Brave the pain, Hongkongers (Lee Yee)
In his comments on my yesterday’s article, a reader left me a YouTube link to an English version of “March of The Volunteers”rendered by Paul Robeson, an American singer who was celebrated in my youthhood. The lyrics are as follows,
「Arise, you who refuse to be bond-slaves./Let's stand up and fight for/Liberty and true democracy!/All our world is facing/The chains of the tyrant./Everyone who works for freedom/Is now crying./Arise! Arise! Arise!/All of us with one heart/With the torch of freedom!/March on!/With the torch of freedom!/March on! March on!March on and on!」
Information shows that Robeson chanting this English version in a concert held in New York in 1941 was captured in the video. That year, Liu Liang-mo, a leftist conductor, was dispatched by YMCA to further study in America. Since the Pacific War broke out, Liu had been engaged in a propaganda war against Japan. Presented by Lin Yu-tang, an eminent Chinese novelist and philosopher, he met Robeson and sang in front of the American a few war songs of anti-Japanese invasion, including “March of The Volunteers”. A few weeks later, Robeson made an announcement that he would sing a song named “Chee Lai” for Chinese. He then vocalized in Chinese before belting out the English lyrics mentioned above.
In the English version, no “Chinese nation”, “the Great Wall”nor “enemies’ gunfire” is found, which makes “you who refuse to be bond-slaves” even more outstanding. Without distorting the original gist of the Chinese lyrics, the import of the English version, which encourages people to throw off the shackles of tyranny and fight for freedom as well as genuine democracy, is even more universal and perpetual.
Fights for freedom have been waxing and waning in succession throughout times and across lands for the fact that history has unequivocally manifested that people are being relentlessly enslaved by tyranny and freedom persistently suppressed by authoritarians.
Since 1997, after Hong Kong people had enjoyed liberty for more than one hundred years, freedom has been continually eroded and chipped away. In contrary to the authoritarian of gigantic power, Hong Kong is isolated and feeble. Being put in a vulnerable position, Hong Kong people used to have only three options: 1. Abscond from home, which means emigration; 2. Get used to living in a place with less and less freedom; 3. Haggle over protection for ourselves in an inferior position. The fourth one, “struggle to resist at the cost of one’s life” , had not even been contemplated until the anti-extradition amendment bill movement last year, in which young people were the vanguard and more than half of the population got embroiled.
Why did I put forward half of the population, but not a small minority figured out by the Chinese Communist Party? The reason is undisputed with just a glimpse of the mainstream opinion online, 2 million people in the demonstration and the ballot of the District Council Election.
Dragging on and on, the last year struggle, which tired Hong Kong people out, was to no avail. Since the Hong Kong version of national security law was tabled, the three options mentioned above have resurfaced. Confronted with the peremptory China, which has been legislating for Hong Kong in violation of the Basic Law, some legal professionals and democrats in town would rather succumb to the illegitimacy and counter-propose certain terms and conditions to safeguard the rights of Hong Kong people, including the provisions of retroactivity wiping off, interpretation of the law in accordance with common law, defendants tried in Hong Kong’s courts, stipulation of a sunset clause, etc.
When the US intended revising Hong Kong’s special status with regard to the Hong Kong version of national security law, some of them suggested that to preserve a firewall between Hong Kong and China, the US should conserve a little bit of the special status.
The haggling over protection for Hong Kong people in an inferior position, the third option, is surely not out of bad intention. Be that as it may, regarding what we have been experiencing in the past 20 years, showing the white feather would not stop the mighty authoritarian from seizing the overall jurisdiction of Hong Kong. Though conflicts might be alleviated, the plight of Hong Kong people would only worsen in front of the insatiable authoritarian. Worse still, Hong Kong people knuckling under to it would hinder the US from sanctioning China and Hong Kong.
Getting pained by uncompromising struggles has to be anticipated. The US sanctions on Hong Kong are definitely painful to Hong Kong people. In the past couple of days, Yuen Kung-yi said: To take this route, Hong Kong people should brave the pain.
Perhaps those who come to the middle ground intend Hong Kong people to reserve the minimum protection. Yet, meanwhile, I am reminded of the wisdom of a classic philosopher, Friedrich Hayek: Those who fantasize about trading their basic freedom off for minimum protection would eventually find out that they are given neither freedom nor protection.
Robeson’s husky singing is reverberating in my ears.
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