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Now in its twentieth week with no end in sight Hong Kongs unrest rages on. China has banned all exports of black clothing into Hong Kong (black is the color of choice for protesters). Organizer and convener of the Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF) Jimmy Sham was recently hospitalized due to an assault by four masked men with knives and hammers who later fled in a private car. Weekly protesters attack businesses that have ties to mainland China (like Huawei and Starbucks) or those in support of the local government and police. Chaotic disruptions in the Legislative Council of Hong Kong ensue daily. Crackdowns leading to suppression of students in high schools and universities are commonplace occurrences. Most average citizens young and old have turned against all levels of leadership and authority leading to anarchy.
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What you might not have read from mainstream media though is the ugly truth driving the rampage and mayhem. Theres a common thread uniting local Hongkongers violent and peaceful alike. Racist and xenophobic hatred for mainland Chinese are the ultimate driving force behind the angry five-month-long protests in Hong Kong. For years Ive been talking and writing about how most young Hongkongers have a strong resentment and prejudice for the mainland Chinese (like my wife who is from Guilin China) but my thoughts and concerns were always dismissed or ignored because Im a white man from Texas." The factual reality is though that
daily life in Hong Kong for most mainland Chinese is becoming more insufferable and oftentimes dehumanizing as the protests continue.
In the United States you mostly hear/read how many white Americans are vile racists (mostly for arguing valid political points against opposing views which in the end has little to do with ones actual race). In Hong Kong however
these specific forms of racism and xenophobia (similar to what we are seeing in
South Africa) have far more to do with ethnicity and race than simply the difference between Communism and Democracy. No one can argue that theres a pro-democracy element to these protests. But there has been an upswing in anti-Chinese aggression with many protesters associating Beijing with Nazi Germany and spray-painting
Chinazi" all over buildings and streets in the worlds financial hub.
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Hongkongers becoming more openly violent towards ethnic Chinese living and working in Hong Kong is nothing new nor has it ever been a secret. Recently while returning from lunch at midday
an employee of J.P. Morgan was verbally abused and viciously attacked outside his office. In the citys business center the banker was punched in the face after he shouted in Mandarin We are all Chinese!"
This young generation of Hongkongers dont think so and most mainlanders are forced to speak only in English to avoid instant assaults on the streets or in subway trains. As a result of extreme violence the Mass Transit Railway has been shutting down early every night for the last few weeks as a kind of indirect
city-wide curfew and
many stations have been forced to close because of severe destruction.
Just to be safe my wife has decided to order her lunches and eat inside her office for the last few months. One morning when she went for coffee with colleagues at a local
Starbucks in her office building eight or nine protesters clad in black shirts and masks walked in shouting political slogans and throwing napkins and condiments into the air ransacking the shop in under a few minutes. Like Starbucks so many other staple businesses in Hong Kong are being
attacked and destroyed due to their business links to Chinese companies on the mainland. Hong Kong has become a danger zone with many protesters calling the anti-government
protests a war." Except for police officers suiting up in riot gear each night daily police protection in the city has become non-existent.
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Hong Kongs Police Headquarters (Photo by CG FEWSTON)/caption
For my last novel
A Time to Love in Tehran I heavily researched and wrote about Iran in the 1970s and how university students rioted for years before finally overthrowing the Shah and the Iranian monarchy in 1979. What is happening in Hong Kong is no different.
Years ago as a Visiting Fellow in my university classes I so often heard local Hong Kong students
openly tell mainland Chinese students to go back to China" or to shut up and speak English." These eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds (and some much younger) that I once taught are now the primary driving force behind the last four months of protests. If these young Hongkongers had it their way they would have every last Chinese mainlander and every last Chinese-linked business thrown out of Hong Kong creating a sort of Free Democratic Canton Utopia.
Living in Asia has awakened my eyes and taught me many things about other cultures; one of which is how most Asians in Asia are often far more openly and proudly racist and violent because of ethnicity or race compared to a majority of white Americans in the United States. Most South Koreans think they are above Chinese and Japanese. Most Vietnamese think they are above Filipinos. Most Singaporeans think they are above all other Asians because Singaporeans do not feel they are Asian" at all. And Hongkongers feel they are above the mainland Chinese. Sad but these are facts of life in Asia. Honestly I knew nothing of true racism until I moved to Asia.
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Racism and xenophobia are not problems created by white people as many immigrants and refugees in America claim; racism and xenophobia are human problems. Most minorities who come from Asian countries suffer racist abuse from other Asians their whole lives and when they immigrate to the United States they transition with all those same internal fears and reactions. Once empowered with the golden-democratic tool called freedom of speech" (so often misused to insult good hard working Americans) they feel the old anger rising from the past and project it as C.G. Jung once described upon others:
All the contents of our unconscious are constantly being projected into our surroundings and it is only by recognizing certain properties of the objects as projections or imagos that we are able to distinguish them from the real properties of the objects. …
Cum grano salis we always see our own unavowed mistakes in our opponent. Excellent examples of this are to be found in all personal quarrels. Unless we are possessed of an unusual degree of self-awareness we shall never see through our projections but must always succumb to them because the mind in its natural state presupposes the existence of such projections. It is the natural and given thing for unconscious contents to be projected" (from
General Aspects of Dream Psychology 1916).
In earnest truth if one experiences racism from others in Asia and then comes to America then of course theyll bring that form of racism with them and then psychologically project it onto others who have no direct or indirect intention of racism at all.
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Without question the Hong Kong protests have sucked the world into a frenetic energy. Violent protests in Chile Ecuador France Indonesia Lebanon Papua New Guinea South Africa and Spain captivate audiences and highlight growing grievances among locals in their respective regions. Even the National Basketball Association and its fans are divided on Hong Kong.
Hong Kong however is teaching everyone around the world that racism" and xenophobia" arent problems created by white people; racism and xenophobia are vastly complicated human problems" and until we as human beings begin to better understand this we will not evolve and we will not be deserving of world peace.
C.G. Fewston is an American novelist a former visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome (Italy) and visiting fellow at City University in Hong Kong. His novel
A Time to Love in Tehran was published in 2015. Hes also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) based in London. He has a B.A. in English an M.Ed. in Higher Education Leadership (honors) an M.A. in Literature (honors) from Stony Brook University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Fiction from Southern New Hampshire University. You can follow him
on Facebook @cg.fewston where he has over 420000 followers.
