[P2P-F] Fwd: [Networkedlabour] Hong Kong: Cartalucci, Global Research, Treats Activists only as pawns

Michel Bauwens michel at p2pfoundation.net
Fri Oct 3 17:18:49 CEST 2014 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: peter waterman <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 10:02 PM
Subject: [Networkedlabour] Hong Kong: Cartalucci, Global Research, Treats
Activists only as pawns
To: networkedlabour at lists.contrast.org



  *This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.*

Weekend Edition October 3-5, 2014
Hong Kong Should Decide Its Own Fate
On Occupy Central and the NED
by MING CHUN TANG

Numerous alternative media outlets, including WikiLeaks
<https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/517593582153519104>, have pointed out
the connections between Occupy Central and the United States government
<http://revolution-news.com/occupy-central-us-state-dept-funding-of-hong-kong-pro-democracy-movement/>
through
an organization called the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). I am not
surprised at this, nor do I welcome it, given the United States’
questionable record (to put it nicely) at bringing “democracy” to countries
where it has intervened in the past. It is most likely in Hong Kongers’
best interests that the US withdraw its monetary support for Occupy
Central, as unlikely as this is to happen.

The same outlets, however, have been openly hostile towards Occupy Central
for these reasons alone. Tony Cartalucci recently claimed
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-openly-approves-hong-kong-chaos-it-created/5405387>
that
the protests “masquerade as a “pro-democracy” movement seeking “universal
suffrage” and “full democracy,” but are really backed by “a deep and
insidious network of foreign financial, political, and media support”. This
assessment doesn’t do Hong Kong justice for two reasons: firstly, it
portrays Hong Kongers’ grievances at the status quo as fictional and
illegitimate, when they are in fact real, and it treats the protesters as
pawns, when many in fact are taking to the streets of their own accord.
Secondly, by treating the US as the sole independent actor in the movement
and focusing entirely on analyzing and criticizing its actions in other
countries, it only strengthens a United States-centred worldview that the
mainstream media likewise seeks to disseminate.

None of the support provided by the NED for Occupy Central changes the
reality of the economic situation facing middle- and working-class Hong
Kongers today, brought about by the most extreme form of capitalism that
the world has ever seen – to the extent that the extreme-right-wing
Heritage Foundation dubs it “the world’s freest economy
<http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking>” year after year. It is poor
journalism to even attempt to analyze the roots of discontent in Hong Kong
while paying no attention to the structural factors involved, and yet the
alternative media, like the mainstream media, have been guilty of doing so.
Foreign writers who claim the movement is orchestrated purely by Americans
are naive to believe Hong Kongers can simply be co-opted by an external
force to demonstrate. This type of thinking is unfortunately symptomatic of
a neocolonial conviction that somehow only “Westerners” are capable of
thinking for themselves and acting of their own accord. Hong Kongers, like
the Ukrainians, Syrians, Iraqis, Libyans and Venezuelans, are merely being
manipulated by the “West”. Of course they are. After all, only those
protesting against regimes in the “West” or backed by the “West” are
legitimate – the rest are mere agents for “regime change”!

I will admit that I am not at all optimistic about the prospects of Occupy
Central bringing genuine social change to Hong Kong. These prospects are
only diminished by the involvement of the United States, with its own
neoliberal and far-less-than-democratic agenda. They are further diminished
by the absence of any radical groups calling explicitly for a more
equitable distribution of income and wealth and end to the state’s
collusion with established local and Chinese elites. But what is evident is
that the status quo leaves no room for Hong Kongers to decide on how their
territory is run, and that attaining the vote provides the opportunity,
though far from a guarantee, for genuine socioeconomic reform, by deposing
the established political and economic elite from their position of power.
Who we will replace them with must be ours to choose, and that is precisely
why the United States, as with China, must step back and allow Hong Kongers
to decide their own fate.

*Ming Chun Tang is a Hong Kong-born writer and a student at Hamilton
College (New York), currently at the London School of Economics. He blogs
at Clearing the Rubble <http://clearingtherubble.wordpress.com/>.*


-- 

   1. *EBook, November 2012: Recovering Internationalism
   <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/recovering_internationalism/>.  [A
   compilation of papers from the new millenium. Now free in two download
   formats] <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/>
   <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/>*
   2.
*EBook (co-editor), February 2013: World Social Forum: Critical
   Explorations http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/
   <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/> *
   3. *Interface Journal Special (co-editor), November 2012: For the Global
   Emancipation of Labour <http://www.interfacejournal.net/current/>*
   4. *Blog: http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman.
   <http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman.> *
   5. *Interface Journal Special (Co-Editor) Social Movement
   Internationalisms. See Call for Papers <http://www.interfacejournal.net/>,
   (Deadline: May 1, 2014). *
   6.
*Needed: a Global Labour Charter Movement (2005-Now!)
   <http://interfacejournal.nuim.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Interface-1-2-pp255-262-Waterman.pdf>*
   7. *Under, Against, Beyond: Labour and Social Movements Confront a
   Globalised, Informatised Capitalism
   <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/under-against-beyond/>(2011) Almost 1,000
   pages of Working Papers, free, from the 1980 <1980>'s-90's.*
   8. *Google Scholar Citation Index:*
    *http://scholar.google.com.pe/citations?user=e0e6Qa4AAAAJ
   <http://scholar.google.com.pe/citations?user=e0e6Qa4AAAAJ> *


   -


_______________________________________________
NetworkedLabour mailing list
NetworkedLabour at lists.contrast.org
http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour




-- 
Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at:
http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

<http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates:
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/attachments/20141003/ecd4d67d/attachment-0001.htm

More information about the P2P-Foundation mailing list