05 July 2003 00:21
Mussolini`s ghost
An hour before the anti-government rally, I was having dim sum with friends in Causeway Bay, a district crammed with
elegant Japanese department stores, boutiques and clubs. My companions were all dressed in black, the colour of protest
on July 1 - the sixth anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to mainland China. "Why are you wearing
orange?" asked Joey, the ringleader of this band of protesters, all of them hip young Cantonese from the
advertising, publicity and film industries. "Cause I'm not a fashionista," I replied to her, avoiding a
minefield. After devastating the shrimp buns and leaving a mess of noodles, our tall, stunningly attractive field
commandante - dressed in combat khakis topped by a torn, chrome-studded black T-shirt - led her troops to the top of a
double-decker tram. The alleys and overhead walkways on this bright, sweltering afternoon were crawling with the
battalions of the night, a rolling black tide of anger. The symbolism reminded me not of democratic protest, but of
Mussolini-era fascist militancy. The silent, black sea swelled over the streets of the Wan Chai district. The humourless
mood was in stark contrast to the protest marches of my younger days, when students chanted and embraced the cause of
the downtrodden, love, sex and rock 'n' roll in a dizzy fusion of compassion and passion. Since the fall of
the Berlin Wall and Nicaragua's Sandinistas, the right, not the left, has led the really effective demonstrations
that have taken down governments around the world - from Gdansk, Poland, to Timosoara, Romania, and Moscow. Sadly, the
more appropriate analogy for this huge protest is Mussolini's march on Rome in October 1922, the coming to power of
the fascist Black Shirts. Mussolini-style fascism was the combined muscle of the "little guys", small-time
property owners and professionals who envied the capitalist plutocrats and feared the leftist labour unions. Put
together all the "little guys" of Hong Kong, and you get more than half a million protesters. Rally organisers
concede most of the turnout was not against the central government-backed security measures or the city's nearly 9
per cent unemployment rate. Few people are suggesting that the paternalistic Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa is autocratic
or evil, in the way of a Silvio Berlusconi or a Saddam Hussein. If there is a single complaint against the Tung
administration in the wake of the Sars epidemic, it is that government officials are incompetent bunglers. Incompetence
- therein lies the main grudge that swept the fascists into office in Italy. Mussolini got the trains to run on time,
and that is exactly what these protesters want: a bureaucracy that operates as efficiently as a Swiss watch. The
marchers' "Down with Tung" slogan clearly spelled out their goal: not a mere revision of security laws
but the downfall of the Tung government. The new Black Shirts are aiming for a coup that will propel them into power and
on to a confrontation with the mainland. Though Marx may be rolling in his grave, Mussolini would be proud.
Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times Weekly in Tokyo, is editor-in-residence at the Journalism and Media
Studies Centre of the University of Hong KongCopyright Pacific News Service
[AIW [Asia Africa Intelligence Wire]] |
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