Hong Kong Visitor

​"Peace is strongly correlated to freedom, the freedom of choosing the topic to discuss and the freedom of not being forced to think about politics all the time". Such words were coming from a nice visitor of the Peace Museum Vienna coming from Hong Kong.
Talking with this man I was astonished by the way he recognised himself as a Chinese who cannot look back or relate to his home country, its history and its culture. The way in which Communism interfered with Chinese History and Politics was for him one of the most severe cuts between mainland China and Hong Kong. As the years passed the situation became more dangerous and the Chinese control more restrictive in the Popular Republic, causing even more alert in Hong Kong.
 
The situation in Hong Kong is historically complex. The city used to be part of the Chinese empire until the Opium War, when it became a British colony. The English Empire settled in the city and tried to apply its institutions within this Chinese territory that still nowadays is an important support of the West block. The role of the city became particularly important during the Cold War, after 1949, when the Chinese Popular Republic was proclaimed. Hong Kong population raised and its economic development accelerated. Several industrial centres from the close industrial cities moved to Hong Kong, increasing its output and its economic and strategic importance.
However, Great Britain and China signed an agreement in 1997 where the former British colony will be returned to mainland China after 50 years from the signature of this bilateral agreement. Since the agreement several people from Hong Kong started protesting against the Chinese government, asking for more freedom and security.
 
The feeling of tiredness of this man - who told me to be interested in politics to the extent that he even joined the protest in Tiananmen Square - made me reflect not just on how politics is able to impact people's lives and how advocating for rights is never a lost cause, but also how his sense of powerless and tiredness of leaving in a constant threat made him give up his cause. This is the reason why we have to strongly sustain peace and human rights activists who acts in a constant feeling of threat. People such as the activist Josha Wong face lots of difficulties in showing their position and not denying it and we, who live in our democratic and safe countries have the duty of show support and interest in the cause.

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