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On War & Violence - a #HongKong protest art thread
An interesting development in our art is the realisation that the siege of CUHK went beyond proportionality - it& #39;s war. We compare it to WWII, we call this a & #39;war against tyranny& #39;, & we say the govt has declared war on us. 1/11
An interesting development in our art is the realisation that the siege of CUHK went beyond proportionality - it& #39;s war. We compare it to WWII, we call this a & #39;war against tyranny& #39;, & we say the govt has declared war on us. 1/11
Invoking war is not new - we& #39;ve seen the & #39;you pass the law, we start the war& #39; graffitied around town for weeks now, but this feels a bit different. Maybe it& #39;s bcos of the rage that& #39;s still boiling, maybe because we got to see the violence the state is willing to rain on us. 2/11
Or maybe bcos there seems few other ways out. The below appeared 11 Aug on TG, day when HKPF shot a first aider in the eye, and HKers& #39; rage roared - not the first, nor the last time. "HK at war" - but we weren& #39;t, and HKers found other ways to express their pent up anger. 3/11
A lot of those ways aren& #39;t & #39;nice& #39;... I mean, we have a *mascot* for vigilantism, & designed forms for & #39;renovating& #39; pro-CCP shops. We have posters of pyromancers specialising in & #39;fire magic& #39;, & when we dig up bricks, it& #39;s not always for building stonehenge homages. 4/11
Yes, HKers are capable of violence, a response to state-sanctioned violence; we& #39;re forced down this path bcos other avenues to express our voice hv bn shut down or made illegal. But the more we fight back w/ what little power we have, the more we are repressed. 5/11
As we& #39;ve seen w/ the Siege of CUHK, power is asymmetric btwn the people & the state. We have molotov cocktails to burn ticket machines; the govt has water cannons to burn our flesh. Our ppl are armed with umbrellas to deflect tg; the state has guns aimed at our hearts. 6/11
The 2 are not equal in power. If we put down our umbrellas, we& #39;ll likely be shot. If the state puts down their guns, there cld be peace. But it seems like the govt& #39;s only interest is to inflict disproportionate violence at HKers. But what violence is & #39;proportionate& #39; anyway? 7/11
Teargas only seems proportionate after one sees a gashing knife wound, organs spilled out like red ribbons. A stabbing only looks proportionate after one sees the wrenching words of a father, mourning for the son who& #39;ll never come home. Wld war be one day proportionate too? 8/11
No! None of these are proportionate vs a people that& #39;s marched peacefully *so many times* for rights & dignity. And yet, we so often buy into the narrative of those who hold power that *some* violence dealt at the powerless - us - is acceptable. None of this is normal. 9/11
HKers did not ask for violence, we did not ask for war - our peaceful rallies have been about demands for human rights and autonomy. We cannot become numb to this dehumanising grind of violence we& #39;ve been made to endure for 5 mths. 10/11
We cannot normalise the senseless use of force we’e seen in the past weeks. We cannot stop being horrified by how a once-green sanctuary for HK& #39;s youth has become a blazing warzone overnight.
We must not stop screaming. We must not stop resisting. 11/11
We must not stop screaming. We must not stop resisting. 11/11
UPDATE: A lot more art on this today. Our art is calling the Siege of CUHK as basically an act of war. Hyperboles have been flying free in our art for a while, but the frequency & intensity of these images means this new sentiment is worth watching.
