WEBVTT

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<i>36C3 preroll music</i>

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Herald: Our next talk is going to be
translated into German and possibly into

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French. So there is a link you can all go
to. It's streaming.c3lingo.org. You can go

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there for translations and we're about to
start the talk called "What the world can

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learn from Hong Kong" and it's going to
take 90 minutes because apparently we can

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learn a lot from Hong Kong. So buckle up.
It's going to be a long ride. And our

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speaker Katharin Tai is a University of
Oxford alumni and a PhD candidate at

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M.I.T.. So let's welcome Katharin on
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.
Katharin Tai: Thank you. Hello, everyone.

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Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me to
C3. For starters, I'd also like to thank

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the brave people who are planning to
translate what I'm about to say, despite

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knowing how fast I usually speak. So quick
round of applause for the translators over

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there in the boxes. 
<i>applause</i>

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So my name's Katharin. As the dear Harald,
I actually don't know your name

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mentioned, I'm a PhD student at
M.I.T. where I study Political Science. I

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also work as a freelance journalist on the
side and in my capacity as a freelance

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journalist I, amongst other things,
covered the Hong Kong protests over the

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past seven months which as you can
possibly imagine was quite eventful. I

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think one important caveat for this talk
is I am not originally from Hong Kong and

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I think the people who you should probably
listening to and who I would love to put

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on the stage in many cases are people who
go to great lengths to protect their own

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anonymity and to protect their own
identity. And so these are people who

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would not put themselves on the stage. So
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
things that I've learned from them and

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from the people who go out on the streets
and protest in Hong Kong but in general,

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my talk will be interspersed with
references to journalists and some

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activists in Hong Kong who I recommend you
follow them because ultimately they are

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the ones who know best. But what do I want
to do? For starters, because this is 90

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minutes, so I want to give you a quick
heads up. I'm going to give a quick

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overview of why and how things are
happening, so historically and politically

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and we will also be showcasing some
amazing protest art. And then I want to

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talk about the incredible strategies that
protesters have been using and that

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they've been using for over half a year
now and that's helped them to essentially

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keep going for more than half a year in
the face of what is truly an incredibly

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strong government. So also, we want to
talk about technology because, of course,

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it's C3. So it's incredibly important that
we recognize the very high tech things

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that the protesters have been using to
defend themselves against the police, such

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as catapults.
<i>Short video starts playing</i>

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<i>Group shouting</i>
K: This was recently at the Chinese

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University of Hong Kong but there are more
catapults. But seriously, like I said, I'm

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going to start with some historical
political background and then I'm going to

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move on and explain the political demands
and the protest strategies that the

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protesters have been using and in the end,
I'm going to give kind of like a bit like

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a quick preview of what we can maybe
expect to happen in the next few years and

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what you can do to stay informed. So what
is happening and why? Can I have light on

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the audience for a second? I don't know
who I talk to about this. Great. So I want

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to know, I want to get a quick sense of
how much people know about Hong Kong's

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politics. So if you know why the years
1997 and 2047 are meaningful for Hong Kong

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politics, please raise your hand. Wow.
Thank you. That's definitely more than I

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expected. I hope this won't bore you then.
Thanks for the lights, that's fine,

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although I actually like seeing the
audience, that's quite good. I'm still

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going to give a quick overview. Some of
you may know that Hong Kong was a British

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colony until 1997. So it was under British
colonial rule for more than 100 years.

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Once the British lease of Hong Kong was
up, the British negotiated an agreement

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with the Chinese government to return Hong
Kong to China. Ironically, this event was

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called the Handover, where Hong Kong was
literally taken by a colonial power and

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handed over to a different government.
Ironically also it is that it's called the

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return to China because the current
Chinese government was not even in power

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when Hong Kong was last part of what you
could consider China. But at this Handover

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event or before this Handover event, the
British and the Chinese signed an

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important document, which was the Sino-
British Joint Declaration, which says

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that... which essentially says the rights
and freedoms, including those of the

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person, of speech, of the press, of
assembly, of academic research and of

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religious belief will be ensured by law in
the Hong Kong Special Administrative

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Region. Why are they writing something
like this? Hong Kong was a colony but

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because it was essentially used as a big
and important commercial center, it did

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have a lot of kind of like societal
freedoms. So people were able to protest

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to the extent that colonial law allowed
it. And there was, for example, freedom of

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the press and there were worries in the UK
and also in Hong Kong, a lot of Hong

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Kongers were extremely worried about this,
about what might happen to these freedoms,

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when they would essentially go become part
of China, which is not democratic. It's

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not a democracy. It wasn't a democracy in
the 80s or the 90s either. This is

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something like... these anxieties were
obviously exacerbated by the fact that in

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89, the Chinese government suppressed a
student protest in Tiananmen Square. Hong

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Kongers knew about this. And so they were
watching from just across the border and

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they were looking at the students in
Tiananmen and Beijing. And they were

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wondering, is this going to be us next?
This whole thing, this whole idea that

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Hong Kong's freedom will be guaranteed is
called One Country, Two Systems. And so

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the idea is that Hong Kong gets to
maintain its own government in some ways.

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It gets to maintain its own legal system
and it gets to maintain all these

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political freedoms that in many ways are
not guaranteed in mainland China. In

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addition to that, Hong Kong does not have
democracy in the sense that most people

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understand it. But the Hong Kong basic law
says that the ultimate aim is the

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selection of the chief executive, which is
the head of government in Hong Kong, by

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universal suffrage, upon nomination, by a
broadly representative nominating

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committee in accordance with democratic
procedures. So basically this could be

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read as there will also be democracy at
some point, maybe. Depending on how we

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define all of these terms. So in 97, the
Chinese government decided that what Hong

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Kong is going to get is essentially a
government that is basically appointed by

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Beijing. There's... it's a bit more
complicated, but essentially the Hong Kong

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chief executive is appointed in Beijing
and people get to vote for their

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parliament, but the parliament doesn't
really have... they can't come up

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with the laws and say we want to pass this
law so they can essentially veto bills

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that come from the government. But Hong
Kongers basically get to elect their

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opposition in free and fair elections. Or
part of their opposition. But they do not

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get to elect their government. So that's
where we're starting in 97. So I think

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this is important to understand because
while Hong Kong is part of China legally,

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it has a special status that makes it very
different politically. And that's

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something that became very obvious in the
years following the handover as well.

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Antony Dapiran, a lawyer who works in
Hong Kong, has called the city a city of

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protest. And you can see this, for
example, because since the Handover there

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has been a range of protests, all of them
have been political and a lot of them have

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been in some ways related to China. These
are just some examples. One was in 2003,

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the protest against Article 23, which was
an anti-subversion law. So basically it

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was an anti-... So it was basically seen
as a way for the government to get rid of

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people who they disagreed with
politically. People protested against it.

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And the reform was stalled. In 2012, a lot
of students protested against a curriculum

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reform that people essentially denounced
as brainwashing. They said it would be

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painting democracy in a bad light and was
painting China as too positive. Again, the

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protest succeeded. There were a range of
other protests as well in the 2000s that,

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for example, protested for maintaining
important buildings, what people called

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Hong Kong heritage. A lot of those
unfortunately failed. So there's been ups

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and downs. But it's in no way the case
that Hong Kong wasn't free. People were

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able to go out on the streets, people went
out on the streets in thousands and people

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had political rallies such as out of
university, as you see in the picture in

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the background. And then 2014 happened.
I'm sure people have seen this. This was

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the Umbrella Revolution in 2014. I took
this picture when I was actually at Occupy

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Central and I studied for my own mid-term
exams at the Student Study Center. What

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had happened was that the promise of maybe
democracy that I was talking about

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earlier, people thought that Beijing had
broken it because in that year, Beijing

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had essentially published it's plan for
electoral reform and said that, yes, you

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get universal suffrage, so everyone gets
to vote, but we still pick the candidates.

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So people felt cheated and didn't think
that that was what they were owed. And

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people went into the streets and people
occupied a part of the center of the city

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for two full months and two full weeks,
which was extremely impressive. This is

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basically one of the major roads in the
middle of Hong Kong. It's usually full of

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cars. You couldn't possibly walk there,
but people reclaimed it and made it into a

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protest village. People built their own
institutions. People organized tutoring

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services. It was an incredible feeling.
People, when there were there, were

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incredibly optimistic and were telling me
it will be fine. We just need to work

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together. And if I asked them, how are you
going to get democracy, though? They were

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like, I don't know how exactly it's going
to happen, but it will happen. But what

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actually happened is that the protest camp
was cleared out by police and by the

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government and there were fights
internally in the democracy movement over

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how to continue. And so there was a lot of
disagreement. And what followed was

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essentially a long period of political
depression, right? People had been able to

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bring thousands of people onto the
streets, but the government didn't even...

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except for one conversation, sit down and
negotiate with them. One person who I

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interviewed last year, so almost two years
ago now, told me at the time that if the

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government doesn't even listen to us when
we bring so many people out on the

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streets, then I don't know what can change
anything politically. The one thing that

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umbrella has taught me is that there are
no bounds to how disappointed I can be in

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my government. In addition to this feeling
of depression, you had several other

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incidents that made people feel like the
promise of One Country, Two Systems, that

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Hong Kong would really be separate from
mainland China at least until 47 wasn't

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being kept. One of these examples are the
bookseller abductions from 2015. The

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people, there were 3 booksellers who were
abducted, probably by the Chinese

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government, one in Thailand, one in
southern China and one in Hong Kong

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itself. So these are people who were
essentially selling books that were,

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honestly, a lot of it was probably rumors
and kind of gossip, but they were very

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critical of the Chinese government and
they suddenly turned up in China again. So

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imagine you're a Hong Konger and you've
grown up in a city where you're being

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told you have your own legal system and 
you have nothing to fear from

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China. Because if you don't go, it's your
own government that is in charge for you.

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But then you hear about these people who
are grabbed off the street in your own

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hometown and who suddenly turn up in
China, possibly making a public

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confession. So that looks bad. In 2016,
this is also important, people had been...

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the Fishbowl Revolution happened, which is
also where this beautiful piece of art

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comes from. The Fishbowl Revolution was
the protest in part of Hong Kong called

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Mong Kok. And basically what happened was
that people decided that violent means

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might be what is needed to actually oppose
the government to get political change. In

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2014, people had been peaceful and they
had tried, but nobody listened. So if that

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doesn't work, some people thought 
we need to try new methods. So there

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was something that could be called a
riot. And there were really... like

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clashes between the... like between police
forces and protesters. People were tearing

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up the pavement, throwing bricks at the
police. Police was throwing some bricks

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back. So that happened. And then
from between 2016 and 18, another

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thing that was important happened, which
is that after Umbrella, there were fights

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about what to do. And some people decided
we will go and throw bricks at the police

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during the Fishbowl Revolution. Some other
people decided we want to work through the

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institutions and we want to get elected
into the legislative council, into the

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parliament, and we want to change the
system from within. But what happened was

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that 6 candidates, and then later even 6
elected parliamentarians were all

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disqualified for, in some cases not
credibly promising that they essentially

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will uphold the Hong Kong basic law.
Again, there are legal reasons for this.

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Some of these disqualifications were later
overturned by courts. Some, I think, are

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still, still stand. But I think what's
really important is that what a lot of

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people felt was, again, that this was kind
of like a broken promise. Right. They were

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like even within the system that we have.
So we get to elect so few people. But even

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within that system, you don't let us elect
the people we want to. You disqualify

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candidates. This is something that had
never happened before. And then you also

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disqualify people after they've been
elected. So you have democratically

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elected representatives of the people who
essentially protest it as part of an oath

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taking ceremony. And those people then
also got kicked out. So that looks bad.

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This means if you're, I'm not going to
date myself, but if you're my age and

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you're a Hong Konger, you first lived
under British colonialism. Where the

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British colonial government was in charge
of your feet. And then post 97, you were

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just kind of like handed over to the
Chinese government. Maybe at the age of

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like 4, 5, 6, depending on how old you
were. But at no point did you actually get

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a choice. But you also grew up with a lot
more political freedom than a lot of

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people in mainland China. You had no
Internet censorship and people in Hong

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Kong talk very openly about a lot of
things that the Chinese government has

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done. And so you're very aware of things
such as the Tiananmen massacre and you're

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afraid that those things might maybe
happen to you in 47, when you know there's

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an expiration date on all the freedoms
that you have. But in 47, you might also

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be part of that and those things might
also be what happens to you. But at the

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same time, what you'd also seen is that
you'd seen freedoms eroded and you saw all

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these signs that made you think that the
promises, the promise of those 50 years of

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freedom and of a separate political
system, that that was an empty promise and

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that China was not intending to keep it.
And this, I think, is also really

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important that a lot of people who I spoke
to that tell me China doesn't want 1

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country, 2 systems. And if they don't want
it, they will undermine it if they can. So

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one person who I spoke to is in his 20s
said China just wants one country, one

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system, and it's going to do whatever it
wants to achieve that. And that's the

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mindset, I think, that we need to
understand to know why people are going

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out on the streets right now. So people
are scared of China. People think, people

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don't trust the Chinese legal system. And
what happens in 2019 is that the

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government introduces an extradition bill.
Previously, one of the ways the Hong Kong

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legal system was kept separate from China
is that it couldn't extradite people to

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China. So if someone commits a crime in
China and flees to Hong Kong, the Hong

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Kong government cannot send that person to
China for prosecution. But what happened

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is that someone committed a crime in
Taiwan, which Hong Kong considers to be

00:17:22.360 --> 00:17:27.399
part of China. And that person. So this
person was a Hong Kong citizen. He killed

00:17:27.399 --> 00:17:32.799
his girlfriend and fled to Hong Kong, was
convicted of a couple of credit card fraud

00:17:32.799 --> 00:17:36.490
charges. But because the Hong Kong courts
didn't have jurisdiction, they couldn't

00:17:36.490 --> 00:17:39.800
actually get him for the murder of his
girlfriend. And so the Hong Kong

00:17:39.800 --> 00:17:42.760
government said, okay, look, we're going
to get an extradition bill so we can start

00:17:42.760 --> 00:17:48.320
extraditing people to Taiwan, including,
and then also start extraditing people to

00:17:48.320 --> 00:17:56.860
China. I mean, what do you think people
thought about that? They weren't happy. So

00:17:56.860 --> 00:18:03.330
on June 9th, one million people,
estimated, went on the street to protest

00:18:03.330 --> 00:18:07.290
against the extradition bill. And this is
where we're starting, right? This is where

00:18:07.290 --> 00:18:11.049
the political movement starts. I want to
give you an overview of what's happened

00:18:11.049 --> 00:18:16.570
over the past 7 months, because it's easy
in hindsight to forget just the scale of a

00:18:16.570 --> 00:18:22.830
lot of what happened. So on June 9th we
get, official numbers are 240000. So

00:18:22.830 --> 00:18:27.585
that's the police. The organizers say 1
million people. On June 12th, we get 40000

00:18:27.585 --> 00:18:31.440
people who essentially gather around the
government headquarter and prevent the

00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:35.620
bill from being read a second time, from
being discussed. And the police used tear

00:18:35.620 --> 00:18:39.389
gas, rubber bullets and beanbag rounds
against protesters that were largely

00:18:39.389 --> 00:18:44.369
unarmed and in some cases held umbrellas
to essentially defend themselves. People

00:18:44.369 --> 00:18:48.679
were really mad at that and so on June
16th, the largest protest march in Hong

00:18:48.679 --> 00:18:53.990
Kong history happened with an estimated of
2 million people, which is a sizable

00:18:53.990 --> 00:19:01.503
proportion of the city's population. So
people are protesting on July 21st. I

00:19:01.503 --> 00:19:05.720
think this is one of the events that
people really need to know about. Well,

00:19:05.720 --> 00:19:09.690
there was a protest in the center of Hong
Kong in a metro station further north in

00:19:09.690 --> 00:19:15.600
Yuen Long. Suddenly, a group of 20, 25 men
in white t-shirts turned up and started

00:19:15.600 --> 00:19:18.949
beating people. So just started
indiscriminately beating people up who

00:19:18.949 --> 00:19:24.179
were on the metro. We all know this
because there was a journalist in the same

00:19:24.179 --> 00:19:28.240
metro station and she was live streaming
the entire thing. So for 40 minutes, she

00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:34.000
was live streaming violence that people in
Hong Kong had never really seen before.

00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:38.065
People are used to being relatively safe.
Hong Kong has a pretty low crime rate. And

00:19:38.065 --> 00:19:41.689
there was this incredibly vicious violence
they were all seeing on their screens. So

00:19:41.689 --> 00:19:45.519
everyone knew this. Like at some point
there were thousands, tens of thousands of

00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:49.610
people in this live stream. And yet the
police was doing nothing. And it didn't

00:19:49.610 --> 00:19:55.350
turn up until after these people had
disappeared. And I think within that day

00:19:55.350 --> 00:19:59.191
they may be arrested. I think within a
couple of days they didn't arrest anyone.

00:19:59.191 --> 00:20:04.519
And then later they arrested 3 people. But
so far, nothing has come of that. That was

00:20:04.519 --> 00:20:08.850
really a turning point where people lost a
lot of trust in institutions that they

00:20:08.850 --> 00:20:13.429
used to have before because they decided
that ultimately when in doubt, if there's

00:20:13.429 --> 00:20:17.948
some gangster beating me up, if the person
is politically for the government, I

00:20:17.948 --> 00:20:21.430
cannot trust the police to come and save
me. And a lot of people, especially

00:20:21.430 --> 00:20:25.159
wealthier, more well-off, middle class
people, that's the point when they change

00:20:25.159 --> 00:20:28.879
their mind. Maybe before they said the
extradition bill isn't that bad, I don't

00:20:28.879 --> 00:20:32.660
mind, it will be fine. But that was the
moment when they saw those people getting

00:20:32.660 --> 00:20:36.066
beaten up. They looked at them and they
were like, that could have been me. And

00:20:36.066 --> 00:20:38.836
that's when they said, now something needs
to happen and something needs to be done

00:20:38.836 --> 00:20:45.108
about this government. So more people go
out in the pouring rain. An estimated 1.7

00:20:45.108 --> 00:20:51.019
million people protesting. August 31 the
estimate is tens of thousands, but this

00:20:51.019 --> 00:20:54.585
was an illegal march, so the protest
wasn't allowed. So people went out to

00:20:54.585 --> 00:20:58.100
protest despite it being illegal. They
knew they could be charged with like

00:20:58.100 --> 00:21:03.096
illegal assembly. Maybe a riot which
carries up to 10 years. After that, the

00:21:03.096 --> 00:21:06.609
government essentially stopped allowing
protest marches and they were like, maybe

00:21:06.609 --> 00:21:10.789
if we don't allow you to protest, people
won't come out to protest. Didn't work out

00:21:10.789 --> 00:21:17.410
on October 1st, Chinese National Day,
thousands demonstrated on the streets

00:21:17.410 --> 00:21:22.929
again. And this is the first day someone
was shot with a life round. So a protester

00:21:22.929 --> 00:21:28.693
in his 20s was shot by a policeman at 
close range. On October 4th, again,

00:21:28.693 --> 00:21:32.190
thousands of people out in the streets.
The government tries to ban masks, so they

00:21:32.190 --> 00:21:35.809
went to prevent people from hiding their
faces. And you see what people do in

00:21:35.809 --> 00:21:39.960
reaction to that. They put on masks and they
go out and protest because it's Hong Kong

00:21:39.960 --> 00:21:45.534
On November 8th, the first person died
in the context of the protests. A young

00:21:45.534 --> 00:21:50.950
man who fell from a building near a police
action saved and in a coma for several

00:21:50.950 --> 00:21:54.680
days and then died on November 8th.
This picture is from one of the vigils

00:21:54.680 --> 00:21:59.470
for him. And several days later, the
second person died in the context of the

00:21:59.470 --> 00:22:04.299
protest, an old man who was probably just
a bystander at a clash between police and

00:22:04.299 --> 00:22:10.330
protesters. He was hit in his face, in
the head by a brick and died several days

00:22:10.330 --> 00:22:15.860
later. Also after a coma. This was what
set off the most extreme and the most

00:22:15.860 --> 00:22:20.760
violent days of protests in Hong Kong that
we have seen this year and possibly ever.

00:22:20.760 --> 00:22:25.669
Where people started occupying university
campuses and had real battles with police

00:22:25.669 --> 00:22:29.510
to essentially defend those campuses
against police. And the whole thing

00:22:29.510 --> 00:22:34.379
culminated on November 18th in police
essentially laying siege to an entire

00:22:34.379 --> 00:22:38.509
university, trapping people inside and
thousands of people going out to protest

00:22:38.509 --> 00:22:42.660
and trying to essentially break through
the police cordon from the outside and

00:22:42.660 --> 00:22:46.549
rescue the people who were inside, who
were afraid of the police, who didn't want

00:22:46.549 --> 00:22:50.389
to come up because they'd seen videos of
police violence over the past few months

00:22:50.389 --> 00:22:53.550
and they were scared because they said, I
don't know what's going to happen if I go

00:22:53.550 --> 00:22:57.739
out, but who also said we have fought for
so many months at this point. So this was

00:22:57.739 --> 00:23:01.280
November, right? So a month ago, they were
saying we have fought it for so many

00:23:01.280 --> 00:23:06.360
months, we cannot just give up. We need to
at least try. One thing that happened as

00:23:06.360 --> 00:23:12.299
part of that was that people coordinate an
absolutely insane exit from the besieged

00:23:12.299 --> 00:23:18.829
university where they basically came down
from a footbridge. Some of these people

00:23:18.829 --> 00:23:22.759
are climbing, but some of them are just
falling down. And then you have

00:23:22.759 --> 00:23:26.870
motorcyclists waiting for them down the
bridge. All of this is coordinated online.

00:23:26.870 --> 00:23:31.250
And we don't know how many people are
going out that way, but maybe 50 or 100

00:23:31.250 --> 00:23:35.139
men were able to escape arrest.

00:23:35.139 --> 00:23:44.029
<i>Video playing, human voices,
photo shutters, motorcycle noises</i>

00:23:44.029 --> 00:23:51.329
It's kind of like getting down and being
picked up by motorbikes. The sieges

00:23:51.329 --> 00:23:55.571
eventually ended. Kind of a lot of people
were arrested. I think more than a

00:23:55.571 --> 00:23:59.420
thousand people were arrested around the
university that was occupied. But several

00:23:59.420 --> 00:24:02.740
days later, there were district council
elections, which are basically local

00:24:02.740 --> 00:24:08.129
elections in Hong Kong and this was the
electoral map before the elections. Red are

00:24:08.129 --> 00:24:12.820
pro-government parties and yellow are pro-
democracy parties. There was a record

00:24:12.820 --> 00:24:17.100
turnout, the highest ever in the history
of Hong Kong. And the pro-democracy camp

00:24:17.100 --> 00:24:25.450
made the map to this.
<i>applause</i>

00:24:25.450 --> 00:24:29.470
One thing that's important to bear in mind
is that Hong Kong uses the first-past-the-

00:24:29.470 --> 00:24:34.200
post system. So you win in your district
if you gain an absolute majority. So these

00:24:34.200 --> 00:24:39.249
seats actually don't translate into that
much of a electoral difference. So I think

00:24:39.249 --> 00:24:43.990
it was 60/40. So with 60% for pro-
democracy, but especially compared to what

00:24:43.990 --> 00:24:47.139
the districts had looked like before, this
was an incredible achievement and I also

00:24:47.139 --> 00:24:49.590
think this is one thing that's really
important, recognize that there's a lot of

00:24:49.590 --> 00:24:52.850
organizational work that went through
this. So people put in a lot of time, no

00:24:52.850 --> 00:24:56.730
love like work to make sure that people
went out and would be able to vote and the

00:24:56.730 --> 00:25:05.029
people knew who they were voting for. So
here we are in December. By the count of

00:25:05.029 --> 00:25:11.779
the activist and writer Kong Tsung-gan
there have been 6152 arrests, at least,

00:25:11.779 --> 00:25:15.470
possibly more. 921 people have been
prosecuted. So there's an incredible

00:25:15.470 --> 00:25:21.760
backlog and there have been 774 protests
that includes smaller ones. That was as of

00:25:21.760 --> 00:25:26.340
December 23. Since then, there have been
several more hundred arrests. So we're

00:25:26.340 --> 00:25:31.350
probably getting closer, much closer to
6500, 6600. And that's where we are after

00:25:31.350 --> 00:25:39.589
7 months of protest in Hong Kong.
This is somewhat depressing, but it's also

00:25:39.589 --> 00:25:43.660
incredibly impressive that people have
been able to keep going for such a long

00:25:43.660 --> 00:25:49.200
time. These people who are going out into
the streets are not just walking for half

00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:53.029
an hour or an hour and then go home and
are like, oh, yeah, no, it's fine. People

00:25:53.029 --> 00:25:57.019
are entering real battles with police and
essentially running and hiding from police

00:25:57.019 --> 00:26:01.760
for, in some cases for hours. A lot of
people have been driven to physical

00:26:01.760 --> 00:26:06.140
exhaustion. A lot of people aren't doing
well mentally because that's incredibly

00:26:06.140 --> 00:26:09.979
depressing. There's a lot of anxiety.
People are very scared of what could

00:26:09.979 --> 00:26:13.789
happen to them if they do get arrested.
And so one thing that I want to now focus

00:26:13.789 --> 00:26:18.350
on is how they've been able to just keep
this going for such a long time. Hong Kong

00:26:18.350 --> 00:26:22.570
is such a tiny place. And if you look at
the resources that the Chinese government

00:26:22.570 --> 00:26:26.380
has access to, that the Hong Kong
government has access to. How can a

00:26:26.380 --> 00:26:34.049
protest keep going for so long? I think I
have a few answers. The first answer is

00:26:34.049 --> 00:26:40.100
that they are very clear demands that the
movement has. The first is a complete

00:26:40.100 --> 00:26:44.200
withdrawal of the extradition bill. So the
blog that I was talking about earlier that

00:26:44.200 --> 00:26:52.410
was fulfilled in September. The second is
the release of arrested protesters without

00:26:52.410 --> 00:26:56.179
chargers. So they're saying we want all
those 6..., more than 6000 people, those

00:26:56.179 --> 00:26:59.910
should be released and they should be able
to go home without being charged because

00:26:59.910 --> 00:27:03.240
they were trying to make their government
listen to them because there is no other

00:27:03.240 --> 00:27:07.110
way you can get your government to listen
to you if you cannot vote. The only thing

00:27:07.110 --> 00:27:10.929
you can do is you can go out on the
street. The third demand is the withdrawal

00:27:10.929 --> 00:27:16.610
of the characterization of protests as a
right of old. Any protest is a riot. This

00:27:16.610 --> 00:27:19.539
is a bit technical, but the basic gist of
it is that there is a law that the British

00:27:19.539 --> 00:27:25.389
colonial administration introduced which
allows police to classify a lot of

00:27:25.389 --> 00:27:30.120
protests as riots. It's like a pretty
broad definition. It's pretty vague. And

00:27:30.120 --> 00:27:35.610
that if you're convicted of rioting, that
carries up to 10 years in prison. So I

00:27:35.610 --> 00:27:40.450
think roughly a third of arrested
protesters has been under 18. Imagine you

00:27:40.450 --> 00:27:43.070
are 14 years old and you're out in the
streets and you find out that you could be

00:27:43.070 --> 00:27:50.299
charged with rioting and you're looking at
a 10 year prison sentence. Let's... That's

00:27:50.299 --> 00:27:54.440
very scary. The first demand. Which is one
of the ones that has some of the most

00:27:54.440 --> 00:28:00.220
support in the population. Currently at 72
percent as of December 8th is an

00:28:00.220 --> 00:28:04.960
independent investigation to police
brutality because people don't trust the

00:28:04.960 --> 00:28:08.400
government watchdog. That is essentially
staffed by people who the government gets

00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:12.820
to pick. And they have has been. There
were a few international experts on that

00:28:12.820 --> 00:28:15.600
panel, but all of them resigned because
they said this is actually a joke and we

00:28:15.600 --> 00:28:18.880
don't think we can actually do anything
meaningful about this. So people want an

00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:22.580
independent investigation. I specifically
did not include images of protest

00:28:22.580 --> 00:28:27.309
brutality in my presentation. But if you
think you can take the violence, I would

00:28:27.309 --> 00:28:32.309
urge you to actually go look them up.
There's a lot of material online. Hong

00:28:32.309 --> 00:28:34.960
Kong Free Press has documented a lot of
these cases and reports on the legal

00:28:34.960 --> 00:28:40.350
follow up on them as well. This has not
been good. And I think it's also something

00:28:40.350 --> 00:28:44.769
that the violence was especially
disproportionate and shocking for people

00:28:44.769 --> 00:28:48.530
because people are used to being safe.
People are not used to living in a country

00:28:48.530 --> 00:28:53.070
where the police just comes and beats them
up or where the police just put like

00:28:53.070 --> 00:28:56.870
stomps their foot on the head of an
arrested protester who's already lying on

00:28:56.870 --> 00:28:59.610
the ground. They're not used to like
watching police kicks, like just kick

00:28:59.610 --> 00:29:02.641
someone who's already on the ground.
They're also don't, ... they're also not

00:29:02.641 --> 00:29:08.899
used to, ... they're also not used to
police arresting teenagers. So, yeah,

00:29:08.899 --> 00:29:14.169
that's number four. And number five is
real universal sufefrage. This is currently

00:29:14.169 --> 00:29:19.629
at 70 percent support in the broader
population. So the idea is, essentially,

00:29:19.629 --> 00:29:25.169
people say, we want that democracy that
promised, if you meet us in 97 or what we

00:29:25.169 --> 00:29:29.519
think you..., like that promise that we
think you made us. We want that. And this

00:29:29.519 --> 00:29:31.159
is also something that has been
strengthened, especially over the past few

00:29:31.159 --> 00:29:35.929
months, because until a year ago, maybe
people thought it doesn't matter that much

00:29:35.929 --> 00:29:39.369
if I elect the government because things
will be fine and most people are competent

00:29:39.369 --> 00:29:42.100
who are in government. But if the past
seven months they've been watching a

00:29:42.100 --> 00:29:45.260
government that essentially refused to
listen to any of the protesters and

00:29:45.260 --> 00:29:51.309
pretended like that none of their demands
were in any way politically legitimate. So

00:29:51.309 --> 00:29:53.659
now people like... now a lot of people who
are fired a year ago saying, well, now we

00:29:53.659 --> 00:29:57.100
need democracy because we've seen what
happens if you have a government that

00:29:57.100 --> 00:30:01.369
doesn't represent the people it's supposed
to represent. I think this is an important

00:30:01.369 --> 00:30:05.779
strategy because it means that everyone
who goes out, knows what they're

00:30:05.779 --> 00:30:09.460
protesting for. So since July, people have
been going out on the streets and they

00:30:09.460 --> 00:30:13.889
say: These are the five things we want.
This is what we want. Nothing else.

00:30:13.889 --> 00:30:17.450
Notably, independence is not part of this
list, although the Chinese government

00:30:17.450 --> 00:30:21.809
likes to say that the protesters are
separatists. Independence is not a demand

00:30:21.809 --> 00:30:27.850
of the movement and also has pretty low
support in Hong Kong. But instead, because

00:30:27.850 --> 00:30:32.159
you have these five demands, it's very
catchy. People have even come up with the

00:30:32.159 --> 00:30:35.730
protest slogan..., with a protest sign.
Right? So whenever you see pictures of

00:30:35.730 --> 00:30:38.509
protest, you will see people just holding
up their hands like this because they're

00:30:38.509 --> 00:30:41.669
like five demands. And then they put up
another thing and they're saying not one

00:30:41.669 --> 00:30:47.179
less. So that's one guiding slogan that
they've been using. And it's been memed.

00:30:47.179 --> 00:30:53.080
Everything gets memed in the Hong Kong
protests. So, for example, if you're

00:30:53.080 --> 00:30:57.360
disappointed with the new Star Wars movie,
go to Hong Kong, because there's a lot of

00:30:57.360 --> 00:31:02.639
very entertaining Star Wars content that
includes protesters. So on the left, you

00:31:02.639 --> 00:31:07.890
can see at the bottom again, it says five
demands, not one less. And the image on

00:31:07.890 --> 00:31:24.120
the right also has that in Chinese.
Strategy number two. Be water. This is an

00:31:24.120 --> 00:31:28.269
image by an artist,... that
essentially,... so you've seen some of the

00:31:28.269 --> 00:31:32.390
images where people cover their faces to
protect themselves against tear gas. They

00:31:32.390 --> 00:31:36.649
protect themselves so they can't be
identified. And so there was a week when

00:31:36.649 --> 00:31:42.130
people started drawing the Pokemons of the
Hong Kong protests. And this was an image

00:31:42.130 --> 00:31:46.570
for be water. Be water has essentially
been a guiding principle of the movement

00:31:46.570 --> 00:31:51.570
since the very beginning. And it's based
on a Bruce Lee quote. He's a martial

00:31:51.570 --> 00:31:58.010
artist. He was in a bunch of like kung fu
films from Hong Kong. And he said, empty

00:31:58.010 --> 00:32:04.809
your mind, be formless, shapeless, like
water. Now you put water in a cup. It

00:32:04.809 --> 00:32:08.809
becomes the cup. You put water in a
bottle. It becomes the bottle. You put it

00:32:08.809 --> 00:32:15.580
in a teapot. It becomes the teapot. Now
water can flow or it can crash. So the

00:32:15.580 --> 00:32:19.580
idea of be water is that you essentially
accumulate and gather people in places

00:32:19.580 --> 00:32:24.080
unexpectedly and very quickly and in the
end you disappear as quickly as possible.

00:32:24.080 --> 00:32:28.159
There were scenes where protests of
thousands in the center of Hong Kong just

00:32:28.159 --> 00:32:32.790
kind of like dissipated and disappeared
into nothingness. This is how you can

00:32:32.790 --> 00:32:37.259
avoid police capture in many cases. Right.
Like you don't sit and you don't stay in a

00:32:37.259 --> 00:32:41.940
place like people did with Occupy Central
in 2014. You leave once the police turns

00:32:41.940 --> 00:32:46.350
up, but you don't even have to wait for
the police to show up to know that they're

00:32:46.350 --> 00:32:52.499
coming. Because what people have started
doing is that essentially you get maps

00:32:52.499 --> 00:32:56.159
where they have,... or you have scouting
channels first, where people, when they

00:32:56.159 --> 00:33:00.929
see police, they just submit a report to
the,... like to the telegram channel. So

00:33:00.929 --> 00:33:03.580
there are bots where you can submit
reports. You say, I've seen a police unit.

00:33:03.580 --> 00:33:10.190
It's going from here to this place. That
direction, this many policemen. And that

00:33:10.190 --> 00:33:12.500
gets posted on a telegram channel with a
hashtag for the location that there were

00:33:12.500 --> 00:33:19.090
seen in. One person who I interviewed,
who's middle class, doing really well. I

00:33:19.090 --> 00:33:21.480
asked him what the protest changed about
him. And he said it really changed my

00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:25.809
frame of mind because now I got used to
observing the deployment of police

00:33:25.809 --> 00:33:29.440
whenever I see it. I got alerted to a
siren and once I see it, I will

00:33:29.440 --> 00:33:38.379
immediately send the info onto a telegram
channel. These reports then also get

00:33:38.379 --> 00:33:47.539
turned into maps. So this was Christmas
Eve in Hong Kong. So people got a white

00:33:47.539 --> 00:33:51.610
Christmas, not because there was snow, but
because there was a lot of tear gas. And

00:33:51.610 --> 00:33:54.400
the reports that people sent in are
essentially turned into a map that you can

00:33:54.400 --> 00:34:00.980
use to strategically avoid being captured
by police. And also that, for example,

00:34:00.980 --> 00:34:04.470
some relatives of mine wanted to go to
Hong Kong and they said, well, we are

00:34:04.470 --> 00:34:07.210
worried about going into areas of protest.
And I was like, well, you can use this map

00:34:07.210 --> 00:34:10.570
and you can avoid. You can see really
easily in which, ... into which areas you

00:34:10.570 --> 00:34:13.540
really shouldn't go. And basically, if
there are a lot of icons in the place,

00:34:13.540 --> 00:34:17.630
that means a lot of stuff is happening
there. If there are ..., if you have like

00:34:17.630 --> 00:34:23.450
the puppy logo, that means police units,
cars means police cars. You see some water

00:34:23.450 --> 00:34:28.310
drops kind of like in the middle towards
the left. That means there's a water

00:34:28.310 --> 00:34:33.030
cannon right there that you probably want
to avoid. And there's also different signs

00:34:33.030 --> 00:34:38.799
for the different police units. So they're
Raptors. And those are predators, the

00:34:38.799 --> 00:34:44.369
dinosaur logos. And in addition to that,
you kind of have the, you know, at what

00:34:44.369 --> 00:34:49.099
time the report was submitted, you can
verify a report you see further down

00:34:49.099 --> 00:34:54.020
towards the lower part of the map. There's
a camera sign. And so that means that

00:34:54.020 --> 00:34:58.000
there are life feeds from that place. So
if you want to know what's going on at a

00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:00.770
particular place, a lot of Hong Kong
journalists are live streaming the

00:35:00.770 --> 00:35:03.160
protests. And so you can go and just watch
a livestream to see what's really

00:35:03.160 --> 00:35:07.220
happening on the ground. Right like there.
And there's even a Web site that compiles

00:35:07.220 --> 00:35:11.940
up to nine live streams at the same time.
So you can just watch all of them at the

00:35:11.940 --> 00:35:16.690
same time on your screen to make sure you
know what's happening. These maps are

00:35:16.690 --> 00:35:23.010
extremely useful. And there is no way of
saying how many people they've helped in

00:35:23.010 --> 00:35:26.980
avoiding arrest. But one friend of mine
who was talking to another protester in

00:35:26.980 --> 00:35:30.630
July said, that he was going home from a
protest, and he was wearing the

00:35:30.630 --> 00:35:34.420
distinctive black shirts that protesters
usually wear. He didn't have any change of

00:35:34.420 --> 00:35:39.990
clothes and he wanted to avoid arrest. And
he told his friends. And so within a few

00:35:39.990 --> 00:35:45.099
minutes, they sent him a screenshot of
Google Maps where you could just see where

00:35:45.099 --> 00:35:49.660
they'd just shown him, this is your escape
route. Just going around all the police

00:35:49.660 --> 00:35:53.060
units that they could see on the map,
using only open sourced, crowd sourced

00:35:53.060 --> 00:35:56.860
information that was all made freely
available online and that people put on

00:35:56.860 --> 00:36:15.500
maps like this. <i>Applause</i> I think it's
worth clapping for, like because these are

00:36:15.500 --> 00:36:21.650
people's lives, right? If there are only
10 people that got to escape police arrest

00:36:21.650 --> 00:36:24.650
because of these things, we don't know to
how many years those people could be sent

00:36:24.650 --> 00:36:27.720
to the prison. They could just be sent its
defiance. Maybe they could send us to

00:36:27.720 --> 00:36:30.970
prison in three years. But all of that is
time. All of that is time in people's

00:36:30.970 --> 00:36:35.490
lives and the lives of people who have
been going out to protest and all of that

00:36:35.490 --> 00:36:39.619
was saved thanks to people crowdsourcing
and open sourcing all of this information.

00:36:39.619 --> 00:36:42.660
And that's an incredible effort that
people have been making for months now and

00:36:42.660 --> 00:36:51.520
an incredibly important institution that
really has helped people. The next part of

00:36:51.520 --> 00:36:56.721
be water is decentralized decision making.
One of the reasons I talked about the

00:36:56.721 --> 00:37:00.450
history of Hong Kong protests before and
all of that political stuff is because I

00:37:00.450 --> 00:37:05.010
think it's very important to understand
where people are coming from. People of

00:37:05.010 --> 00:37:08.600
all ages are protesting. But it's really
young people who are disproportionally

00:37:08.600 --> 00:37:13.200
against the government and against the
bill. I think especially, ... I think

00:37:13.200 --> 00:37:18.221
earlier in June or July, the numbers were
that 59 percent of people under 16 oppose

00:37:18.221 --> 00:37:22.260
the extradition bill. That's almost 100
percent amongst people who are not even

00:37:22.260 --> 00:37:27.359
eligible to vote. Not even close to being
eligible to vote. But these people have

00:37:27.359 --> 00:37:31.720
also been protesting for a very long time,
and they've also learned from the past.

00:37:31.720 --> 00:37:35.270
One thing that they've learned from 2014
is that you if you're a leader, you get

00:37:35.270 --> 00:37:40.790
arrested and you get put in prison. Joshua
Wong, who you may have heard of, is one of

00:37:40.790 --> 00:37:44.930
the people who that happened to him.
Another person who that happened to his

00:37:44.930 --> 00:37:50.970
Edward Lung, who was a leading figure of
the fishbowl riots of 2016. He's currently

00:37:50.970 --> 00:37:56.069
still serving time in prison. But how do
you organize a movement without having

00:37:56.069 --> 00:38:03.780
political leaders? You well, you do the
whole crowd intelligence thing. Right.

00:38:03.780 --> 00:38:06.850
Like you start having grassroots decision
making, you have a leaderless movement.

00:38:06.850 --> 00:38:11.120
Hong Kong is not the first time this has
happened. The Gezi protests in Istanbul in

00:38:11.120 --> 00:38:18.450
2013 were doing something similar. And now
it's happening on Hong Kong. So you

00:38:18.450 --> 00:38:21.589
have,... if you have no leaders, you have
nobody who the government can arrest to

00:38:21.589 --> 00:38:25.700
cripple the movement. They can maybe
arrest one person. They can arrest a

00:38:25.700 --> 00:38:28.750
hundred people. They can arrest 6000
people. But all of those people are only

00:38:28.750 --> 00:38:34.250
drops in the bigger movement and in that
wave that we were talking about earlier.

00:38:34.250 --> 00:38:41.430
So how does political decision making work
if you have thousands of people? So there

00:38:41.430 --> 00:38:47.270
are telegram groups primarily and there
there's also a forum called LIHGK. That's

00:38:47.270 --> 00:38:51.060
a bit like reddit. And then people just
have political discussions on those. In

00:38:51.060 --> 00:38:55.520
addition to that, people often have groups
on whatsup. People have Facebook groups

00:38:55.520 --> 00:39:00.490
like my parents are like probably not on
telegram, but kind of like the equivalent

00:39:00.490 --> 00:39:05.630
of the children. Their generation has
groups on Facebook. And that's where

00:39:05.630 --> 00:39:08.869
people are talking about what they think
should happen, about strategic questions,

00:39:08.869 --> 00:39:13.319
about questions in terms of what their
aims should be. And so it's just kind of

00:39:13.319 --> 00:39:16.430
happening on all these platforms. And so
if you have an idea or if you have an

00:39:16.430 --> 00:39:19.450
argument that you think is important, you
share it. And if people agree with you,

00:39:19.450 --> 00:39:24.711
they start sharing it further on. So
decision making is kind of like,... has

00:39:24.711 --> 00:39:28.579
like a snowball effect where you can see
once you are in different groups like

00:39:28.579 --> 00:39:32.750
arguments that people agree with keep
reappearing, like in 10, 15, 20 groups or

00:39:32.750 --> 00:39:37.329
people start rephrasing them. And so
that's how we kind of like consensus is

00:39:37.329 --> 00:39:41.990
often being built. At the same time, if
you want to,... if you have an idea for a

00:39:41.990 --> 00:39:45.710
really cool protest action such as you
want people to form a human chain across

00:39:45.710 --> 00:39:49.440
part of Hong Kong, which is something that
they did and someone just came up with it

00:39:49.440 --> 00:39:52.650
and posted about it online and then
someone made a poster for it and more

00:39:52.650 --> 00:39:57.220
people made posters and lots of people
said this is a great idea. And so they

00:39:57.220 --> 00:40:01.049
just did it. I hope that especially
hackers can empathize with this idea that

00:40:01.049 --> 00:40:05.069
someone has a cool idea, just does it. And
then people recognize that it is cool and

00:40:05.069 --> 00:40:08.720
kind of go along with it. And that's how a
lot of the movement has been working for

00:40:08.720 --> 00:40:14.319
the past few months as well. Another
example of this is the December 1st

00:40:14.319 --> 00:40:19.119
protest where thousands of people came out
because someone, just like basically the

00:40:19.119 --> 00:40:22.609
equivalent of a Reddit user in his 20s had
just said, "well, I thought we should try

00:40:22.609 --> 00:40:25.930
to have a protest again." And all of a
sudden the government actually gave him

00:40:25.930 --> 00:40:29.670
permission. And there were thousands of
people, again, out on the streets because

00:40:29.670 --> 00:40:38.450
anyone can register protest. One thing
that's hard is decision-making. Some of

00:40:38.450 --> 00:40:41.150
these groups have thousands of people. I
think I'm in several telegram groups that

00:40:41.150 --> 00:40:48.500
have maybe 60-70 thousand members. So
often people use polling to essentially

00:40:48.500 --> 00:40:52.839
make decisions. I don't know whether you
know the poll function of telegram?

00:40:52.839 --> 00:40:57.260
Basically, the admins can send in a poll
and say these are your four options. Do

00:40:57.260 --> 00:41:01.880
you think we should do A, B, C, or D and
then just, kind of, vote. And that's how a

00:41:01.880 --> 00:41:06.260
lot of the -- especially -- decision
making and discussion on demands or

00:41:06.260 --> 00:41:12.280
deadlines that people were trying to set
was happening earlier in the movement. But

00:41:12.280 --> 00:41:17.160
it's also something that people can use if
they need to make strategic decisions

00:41:17.160 --> 00:41:23.599
quickly on the spot. On August 12th,
people occupied the Hong Kong airport,

00:41:23.599 --> 00:41:27.640
which is an incredibly important
international hub, and where they managed

00:41:27.640 --> 00:41:34.670
to paralyze the entire airport. The Hong
Kong government announced that day that

00:41:34.670 --> 00:41:40.200
flights would stop taking off at 4 p.m.
and there started being rumors that the

00:41:40.200 --> 00:41:44.900
police would essentially come in and start
clearing out the airport violently with

00:41:44.900 --> 00:41:49.020
tear gas. And police was deploying
increasingly more people towards the

00:41:49.020 --> 00:41:52.329
airport. Because you have all these
telegram channels, you see that people

00:41:52.329 --> 00:41:55.799
take pictures of police. They post them
and you see, "Oh, my God, all this police

00:41:55.799 --> 00:42:00.520
is coming towards the airport, I am here.
They cut off the metro. So you cannot take

00:42:00.520 --> 00:42:04.880
the train back into the city. The Hong
Kong airport is on an island. You cannot

00:42:04.880 --> 00:42:08.359
get away from there." And so there was a
lot of heated discussion back and forth

00:42:08.359 --> 00:42:12.359
that day. And people were discussing, "Is
it safe?" "Is it not safe?" And

00:42:12.359 --> 00:42:15.660
ultimately, there was one channel that
had, I think, 60000 followers and the

00:42:15.660 --> 00:42:20.520
admins kept asking, should we stay or
shall we go? And the ratios kept

00:42:20.520 --> 00:42:25.130
changing towards leaving. And then
suddenly it was 70 to 30 percent. And

00:42:25.130 --> 00:42:27.130
people were like, OK, this is it, we're
leaving. And that was kind of the moment

00:42:27.130 --> 00:42:31.620
when you could see people changing their
mind, right on the spot. There was nobody

00:42:31.620 --> 00:42:34.039
who said, "We're now leaving," not a
single person who said "We're now going

00:42:34.039 --> 00:42:38.520
back." But just thousands of people who
were watching and who said, "This looks

00:42:38.520 --> 00:42:43.991
too dangerous. We need to stay safe and we
need to go home." The result of that was a

00:42:43.991 --> 00:42:49.770
mass exodus where people literally walked
for hours, as you can see on this picture,

00:42:49.770 --> 00:42:53.590
just across streets. Because, buses were
full and stopped running, The metro had

00:42:53.590 --> 00:42:59.680
stopped running, but they needed to get
back home. One of the funniest things I

00:42:59.680 --> 00:43:05.680
think that I've heard of as part of the be
water and grassroots discussion strategy;

00:43:05.680 --> 00:43:10.460
I was talking to Chiffon Young, who's the
China correspondent for the German paper,

00:43:10.460 --> 00:43:15.130
Die Zeit and she was reporting from a
small group that was building street

00:43:15.130 --> 00:43:21.690
blockades in Hong Kong. And there they
were practicing grassroots decision making

00:43:21.690 --> 00:43:25.260
in person. So, they built a blockade. They
hear police is coming, so scouts are

00:43:25.260 --> 00:43:28.450
telling them. They leave and they run to
the metro. But then they need to know

00:43:28.450 --> 00:43:31.609
where they're going next, because there's
no plan. Because if you have no plan, the

00:43:31.609 --> 00:43:35.030
police can't know your plan and can't wait
for you there. But also, you have no plan.

00:43:35.030 --> 00:43:39.240
So you have five people, 10 people who are
just shouting at each other on the metro

00:43:39.240 --> 00:43:42.700
platform. So one says "We want to go
here," and the other person says "We're

00:43:42.700 --> 00:43:45.860
going there." And maybe after five minutes
of shouting, they decide; "OK, we have

00:43:45.860 --> 00:43:53.220
reached consensus." Swarm intelligence. <i>laughers</i>
But it works. It's chaotic, but it works

00:43:53.220 --> 00:43:59.150
because it really makes it hard to figure
out where people are. Another really hard

00:43:59.150 --> 00:44:03.900
thing of this whole grassroots decision
making and bottom up decision making has

00:44:03.900 --> 00:44:09.400
been how do you correct course if you make
mistakes? How do you correct those

00:44:09.400 --> 00:44:12.059
mistakes, if there's nobody who can tell
someone that they need to stop doing these

00:44:12.059 --> 00:44:16.260
things? Again, this was something you
could observe during the airport protests,

00:44:16.260 --> 00:44:23.461
where people occupied the entire departure
hall. And at some point -- I think they

00:44:23.461 --> 00:44:28.309
said it was a citizen's arrest but -- they
basically tied a person to one of those

00:44:28.309 --> 00:44:32.550
luggage carts, who they thought was an
undercover policeman from China, and beat

00:44:32.550 --> 00:44:37.890
that person up. I think he was led away in
the end, but it was an incredibly ugly

00:44:37.890 --> 00:44:43.690
scene, and when you were watching it, it
felt a lot like mob violence. But what

00:44:43.690 --> 00:44:47.380
happened after? A lot of people were
saying, well, "This is a sign that this

00:44:47.380 --> 00:44:51.289
whole leaderless movement thing is not
working. And you cannot actually change

00:44:51.289 --> 00:44:53.700
anything about your behavior. There's
nobody who can tell these people that they

00:44:53.700 --> 00:44:57.020
need to change their mind." But what
happened afterwards is that you saw the

00:44:57.020 --> 00:45:01.230
same thing that I was describing earlier.
People saw that this was bad. And people

00:45:01.230 --> 00:45:04.589
agreed that that was bad! So people were
going around and everyone kept encouraging

00:45:04.589 --> 00:45:09.640
everyone else; "You need to be careful.
Don't use violence. If you think someone

00:45:09.640 --> 00:45:13.130
is an undercover cop, who's spying on you,
you can't just beat that person up."

00:45:13.130 --> 00:45:16.660
Afterwards, there was one scene where
people ran into someone who they thought

00:45:16.660 --> 00:45:20.500
was maybe a cop from mainland China. And
so instead of beating him up, they all

00:45:20.500 --> 00:45:30.440
stood around him and started taking selfies
with him. <i>cheerful laughter</i> In addition to that,

00:45:30.440 --> 00:45:37.210
increasingly you see people... pushing
people, pulling people back. And so people

00:45:37.210 --> 00:45:42.829
are saying, "Well, this is something you
can't do, you can't attack this person."

00:45:42.829 --> 00:45:46.821
So if there's a person who's tempers may
be running really high, often there will

00:45:46.821 --> 00:45:50.220
be people around the person who say, "No,
we're going to pull you back." People

00:45:50.220 --> 00:45:54.170
tried to write guidelines. They said you
need to be careful about journalists.

00:45:54.170 --> 00:45:57.240
Don't accuse people of being fake
journalists, all these things. So was a

00:45:57.240 --> 00:46:01.710
lot of like self correction and self
control coming out of that moment. I

00:46:01.710 --> 00:46:04.349
thought that was really interesting and
really important because was one sign the

00:46:04.349 --> 00:46:09.160
course correction can happen even if you
have thousands of people. But it requires

00:46:09.160 --> 00:46:13.240
everyone to participate and requires
people to be willing to essentially

00:46:13.240 --> 00:46:24.369
interrogate the things that they had done
and also possibly admit mistakes. Strategy

00:46:24.369 --> 00:46:29.930
four: anonymity. Again, I think it may be
something that hackers can empathize with.

00:46:29.930 --> 00:46:34.220
I know there is, as usual, a lot of talks
about how to maintain your security and

00:46:34.220 --> 00:46:41.190
anonymity online. For people in Hong Kong,
this has become incredibly important. The

00:46:41.190 --> 00:46:44.730
thing about feeling like your political
system is being eroded and all the

00:46:44.730 --> 00:46:49.819
securities and certainties and rights you
had disappearing slowly is that you don't

00:46:49.819 --> 00:46:54.510
know, months line has moved, so you don't
blow anymore. A lot of people I've spoken

00:46:54.510 --> 00:46:59.140
to don't feel like they can speak
politically anymore so they don't know

00:46:59.140 --> 00:47:01.780
what the consequences are going to be.
Instead, what people do is they start

00:47:01.780 --> 00:47:05.309
changing their names on their Facebook
accounts, for example, because something

00:47:05.309 --> 00:47:09.160
that they would have said openly like a
year ago, they no longer dare to say under

00:47:09.160 --> 00:47:13.109
their own name. There are people who've
been fired probably for the things that

00:47:13.109 --> 00:47:20.339
they said on Facebook, such as a person
who was a union leader with a Hong Kong

00:47:20.339 --> 00:47:28.760
airline, Cathay Pacific. So, anonymity is
enforced both in person and online. Also,

00:47:28.760 --> 00:47:31.930
again, through a lot of kind of like
community control and people supporting

00:47:31.930 --> 00:47:36.329
each other and essentially enforcing these
rules with each other. Online it's very

00:47:36.329 --> 00:47:39.860
much a social rule. So if you're kind of
like in a working group on Telegram and

00:47:39.860 --> 00:47:43.369
people are starting to chat kind of about
personal stuff, then usually there will be

00:47:43.369 --> 00:47:46.460
someone who tells everyone else, no, get
back to work. Stop talking about that

00:47:46.460 --> 00:47:50.490
stuff. You're disclosing too much about
yourself. One phrase that people keep

00:47:50.490 --> 00:47:55.550
using is they say there are ghosts. So the
operational assumption is that in any

00:47:55.550 --> 00:47:58.220
group, there will be someone who is
listening. So you especially in these

00:47:58.220 --> 00:48:03.170
bigger groups who cannot ever assume that
there is no police in there. So you can do

00:48:03.170 --> 00:48:06.690
your work, but assume that you're being
watched while you're doing anything that

00:48:06.690 --> 00:48:12.040
you're doing. Another thing that they're
doing is that there are several channels

00:48:12.040 --> 00:48:18.150
that are dedicated to cybersecurity. And
there is one channel, for example, that

00:48:18.150 --> 00:48:21.420
started passing around, kind of like JPEGs
that had instructions for how to

00:48:21.420 --> 00:48:25.130
set your telegram settings, because you
need to assume that a lot of the people

00:48:25.130 --> 00:48:27.950
who you're working with don't have a lot
of interest necessarily in technology and

00:48:27.950 --> 00:48:32.049
maybe have the highest priority going out
to protest. And so it helps that there are

00:48:32.049 --> 00:48:35.670
easy rules, Right? So people send around
these instructions that say you toggle

00:48:35.670 --> 00:48:40.160
these things on your telegram settings,
make sure that nobody can see your phone

00:48:40.160 --> 00:48:43.529
number who isn't already a contact of
yours or you change this thing and that

00:48:43.529 --> 00:48:48.000
means that your account essentially self-
destructs if you're inactive for seven

00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:51.690
days. And so in many ways, a lot of this
is about the social kind of the social

00:48:51.690 --> 00:48:56.099
enforcement and also breaking things down
and making them assess as accessible as

00:48:56.099 --> 00:49:01.010
possible. Another thing is that there's a
telegram account that alerts people to

00:49:01.010 --> 00:49:04.510
people who have been arrested. And the
operational assumption is that if you've

00:49:04.510 --> 00:49:08.770
been arrested, you're compromised. And so
it posts the names and the telegram

00:49:08.770 --> 00:49:12.549
handles the people who have been captured
by police and tells people delete this

00:49:12.549 --> 00:49:15.620
person's contact, like delete this person
from all of your chats like you cannot

00:49:15.620 --> 00:49:19.100
also be compromised. So that's another way
they're trying to kind of maintain that

00:49:19.100 --> 00:49:25.700
very basic security. I don't know how well
this is working, to be very honest. I

00:49:25.700 --> 00:49:28.349
haven't really heard any reports of people
who have been arrested for stuff that

00:49:28.349 --> 00:49:33.849
they've done on telegram. But that might
also just be that it hasn't been reported

00:49:33.849 --> 00:49:37.210
or we don't know about this. It's also
possible that the police has been just

00:49:37.210 --> 00:49:41.890
very busy mass arresting people at
protests and that they have all this data

00:49:41.890 --> 00:49:46.420
and they might be watching people. It
might come back around to that later on.

00:49:46.420 --> 00:49:49.240
Sometimes people have actually been able
to identify the telegram handles or think

00:49:49.240 --> 00:49:54.750
they've been able to identify the telegram
handles of policemen, which led to several

00:49:54.750 --> 00:50:00.650
people being kicked out of groups. But
again, so the police is probably watching,

00:50:00.650 --> 00:50:06.470
but we don't know how much information
they have access to. In real life, you can

00:50:06.470 --> 00:50:11.599
see kind of on the lower right corner, the
usual outfit that people are wearing.

00:50:11.599 --> 00:50:16.329
These are front liners who are tend to be
more directly involved in clashes with the

00:50:16.329 --> 00:50:20.400
police. That's the people who cover their
faces with usually gas masks, sometimes

00:50:20.400 --> 00:50:24.700
just simple surgical masks. They're
wearing goggles and hard hats to protect

00:50:24.700 --> 00:50:31.140
against projectiles, pepper spray, water
cannons, tear gas, the things you

00:50:31.140 --> 00:50:35.359
encounter in the streets of Hong Kong
these days. In addition to that, people

00:50:35.359 --> 00:50:40.650
have all of these umbrellas which they use
to hide each other's identities. For

00:50:40.650 --> 00:50:43.990
example, if people are building a street
blockade, then you always have some people

00:50:43.990 --> 00:50:47.090
who are building who kind of like building
the blockade. And there's other people who

00:50:47.090 --> 00:50:50.470
are holding up umbrellas to prevent them
from being photographed, especially given

00:50:50.470 --> 00:50:55.029
how much covered the protests are. This is
especially important because there are

00:50:55.029 --> 00:50:57.670
reporters and media around all the time
and people want to make sure that they

00:50:57.670 --> 00:51:02.880
don't accidentally end up on camera while
committing what is probably a crime.

00:51:02.880 --> 00:51:08.640
There's other ways this is being used as
well. For example, when people were

00:51:08.640 --> 00:51:12.500
destroying cameras in the metro stations
in some cases because people were very

00:51:12.500 --> 00:51:15.609
aware of the fact that they were being
filmed by someone who they couldn't talk

00:51:15.609 --> 00:51:20.030
to or people have asked individuals to
delete pictures and videos when they've

00:51:20.030 --> 00:51:23.710
seen them film them. But they've also
destroyed essentially these cameras on the

00:51:23.710 --> 00:51:27.590
metro. And again, then you will have
someone kind of like cover you with an

00:51:27.590 --> 00:51:31.700
umbrella to avoid a person being filmed in
the middle of essentially committing

00:51:31.700 --> 00:51:40.840
vandalism. The other thing is that people
have these, so this kind of uniform, what

00:51:40.840 --> 00:51:43.590
you can also see here, so people are
essentially is wearing black for the

00:51:43.590 --> 00:51:47.970
protests, which also means that you have
no recognizable marks like on yourself,

00:51:47.970 --> 00:51:51.370
like in the moment. And then when you kind
of practice to be water, if you hear

00:51:51.370 --> 00:51:56.490
police is coming, you go into a side
street. And often there are people who are

00:51:56.490 --> 00:51:59.890
not participating in the protests, like
personally directly, but to, for example,

00:51:59.890 --> 00:52:05.000
donate regular clothing. That's basically
clothes like any clothes that aren't

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.950
black. This was particularly like in the
summer when you had these mass protests,

00:52:09.950 --> 00:52:13.390
like people would just bring T-shirts into
metro stations. So people were often

00:52:13.390 --> 00:52:18.070
leaving with the last train. And so people
were just rushed to metro stations. You

00:52:18.070 --> 00:52:21.200
kind of like see people changing inside
streets to make sure they get out of those

00:52:21.200 --> 00:52:27.750
very recognizable black gear and to
essentially change into these clothes. So

00:52:27.750 --> 00:52:32.200
HongKongers have basically managed to
build the world's largest black block,

00:52:32.200 --> 00:52:38.420
which is another way of maintaining
anonymity.

00:52:38.420 --> 00:52:44.940
<i>Applause</i>
The government recognizes that this is a

00:52:44.940 --> 00:52:51.000
problem for them. And they tried in
October to address this by implementing a

00:52:51.000 --> 00:52:56.880
mask ban. So they're essentially like the
mask ban itself says that anyone who wears

00:52:56.880 --> 00:53:01.920
a mask at a lawful rally or a march or an
unlawful or unauthorized assembly or

00:53:01.920 --> 00:53:06.710
during a riot. So even if you go to a
peaceful protest, but you cover your face,

00:53:06.710 --> 00:53:10.849
you can be sentenced up to one year in
prison simply for trying to hide your

00:53:10.849 --> 00:53:16.829
face. This is a law that was implemented
under the emergency ordinance, which

00:53:16.829 --> 00:53:20.369
essentially is kind of like a national
security law that gives the government

00:53:20.369 --> 00:53:24.810
sweeping powers in particular emergency
situations. It is currently unclear to

00:53:24.810 --> 00:53:29.630
what extent this is constitutional. So
this mask ban has been challenged in court

00:53:29.630 --> 00:53:34.760
multiple times and it's currently still
making its way through the courts. But

00:53:34.760 --> 00:53:39.349
it's also possible that basically Beijing
might come in and say we have the ultimate

00:53:39.349 --> 00:53:43.180
right to interpret the Hong Kong basic
law. So we will say that this law has to

00:53:43.180 --> 00:53:46.589
be constitutional. So this is something
that we just need to wait out. But I think

00:53:46.589 --> 00:53:51.700
it's a sign where we can see that the
government wants to essentially limit

00:53:51.700 --> 00:53:54.940
people's ability to maintain their
anonymity. And people were really pissed

00:53:54.940 --> 00:53:58.309
at this. Like this was announced on a
Friday, just kind of like during the

00:53:58.309 --> 00:54:03.420
workday. And after like in the afternoon,
once people got off work, people went out

00:54:03.420 --> 00:54:07.550
on the streets like people were just like
turning up, like schoolchildren in the

00:54:07.550 --> 00:54:11.119
school uniforms, people in their office
clothing. Just everyone put on a mask and

00:54:11.119 --> 00:54:14.850
was like, we want to keep this right,
because that day at midnight, the mask ban

00:54:14.850 --> 00:54:18.579
was supposed to be implemented. So you had
less than 24 hours notice and it went into

00:54:18.579 --> 00:54:31.160
force the next day. Strategy five:
Division of Labor. This, again, is

00:54:31.160 --> 00:54:34.619
something that I think is very interesting
and uniquely Hong Kong, very uniquely Hong

00:54:34.619 --> 00:54:39.569
Kong, like the be water strategy. So there
is this idea climbing the hill in

00:54:39.569 --> 00:54:45.270
different ways. This is again a lesson
that people learn from through 2014,

00:54:45.270 --> 00:54:49.750
because post 2014 and also in 2014 itself,
one of the biggest weaknesses of the pro-

00:54:49.750 --> 00:54:53.970
democracy movement was that there was a
lot of internal division. People really

00:54:53.970 --> 00:54:59.040
disagreed over tactics and there were
fights over who was leading the movement

00:54:59.040 --> 00:55:03.640
and who should be listened to and what the
right strategy was. People have now kind

00:55:03.640 --> 00:55:08.300
of come to the opposite extreme. But
people are saying whatever you do,

00:55:08.300 --> 00:55:10.770
everyone is climbing the mountains.
Everyone's trying to get to the top and

00:55:10.770 --> 00:55:14.630
everyone's using their own ways of getting
there. And everyone's using their own

00:55:14.630 --> 00:55:21.849
their own path, essentially. Hence the
mountain imagery. I think one example that

00:55:21.849 --> 00:55:26.849
really illustrates this very clearly was a
person who's kind of like middle aged and

00:55:26.849 --> 00:55:30.450
works in the finance industry in Hong
Kong. So they're very well off, have

00:55:30.450 --> 00:55:34.799
profited from the system as it exists and
but also support the protests. And they

00:55:34.799 --> 00:55:38.490
said I did not get involved in the
protesters destructive actions and I would

00:55:38.490 --> 00:55:42.690
never. But I will try my best to give them
more support and delivering materials,

00:55:42.690 --> 00:55:48.250
donations and my presence. So you can see
that there's a very clear differentiation

00:55:48.250 --> 00:55:52.539
between the goal that people have and kind
of like the methods, like there's a lot of

00:55:52.539 --> 00:55:55.470
people who say, I disagree with those
methods, but essentially I will not

00:55:55.470 --> 00:56:01.089
undermine people who are working towards
our same goal – the five demands – in

00:56:01.089 --> 00:56:07.220
different ways. This is also something
that's notable because in 2016, violence

00:56:07.220 --> 00:56:12.369
was something that was condemned. I cannot
speak to that many other contexts but for

00:56:12.369 --> 00:56:15.710
example, in the US, where I study, and
similarly in Germany, once protesters use

00:56:15.710 --> 00:56:19.710
violence, even if it is just destruction
of things, often there is a lot of

00:56:19.710 --> 00:56:23.410
pushback and people say that has
delegitimized you. This is something that

00:56:23.410 --> 00:56:27.180
is not really working that well in Hong
Kong anymore. So there are clearly people

00:56:27.180 --> 00:56:30.920
who disagree with vandalism and also there
people who are against the protesters

00:56:30.920 --> 00:56:35.300
because of vandalism, that's very clear.
Based on the polls, I would say maybe 30,

00:56:35.300 --> 00:56:39.119
40 percent, but I'd have to check the
exact numbers. But there are a lot of

00:56:39.119 --> 00:56:42.529
people who say, even if I disagree with
you, I will still support you, because our

00:56:42.529 --> 00:56:56.480
overall goal is what is most important. <i>Applause</i>
I want to give two examples quickly of how

00:56:56.480 --> 00:57:03.120
this can work. So one example of this is
that people have gained an increasing

00:57:03.120 --> 00:57:06.470
economic understanding of how politics
works. So rather than saying we just want

00:57:06.470 --> 00:57:11.589
to change laws, there also say we need to
attack, for example, and we need to hold

00:57:11.589 --> 00:57:18.050
accountable companies that are supporting
the government and we need to make people

00:57:18.050 --> 00:57:24.180
and government supporting companies make
feel the pain for essentially their

00:57:24.180 --> 00:57:28.309
political support for them. So people have
started boycotting stores that don't

00:57:28.309 --> 00:57:31.420
support the protests. And again, this is
something that is all collected online

00:57:31.420 --> 00:57:36.119
where you have these incredible resources,
where you have entire maps. So, you know,

00:57:36.119 --> 00:57:38.790
you can make these custom Google Maps. So
there's custom Google Maps that tell you

00:57:38.790 --> 00:57:44.140
which stores in Hong Kong support the
protests. And there's entire lists for

00:57:44.140 --> 00:57:47.599
different sectors where, for example, like
for food, it says these stores are for us

00:57:47.599 --> 00:57:52.260
and these stores are against us. And one
of the people I spoke to was incredibly

00:57:52.260 --> 00:57:57.030
amazed at this. They're almost 40 years
old. They've lived in Hong Kong for a long

00:57:57.030 --> 00:58:02.470
time and were often very frustrated with
how unpolitical the city was. But they

00:58:02.470 --> 00:58:06.040
said now it's the exact opposite and
everything has become political. So they

00:58:06.040 --> 00:58:08.100
said wherever you get your lunch, where
you get your coffee, even what kind of

00:58:08.100 --> 00:58:11.579
public transport you take, everything is
now political and everything you use to

00:58:11.579 --> 00:58:16.150
show which political side you're on. And
the idea is really to essentially hurt

00:58:16.150 --> 00:58:19.910
stores that much that it becomes unviable
to be against the protest movement

00:58:19.910 --> 00:58:26.890
economically. Some people also use the
lists for essentially vandalism against

00:58:26.890 --> 00:58:30.390
stores. This is special. Been seen with,
for example, Starbucks because the people

00:58:30.390 --> 00:58:34.190
who own the Starbucks franchise in Hong
Kong have very vocally opposed the

00:58:34.190 --> 00:58:38.210
protests. And so in some cases, that means
also hurting them financially by throwing

00:58:38.210 --> 00:58:51.089
in windows. <i>Applause</i> Another example was the
same person who I spoke to had by the time I

00:58:51.089 --> 00:58:54.970
spoke to them a couple of weeks ago,
stopped going out to protests. And this

00:58:54.970 --> 00:58:59.599
really surprised me because I met them
during the protests in 2014. And I thought

00:58:59.599 --> 00:59:03.230
if there was one person who's middle aged
and who would still go out, then that's

00:59:03.230 --> 00:59:07.029
you – in terms of the people who I know –
but they were like, well, I decided that I

00:59:07.029 --> 00:59:10.750
have different skills and that my design
skills are something that I can use better

00:59:10.750 --> 00:59:14.480
in a different place. And so because at
the time, people were already working

00:59:14.480 --> 00:59:18.000
towards the district council elections and
they were still working, I don't know

00:59:18.000 --> 00:59:22.039
what, like 60 hour weeks or something
crazy. But they decided that they would

00:59:22.039 --> 00:59:25.500
start working with a campaign for one of
the local, for one of the people who was a

00:59:25.500 --> 00:59:28.710
candidate for the district council, who
was a person who had never been in

00:59:28.710 --> 00:59:34.030
politics before. And this interview was
like, well, I can help this person. I'm

00:59:34.030 --> 00:59:37.270
going to be able to help them get elected.
And so they went, essentially did social

00:59:37.270 --> 00:59:41.440
media and like a lot of campaigning or
designing for them. And that's kind of

00:59:41.440 --> 00:59:44.730
like a good sign. I think that's a good
example for the different types of effort

00:59:44.730 --> 00:59:50.140
that went into that district council
election victory as well. Right. So

00:59:50.140 --> 00:59:51.140
there's all these people who made a choice
that this is something that they care

00:59:51.140 --> 00:59:55.789
about and that again, they're all climbing
the mountain in different ways. And these

00:59:55.789 --> 01:00:00.019
people decided that their way is
supporting local politicians to get

01:00:00.019 --> 01:00:09.589
elected into the district councils. The
other thing is that this division of labor

01:00:09.589 --> 01:00:12.359
doesn't only happen in kind of like in
terms of what you choose that you're

01:00:12.359 --> 01:00:19.279
doing, but that's also an incredibly
sophisticated and very well defined

01:00:19.279 --> 01:00:22.540
division of labor. So this is kind of like
a representation of kind of what the

01:00:22.540 --> 01:00:25.990
movement is supposed to be like. So
there's this idea that like we're all Hong

01:00:25.990 --> 01:00:28.309
Kongers and we're all part of this
movement and it doesn't matter what we're

01:00:28.309 --> 01:00:31.210
doing, we're all part of the same thing.
And so that's kind of like a diversity

01:00:31.210 --> 01:00:35.380
that gets represented a lot. And that kind
of appears in a lot of protest art as

01:00:35.380 --> 01:00:42.130
well. The most distinctive group that
you've definitely seen are frontliners. So

01:00:42.130 --> 01:00:45.650
this is these are people who wear kind of
like the most recognizable uniform,

01:00:45.650 --> 01:00:49.490
they're all in black so they cannot be
identified, they wear gas masks to protect

01:00:49.490 --> 01:00:53.940
themselves against pepper spray and tear
gas, goggles for the same reason, hard

01:00:53.940 --> 01:01:01.680
hats, they often have gloves to be able to
grab teargas canisters that are being

01:01:01.680 --> 01:01:07.320
thrown at them. In some cases, they have
water bottles to extinguish the tear gas

01:01:07.320 --> 01:01:12.500
canisters to essentially avoid being
affected by the tear gas itself. And this

01:01:12.500 --> 01:01:16.140
is kind of like how you signal that
you're, sometimes they're called the

01:01:16.140 --> 01:01:19.930
Braves, but essentially, this is about as
radical as you can look as part of the

01:01:19.930 --> 01:01:22.460
Hong Kong protest movement. These are the
people who are going to be in clashes with

01:01:22.460 --> 01:01:26.730
police. You can see that one of them is
about to probably grab a brick. But these

01:01:26.730 --> 01:01:37.079
are frontliners. One particular type of
front liner are the – I'm missing the

01:01:37.079 --> 01:01:41.700
English word right now – basically there's
the people are supposed to extinguish

01:01:41.700 --> 01:01:49.269
fires usually. Firefighters, yes. Sorry.
Firefighters, except instead of fighting

01:01:49.269 --> 01:01:54.700
fire, they're fighting teargas and so on
the right, you can see someone from an

01:01:54.700 --> 01:01:59.040
incredibly iconic scene where someone used
like a metal tin that they usually use to

01:01:59.040 --> 01:02:03.490
steam fish and he like he extinguished the
teargas with water and then put the metal

01:02:03.490 --> 01:02:07.619
tin just on the teargas. And people were
making fun for like how protest ready

01:02:07.619 --> 01:02:14.740
people are just by having your regular
Chinese kitchen. On the left this is a

01:02:14.740 --> 01:02:18.180
reference to a strategy that people have
been using and where essentially they put

01:02:18.180 --> 01:02:23.269
a traffic cone on a tear gas canister the
moment like they find it. And so one

01:02:23.269 --> 01:02:27.599
person holds the traffic cone. One person
puts water in at the top to extinguish the

01:02:27.599 --> 01:02:31.420
tear gas. And then some cases, people also
put it into plastic bags that are full

01:02:31.420 --> 01:02:35.609
with water twisting or tear gas and in
some cases, throw it back at the police.

01:02:35.609 --> 01:02:38.849
And I think I have a video of this
happening, actually.

01:02:38.849 --> 01:03:15.680
<i>Video playing</i>
It's also you can see they didn't do this

01:03:15.680 --> 01:03:22.869
for the first time, right? So they've been
doing this for a while. It's sad in many

01:03:22.869 --> 01:03:26.200
ways that these are young people who have
to do that and who feel that it's like a

01:03:26.200 --> 01:03:29.539
thing that they need to do to be able to
be heard. But it's also something that was

01:03:29.539 --> 01:03:33.299
a video out of Chile a couple of weeks ago
where essentially Chilean protesters were

01:03:33.299 --> 01:03:36.609
using a similar strategy to extinguish
tear gas. And someone who was apparently

01:03:36.609 --> 01:03:40.140
from Chile posted it somewhere saying,
thank you, Hong Kong. So they clearly

01:03:40.140 --> 01:03:43.640
there's been some like, oh, let's see how
we can adopt these strategies for what's

01:03:43.640 --> 01:03:47.450
happening in Chile itself, which I think
is an important thing to look at as well,

01:03:47.450 --> 01:03:50.770
because in some ways, Hong Kongers have
learned from other places but also now

01:03:50.770 --> 01:03:53.260
people are looking at Hong Kong and
looking at these strategies and adopting

01:03:53.260 --> 01:04:00.130
them in other instances. Another important
group are peaceful protesters. I am very

01:04:00.130 --> 01:04:02.930
thankful that someone memed all of them,
all of the important group, so I have

01:04:02.930 --> 01:04:06.460
these like standard images that I can use.
And this is really the only thing that you

01:04:06.460 --> 01:04:10.440
kind of like need for a peaceful
protester. You just need a surgical mask,

01:04:10.440 --> 01:04:15.289
maybe a hat to protect your identity a bit
more. And that's it. You just need to go

01:04:15.289 --> 01:04:18.559
out in the street. These are the people
who frontliners in many ways feel like

01:04:18.559 --> 01:04:23.500
they're defending. When I was talking to a
few people who are still in high school

01:04:23.500 --> 01:04:26.990
and who essentially are frontliners and
who've been in clashes with the police

01:04:26.990 --> 01:04:30.259
directly and when I asked them why they're
doing it, they're saying I don't even know

01:04:30.259 --> 01:04:34.819
whether we can get our political aims, but
the very least I can do is I can be one

01:04:34.819 --> 01:04:38.020
more person who is there and when the
police advances, I'm going to be one more

01:04:38.020 --> 01:04:40.900
person who can make sure that the police
doesn't get to the peaceful protesters

01:04:40.900 --> 01:04:44.410
behind me, because they're not equipped to
deal with teargas and they're not equipped

01:04:44.410 --> 01:04:48.349
to deal with that pepper spray. So I will
be here and I will give them enough time

01:04:48.349 --> 01:05:02.019
so they can retreat and go home. But
there's a lot of kind of like lionization

01:05:02.019 --> 01:05:05.460
of frontliners because they're kind of
like the heroes of the movement, they're

01:05:05.460 --> 01:05:09.740
flashy heroes. But also everyone knows
that the movement is not going to succeed

01:05:09.740 --> 01:05:15.130
in any way, it wasn't be able to keep
going because just of frontliners, right.

01:05:15.130 --> 01:05:19.039
So peaceful protesters are essentially the
heart of the movement as well, the people

01:05:19.039 --> 01:05:23.390
who keep coming out in numbers. So there's
a lot of reminders that we all need to

01:05:23.390 --> 01:05:27.849
work together. This is kind of this idea,
we cannot be divided. So it goes back to

01:05:27.849 --> 01:05:31.309
this idea: we all climb the mountain in
different ways, right. So we are all

01:05:31.309 --> 01:05:35.539
important. And in both of these kind of
like pieces of art you can see now, right,

01:05:35.539 --> 01:05:38.630
you can see the recognizable frontliner on
the left in both cases because he has the

01:05:38.630 --> 01:05:42.630
hard hat and a bit more gear is kind of
like ready to get into a fight with the

01:05:42.630 --> 01:05:46.400
police. But next to the frontliner you in
both cases have someone who just put on a

01:05:46.400 --> 01:05:50.710
mask, maybe came straight from the office,
maybe straight from school. And those

01:05:50.710 --> 01:05:53.770
people are working together because if
only if you had only one of those, you

01:05:53.770 --> 01:06:05.289
probably wouldn't be able to keep going
for half a year. <i>Applause</i> Another group that I

01:06:05.289 --> 01:06:11.519
think is really interesting is logistics,
because people have now adopted all all

01:06:11.519 --> 01:06:14.180
these strategies to how they can kind of
like deal with the things that police is

01:06:14.180 --> 01:06:19.259
throwing at them. So a year ago or even
couple of months ago, teargas was still

01:06:19.259 --> 01:06:23.800
something that kind of like made people
leave and made people go away. A water

01:06:23.800 --> 01:06:26.829
cannon would scare people away, but people
have really adapted and teargas doesn't do

01:06:26.829 --> 01:06:31.990
that much in Hong Kong anymore, to be very
honest. One person who's 19 and who I talk

01:06:31.990 --> 01:06:34.671
to and was like, doesn't the teargas
stink. And they were like, well, the first

01:06:34.671 --> 01:06:44.760
time, yes, but then you get used to it and
you just keep going. And to do that, you

01:06:44.760 --> 01:06:47.960
need kind of all this gear, right? Like,
you need to be equipped. You need to have

01:06:47.960 --> 01:06:50.960
hardhats. You need to have all these
umbrellas. And so there are people kind of

01:06:50.960 --> 01:06:53.349
like in the background for collecting
material near a big protest sites where

01:06:53.349 --> 01:06:56.220
they know there will be protests and then
they're carrying them, kind of like in

01:06:56.220 --> 01:07:01.059
cartons. In some cases, they're collecting
different types of shields. And so when it

01:07:01.059 --> 01:07:04.000
comes to a clash with the police, they
make sure that stuff gets passed on to the

01:07:04.000 --> 01:07:07.029
front lines. I didn't include it in the
presentation, but there's incredible

01:07:07.029 --> 01:07:11.289
videos of, in some cases, maybe a
kilometer long human chain where you just

01:07:11.289 --> 01:07:15.390
have like tons of peaceful protesters,
like passing things on to make sure that

01:07:15.390 --> 01:07:18.650
things get to the people who were in the
clash with the police. And logistics are

01:07:18.650 --> 01:07:21.010
the people who make sure that the stuff is
around. It is kind of like at these

01:07:21.010 --> 01:07:25.990
collection points and is then given to the
people who really need it. It's also, one

01:07:25.990 --> 01:07:29.910
person I spoke to who does a lot of
logistics said I am not someone who would

01:07:29.910 --> 01:07:34.160
fight with the police in this movement,
but I still want to give some help. And so

01:07:34.160 --> 01:07:38.869
I decided to manage resources such as
medical resources or protest gear. And so

01:07:38.869 --> 01:07:41.590
medical resources, for example, might be
like saline solution, which you can use to

01:07:41.590 --> 01:07:46.860
wash people's eyes out if they have been
affected by pepper spray or teargas. And

01:07:46.860 --> 01:07:50.410
so this is someone who said, I am not a
frontliner and I'm not going to be part of

01:07:50.410 --> 01:07:55.930
that. But I will be right there. I think
these people are doing important work. I'm

01:07:55.930 --> 01:07:59.730
going to do exactly what I can within my
power to make sure that they have what

01:07:59.730 --> 01:08:12.440
they need. <i>Applause</i> First aiders are incredibly
important in the movement as well, because

01:08:12.440 --> 01:08:16.740
people have started to mistrust hospitals
a lot, because people are worried that the

01:08:16.740 --> 01:08:20.790
government might go and get their hospital
records. So if they get injured as part of

01:08:20.790 --> 01:08:25.160
a clash with police, that might include
getting beaten up by police. There've been

01:08:25.160 --> 01:08:28.520
people, there was one person who was shot
in the chest and who tried to run from the

01:08:28.520 --> 01:08:33.549
police, almost succeeded, but then was
arrested. But so if someone like that

01:08:33.549 --> 01:08:39.110
doesn't trust the hospitals, doesn't go to
a hospital, first aiders are the ones who

01:08:39.110 --> 01:08:42.730
are going to treat those injuries. So
these people are around and are visibly

01:08:42.730 --> 01:08:47.730
marked as first aiders and make sure that
people get as much medical treatment as

01:08:47.730 --> 01:08:52.400
they need to the extent that they're able
to. There was one incredibly hard

01:08:52.400 --> 01:08:56.250
situation for them, I think in November,
when people were occupying the Chinese

01:08:56.250 --> 01:08:59.550
University of Hong Kong. And there was a
real battle where you basically had a

01:08:59.550 --> 01:09:04.950
front line, like you kind of see it in
like movies where someone is trying to

01:09:04.950 --> 01:09:07.790
take in a castle or something like that,
right. So the real battle line where

01:09:07.790 --> 01:09:11.960
people kept getting hit and injured and
first aiders kept running in and out,

01:09:11.960 --> 01:09:15.030
grabbing people and carrying them to a big
sports field that was just full of injured

01:09:15.030 --> 01:09:23.770
people where they were treating all of
them. And all of these are volunteers.

01:09:23.770 --> 01:09:30.810
<i>applause</i>
There's more people in the background, and

01:09:30.810 --> 01:09:34.601
I could keep going about this, my friends
will be able to attest to the fact that I

01:09:34.601 --> 01:09:40.270
can talk about this for an hour or longer.
I think one other group of people that I

01:09:40.270 --> 01:09:44.500
wanted to quickly talk about are the
people who drive like the school buses.

01:09:44.500 --> 01:09:50.410
School buses are code for cars that go to
protest sites and pick people up. So for

01:09:50.410 --> 01:09:55.450
example, when the people were stuck, or
people were stuck at the airport, you

01:09:55.450 --> 01:09:58.950
could see that literally thousands of
Hongkongers grab their own cars and just

01:09:58.950 --> 01:10:03.270
drove out and said we will pick people up.
And so they post on Telegram and they say,

01:10:03.270 --> 01:10:07.790
hey, I'm a parent, I'm going to pick up my
children. I have space for three people

01:10:07.790 --> 01:10:13.410
<i>laughs</i> And then there's even there's
also code for. So this why used that image

01:10:13.410 --> 01:10:17.750
cause it's like the parents taking care of
the kids. It's a very, very wholesome

01:10:17.750 --> 01:10:23.871
imagery. And they have this, this code
essentially where they're saying: if you

01:10:23.871 --> 01:10:29.020
say that you have stationery in your car,
that means that you have clothes to change

01:10:29.020 --> 01:10:31.641
in. So if someone is wearing all black you
have some other clothes that they can

01:10:31.641 --> 01:10:36.140
change in. And so there's entire telegram
channels where just every post is just

01:10:36.140 --> 01:10:39.160
someone going from A to B. It says when
they're leaving, it says how much space

01:10:39.160 --> 01:10:46.120
they have. It also often says if there's a
female driver so people can feel safe. And

01:10:46.120 --> 01:10:49.161
to make sure that you don't get accidently
picked up by undercover cops people are

01:10:49.161 --> 01:10:53.540
maintaining an inofficial database of cars
that they've identified to undercover cop

01:10:53.540 --> 01:10:58.330
cars. And so there's a telegram bot. And
if you like, so these posters, once you

01:10:58.330 --> 01:11:01.980
have someone's license plate, you go to
the bot and you're like, is this a cop and

01:11:01.980 --> 01:11:13.340
the bot will tell you yes or no.
<i>applause</i>

01:11:13.340 --> 01:11:19.540
In addition to that you have thousands,
countless working groups where people are

01:11:19.540 --> 01:11:24.601
just kind of working around the clock.
This is an example of a PR translation

01:11:24.601 --> 01:11:32.370
working group that basically translated
this particular poster from originally

01:11:32.370 --> 01:11:35.590
Chinese into a bunch of languages, one of
them is German on the left, another is

01:11:35.590 --> 01:11:40.870
Korean on the right. And it says: Hong Kong
is facing a humanitarian crisis. What I

01:11:40.870 --> 01:11:43.470
think is interesting about this is that
some of these groups are basically working

01:11:43.470 --> 01:11:48.850
around the clock. So something happens in
Hong Kong during the day, by evening often

01:11:48.850 --> 01:11:52.300
protest art comes out that kind of like is
reframing an incident or is trying to

01:11:52.300 --> 01:11:56.910
explain what purchases did if they feel
like they need to explain themselves. And

01:11:56.910 --> 01:12:01.430
then when Hongkongers sleep, people who
live in Europe, but who many cases are

01:12:01.430 --> 01:12:05.120
still from Hong Kong and people who live
in the United States work through their

01:12:05.120 --> 01:12:11.500
evenings and through their mornings. So by
the time Hongkongers wake up, they often

01:12:11.500 --> 01:12:15.080
can have these messages in different
languages. And so this happened doing the

01:12:15.080 --> 01:12:19.530
airport protest, where on the 13th of the
morning, people just woke up and had

01:12:19.530 --> 01:12:22.840
posters in like ten different languages
that explain what was happened in Hong

01:12:22.840 --> 01:12:30.920
Kong, printed them and went to the airport
straight away at 8:00 a.m..

01:12:30.920 --> 01:12:34.810
<i>applause</i>
I want to share one more story, because I

01:12:34.810 --> 01:12:40.140
think this is really one of the most gut
wrenching examples of what people have

01:12:40.140 --> 01:12:43.910
been able to achieve just by cooperating
and also by being completely anonymous

01:12:43.910 --> 01:12:50.310
together, where during the Pope, Poly,
during the siege at the Polytechnic

01:12:50.310 --> 01:12:53.161
University, Hong Kong. So when hundreds of
people were stuck on that university and

01:12:53.161 --> 01:12:58.540
didn't want to go out. Suzanne Sataline
reported for Quartz that there was at

01:12:58.540 --> 01:13:02.000
least one person and probably more who
managed to get out from the university

01:13:02.000 --> 01:13:05.680
through the sewers. So this person went
down into the sewers, wading through

01:13:05.680 --> 01:13:10.510
probably knee, like kind of chest high
waste water, in the dark, not knowing

01:13:10.510 --> 01:13:13.700
where they were going. And then actually
were able to escape the university that

01:13:13.700 --> 01:13:18.730
way. Because they were talking to people
on telegram who had dug up maps of the

01:13:18.730 --> 01:13:22.180
Hong Kong sewage system and like directed
this person, they were telling them, this

01:13:22.180 --> 01:13:27.310
is where you go. You hit kind of like, you
hit like a crossroads and then you take a

01:13:27.310 --> 01:13:30.700
left, like this is where you take a right.
And then the last moment they actually,

01:13:30.700 --> 01:13:33.790
the plans were changed. And so they were
told, you cannot go to the exit we

01:13:33.790 --> 01:13:38.230
initially told you because we've seen
police there. Right? Telegram channels,

01:13:38.230 --> 01:13:40.750
again, like all of this comes back
together. And so they're watching police

01:13:40.750 --> 01:13:43.750
moving in that you can't go there. There's
police there. Instead, we need to send you

01:13:43.750 --> 01:13:47.250
to a different exit. So he goes to that
exit and there's someone there waiting for

01:13:47.250 --> 01:13:53.540
him who lifts, who lifts the lid, lets him
out of the fucking sewage system. And then

01:13:53.540 --> 01:13:57.100
there's people waiting for them there, a
"school bus" who grabs them and takes them

01:13:57.100 --> 01:14:00.710
somewhere else. And that's how he got out
of the university. And he still doesn't

01:14:00.710 --> 01:14:10.710
know any of those people. They're all
still strangers.

01:14:10.710 --> 01:14:16.310
<i>applause</i>
The strategy number 6, that I think is

01:14:16.310 --> 01:14:20.000
important, are counter narratives. So the
Hong Kong government and the Beijing

01:14:20.000 --> 01:14:23.660
government have a very clear framing for
what how they want to frame the entire

01:14:23.660 --> 01:14:27.000
protest, right. So they want to say these
are vandals, these are rioters, they have

01:14:27.000 --> 01:14:30.800
no legitimate demands, they just want to
destroy things, nothing about them is

01:14:30.800 --> 01:14:36.090
legitimate, or democratic, or politically
justified in any way. People realize that

01:14:36.090 --> 01:14:41.370
maybe memes are nice, but memes are maybe
not enough. So part of the movement,

01:14:41.370 --> 01:14:47.940
actually Kim, started creating a citizen's
press conference where people anonymously

01:14:47.940 --> 01:14:50.950
basically hold a press conference. And you
can see that press is coming there, right,

01:14:50.950 --> 01:14:55.130
because you have all the official mics.
And so all these new media outlets

01:14:55.130 --> 01:14:59.330
actually going there and talking to them.
In the background you have someone who's

01:14:59.330 --> 01:15:02.750
interpreting this into sign language.
Because they essentially know we need to,

01:15:02.750 --> 01:15:06.790
at least somehow, try to get control of
the narrative again ourselves to make sure

01:15:06.790 --> 01:15:15.200
there's not just a government who gets to
define what is happening. The last

01:15:15.200 --> 01:15:19.910
strategy that I want to talk about is
related to both counter narratives, but

01:15:19.910 --> 01:15:23.370
also to organizing and mobilizing, which
is the last thing that I want to talk

01:15:23.370 --> 01:15:28.580
about. So as an introduction to that, I
want to show you a video that in many ways

01:15:28.580 --> 01:15:33.110
I think demonstrates some of the capacity
that people have been able to build. What

01:15:33.110 --> 01:15:39.150
I'm going to show you is a protest
anthem called Glory for Hong Kong. As I

01:15:39.150 --> 01:15:41.980
said earlier, Hong Kong was a city that
was first under colonial rule by the

01:15:41.980 --> 01:15:48.080
British and is now under rule by China
without people really getting a choice at

01:15:48.080 --> 01:15:53.790
any point. And so in early September
people crowdsourced an anthem for the city

01:15:53.790 --> 01:15:58.900
online and someone composed it and
published it on September 11th. And

01:15:58.900 --> 01:16:39.940
several days later someone had arranged
for an orchestra. And right after that

01:16:39.940 --> 01:18:05.410
this video went online.
<i>Video plays (orchestra/choir)</i><i>applause</i>

01:18:05.410 --> 01:18:09.250
I think everyone who is interested in the
meaning of that song, I would recommend

01:18:09.250 --> 01:18:12.420
that you go and read Vivienne Chow's
article about it in The New York Times

01:18:12.420 --> 01:18:16.730
because she wrote from a musical and
cultural perspective about what it meant

01:18:16.730 --> 01:18:20.020
for her to have grown up in a city where
there was never a song that she identified

01:18:20.020 --> 01:18:23.000
with. And for this to be the first time,
that was kind of like an anthem for what

01:18:23.000 --> 01:18:30.230
she considers her home. So I would
recommend you all go and read that. In the

01:18:30.230 --> 01:18:32.470
long term a lot of the strategies that
I've talked about have been able to

01:18:32.470 --> 01:18:36.271
sustain the movement and have been able to
help people and individuals avoid arrest

01:18:36.271 --> 01:18:40.431
in the short term. But the question is how
sustainable this entire movement is in the

01:18:40.431 --> 01:18:46.700
long run. I think the orchestra it's like
a fun, they call themselves Black

01:18:46.700 --> 01:18:53.140
Blorchestra, by the way. It's a fun
example of how people can just get tons of

01:18:53.140 --> 01:18:56.470
people together and suddenly come up with
an entire orchestra and fund that entire

01:18:56.470 --> 01:19:00.780
thing with like pretty good production
value, I just downloaded a shitty version.

01:19:00.780 --> 01:19:04.890
But, so that's happening, right, people
are building all these groups, building

01:19:04.890 --> 01:19:08.180
all these new ties. A lot of times they
building these ties with people who they

01:19:08.180 --> 01:19:12.740
don't know and who are anonymous to them.
But in a lot of other cases, one person

01:19:12.740 --> 01:19:16.540
who I spoke to said that essentially
they've started exercising together as a

01:19:16.540 --> 01:19:22.330
neighborhood because he says that we
cannot trust the police to save us. And if

01:19:22.330 --> 01:19:24.310
someone from the government comes to
attack us we want to be able to defend

01:19:24.310 --> 01:19:28.570
ourselves. So then he's also like
organizing this in kind of like small

01:19:28.570 --> 01:19:32.120
neighborhood groups. So there's all these
people who have lived in an anonymous

01:19:32.120 --> 01:19:36.140
major metropolis for years and probably
barely talk to each other, but who now

01:19:36.140 --> 01:19:40.140
basically getting together and starting to
do things together and trying to keep

01:19:40.140 --> 01:19:44.440
these things going to protect themselves.
Another thing is that there has been a

01:19:44.440 --> 01:19:50.230
push for building and creating unions. So
labor unions, more than 24 have been

01:19:50.230 --> 01:19:55.180
formed its entire year across a range of
sectors. There were several attempts at

01:19:55.180 --> 01:19:59.000
organizing strikes in Hong Kong over the
summer and a lot of those weren't very

01:19:59.000 --> 01:20:03.001
successful because people still went to
work in many cases. But so people are

01:20:03.001 --> 01:20:06.750
essentially organizing more long term and
trying to get people to join unions, so

01:20:06.750 --> 01:20:14.270
they have organizing capacity for the long
run. And again, this is a picture from the

01:20:14.270 --> 01:20:18.230
district council elections. It's
incredibly important to recognize the

01:20:18.230 --> 01:20:23.680
organizational capacity that went into the
elections. There are all these people out

01:20:23.680 --> 01:20:27.770
there now that know how to mobilize and
have now partaken in like a political

01:20:27.770 --> 01:20:31.750
campaign and the electoral campaign and
all of that is knowledge that now exists

01:20:31.750 --> 01:20:35.460
amongst young people, amongst older
people. And all of these are organizations

01:20:35.460 --> 01:20:43.560
and things that hopefully people will be
able to build on in the long run. So what

01:20:43.560 --> 01:20:47.520
next? I think it's important to recognize
that what people have been able to do in

01:20:47.520 --> 01:20:51.930
Hong Kong is incredible from an
organizational capacity and also has meant

01:20:51.930 --> 01:20:55.610
that people have given up a lot. In many
cases. And people have gone broke, there

01:20:55.610 --> 01:20:58.100
are young people who have been kicked out
of their homes by their parents because

01:20:58.100 --> 01:21:01.900
they don't see eye to eye politically.
Some people have just spent all their

01:21:01.900 --> 01:21:06.720
money on protest gear. Other people are
facing charges of up to 10 years in

01:21:06.720 --> 01:21:09.440
prison. And because of the incredible
backlog, might not know for a very long

01:21:09.440 --> 01:21:14.390
time what's going to happen. People are
scared of the police. And so one big

01:21:14.390 --> 01:21:17.960
question is how things will be able to
keep going. And I think one thing that if

01:21:17.960 --> 01:21:20.860
you talk to someone from Hong Kong who was
part of the protest movement and that's

01:21:20.860 --> 01:21:25.100
also incredibly important to recognize
that everyone in Hong Kong, both, also

01:21:25.100 --> 01:21:28.040
people on both sides, right. Like everyone
in Hong Kong, these are people and these

01:21:28.040 --> 01:21:32.750
are not people who are just kind of like
acting out like a geopolitical game, like

01:21:32.750 --> 01:21:36.130
risk or something, but these are real
people there who are really going to the

01:21:36.130 --> 01:21:43.040
limits in many cases. More specifically
there is a rally planned and announced for

01:21:43.040 --> 01:21:48.280
January 1st. They're still waiting for
their letter of no objection, which means

01:21:48.280 --> 01:21:52.750
they don't know yet whether it will be a
legal rally or not. And so this is really

01:21:52.750 --> 01:21:55.520
going to be them trying, their movement
trying to show that they're going to be

01:21:55.520 --> 01:22:02.180
able to keep going through 2020 and maybe
longer. The unrest and discontent is not

01:22:02.180 --> 01:22:06.080
going to go away. I think that's very
clear. So many people have been

01:22:06.080 --> 01:22:10.410
politicized over the past few months and
so many people have lost trust in their in

01:22:10.410 --> 01:22:13.410
their government and in very fundamental
institutions such as hospitals and the

01:22:13.410 --> 01:22:18.050
police. And that's something that's not
just going to go away because that's going

01:22:18.050 --> 01:22:22.700
to be a problem that will haunt the
government for a long time to come.

01:22:22.700 --> 01:22:26.040
Especially remember that number, almost a
hundred percent of people under 16 oppose

01:22:26.040 --> 01:22:30.120
the extradition bill and those people are
deeply involved, incredibly politicized.

01:22:30.120 --> 01:22:34.420
And so, if anything, the people who are
coming up are more anti government, are

01:22:34.420 --> 01:22:40.580
more willing to go protest than anyone
who's already out in the streets. The

01:22:40.580 --> 01:22:45.080
things things that you can do. Go and
follow Hong Kong journalists and support

01:22:45.080 --> 01:22:49.640
them. If you're on Twitter, Laurel Chor
and Hong Kong hermit, I've linked both of

01:22:49.640 --> 01:22:54.330
them, have Twitter lists where you can
follow local journalists who've been

01:22:54.330 --> 01:22:57.430
living in Hong Kong, who grew up in the
city, who have been reporting on the

01:22:57.430 --> 01:23:01.330
protests for months, in some cases for
years. A lot of these people have already

01:23:01.330 --> 01:23:04.331
reported on the Umbrella Revolution. So go
and follow those people because they

01:23:04.331 --> 01:23:07.740
essentially have the best information.
They speak the language and they will be

01:23:07.740 --> 01:23:13.270
able to report firsthand. And you'll also
run into those crazy livestream web sites.

01:23:13.270 --> 01:23:16.580
You should also follow and donate to Hong
Kong Free Press, which is an independent

01:23:16.580 --> 01:23:20.310
media outlet, was formed after the
umbrella protests. And it's been doing

01:23:20.310 --> 01:23:23.410
some incredible coverage. They hired a
really good photographer who took a bunch

01:23:23.410 --> 01:23:27.750
of the pictures that you saw here. And she
also was arrested by police at some point

01:23:27.750 --> 01:23:36.120
for participating in a riot. So, yeah, go
do that, follow those people. This is a

01:23:36.120 --> 01:23:40.080
story that is not over and it will not be
over anytime soon. And so the only thing I

01:23:40.080 --> 01:23:43.080
can tell you is to go to the source and
listen to the people who are right on the

01:23:43.080 --> 01:23:49.860
ground. Last but not least: I can only
speak about things that pertain to China,

01:23:49.860 --> 01:23:54.620
because that's my area of expertise or in
this case, Hong Kong. But this has been a

01:23:54.620 --> 01:23:57.540
year with a lot of protest movements all
over the world. And Hong Kongers are by

01:23:57.540 --> 01:24:02.010
far from the only people who went onto the
streets at great, immense personal risk to

01:24:02.010 --> 01:24:07.050
stand up to their governments. In India,
in student protests against an anti-Muslim

01:24:07.050 --> 01:24:11.730
exclusion law, I think 17 or 20 people
were killed in the past few weeks and the

01:24:11.730 --> 01:24:14.750
Iraqi government just gunned down
protesters that went out to protest for

01:24:14.750 --> 01:24:20.520
political rights. People have been
protesting in Chile, in Iran, in Syria

01:24:20.520 --> 01:24:25.830
and a bunch of places. And those things
might not be as well covered necessarily

01:24:25.830 --> 01:24:29.560
as Hong Kong. I certainly don't read about
them as much, but that's also my personal

01:24:29.560 --> 01:24:33.580
interest. But I would encourage you, I
think if you care about the things that

01:24:33.580 --> 01:24:36.640
people are doing in Hong Kong that they're
trying to achieve, I would urge you to

01:24:36.640 --> 01:24:41.350
inform yourself about the things that are
happening in other places as well. And in

01:24:41.350 --> 01:24:44.910
a lot of cases, people who are in these
places recognize that they stand for

01:24:44.910 --> 01:24:46.950
similar things, right? They want their
governments to listen to them and they

01:24:46.950 --> 01:24:52.020
want to be represented. On the left, you
have a grafitti from Lebanon, where in the

01:24:52.020 --> 01:24:55.690
middle you can see the Hong Kong slogan,
five demands, not one less, in Chinese,

01:24:55.690 --> 01:24:59.480
stenciled on the wall. And on the left and
the right, you have Iraqi and Lebanese

01:24:59.480 --> 01:25:03.620
protest slogans that called for the for
all corrupt government officials to

01:25:03.620 --> 01:25:08.870
resign, regardless of which ethnic and
religious faction they're part of. Whereas

01:25:08.870 --> 01:25:12.730
on the right you have a protest poster
from someone from Hong Kong who just lists

01:25:12.730 --> 01:25:18.040
all the protests that they say we're
fighting for the same thing. We're

01:25:18.040 --> 01:25:20.500
fighting for freedom and justice. And so
we we should feel like we're part of the

01:25:20.500 --> 01:25:24.870
same thing. And so I just want to urge you
that if you care about any of these

01:25:24.870 --> 01:25:30.080
things, then you should probably care
about it in more than one place. Thank you.

01:25:30.080 --> 01:25:58.700
<i>applause, exclamation</i>

01:25:58.700 --> 01:26:02.210
Herald (H): Thank you, Katharin. I don't
know if I told you, but I asked for this

01:26:02.210 --> 01:26:05.890
shift specifically because of your talk.
K: Thank you. <i>lauthing</i>

01:26:05.890 --> 01:26:12.380
H: It was everything I expected and more.
So we have time for two or three

01:26:12.380 --> 01:26:16.880
questions. Go take one question from the
Internet, because there is a lot of people

01:26:16.880 --> 01:26:22.890
who couldn't make it.
Signal Angel: Yeah. So it seems that

01:26:22.890 --> 01:26:31.290
Telegram is a used a lot during protests.
And one of the IRC users mentions that

01:26:31.290 --> 01:26:36.850
it's centralized and asks if there were
any problems with this centralized and

01:26:36.850 --> 01:26:42.570
controlled thing and if they are attempts
to move this to decentralized

01:26:42.570 --> 01:26:48.380
communication solutions.
K: Thank you. So I think. Oh, I just saw

01:26:48.380 --> 01:26:56.220
that I misspelled MIT in my email. That's
very smart. Um. <i>laughter</i> The telegram question is

01:26:56.220 --> 01:27:00.770
important. So Telegram has actually come
under DDOS attacks for multiple times. The

01:27:00.770 --> 01:27:03.670
first time was in the summer and there was
another time later like a couple of weeks

01:27:03.670 --> 01:27:09.170
ago. So that shows clearly that Telegram
is a vulnerability in some ways, right? In

01:27:09.170 --> 01:27:12.250
the summer after the DDOS attack, Telegram
said that they think it was a nation state

01:27:12.250 --> 01:27:18.000
actor just based on the volume of the DDOS
attack. So that is kind of like a point of

01:27:18.000 --> 01:27:24.950
vulnerability. In reaction to that and
another DDOS attack on LHKG, there was

01:27:24.950 --> 01:27:28.640
some discussions of moving to other
platforms, but those ultimately didn't pan

01:27:28.640 --> 01:27:33.500
out. So I think organizationally it is
probably not ideal to be working on a

01:27:33.500 --> 01:27:37.870
centralized platform. But the crucial
question is whether you have alternatives

01:27:37.870 --> 01:27:42.091
that people can get on easily, because
you're organizing so many people and you

01:27:42.091 --> 01:27:46.230
really want like the smallest amount of
friction possible. And I think that is the

01:27:46.230 --> 01:27:50.250
biggest challenge. So the more kind of
like proposals for using different apps

01:27:50.250 --> 01:27:53.570
that, for example, work without Internet
for the worst case scenario, that the

01:27:53.570 --> 01:27:57.610
government might switch up the Internet in
Hong Kong. But my read is that those

01:27:57.610 --> 01:28:00.721
ultimately didn't pan out because those
are not necessarily apps that people are

01:28:00.721 --> 01:28:04.840
used to that might not be as easy to use.
And also because there is kind of like an

01:28:04.840 --> 01:28:10.280
institutional stickiness. So I think it
would probably take some kind of disaster

01:28:10.280 --> 01:28:14.970
like either Telegram getting blocked or
taken down in Hong Kong or kind of like

01:28:14.970 --> 01:28:17.880
being completely taken down by DDOS attack
for people to actually switch to another

01:28:17.880 --> 01:28:21.730
platform. So I think there I agree it's
when I started from a security

01:28:21.730 --> 01:28:25.340
perspective, it's probably not ideal. But
their biggest challenge is the kind of the

01:28:25.340 --> 01:28:28.800
organizational challenge of getting people
to move wholesale to completely different

01:28:28.800 --> 01:28:33.710
platform.
H: Thank you. And now one question from

01:28:33.710 --> 01:28:40.200
the audience. Microphone number three.
It's the last question. So make it count.

01:28:40.200 --> 01:28:45.730
Q: That's a lot of responsibility. But I
really wanted to ask about police

01:28:45.730 --> 01:28:54.040
brutality. You mentioned that people were
surprised by police brutality. But how can

01:28:54.040 --> 01:29:00.670
it be a surprise. So it's only new police
force from continental China whom became

01:29:00.670 --> 01:29:05.440
suddenly brutal or people were not paying
attention or was police brainwashed?

01:29:05.440 --> 01:29:11.100
K: Thank you. That's a good question. And
I don't think we have absolute answers to

01:29:11.100 --> 01:29:14.850
this. The reason people were surprised is
that the Hong Kong police force used to

01:29:14.850 --> 01:29:18.660
have an incredibly good reputation as a
police force that was very reasonable and

01:29:18.660 --> 01:29:22.870
appropriate in its use of force. And
that's clearly a reputation that's

01:29:22.870 --> 01:29:27.090
completely gone down the drain over the
past few months. The thing about police

01:29:27.090 --> 01:29:30.850
coming in from China is something there
are repeated reports, but they're always

01:29:30.850 --> 01:29:35.540
incidental. And I haven't really seen any
large scale verified reports that there

01:29:35.540 --> 01:29:39.780
was any like major influx of mainland
police officers into the Hong Kong police.

01:29:39.780 --> 01:29:44.770
So it's probably not that. I think one
thing that people observed after the

01:29:44.770 --> 01:29:48.180
Umbrella Movement was that there was kind
of like a siege mentality within the

01:29:48.180 --> 01:29:51.930
police itself so that they kind of felt
like they were being assaulted by the

01:29:51.930 --> 01:29:55.870
entirety of society. So it's possible that
that was kind of like kind of like the

01:29:55.870 --> 01:30:00.810
formation of like increasingly strictly
drawn lines and camps where the police

01:30:00.810 --> 01:30:03.760
felt like they're under assault from
everyone else and that they're justified

01:30:03.760 --> 01:30:07.940
in using force. Which might be one of the
explanations why they've also been so

01:30:07.940 --> 01:30:12.670
opposed to kind of like an independent
investigation. In addition to that,

01:30:12.670 --> 01:30:18.220
another thing is that they've also been
completely operating at capacity. So we

01:30:18.220 --> 01:30:23.450
know that they've paid, I think, 900
million Hong Kong dollars to something an

01:30:23.450 --> 01:30:27.820
absurd amount in overtime pay to the
police. So I think one thing is also that

01:30:27.820 --> 01:30:31.270
these are people who in many cases are not
trained in dealing with the events that

01:30:31.270 --> 01:30:34.260
they're supposed to be dealing with. And
so it seems that they are possibly

01:30:34.260 --> 01:30:39.240
reacting by lashing out and in more
violent ways than like would probably be

01:30:39.240 --> 01:30:41.580
appropriate. So it might just also be a
lack of training, but there's no

01:30:41.580 --> 01:30:43.741
definitive answer.
H: Thank you

01:30:43.741 --> 01:30:47.430
K: Thanks
H: Katherin Tai, who has been heroically

01:30:47.430 --> 01:30:52.180
standing here for 90 minutes talking
nonstop, which is hard! So, people, a huge

01:30:52.180 --> 01:30:53.470
round of applause.

01:30:53.470 --> 01:30:54.470
<i>applause</i>

01:30:54.470 --> 01:30:57.870
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01:30:57.870 --> 01:31:26.000
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