*“For some two and a half hours that stream of people formed the backdrop as my friend and I were chatting in a coffee shop that faced the street, just before they turned to go up to Government Headquarters,”* says New Zealand artist Vonnie Boston.
*“It was like a river, flowing calmly and peacefully but with purpose and conviction,” she continued, “with children, adults, family groups, all ages strolling more than marching and drummers that from time-to-time beat a rhythm.”*
This annual protest rally was originally led by the Civil Human Rights Front, since the 1997 handover on the Hong Kong SAR establishment day. It was not until 2003 that the march drew large public attention by opposing the legislation of Basic Law Article 23. The 2003 protest, with 500,000 marchers, was the largest protest ever seen in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover.
However, the most memorable march was the 21 May, 1989 pro-democracy protest march that drew more 1.5 million marchers onto the streets of Hong Kong as the populace acted in sympathy with the participants of the Tiananmen Square protests of that year. Since then, the 1 July marches have been the most looked forward to venue and event to demand for democracy, universal suffrage, rights of minorities, protection of freedom of speech and a variety of other current concerns.
Vonnie’s friend and fellow artist was transported back to her Caribbean origin by the scenes and sounds.
“It is amazing,” she said, “I hear the sounds that are ageless and that move me so much and that come from my homeland and yet I look out this window and know I am in Hong Kong and the faces are Asian but they capture something greater.”
The universality of mankind, she called it and Vonnie Boston agreed, saying: *“ Yes, and for me it’s the call of the Pacific, the ancient knowing of the Aborigines of Australia and the Polynesian islands.”*
*“There is a dignity,” her pal added, “they are not demanding or being aggressive they are just reinforcing and reflecting the value of all mankind and their need to be respected…as we all need everywhere. It’s great, it’s affirming.”*
The crowd of marchers were still streaming by as the two friends left the coffee shop at 6.45pm to find themselves enveloped and embraced by smiles of welcome.
*“Those smiles came to us, foreigners – something transmitted, a sense of shared collective purpose to uphold the true values of all peoples and to ensure a good future for their children,”* Vonnie Boston ended.
Of course there were specifics – One Vote, One Person, cried one banner; another called for the release of Liu Xia, the wife of Chinese Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who herself has remained under house arrest for nearly nine months now, cut off from her friends and the outside world for the crime of being her husband’s wife!
The woman from Guizhou was there, is six months pregnant she last week knelt down in protest before Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow Yat-ngok saying: the cap on deliveries in the city’s hospitals [for mainlanders] just discriminates against us. I have a Hong Kong husband, and we’re part of the Hong Kong family. Our babies can’t wait.
The ‘usual suspects’ were the, by way of Hong Kong’s political activists, and the main themes – universal suffrage, trimming the power of the big developers and calls for the resignation of top officials – were stridently and creatively proclaimed.
*“But it was the universal ageless truths tapped out by the tempo and embodied in the persistent flow of good citizens that burned in the vital message for mankind – we are one,”* ended the New Zealander.
