HK20: Hong Konger/Researcher Jeffrey Ngo on Why History Matters -- Subversity Show Online

Activists generally are not archivists, given the urgent, immediate tasks facing protesters and agitators for social and political change.  But our current Subversity Show Online interviewee [unfortunately the audio is not available due to technical issues] is both an activist and someone who understands and has used archives.   He is particularly unique in that he is not so much interested in preserving the current than in uncovering the past.  And not unlike all socially responsible contemporary librarians, he advocates open access, wanting to make the past accessible for free, to all.

Our subject is passionate Hong Konger Jeffrey Ngo (敖卓軒, pictured), who in his young age (he's in his early 20s, just about to complete a Master's thesis in history on Hong Kong at New York University), has already become a published op ed writer in the mainstream western media.  With well-known Hong Kong youthful student leader Joshua Wong (黃之鋒), Ngo co-wrote an op ed this past May for the New York Times urging support for U.S. Senate legislation, the "Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act".  In January, they had also collaborated in an op ed on Hong Kong for the Washington Post.  In fact, their essay in the World Policy Blog last October on how Hong Kong lost its right to self-determination as a British Colony under UN scrutiny caused a major furor for China. The duo were roundly attacked for bringing up the topic by Beijing Foreign Office diplomat Song Zhe (宋哲) in an op ed in the Wall Street Journal. 

And as researcher with Demosistō (香港眾志), a new political party in Hong Kong, he has been the historian behind Wong, the party's secretary general, collaborating with him on other essays as well as on a crowd-funding page to raise money for a proposed online archive of government documents (from UK, U.S.,Taiwan and Hong Kong) relating to the status of Hong Kong, including its future.  He is part of an ambitious 'Decoding Hong Kong's History" emerging project to collect such government archival documents from around the world.  As of today, the group has raised 40% of its goal of HK$500,000.  With 30 more years to go within the 50 years envisioned under the terms of the treaty that turned Hong Kong to China, uncovering the past is the key to envisioning the future.  Ngo and his comrades in his party hope to prepare Hong Kongers for an anticipated referendum within the next 30 years to determine their own future.

In our hour-long interview, we discussed the importance of government records, why he believes they should be publicly accessible, and why researching the past makes sense in understanding why Hong Kong was turned over to an authoritarian regime 20 years ago (during the "Handover").

We also discussed "Joshua: Teenager vs Superpower", the documentary on Wong now released on Netflix, which I saw with a dozen or so others at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific American Film Festival a few months earlier at the CGV in Koreatown, Los Angeles.  Predictably, he is a booster of his friend's film, calling it an "excellent" way to let western audiences know about the political situation faced by democracy advocates in Hong Kong.

We also discussed Ngo's expertise in exposing the fact that although Hong Kong was still a British Colony (and hence subject to the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United Nations) when the Peoples Republic of China took Taiwan's seat in the United Nations, China managed to get the UN to delist Hong Kong from the list of territories up for decolonization.  And this was in 1972, two-and-a-half decades prior to the 1997 Handover.

Ngo believes the Tanzania chair of the committee incorrectly implied that the committee had voted to do so. There was in fact no roll call vote on that particular issue by the UN General Assembly.  He notes that China had just built a railroad in the African country, so no doubt Huang Hua, the UN representative from China, was able to influence the chair of the committee. 

The interview was conducted last month at NYU after a nice Thai dinner in nearby Greenwich Village, as marchers commemorating the Pulse nightclub massacre were gathering a few blocks away. Since then, his  party's sole Legislative Council elected official (Nathan Law, the youngest -- at 23 -- ever elected last year) together with three other pro-democracy legislators have sadly been "disqualified" in a Beijing-influenced judicial decision. -- Daniel C. Tsang, Subversity Show host.

Art enhanced photos of Jeffrey Ngo © Copyright 2017 Daniel C. Tsang

Activist Edward Leung on Localism in Hong Kong

To listen to our June 6, 2016 Subversity Show Online interview with Edward Leung, click here.
2018 June update: Edward Leung was sentenced to a draconian six years in prison in June, 2018. Just prior to that, he wrote some thoughts on Facebook.   

Edward Leung Tin-kei (梁天琦) is a key Hong Kong localist activist who was barred from running in the recent Legislative Council elections that nonetheless resulted in fellow localists gaining seats, keeping alight the flame for self determination and even independence.  He would likely have won a seat too if he wasn't banned.

When I interviewed the Indigenous Party spokesman in June, 2016, a few days after his 25th birthday, while he expressed he would likely run in the 3 September 2016 Hong Kong Legislative Council elections, little did I expect him to go through the motions of retracting his commitment to the cause of Hong Kong independence in an ultimately abortive attempt to qualify for the election (he was still banned), nor did I expect him to be pushed to the ground in a "scuffle" with a Ta Kung Pao reporter last month.  However, he likely remains committed to the independence cause.

Edward Leung interviewed 6 June 2016 at HKU Starbucks.  Photos © Daniel C. Tsang 2016

The Subversity Show Online interview in June reveals this bright Hong Kong University philosophy student as articulate and forthright when asked about his views on Hong Kong independence.  In June, I was in Hong Kong attending a library sustainability conference, and had heard him speak the previous Saturday at an alternative June 4 forum at HKU, where he was one of five speakers (one from each generation of activism).  There, he eloquently explained in Cantonese why as a longtime Hong Kong resident (he came as a young kid from Wuhan) he identified as a Hong Konger and believed, as did the other panelists, that it was more important for Hong Kong people to discuss Hong Kong's future, rather than China's, which they saw as just meddling in local affairs. Leung, after all, had won an amazing 66,524 votes when he ran last March in a by-election (he didn't win), proving that his views have huge resonance among the population, especially those around his age (he's 25).

In the interview he describes how he became radicalized when he saw his friends beaten up (bloodied) by the police in earlier local protests.  He speaks out against the unfairness of immigration policies allowing Chinese nationals to be admitted to Hong Kong without Hong Kong government vetting (only China does it).   His group is known for demonstrating against mainlanders but he explained that the purpose was aimed at stopping parallel traders and smugglers.  While he himself came from Wuhan, China at age 1, his mom spoke to him in Cantonese from his arrival in Hong Kong, even though her Cantonese wasn't very good.  That is why he identifies as a Hong Kong person, he explained.

As for politics in general, he saw the decline of social leaders, such as Joshua Wong nowadays, when he "doesn't have the same influence". According to Leung, people criticize him (Joshua Wong) as changing his political ideology, seeing independence as "no use", but he later changed his stance, now advocating self determination. 

Ironically he expected people to criticize himself as well in future.  As for his earlier by-election vote totals, he was surprised as he thought he was more radical than the public but he got more and more support.  He explained what happened during the Mongkok protests (for which he has been arrested) and what led to it.  Police actually allowed them to remain with the hawkers but later the riot squad showed up and some people argued they were there to enjoy the food.  He was eating when a disturbance broke up, with the police declaring an "illegal assembly". 

He says he was charged with "rioting"  after the police shot two bullets into the air.  People were beaten up and people started to retreat.  We could "smell the gunpowder" and people became more angry.  He sees the potential sentence of five years as "quite harsh".

As for government surveilance he says he has heard "weird voices" on his phone. He believes that publicity or the media coverage is the only way to protect the activists.  Apps like Telegram are not safe enough; Firechat is not very useful.

On campus he has protested against the Hong Kong University Council head, with a class boycott on top of getting involved in the elections, thus missing more than half of the semester, but his department at HKU has helped him to rearrange his schedule so he could still complete his studies.  He still had one summer semester after our interview.

--  Daniel C. Tsang