence, even if it is just destruction[br]of things, often there is a lot of

0:56:19.710,0:56:23.410
pushback and people say that has[br]delegitimized you. This is something that

0:56:23.410,0:56:27.180
is not really working that well in Hong[br]Kong anymore. So there are clearly people

0:56:27.180,0:56:30.920
who disagree with vandalism and also there[br]people who are against the protesters

0:56:30.920,0:56:35.300
because of vandalism, that's very clear.[br]Based on the polls, I would say maybe 30,

0:56:35.300,0:56:39.119
40 percent, but I'd have to check the[br]exact numbers. But there are a lot of

0:56:39.119,0:56:42.529
people who say, even if I disagree with[br]you, I will still support you, because our

0:56:42.529,0:56:56.480
overall goal is what is most important. <i>Applause</i>[br]I want to give two examples quickly of how

0:56:56.480,0:57:03.120
this can work. So one example of this is[br]that people have gained an increasing

0:57:03.120,0:57:06.470
economic understanding of how politics[br]works. So rather than saying we just want

0:57:06.470,0:57:11.589
to change laws, there also say we need to[br]attack, for example, and we need to hold

0:57:11.589,0:57:18.050
accountable companies that are supporting[br]the government and we need to make people

0:57:18.050,0:57:24.180
and government supporting companies make[br]feel the pain for essentially their

0:57:24.180,0:57:28.309
political support for them. So people have[br]started boycotting stores that don't

0:57:28.309,0:57:31.420
support the protests. And again, this is[br]something that is all collected online

0:57:31.420,0:57:36.119
where you have these incredible resources,[br]where you have entire maps. So, you know,

0:57:36.119,0:57:38.790
you can make these custom Google Maps. So[br]there's custom Google Maps that tell you

0:57:38.790,0:57:44.140
which stores in Hong Kong support the[br]protests. And there's entire lists for

0:57:44.140,0:57:47.599
different sectors where, for example, like[br]for food, it says these stores are for us

0:57:47.599,0:57:52.260
and these stores are against us. And one[br]of the people I spoke to was incredibly

0:57:52.260,0:57:57.030
amazed at this. They're almost 40 years[br]old. They've lived in Hong Kong for a long

0:57:57.030,0:58:02.470
time and were often very frustrated with[br]how unpolitical the city was. But they

0:58:02.470,0:58:06.040
said now it's the exact opposite and[br]everything has become political. So they

0:58:06.040,0:58:08.100
said wherever you get your lunch, where[br]you get your coffee, even what kind of

0:58:08.100,0:58:11.579
public transport you take, everything is[br]now political and everything you use to

0:58:11.579,0:58:16.150
show which political side you're on. And[br]the idea is really to essentially hurt

0:58:16.150,0:58:19.910
stores that much that it becomes unviable[br]to be against the protest movement

0:58:19.910,0:58:26.890
economically. Some people also use the[br]lists for essentially vandalism against

0:58:26.890,0:58:30.390
stores. This is special. Been seen with,[br]for example, Starbucks because the people

0:58:30.390,0:58:34.190
who own the Starbucks franchise in Hong[br]Kong have very vocally opposed the

0:58:34.190,0:58:38.210
protests. And so in some cases, that means[br]also hurting them financially by throwing

0:58:38.210,0:58:51.089
in windows. <i>Applause</i> Another example was the[br]same person who I spoke to had by the time I

0:58:51.089,0:58:54.970
spoke to them a couple of weeks ago,[br]stopped going out to protests. And this

0:58:54.970,0:58:59.599
really surprised me because I met them[br]during the protests in 2014. And I thought

0:58:59.599,0:59:03.230
if there was one person who's middle aged[br]and who would still go out, then that's

0:59:03.230,0:59:07.029
you – in terms of the people who I know –[br]but they were like, well, I decided that I

0:59:07.029,0:59:10.750
have different skills and that my design[br]skills are something that I can use better

0:59:10.750,0:59:14.480
in a different place. And so because at[br]the time, people were already working

0:59:14.480,0:59:18.000
towards the district council elections and[br]they were still working, I don't know

0:59:18.000,0:59:22.039
what, like 60 hour weeks or something[br]crazy. But they decided that they would

0:59:22.039,0:59:25.500
start working with a campaign for one of[br]the local, for one of the people who was a

0:59:25.500,0:59:28.710
candidate for the district council, who[br]was a person who had never been in

0:59:28.710,0:59:34.030
politics before. And this interview was[br]like, well, I can help this person. I'm

0:59:34.030,0:59:37.270
going to be able to help them get elected.[br]And so they went, essentially did social

0:59:37.270,0:59:41.440
media and like a lot of campaigning or[br]designing for them. And that's kind of

0:59:41.440,0:59:44.730
like a good sign. I think that's a good[br]example for the different types of effort

0:59:44.730,0:59:50.140
that went into that district council[br]election victory as well. Right. So

0:59:50.140,0:59:51.140
there's all these people who made a choice[br]that this is something that they care

0:59:51.140,0:59:55.789
about and that again, they're all climbing[br]the mountain in different ways. And these

0:59:55.789,1:00:00.019
people decided that their way is[br]supporting local politicians to get

1:00:00.019,1:00:09.589
elected into the district councils. The[br]other thing is that this division of labor

1:00:09.589,1:00:12.359
doesn't only happen in kind of like in[br]terms of what you choose that you're

1:00:12.359,1:00:19.279
doing, but that's also an incredibly[br]sophisticated and very well defined

1:00:19.279,1:00:22.540
division of labor. So this is kind of like[br]a representation of kind of what the

1:00:22.540,1:00:25.990
movement is supposed to be like. So[br]there's this idea that like we're all Hong

1:00:25.990,1:00:28.309
Kongers and we're all part of this[br]movement and it doesn't matter what we're

1:00:28.309,1:00:31.210
doing, we're all part of the same thing.[br]And so that's kind of like a diversity

1:00:31.210,1:00:35.380
that gets represented a lot. And that kind[br]of appears in a lot of protest art as

1:00:35.380,1:00:42.130
well. The most distinctive group that[br]you've definitely seen are frontliners. So

1:00:42.130,1:00:45.650
this is these are people who wear kind of[br]like the most recognizable uniform,

1:00:45.650,1:00:49.490
they're all in black so they cannot be[br]identified, they wear gas masks to protect

1:00:49.490,1:00:53.940
themselves against pepper spray and tear[br]gas, goggles for the same reason, hard

1:00:53.940,1:01:01.680
hats, they often have gloves to be able to[br]grab teargas canisters that are being

1:01:01.680,1:01:07.320
thrown at them. In some cases, they have[br]water bottles to extinguish the tear gas

1:01:07.320,1:01:12.500
canisters to essentially avoid being[br]affected by the tear gas itself. And this

1:01:12.500,1:01:16.140
is kind of like how you signal that[br]you're, sometimes they're called the

1:01:16.140,1:01:19.930
Braves, but essentially, this is about as[br]radical as you can look as part of the

1:01:19.930,1:01:22.460
Hong Kong protest movement. These are the[br]people who are going to be in clashes with

1:01:22.460,1:01:26.730
police. You can see that one of them is[br]about to probably grab a brick. But these

1:01:26.730,1:01:37.079
are frontliners. One particular type of[br]front liner are the – I'm missing the

1:01:37.079,1:01:41.700
English word right now – basically there's[br]the people are supposed to extinguish

1:01:41.700,1:01:49.269
fires usually. Firefighters, yes. Sorry.[br]Firefighters, except instead of fighting

1:01:49.269,1:01:54.700
fire, they're fighting teargas and so on[br]the right, you can see someone from an

1:01:54.700,1:01:59.040
incredibly iconic scene where someone used[br]like a metal tin that they usually use to

1:01:59.040,1:02:03.490
steam fish and he like he extinguished the[br]teargas with water and then put the metal

1:02:03.490,1:02:07.619
tin just on the teargas. And people were[br]making fun for like how protest ready

1:02:07.619,1:02:14.740
people are just by having your regular[br]Chinese kitchen. On the left this is a

1:02:14.740,1:02:18.180
reference to a strategy that people have[br]been using and where essentially they put

1:02:18.180,1:02:23.269
a traffic cone on a tear gas canister the[br]moment like they find it. And so one

1:02:23.269,1:02:27.599
person holds the traffic cone. One person[br]puts water in at the top to extinguish the

1:02:27.599,1:02:31.420
tear gas. And then some cases, people also[br]put it into plastic bags that are full

1:02:31.420,1:02:35.609
with water twisting or tear gas and in[br]some cases, throw it back at the police.

1:02:35.609,1:02:38.849
And I think I have a video of this[br]happening, actually.

1:02:38.849,1:03:15.680
<i>Video playing</i>[br]It's also you can see they didn't do this

1:03:15.680,1:03:22.869
for the first time, right? So they've been[br]doing this for a while. It's sad in many

1:03:22.869,1:03:26.200
ways that these are young people who have[br]to do that and who feel that it's like a

1:03:26.200,1:03:29.539
thing that they need to do to be able to[br]be heard. But it's also something that was

1:03:29.539,1:03:33.299
a video out of Chile a couple of weeks ago[br]where essentially Chilean protesters were

1:03:33.299,1:03:36.609
using a similar strategy to extinguish[br]tear gas. And someone who was apparently

1:03:36.609,1:03:40.140
from Chile posted it somewhere saying,[br]thank you, Hong Kong. So they clearly

1:03:40.140,1:03:43.640
there's been some like, oh, let's see how[br]we can adopt these strategies for what's

1:03:43.640,1:03:47.450
happening in Chile itself, which I think[br]is an important thing to look at as well,

1:03:47.450,1:03:50.770
because in some ways, Hong Kongers have[br]learned from other places but also now

1:03:50.770,1:03:53.260
people are looking at Hong Kong and[br]looking at these strategies and adopting

1:03:53.260,1:04:00.130
them in other instances. Another important[br]group are peaceful protesters. I am very

1:04:00.130,1:04:02.930
thankful that someone memed all of them,[br]all of the important group, so I have

1:04:02.930,1:04:06.460
these like standard images that I can use.[br]And this is really the only thing that you

1:04:06.460,1:04:10.440
kind of like need for a peaceful[br]protester. You just need a surgical mask,

1:04:10.440,1:04:15.289
maybe a hat to protect your identity a bit[br]more. And that's it. You just need to go

1:04:15.289,1:04:18.559
out in the street. These are the people[br]who frontliners in many ways feel like

1:04:18.559,1:04:23.500
they're defending. When I was talking to a[br]few people who are still in high school

1:04:23.500,1:04:26.990
and who essentially are frontliners and[br]who've been in clashes with the police

1:04:26.990,1:04:30.259
directly and when I asked them why they're[br]doing it, they're saying I don't even know

1:04:30.259,1:04:34.819
whether we can get our political aims, but[br]the very least I can do is I can be one

1:04:34.819,1:04:38.020
more person who is there and when the[br]police advances, I'm going to be one more

1:04:38.020,1:04:40.900
person who can make sure that the police[br]doesn't get to the peaceful protesters

1:04:40.900,1:04:44.410
behind me, because they're not equipped to[br]deal with teargas and they're not equipped

1:04:44.410,1:04:48.349
to deal with that pepper spray. So I will[br]be here and I will give them enough time

1:04:48.349,1:05:02.019
so they can retreat and go home. But[br]there's a lot of kind of like lionization

1:05:02.019,1:05:05.460
of frontliners because they're kind of[br]like the heroes of the movement, they're

1:05:05.460,1:05:09.740
flashy heroes. But also everyone knows[br]that the movement is not going to succeed

1:05:09.740,1:05:15.130
in any way, it wasn't be able to keep[br]going because just of frontliners, right.

1:05:15.130,1:05:19.039
So peaceful protesters are essentially the[br]heart of the movement as well, the people

1:05:19.039,1:05:23.390
who keep coming out in numbers. So there's[br]a lot of reminders that we all need to

1:05:23.390,1:05:27.849
work together. This is kind of this idea,[br]we cannot be divided. So it goes back to

1:05:27.849,1:05:31.309
this idea: we all climb the mountain in[br]different ways, right. So we are all

1:05:31.309,1:05:35.539
important. And in both of these kind of[br]like pieces of art you can see now, right,

1:05:35.539,1:05:38.630
you can see the recognizable frontliner on[br]the left in both cases because he has the

1:05:38.630,1:05:42.630
hard hat and a bit more gear is kind of[br]like ready to get into a fight with the

1:05:42.630,1:05:46.400
police. But next to the frontliner you in[br]both cases have someone who just put on a

1:05:46.400,1:05:50.710
mask, maybe came straight from the office,[br]maybe straight from school. And those

1:05:50.710,1:05:53.770
people are working together because if[br]only if you had only one of those, you

1:05:53.770,1:06:05.289
probably wouldn't be able to keep going[br]for half a year. <i>Applause</i> Another group that I

1:06:05.289,1:06:11.519
think is really interesting is logistics,[br]because people have now adopted all all

1:06:11.519,1:06:14.180
these strategies to how they can kind of[br]like deal with the things that police is

1:06:14.180,1:06:19.259
throwing at them. So a year ago or even[br]couple of months ago, teargas was still

1:06:19.259,1:06:23.800
something that kind of like made people[br]leave and made people go away. A water

1:06:23.800,1:06:26.829
cannon would scare people away, but people[br]have really adapted and teargas doesn't do

1:06:26.829,1:06:31.990
that much in Hong Kong anymore, to be very[br]honest. One person who's 19 and who I talk

1:06:31.990,1:06:34.671
to and was like, doesn't the teargas[br]stink. And they were like, well, the first

1:06:34.671,1:06:44.760
time, yes, but then you get used to it and[br]you just keep going. And to do that, you

1:06:44.760,1:06:47.960
need kind of all this gear, right? Like,[br]you need to be equipped. You need to have

1:06:47.960,1:06:50.960
hardhats. You need to have all these[br]umbrellas. And so there are people kind of

1:06:50.960,1:06:53.349
like in the background for collecting[br]material near a big protest sites where

1:06:53.349,1:06:56.220
they know there will be protests and then[br]they're carrying them, kind of like in

1:06:56.220,1:07:01.059
cartons. In some cases, they're collecting[br]different types of shields. And so when it

1:07:01.059,1:07:04.000
comes to a clash with the police, they[br]make sure that stuff gets passed on to the

1:07:04.000,1:07:07.029
front lines. I didn't include it in the[br]presentation, but there's incredible

1:07:07.029,1:07:11.289
videos of, in some cases, maybe a[br]kilometer long human chain where you just

1:07:11.289,1:07:15.390
have like tons of peaceful protesters,[br]like passing things on to make sure that

1:07:15.390,1:07:18.650
things get to the people who were in the[br]clash with the police. And logistics are

1:07:18.650,1:07:21.010
the people who make sure that the stuff is[br]around. It is kind of like at these

1:07:21.010,1:07:25.990
collection points and is then given to the[br]people who really need it. It's also, one

1:07:25.990,1:07:29.910
person I spoke to who does a lot of[br]logistics said I am not someone who would

1:07:29.910,1:07:34.160
fight with the police in this movement,[br]but I still want to give some help. And so

1:07:34.160,1:07:38.869
I decided to manage resources such as[br]medical resources or protest gear. And so

1:07:38.869,1:07:41.590
medical resources, for example, might be[br]like saline solution, which you can use to

1:07:41.590,1:07:46.860
wash people's eyes out if they have been[br]affected by pepper spray or teargas. And

1:07:46.860,1:07:50.410
so this is someone who said, I am not a[br]frontliner and I'm not going to be part of

1:07:50.410,1:07:55.930
that. But I will be right there. I think[br]these people are doing important work. I'm

1:07:55.930,1:07:59.730
going to do exactly what I can within my[br]power to make sure that they have what

1:07:59.730,1:08:12.440
they need. <i>Applause</i> First aiders are incredibly[br]important in the movement as well, because

1:08:12.440,1:08:16.740
people have started to mistrust hospitals[br]a lot, because people are worried that the

1:08:16.740,1:08:20.790
government might go and get their hospital[br]records. So if they get injured as part of

1:08:20.790,1:08:25.160
a clash with police, that might include[br]getting beaten up by police. There've been

1:08:25.160,1:08:28.520
people, there was one person who was shot[br]in the chest and who tried to run from the

1:08:28.520,1:08:33.549
police, almost succeeded, but then was[br]arrested. But so if someone like that

1:08:33.549,1:08:39.110
doesn't trust the hospitals, doesn't go to[br]a hospital, first aiders are the ones who

1:08:39.110,1:08:42.730
are going to treat those injuries. So[br]these people are around and are visibly

1:08:42.730,1:08:47.730
marked as first aiders and make sure that[br]people get as much medical treatment as

1:08:47.730,1:08:52.400
they need to the extent that they're able[br]to. There was one incredibly hard

1:08:52.400,1:08:56.250
situation for them, I think in November,[br]when people were occupying the Chinese

1:08:56.250,1:08:59.550
University of Hong Kong. And there was a[br]real battle where you basically had a

1:08:59.550,1:09:04.950
front line, like you kind of see it in[br]like movies where someone is trying to

1:09:04.950,1:09:07.790
take in a castle or something like that,[br]right. So the real battle line where

1:09:07.790,1:09:11.960
people kept getting hit and injured and[br]first aiders kept running in and out,

1:09:11.960,1:09:15.030
grabbing people and carrying them to a big[br]sports field that was just full of injured

1:09:15.030,1:09:23.770
people where they were treating all of[br]them. And all of these are volunteers.

1:09:23.770,1:09:30.810
<i>applause</i>[br]There's more people in the background, and

1:09:30.810,1:09:34.601
I could keep going about this, my friends[br]will be able to attest to the fact that I

1:09:34.601,1:09:40.270
can talk about this for an hour or longer.[br]I think one other group of people that I

1:09:40.270,1:09:44.500
wanted to quickly talk about are the[br]people who drive like the school buses.

1:09:44.500,1:09:50.410
School buses are code for cars that go to[br]protest sites and pick people up. So for

1:09:50.410,1:09:55.450
example, when the people were stuck, or[br]people were stuck at the airport, you

1:09:55.450,1:09:58.950
could see that literally thousands of[br]Hongkongers grab their own cars and just

1:09:58.950,1:10:03.270
drove out and said we will pick people up.[br]And so they post on Telegram and they say,

1:10:03.270,1:10:07.790
hey, I'm a parent, I'm going to pick up my[br]children. I have space for three people

1:10:07.790,1:10:13.410
<i>laughs</i> And then there's even there's[br]also code for. So this why used that image

1:10:13.410,1:10:17.750
cause it's like the parents taking care of[br]the kids. It's a very, very wholesome

1:10:17.750,1:10:23.871
imagery. And they have this, this code[br]essentially where they're saying: if you

1:10:23.871,1:10:29.020
say that you have stationery in your car,[br]that means that you have clothes to change

1:10:29.020,1:10:31.641
in. So if someone is wearing all black you[br]have some other clothes that they can

1:10:31.641,1:10:36.140
change in. And so there's entire telegram[br]channels where just every post is just

1:10:36.140,1:10:39.160
someone going from A to B. It says when[br]they're leaving, it says how much space

1:10:39.160,1:10:46.120
they have. It also often says if there's a[br]female driver so people can feel safe. And

1:10:46.120,1:10:49.161
to make sure that you don't get accidently[br]picked up by undercover cops people are

1:10:49.161,1:10:53.540
maintaining an inofficial database of cars[br]that they've identified to undercover cop

1:10:53.540,1:10:58.330
cars. And so there's a telegram bot. And[br]if you like, so these posters, once you

1:10:58.330,1:11:01.980
have someone's license plate, you go to[br]the bot and you're like, is this a cop and

1:11:01.980,1:11:13.340
the bot will tell you yes or no.[br]<i>applause</i>

1:11:13.340,1:11:19.540
In addition to that you have thousands,[br]countless working groups where people are

1:11:19.540,1:11:24.601
just kind of working around the clock.[br]This is an example of a PR translation

1:11:24.601,1:11:32.370
working group that basically translated[br]this particular poster from originally

1:11:32.370,1:11:35.590
Chinese into a bunch of languages, one of[br]them is German on the left, another is

1:11:35.590,1:11:40.870
Korean on the right. And it says: Hong Kong[br]is facing a humanitarian crisis. What I

1:11:40.870,1:11:43.470
think is interesting about this is that[br]some of these groups are basically working

1:11:43.470,1:11:48.850
around the clock. So something happens in[br]Hong Kong during the day, by evening often

1:11:48.850,1:11:52.300
protest art comes out that kind of like is[br]reframing an incident or is trying to

1:11:52.300,1:11:56.910
explain what purchases did if they feel[br]like they need to explain themselves. And

1:11:56.910,1:12:01.430
then when Hongkongers sleep, people who[br]live in Europe, but who many cases are

1:12:01.430,1:12:05.120
still from Hong Kong and people who live[br]in the United States work through their

1:12:05.120,1:12:11.500
evenings and through their mornings. So by[br]the time Hongkongers wake up, they often

1:12:11.500,1:12:15.080
can have these messages in different[br]languages. And so this happened doing the

1:12:15.080,1:12:19.530
airport protest, where on the 13th of the[br]morning, people just woke up and had

1:12:19.530,1:12:22.840
posters in like ten different languages[br]that explain what was happened in Hong

1:12:22.840,1:12:30.920
Kong, printed them and went to the airport[br]straight away at 8:00 a.m..

1:12:30.920,1:12:34.810
<i>applause</i>[br]I want to share one more story, because I

1:12:34.810,1:12:40.140
think this is really one of the most gut[br]wrenching examples of what people have

1:12:40.140,1:12:43.910
been able to achieve just by cooperating[br]and also by being completely anonymous

1:12:43.910,1:12:50.310
together, where during the Pope, Poly,[br]during the siege at the Polytechnic

1:12:50.310,1:12:53.161
University, Hong Kong. So when hundreds of[br]people were stuck on that university and

1:12:53.161,1:12:58.540
didn't want to go out. Suzanne Sataline[br]reported for Quartz that there was at

1:12:58.540,1:13:02.000
least one person and probably more who[br]managed to get out from the university

1:13:02.000,1:13:05.680
through the sewers. So this person went[br]down into the sewers, wading through

1:13:05.680,1:13:10.510
probably knee, like kind of chest high[br]waste water, in the dark, not knowing

1:13:10.510,1:13:13.700
where they were going. And then actually[br]were able to escape the university that

1:13:13.700,1:13:18.730
way. Because they were talking to people[br]on telegram who had dug up maps of the

1:13:18.730,1:13:22.180
Hong Kong sewage system and like directed[br]this person, they were telling them, this

1:13:22.180,1:13:27.310
is where you go. You hit kind of like, you[br]hit like a crossroads and then you take a

1:13:27.310,1:13:30.700
left, like this is where you take a right.[br]And then the last moment they actually,

1:13:30.700,1:13:33.790
the plans were changed. And so they were[br]told, you cannot go to the exit we

1:13:33.790,1:13:38.230
initially told you because we've seen[br]police there. Right? Telegram channels,

1:13:38.230,1:13:40.750
again, like all of this comes back[br]together. And so they're watching police

1:13:40.750,1:13:43.750
moving in that you can't go there. There's[br]police there. Instead, we need to send you

1:13:43.750,1:13:47.250
to a different exit. So he goes to that[br]exit and there's someone there waiting for

1:13:47.250,1:13:53.540
him who lifts, who lifts the lid, lets him[br]out of the fucking sewage system. And then

1:13:53.540,1:13:57.100
there's people waiting for them there, a[br]"school bus" who grabs them and takes them

1:13:57.100,1:14:00.710
somewhere else. And that's how he got out[br]of the university. And he still doesn't

1:14:00.710,1:14:10.710
know any of those people. They're all[br]still strangers.

1:14:10.710,1:14:16.310
<i>applause</i>[br]The strategy number 6, that I think is

1:14:16.310,1:14:20.000
important, are counter narratives. So the[br]Hong Kong government and the Beijing

1:14:20.000,1:14:23.660
government have a very clear framing for[br]what how they want to frame the entire

1:14:23.660,1:14:27.000
protest, right. So they want to say these[br]are vandals, these are rioters, they have

1:14:27.000,1:14:30.800
no legitimate demands, they just want to[br]destroy things, nothing about them is

1:14:30.800,1:14:36.090
legitimate, or democratic, or politically[br]justified in any way. People realize that

1:14:36.090,1:14:41.370
maybe memes are nice, but memes are maybe[br]not enough. So part of the movement,

1:14:41.370,1:14:47.940
actually Kim, started creating a citizen's[br]press conference where people anonymously

1:14:47.940,1:14:50.950
basically hold a press conference. And you[br]can see that press is coming there, right,

1:14:50.950,1:14:55.130
because you have all the official mics.[br]And so all these new media outlets

1:14:55.130,1:14:59.330
actually going there and talking to them.[br]In the background you have someone who's

1:14:59.330,1:15:02.750
interpreting this into sign language.[br]Because they essentially know we need to,

1:15:02.750,1:15:06.790
at least somehow, try to get control of[br]the narrative again ourselves to make sure

1:15:06.790,1:15:15.200
there's not just a government who gets to[br]define what is happening. The last

1:15:15.200,1:15:19.910
strategy that I want to talk about is[br]related to both counter narratives, but

1:15:19.910,1:15:23.370
also to organizing and mobilizing, which[br]is the last thing that I want to talk

1:15:23.370,1:15:28.580
about. So as an introduction to that, I[br]want to show you a video that in many ways

1:15:28.580,1:15:33.110
I think demonstrates some of the capacity[br]that people have been able to build. What

1:15:33.110,1:15:39.150
I'm going to show you is a protest[br]anthem called Glory for Hong Kong. As I

1:15:39.150,1:15:41.980
said earlier, Hong Kong was a city that[br]was first under colonial rule by the

1:15:41.980,1:15:48.080
British and is now under rule by China[br]without people really getting a choice at

1:15:48.080,1:15:53.790
any point. And so in early September[br]people crowdsourced an anthem for the city

1:15:53.790,1:15:58.900
online and someone composed it and[br]published it on September 11th. And

1:15:58.900,1:16:39.940
several days later someone had arranged[br]for an orchestra. And right after that

1:16:39.940,1:18:05.410
this video went online.[br]<i>Video plays (orchestra/choir)</i><i>applause</i>

1:18:05.410,1:18:09.250
I think everyone who is interested in the[br]meaning of that song, I would recommend

1:18:09.250,1:18:12.420
that you go and read Vivienne Chow's[br]article about it in The New York Times

1:18:12.420,1:18:16.730
because she wrote from a musical and[br]cultural perspective about what it meant

1:18:16.730,1:18:20.020
for her to have grown up in a city where[br]there was never a song that she identified

1:18:20.020,1:18:23.000
with. And for this to be the first time,[br]that was kind of like an anthem for what

1:18:23.000,1:18:30.230
she considers her home. So I would[br]recommend you all go and read that. In the

1:18:30.230,1:18:32.470
long term a lot of the strategies that[br]I've talked about have been able to

1:18:32.470,1:18:36.271
sustain the movement and have been able to[br]help people and individuals avoid arrest

1:18:36.271,1:18:40.431
in the short term. But the question is how[br]sustainable this entire movement is in the

1:18:40.431,1:18:46.700
long run. I think the orchestra it's like[br]a fun, they call themselves Black

1:18:46.700,1:18:53.140
Blorchestra, by the way. It's a fun[br]example of how people can just get tons of

1:18:53.140,1:18:56.470
people together and suddenly come up with[br]an entire orchestra and fund that entire

1:18:56.470,1:19:00.780
thing with like pretty good production[br]value, I just downloaded a shitty version.

1:19:00.780,1:19:04.890
But, so that's happening, right, people[br]are building all these groups, building

1:19:04.890,1:19:08.180
all these new ties. A lot of times they[br]building these ties with people who they

1:19:08.180,1:19:12.740
don't know and who are anonymous to them.[br]But in a lot of other cases, one person

1:19:12.740,1:19:16.540
who I spoke to said that essentially[br]they've started exercising together as a

1:19:16.540,1:19:22.330
neighborhood because he says that we[br]cannot trust the police to save us. And if

1:19:22.330,1:19:24.310
someone from the government comes to[br]attack us we want to be able to defend

1:19:24.310,1:19:28.570
ourselves. So then he's also like[br]organizing this in kind of like small

1:19:28.570,1:19:32.120
neighborhood groups. So there's all these[br]people who have lived in an anonymous

1:19:32.120,1:19:36.140
major metropolis for years and probably[br]barely talk to each other, but who now

1:19:36.140,1:19:40.140
basically getting together and starting to[br]do things together and trying to keep

1:19:40.140,1:19:44.440
these things going to protect themselves.[br]Another thing is that there has been a

1:19:44.440,1:19:50.230
push for building and creating unions. So[br]labor unions, more than 24 have been

1:19:50.230,1:19:55.180
formed its entire year across a range of[br]sectors. There were several attempts at

1:19:55.180,1:19:59.000
organizing strikes in Hong Kong over the[br]summer and a lot of those weren't very

1:19:59.000,1:20:03.001
successful because people still went to[br]work in many cases. But so people are

1:20:03.001,1:20:06.750
essentially organizing more long term and[br]trying to get people to join unions, so

1:20:06.750,1:20:14.270
they have organizing capacity for the long[br]run. And again, this is a picture from the

1:20:14.270,1:20:18.230
district council elections. It's[br]incredibly important to recognize the

1:20:18.230,1:20:23.680
organizational capacity that went into the[br]elections. There are all these people out

1:20:23.680,1:20:27.770
there now that know how to mobilize and[br]have now partaken in like a political

1:20:27.770,1:20:31.750
campaign and the electoral campaign and[br]all of that is knowledge that now exists

1:20:31.750,1:20:35.460
amongst young people, amongst older[br]people. And all of these are organizations

1:20:35.460,1:20:43.560
and things that hopefully people will be[br]able to build on in the long run. So what

1:20:43.560,1:20:47.520
next? I think it's important to recognize[br]that what people have been able to do in

1:20:47.520,1:20:51.930
Hong Kong is incredible from an[br]organizational capacity and also has meant

1:20:51.930,1:20:55.610
that people have given up a lot. In many[br]cases. And people have gone broke, there

1:20:55.610,1:20:58.100
are young people who have been kicked out[br]of their homes by their parents because

1:20:58.100,1:21:01.900
they don't see eye to eye politically.[br]Some people have just spent all their

1:21:01.900,1:21:06.720
money on protest gear. Other people are[br]facing charges of up to 10 years in

1:21:06.720,1:21:09.440
prison. And because of the incredible[br]backlog, might not know for a very long

1:21:09.440,1:21:14.390
time what's going to happen. People are[br]scared of the police. And so one big

1:21:14.390,1:21:17.960
question is how things will be able to[br]keep going. And I think one thing that if

1:21:17.960,1:21:20.860
you talk to someone from Hong Kong who was[br]part of the protest movement and that's

1:21:20.860,1:21:25.100
also incredibly important to recognize[br]that everyone in Hong Kong, both, also

1:21:25.100,1:21:28.040
people on both sides, right. Like everyone[br]in Hong Kong, these are people and these

1:21:28.040,1:21:32.750
are not people who are just kind of like[br]acting out like a geopolitical game, like

1:21:32.750,1:21:36.130
risk or something, but these are real[br]people there who are really going to the

1:21:36.130,1:21:43.040
limits in many cases. More specifically[br]there is a rally planned and announced for

1:21:43.040,1:21:48.280
January 1st. They're still waiting for[br]their letter of no objection, which means

1:21:48.280,1:21:52.750
they don't know yet whether it will be a[br]legal rally or not. And so this is really

1:21:52.750,1:21:55.520
going to be them trying, their movement[br]trying to show that they're going to be

1:21:55.520,1:22:02.180
able to keep going through 2020 and maybe[br]longer. The unrest and discontent is not

1:22:02.180,1:22:06.080
going to go away. I think that's very[br]clear. So many people have been

1:22:06.080,1:22:10.410
politicized over the past few months and[br]so many people have lost trust in their in

1:22:10.410,1:22:13.410
their government and in very fundamental[br]institutions such as hospitals and the

1:22:13.410,1:22:18.050
police. And that's something that's not[br]just going to go away because that's going

1:22:18.050,1:22:22.700
to be a problem that will haunt the[br]government for a long time to come.

1:22:22.700,1:22:26.040
Especially remember that number, almost a[br]hundred percent of people under 16 oppose

1:22:26.040,1:22:30.120
the extradition bill and those people are[br]deeply involved, incredibly politicized.

1:22:30.120,1:22:34.420
And so, if anything, the people who are[br]coming up are more anti government, are

1:22:34.420,1:22:40.580
more willing to go protest than anyone[br]who's already out in the streets. The

1:22:40.580,1:22:45.080
things things that you can do. Go and[br]follow Hong Kong journalists and support

1:22:45.080,1:22:49.640
them. If you're on Twitter, Laurel Chor[br]and Hong Kong hermit, I've linked both of

1:22:49.640,1:22:54.330
them, have Twitter lists where you can[br]follow local journalists who've been

1:22:54.330,1:22:57.430
living in Hong Kong, who grew up in the[br]city, who have been reporting on the

1:22:57.430,1:23:01.330
protests for months, in some cases for[br]years. A lot of these people have already

1:23:01.330,1:23:04.331
reported on the Umbrella Revolution. So go[br]and follow those people because they

1:23:04.331,1:23:07.740
essentially have the best information.[br]They speak the language and they will be

1:23:07.740,1:23:13.270
able to report firsthand. And you'll also[br]run into those crazy livestream web sites.

1:23:13.270,1:23:16.580
You should also follow and donate to Hong[br]Kong Free Press, which is an independent

1:23:16.580,1:23:20.310
media outlet, was formed after the[br]umbrella protests. And it's been doing

1:23:20.310,1:23:23.410
some incredible coverage. They hired a[br]really good photographer who took a bunch

1:23:23.410,1:23:27.750
of the pictures that you saw here. And she[br]also was arrested by police at some point

1:23:27.750,1:23:36.120
for participating in a riot. So, yeah, go[br]do that, follow those people. This is a

1:23:36.120,1:23:40.080
story that is not over and it will not be[br]over anytime soon. And so the only thing I

1:23:40.080,1:23:43.080
can tell you is to go to the source and[br]listen to the people who are right on the

1:23:43.080,1:23:49.860
ground. Last but not least: I can only[br]speak about things that pertain to China,

1:23:49.860,1:23:54.620
because that's my area of expertise or in[br]this case, Hong Kong. But this has been a

1:23:54.620,1:23:57.540
year with a lot of protest movements all[br]over the world. And Hong Kongers are by

1:23:57.540,1:24:02.010
far from the only people who went onto the[br]streets at great, immense personal risk to

1:24:02.010,1:24:07.050
stand up to their governments. In India,[br]in student protests against an anti-Muslim

1:24:07.050,1:24:11.730
exclusion law, I think 17 or 20 people[br]were killed in the past few weeks and the

1:24:11.730,1:24:14.750
Iraqi government just gunned down[br]protesters that went out to protest for

1:24:14.750,1:24:20.520
political rights. People have been[br]protesting in Chile, in Iran, in Syria

1:24:20.520,1:24:25.830
and a bunch of places. And those things[br]might not be as well covered necessarily

1:24:25.830,1:24:29.560
as Hong Kong. I certainly don't read about[br]them as much, but that's also my personal

1:24:29.560,1:24:33.580
interest. But I would encourage you, I[br]think if you care about the things that

1:24:33.580,1:24:36.640
people are doing in Hong Kong that they're[br]trying to achieve, I would urge you to

1:24:36.640,1:24:41.350
inform yourself about the things that are[br]happening in other places as well. And in

1:24:41.350,1:24:44.910
a lot of cases, people who are in these[br]places recognize that they stand for

1:24:44.910,1:24:46.950
similar things, right? They want their[br]governments to listen to them and they

1:24:46.950,1:24:52.020
want to be represented. On the left, you[br]have a grafitti from Lebanon, where in the

1:24:52.020,1:24:55.690
middle you can see the Hong Kong slogan,[br]five demands, not one less, in Chinese,

1:24:55.690,1:24:59.480
stenciled on the wall. And on the left and[br]the right, you have Iraqi and Lebanese

1:24:59.480,1:25:03.620
protest slogans that called for the for[br]all corrupt government officials to

1:25:03.620,1:25:08.870
resign, regardless of which ethnic and[br]religious faction they're part of. Whereas

1:25:08.870,1:25:12.730
on the right you have a protest poster[br]from someone from Hong Kong who just lists

1:25:12.730,1:25:18.040
all the protests that they say we're[br]fighting for the same thing. We're

1:25:18.040,1:25:20.500
fighting for freedom and justice. And so[br]we we should feel like we're part of the

1:25:20.500,1:25:24.870
same thing. And so I just want to urge you[br]that if you care about any of these

1:25:24.870,1:25:30.080
things, then you should probably care[br]about it in more than one place. Thank you.

1:25:30.080,1:25:58.700
<i>applause, exclamation</i>

1:25:58.700,1:26:02.210
Herald (H): Thank you, Katharin. I don't[br]know if I told you, but I asked for this

1:26:02.210,1:26:05.890
shift specifically because of your talk.[br]K: Thank you. <i>lauthing</i>

1:26:05.890,1:26:12.380
H: It was everything I expected and more.[br]So we have time for two or three

1:26:12.380,1:26:16.880
questions. Go take one question from the[br]Internet, because there is a lot of people

1:26:16.880,1:26:22.890
who couldn't make it.[br]Signal Angel: Yeah. So it seems that

1:26:22.890,1:26:31.290
Telegram is a used a lot during protests.[br]And one of the IRC users mentions that

1:26:31.290,1:26:36.850
it's centralized and asks if there were[br]any problems with this centralized and

1:26:36.850,1:26:42.570
controlled thing and if they are attempts[br]to move this to decentralized

1:26:42.570,1:26:48.380
communication solutions.[br]K: Thank you. So I think. Oh, I just saw

1:26:48.380,1:26:56.220
that I misspelled MIT in my email. That's[br]very smart. Um. <i>laughter</i> The telegram question is

1:26:56.220,1:27:00.770
important. So Telegram has actually come[br]under DDOS attacks for multiple times. The

1:27:00.770,1:27:03.670
first time was in the summer and there was[br]another time later like a couple of weeks

1:27:03.670,1:27:09.170
ago. So that shows clearly that Telegram[br]is a vulnerability in some ways, right? In

1:27:09.170,1:27:12.250
the summer after the DDOS attack, Telegram[br]said that they think it was a nation state

1:27:12.250,1:27:18.000
actor just based on the volume of the DDOS[br]attack. So that is kind of like a point of

1:27:18.000,1:27:24.950
vulnerability. In reaction to that and[br]another DDOS attack on LHKG, there was

1:27:24.950,1:27:28.640
some discussions of moving to other[br]platforms, but those ultimately didn't pan

1:27:28.640,1:27:33.500
out. So I think organizationally it is[br]probably not ideal to be working on a

1:27:33.500,1:27:37.870
centralized platform. But the crucial[br]question is whether you have alternatives

1:27:37.870,1:27:42.091
that people can get on easily, because[br]you're organizing so many people and you

1:27:42.091,1:27:46.230
really want like the smallest amount of[br]friction possible. And I think that is the

1:27:46.230,1:27:50.250
biggest challenge. So the more kind of[br]like proposals for using different apps

1:27:50.250,1:27:53.570
that, for example, work without Internet[br]for the worst case scenario, that the

1:27:53.570,1:27:57.610
government might switch up the Internet in[br]Hong Kong. But my read is that those

1:27:57.610,1:28:00.721
ultimately didn't pan out because those[br]are not necessarily apps that people are

1:28:00.721,1:28:04.840
used to that might not be as easy to use.[br]And also because there is kind of like an

1:28:04.840,1:28:10.280
institutional stickiness. So I think it[br]would probably take some kind of disaster

1:28:10.280,1:28:14.970
like either Telegram getting blocked or[br]taken down in Hong Kong or kind of like

1:28:14.970,1:28:17.880
being completely taken down by DDOS attack[br]for people to actually switch to another

1:28:17.880,1:28:21.730
platform. So I think there I agree it's[br]when I started from a security

1:28:21.730,1:28:25.340
perspective, it's probably not ideal. But[br]their biggest challenge is the kind of the

1:28:25.340,1:28:28.800
organizational challenge of getting people[br]to move wholesale to completely different

1:28:28.800,1:28:33.710
platform.[br]H: Thank you. And now one question from

1:28:33.710,1:28:40.200
the audience. Microphone number three.[br]It's the last question. So make it count.

1:28:40.200,1:28:45.730
Q: That's a lot of responsibility. But I[br]really wanted to ask about police

1:28:45.730,1:28:54.040
brutality. You mentioned that people were[br]surprised by police brutality. But how can

1:28:54.040,1:29:00.670
it be a surprise. So it's only new police[br]force from continental China whom became

1:29:00.670,1:29:05.440
suddenly brutal or people were not paying[br]attention or was police brainwashed?

1:29:05.440,1:29:11.100
K: Thank you. That's a good question. And[br]I don't think we have absolute answers to

1:29:11.100,1:29:14.850
this. The reason people were surprised is[br]that the Hong Kong police force used to

1:29:14.850,1:29:18.660
have an incredibly good reputation as a[br]police force that was very reasonable and

1:29:18.660,1:29:22.870
appropriate in its use of force. And[br]that's clearly a reputation that's

1:29:22.870,1:29:27.090
completely gone down the drain over the[br]past few months. The thing about police

1:29:27.090,1:29:30.850
coming in from China is something there[br]are repeated reports, but they're always

1:29:30.850,1:29:35.540
incidental. And I haven't really seen any[br]large scale verified reports that there

1:29:35.540,1:29:39.780
was any like major influx of mainland[br]police officers into the Hong Kong police.

1:29:39.780,1:29:44.770
So it's probably not that. I think one[br]thing that people observed after the

1:29:44.770,1:29:48.180
Umbrella Movement was that there was kind[br]of like a siege mentality within the

1:29:48.180,1:29:51.930
police itself so that they kind of felt[br]like they were being assaulted by the

1:29:51.930,1:29:55.870
entirety of society. So it's possible that[br]that was kind of like kind of like the

1:29:55.870,1:30:00.810
formation of like increasingly strictly[br]drawn lines and camps where the police

1:30:00.810,1:30:03.760
felt like they're under assault from[br]everyone else and that they're justified

1:30:03.760,1:30:07.940
in using force. Which might be one of the[br]explanations why they've also been so

1:30:07.940,1:30:12.670
opposed to kind of like an independent[br]investigation. In addition to that,

1:30:12.670,1:30:18.220
another thing is that they've also been[br]completely operating at capacity. So we

1:30:18.220,1:30:23.450
know that they've paid, I think, 900[br]million Hong Kong dollars to something an

1:30:23.450,1:30:27.820
absurd amount in overtime pay to the[br]police. So I think one thing is also that

1:30:27.820,1:30:31.270
these are people who in many cases are not[br]trained in dealing with the events that

1:30:31.270,1:30:34.260
they're supposed to be dealing with. And[br]so it seems that they are possibly

1:30:34.260,1:30:39.240
reacting by lashing out and in more[br]violent ways than like would probably be

1:30:39.240,1:30:41.580
appropriate. So it might just also be a[br]lack of training, but there's no

1:30:41.580,1:30:43.741
definitive answer.[br]H: Thank you

1:30:43.741,1:30:47.430
K: Thanks[br]H: Katherin Tai, who has been heroically

1:30:47.430,1:30:52.180
standing here for 90 minutes talking[br]nonstop, which is hard! So, people, a huge

1:30:52.180,1:30:53.470
round of applause.

1:30:53.470,1:30:54.470
<i>applause</i>

1:30:54.470,1:30:57.870
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1:30:57.870,1:31:26.000
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