Rebel City. South China Morning Post Team
people.
And it’s a labor of love by a team of outstanding journalists at the South China Morning Post, supported by a wider network of dedicated colleagues, who deserve a separate book someday to tell the story of their passion for the job and their professionalism against formidable odds.
I am talking about the grueling hours, the relentless pressure, and the immense personal risks at the front lines of often-violent protests, all to tell the story of their times.
Reporters, photographers, videographers and artists, along with editors, made many sacrifices, regularly working marathon hours and toiling late into the night for weeks on end, to cover the chaos sweeping the city, all too often at great risk to their own safety and health.
The physical and emotional stress on the people who produced the articles collected in this book has been tremendous.
At the worst moments, some have been tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed and hit with projectiles during chaotic confrontations between police and protesters, while others have been intimidated and threatened for doing their job.
And it wasn’t only our journalists – take, for instance, one of our key administrative staff members having her car petrol-bombed while on her way to work.
But we stayed the course, kept calm and remained focused, doing what it took to tell the world the real story of what happened to our city, warts and all, without taking sides, and without fear or favor.
Our coverage has been as comprehensive as it has been objective and professional throughout. It has sifted through sharply conflicting narratives and bitterly divided opinions to bring out every shade of color in between the ubiquitous blue and yellow that lit up much of what was dubbed “the revolution of our times” by activists but condemned as “rioting” and “illegal” behavior by both the local and central governments.
This book brings out the grave implications all this will have on Hong Kong’s relations with mainland China, which have been thrown into extreme uncertainty by the social unrest and political chaos. It digs deep into the many cross-border problems that were swept under the carpet for more than two decades after the city’s handover to Chinese sovereignty, festering and eventually snowballing into a crisis that made global headlines.
Consider this book but a sampling of some of the best work that the award-winning journalists of the South China Morning Post have been putting out and continue to produce.
We present it to you, dear readers, with pride and humility.
Tammy Tam,
Editor-in-Chief, South China Morning Post
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is the embodiment of teamwork. The South China Morning Post newsroom mobilized resources across desks to stay on top of a story that had a new twist every day and made headlines on every continent.
For colleagues in the thick of covering the action, there was barely time to catch a breath. Yet, nobody bemoaned the arduous workload. Many had to be forced to take days off, and when they did they still contributed to our coverage.
Some were pepper-sprayed, tear-gassed and injured by flying objects – and, in the case of one colleague, by a rubber bullet. Everyone knew that history was being made before our eyes. Nobody wanted to blink.
From our exhaustive and exhausting reportage, we have compiled this anthology of essays and a brief selection of commentary. We thank those who helped update and augment their articles for this book, despite being caught up in the coverage of another life-changing story: the coronavirus pandemic.
We are also so grateful to our newsmakers and sources on all sides of this complex story. Everyone, we can safely say, has been traumatized at some level by what happened in 2019. No one has emerged from it unscathed. This book would not have been possible if they were not willing to share their perspectives so generously.
We would like to thank our editor-in-chief Tammy Tam for being as excited about this book as we were when we proposed it to her. We appreciate the guidance and support she provided together with executive editor Chow Chung-yan and chief news editor Yonden Lhatoo throughout the months of coverage.
We are indebted to copyeditors Yi Hui, Alan, Andrew and James, designer Huy and photo editor Robert. All put in many, many extra hours on top of the daily grind. We would also like to acknowledge colleagues at the Hong Kong and Asia desks who covered for us while we dove into this project.
Finally, on behalf of the SCMP team that covered the protests in 2019 and 2020, we would like to thank those dear to us whom we were forced to neglect for long periods. We would not have survived these months without your love and support.
Zuraidah Ibrahim and Jeffie Lam
INTRODUCTION
Zuraidah Ibrahim
Through the first half of 2020, Hongkongers struggled to read one another’s mood. Surgical masks hid their faces and muffled their normally expressive Cantonese. These accessories were deemed so essential in the fight against the novel coronavirus that millions of Hongkongers ritually put them on whenever they stepped out of their homes, to protect themselves and others.
The irony was not lost on residents of the city. During the previous six months, face masks had been commonplace too. Worn by protesters to protect against pepper spray, tear gas, and surveillance cameras, masks were so associated with dissent that the government banned them – not that the injunction affected their status as de rigueur street fashion items for the autumn and winter seasons of 2019.
Just as they would during the Covid-19 pandemic, the masks made Hong Kong more inscrutable. Despite being togged in the same black attire to express solidarity with their cause, the protesters were diverse in their backgrounds, attitudes and emotions.
Most tried to show courage; many were fearful. Beyond the “yellow” camp of mask-wearing protesters too, Hong Kong as a whole became harder to recognize and decipher. It was more sullen and divided, and gripped by unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells – brick-strewn roads, screaming matches, and acrid tear gas.
Reporting on the tumult of 2019, the adjective “unprecedented” kept turning up in our copy. Protesters’ methods grew in audacity. Their targets widened and their means became more extreme. Police escalated their use of force, from water cannons to physical beatings and live rounds. Yesterday’s shocking development became today’s new normal.
Hong Kong, which had thought of itself as vibrant and entrepreneurial but also orderly and safe, suddenly found itself on guard.
The protest movement had to develop communication networks to keep one step ahead of the police force’s feared shock troops, the Raptors. The MTR system, fully expecting that their repairs would only last until the next attack, replaced shattered glass walls with cold sheet metal. Residents wanting to enjoy city life downloaded apps to tell them which parts of town were no-go areas.
A year has passed since the demonstrations were triggered by the government’s much derided extradition bill. There is no closure to the social unrest in sight. The protests are in a suspended state, held in abeyance by a health crisis that, far from uniting the population, has further exposed its deep polarization between the pro-Beijing “blue” camp and the anti-government “yellow” – with the latter seeing the pandemic as further proof that mainland China will be the death of Hong Kong.
Conversations with protesters suggest they are at a crossroads, contemplating their next course of action. Some admit to feeling lost and lacking leadership. The criminal charges brought against hundreds have also dampened spirits. But the despair that drove the protests has not been assuaged.
With the situation in limbo, the final word on Hong Kong’s protest movement cannot be written. This book does not attempt that. What it can do is gather some of the best reporting on