XPost: soc.culture.china, soc.culture.usa, soc.culture.hongkong   
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   XPost: soc.culture.latin-america   
   From: acoustic@panix.com   
      
   In article <98f71a02-7e99-42d2-9ac9-5eafc7b19ed0@googlegroups.com>,   
   bmoore   wrote:   
   >On Wednesday, October 1, 2014 1:48:19 PM UTC-7, rst9 wrote:   
   >>   
   >> They didn't have this freedom under the British.   
   >   
   >You missed the point again. They had many freedoms under the British   
   >such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, etc. They fear that   
   >these freedoms are being eroded.   
      
   Freedom of the press?   
      
   For the 99% of the newspaper readership, it was pro-communist papers   
   versus pro-Chiang-Kei-Shek papers.  Just as in the Middle East and in   
   the Asian sub-continent, the Brits loved to sow contention among the   
   people under its rule.  It served the colonialist purpose to keep the   
   people fighting among themselves as opposed to uniting themselves   
   against the occupiers.   
      
   So, freedom of the press in HK, to the extent that it existed, was   
   just the Brits' cunning way of exploiting an existing weakness of the   
   refugee enclave - that was the extent of HK's importance for half a   
   century in the 20th century.   
      
   In fact, the freedom of press led to several significant bouts of   
   unrest in which pro-communists fought pro-Chiang "nationalists".   
      
   These fights were in fact responsible for large numbers of immigrants   
   to the West, among those who had the money to immigrate.   
      
   Freedom of speech?   
      
   It's a joke.  What you say has consequences.  If you're pro-communist,   
   you have to keep it in your heart or you lose your job.  The Brits   
   don't offer jobs.  The businesses and the churches are the sources of   
   jobs.  Even government subsidized institutions are very careful not to   
   retain employees who might be seen as political activists or "trouble   
   makers" because they might cause the Brits to cancel their aid.   
      
   So, a pro-communist worker's school might chronically suffer a   
   shortage of aid quotas for their teachers - that also directly   
   influences the quality of the education the workers' children received   
   since the teachers need money to feed their families and would have to   
   take jobs elsewhere instead.  These children were penalized for their   
   parents being workers who couldn't afford to send them to a more   
   expensive school or who espoused socialist views, which were naturally   
   for many workers, everywhere in the world.   
      
   So when even children are penalized for their parents political view,   
   what kind of freedom did HK have?   
      
   In my Christian-church sponsored school, we never spoke freely about   
   our thoughts, nor those of our parents.  Nor did the teachers talk   
   about their political thoughts.  Everything was in a hush-hush state.   
   You could read a particular paper but you didn't talk about it.   
      
   Hong Kong, if it had any freedom under the British rule, it was skin   
   deep and not worth mentioning.   
      
   lo yeeOn   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)