Under the already grey superstructures of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corp Central building on the afternoon of 27 August, 2012, there was an air of desolation lifting from the sad chairs and tables, grimy tents.
The incumbents were not so forlorn though as they assembled and chatted in a friendly camaraderie. That human moment displayed the success – the move just an adjournment. A core of committed and highly variegated individuals – and Chinese are highly individualistic – had held together through a tangle of division-rife encounters, and survived, intact and ready for more.
Fluttering photographs in a dusty city wind swirled among the general disarray of all the collectables that had accumulated over the interim months since the occupy start-up, 18 October, 2011.That was when a more adventurous group left the rowdiness of the International Finance Centre pedestrian area Occupy protest activity to set up base camp, in the heart of the city’s main perpetrator of the have vs have-not money access problem.
Occupy Wall Street – dispersed; Occupy London dispersed; Occupy Madrid strong but where localised? As Stephane Grueso summed up the Madrid movement for Amy Goodman so recently: “We are not a party. We are not a union. We are not an association. We are people. We want to expel corruption from public life … Now, today, maybe it is starting to happen.”
In Hong Kong the activity will continue. No press releases were issued on this day. There are no spokespersons that can give the authoritive end note. As Miss Bonny Jone says, “It would be wonderful if we can have a permanent camp in the park near the government offices, even grow our own food as a demonstration community in the city and our exchanges can continue. We are at the start of being a reference, always learning and sharing.”
