The holiday season purge of June 4 memorials at campuses continues with the removal of a ‘Goddess of Democracy’ figure from Chinese U campus, and the ’clearance’ of the vivid relief at Lingnan U (pics). (Full report.) How does the boss at M+ feel?
An HKFP op-ed by Louisa Lim…
…the ultimate motive for this move may not be so much coerced amnesia as the abasement of yet another of Hong Kong’s proud institutions.
She wrote the book on this, but I suspect coerced amnesia does have a lot to do with it.
An explainer from AP on the ‘Pillar of Shame’.
If you liked yesterday’s quote from the Tsinghua guy on Hong Kong’s ‘improved’ elections (‘more broadly representative, politically inclusive, ensuring balanced participation, guaranteeing fair competition’), you’ll enjoy today’s spin on the 30% turnout from the Liaison Office deputy head…
A Beijing official said Sunday’s Legislative Council elections showed that Hong Kong is embarking upon the path of “good-quality democracy”, adding that more than 1.3 million people who cast their ballots have given foreign forces who tried to undermine the polls a “slap in their face”.
Speaking at a seminar on Thursday, the deputy head of the liaison office, Chen Dong, said rationality was brought back to the elections which had been highly-politicised.
The only good elections are de-politicized elections!
An HKFP op-ed on the all-patriots LegCo’s lack of connection with the community…
…most of the new Legco members do not have networks beyond their social class and their narrow circle of business and professional chums.
Not sure why people keep calling dimwit shoe-shiners ‘elites’. Even calling them ‘insiders’ would be a stretch (let alone ‘heavyweights’). The CCP did not pick them for their superior critical-thinking skills or other talents – and that includes the ‘non-pro-establishment’ one.
Among the Hong Kong government’s many contributions to the field of bullshit jobs is the Tourist Commission (I would guess these people are all paid over HK$1 million a year each). The body is finally putting to rest the Food-cum-Truck Hub-Zone Themed Concept Bureaucratic Hairball Scheme, which was aimed at ‘adding fun and vibrancy’, but mysteriously failed.
Some more happy-holidays reading…
The Art Newspaper on that Dior photo that ‘hurt the feelings’.
From ASPI, a detailed examination of the Peng Shuai ‘proof of life’ videos.
And a music vid – maybe not everyone’s cup of tea – Moses Sumney’s Blackalachia.
Here’s a possible DSE exam question.
“Look at the photograph below. The image of the removal of the HKU Tiananmen statue is a secular version of the statues and paintings of the Deposition of Christ. Discuss.”
Even The Atlantic chimes in…
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/11/pillar-of-shame-tiananmen-square-massacre-symbol/620810/
Oops. The Atlantic’s article is from last month. They just chose to re-run it in commemoration of the removal.
Memo to HKU’s PR department – your cock-and-bull story about safety issues would be a lot more believable if the removal of the Pillar of Shame was not apparently coordinated with the near-simultaneous removal of Tiananmen-related artworks from two other local university campuses. Or perhaps they were all unsafe?
Two Nights
Late one night in June
The soldiers, shooting, came.
One night in December
They downed the Pillar of Shame
And wrapped it like a corpse.
Beijing, dimly lit,
Could not hide the fact.
Here, the University
Behaved with perfect tact,
Prudently, without force.
Bodies removed. The Nation
Joined the Super-Powers.
Here, the clock is tolling
Hong Kong’s fading hours.
Yet another loss.
In a move likely to anger China, I call on all my fellow Hongkongers to ignore/ boycott the West Kowloon Cultural Hub Zone M+ White Elephant. Pretend it does not exist, now, in the near future and the distant future. Leave it to those “other” people, like the oh-so-pro China industrialists, Henry Tang, the DAB uncles, Mark Peaker of the Peak, Vagina Ip and Christine Loh.
Actually, thinking about it further, doesn’t it remind one of a spider’s prey wrapped up in a cocoon, ready to have its vital juices sucked out later?
Thoreau + Prince + Bakunin = Moses Sumney. A thoughful and thought-provoking chap:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHmIMNK3HFg
‘…the destruction of the story means the destruction of a basic instrument of human knowledge and self- knowledge. Totalitarian nihilisation denies people the possibility of actually observing and understanding that process ‘from outside’. There are only two alternatives: either you experience it directly, or you know nothing about it. This menace permits no reports of itself.’
– Vaclav Havel