Читать книгу Hong Kong in Revolt - Au Loong-Yu - Страница 22

On 16 June, two million people marched on Hong Kong Island. This gives us a clue as to the rough size of the yellow camp. Yet within the yellow camp there were at least two categories. If the ‘light yellows’ are moderate because they are more likely to be law-abiding, it is reasonable to assume that they may vote and go to peaceful demonstrations. The ‘dark yellows’ are staunch democratic supporters whom I will define as more ready to participate in banned demonstrations and non-violent civil disobedience and are also more tolerant or even supportive of certain levels of violence from protesters. The first illegal demonstration broke out in Yuen Long on 27 July, with 280,000 on the streets, an angry response to the Yuen Long incident one week prior. The banned march turned into street fighting again after a police attack. From then on this became the norm. On 20 October another illegal march – this time riskier than the first one – in Tsim Sha Tsui drew 350,000 people. No later illegal marches could compare with this. Those who dared to participate in this banned march were more likely to be ‘dark yellow’, and the march can be used as a base for a rough estimate of the size of this group.

Another category relates to the means the protesters use: jung mou paai (the ‘braves’) versus wo lei fei (the ‘non-violent current’). The former were those who dared to fight the police with bricks and later Molotov cocktails. The latter is often seen as synonymous with the term ‘pan-democrat supporters’. The former consists of those that advocate and make use of force, from throwing bricks to Molotov cocktails, which the latter abstain from doing so. The ‘braves’ first became known when a clandestine group described itself as such and allegedly was associated with a small explosion outside the LegCo building on 9 December 2014. The 2019 ‘braves’ did not necessarily have organisational continuity with the 2014 version; still, the latter might claim the former’s legacy. How large were the ‘braves’? No one knows for sure because of their clandestine nature, but they were much smaller than the ‘dark yellow’ current, although they have made recruits from the latter. Some have estimated their size as being between five and ten thousand, or slightly more (for more see ‘The 1997 Generation’ section in Chapter 2).

Figure 1 Breakdown of the protest participants