Is concept of ‘Goddess of Democracy’ real?
Chinese style repression practiced in Sri Lanka ?
Is freedom and right to decent a myth..?
Just an article about the ‘Goddess of Democracy’ . That is, we can constantly see that image or statue in places where the law exists around the world. But then where is the goddess of democracy? This is a special story about that. This amazing creation, which the eyes cannot believe, emerges from a land in Asia. The 6.4 m (21 ft) tall all-copper statue was built in Hong Kong.
That is, this design was built in the year 2008 in the land of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the largest university in that city. This wonderful design that fascinates the eyes at first sight shows the image of a young woman holding a torch in one hand and a stack of books in the other.
What exactly is this story? This unique statue was built in the University of Hong Kong to commemorate a certain historical event. That is, the ‘Tiananmen Square protests and massacre’ happened in China in 1989, which went down the history as the world’s largest student struggle, to commemorate the historical event.
This tragic event lasted for almost two months in which thousands of students, general public and army personnel were killed. This mass demonstration was held against the dictatorial and extremist communist administration of China.
Great students struggle
However, during this great student struggle, Chinese university students erected the original statue of the ‘Goddess of Democracy’ in the ‘Tiananmen Square’ located in Beijing, the capital city of China. It is built 10 meters high using paper pulp as raw material. But this spectacular statue could only be there for more than05 days, the Chinese Liberation Army invaded and destroyed it.
In 2008, they created a standing statue out of copper metal in the University of Hong Kong to commemorate the statue that was destroyed and also to commemorate the struggle. But after that, another strange story happened. In other words, a great student struggle started in 2019 in Hong Kong, which is under the administration of China. The struggle continued until 2020 and the situation escalated day by day. 29 people died and around 2,600 people were injured. About 10,300 people were arrested by the army.
Now what happened to the Goddess of Democracy in such a pathetic environment? After this wonderful goddess was established in the university in 2008, many government authorities looked at it with wide eyes. The reason for this is that the politics in Hong Kong are under the administration of China.
Although Hong Kong also has a state regime, they must submit to the main regime of China. China, which has a very severe communist administration, has always had a deep fear of democracy.
Because of this, they started to fear this wonderful goddess of democracy day and night. Before this special statue was installed in the university, it was carried around the city by a rally of students. One hour later, the Hong Kong police stormed the rally and took the statue of the goddess into their custody.
After that, the statue was not handed over to the students for several days and the design was also damaged. However, after several days of intense struggle, the authorities returned the statue to the students. After that, the students somehow installed the statue in the university despite the objection of the university authorities
Democracy only a dream not real ?
In this way, on a very controversial background, the goddess of democracy lived in Hong Kong University for 14 years. Meanwhile, during this period, the government authorities aiming and plotting with the idea that somehow this statue should be destroyed one day. Somehow, after 14 years, that inauspicious day came last December 24, 2021.
The statue was removed from the campus by Hong Kong security authorities in a heavy military operation on the night before Christmas. After that, there was no report about the location of the statue and it was reported that it was cut into pieces and destroyed secretly. Also, many restrictions were imposed on Chen Weimin, a very famous Chinese sculptor who created this unique statue.
He is a famous designer who creates sculptures in other countries of the world, and the Chinese authorities also tried to impose various visa restrictions on him. Somehow, in the face of these cruel actions of the Chinese authorities, students brought small sculptures of the goddess of democracy into the university and honored it.
At a time when the student struggles in Sri Lanka were at a peak, I wrote about the student struggles in Hong Kong because it was also a unique chapter in world history. In the years 2019-2020, most of the struggles were suppressed by the Chinese government. But that fire has not been completely extinguished and student struggles occur from time to time in that country.
In 2019-2020, these struggles first arose against a government bill. It is the Extradition Laws Amendment Bill. This is known as a bill to amend the extradition rules applicable to fugitive offenders in criminal matters. This was known as a bill that strongly penalized groups that resisted the Chinese communist regime. Therefore, the majority of young people launched their struggle against this process. Tens of thousands of university students, scholars, parents and the general public joined these protests.
Anti Extradition law amendment bill
In order to lead these protests, a special movement called the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement was born in Hong Kong. Struggles in the country were led by this people’s movement for a whole year. It is considered to be the largest series of protest demonstrations in the history of Hong Kong.
Some of these demonstrations were also held during the peak of the Corona epidemic in 2020. Here the protestors demanded 05 main demands from the government authorities. They are:
1.Total withdrawal and repeal of the Extradition Act.
2.Withdrawal of labeling protests as riots.
3.Release and acquittal of arrested protestors.
4.Establishing an independent commission of inquiry into police conduct.
Hong Kong administrator Carrie Lam resigns and holds an election. Although the state authorities did not act to provide all of these demands, the bill did fulfill the relevant main demand. That is, the draft was suspended on June 15, 2019 amid protests, and was officially withdrawn on October 23, 2019. Amendments and reforms were also brought to Hong Kong’s electoral system. However, during the entire period of these struggles, there was no resignation of Carrie Lam, the chief public administrator of Hong Kong. Carrie Lam is a 65-year-old Chinese woman.
The chief ruler of Hong Kong is known as the ‘Chief Executive’ and the position is subordinate to the President of China. That is, under the supervision of the current Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Hong Kong administrator has the power to make some individual decisions, but all of those activities fall under the Chinese executive. Anyway, the administrator Carrie Lam worked in this position for 05 years from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2022.
Hong Kong under China
Hong Kong is a special administrative division of the People’s Republic of China. It appears on maps as an island nation connected by land to the lower part of China. This land is known in English as Hongkong – A Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. Hong Kong is the smallest country in the world with a total area of 2,704 square kilometers. About 75 lakh people live here and 92% are Chinese. Anyway, this country is one of the richest countries in the world and its per capita income is very high at US$ 49,850.
But China’s per capita income is about 14,096 dollars. This is due to the success of international factories, tourism, large ports, import and export in Hong Kong. Therefore, the economy of Hong Kong is very high. According to the year 2022, their gross domestic product is said to be 522 billion US dollars.
In any case, under this kind of environment, the people of Hong Kong are struggling to ask for food, drink, fuel, gas, or medicine. They fight for various other rights. But what is the situation in Sri Lanka? Our people are struggling against the rulers crying for food, drink and fuel. How pathetic is this? Today, the poor people of our country are struggling for not being able to buy a kilo of rice or a loaf of bread.
Therefore, the struggles of Hong Kong and the struggles of Sri Lanka are very different. However, in general it can be considered as people’s struggles. People’s struggles are launched in the countries of the world to win any human rights.
Hong Kong was under British administration for 156 years and was handed over to China in 1997. In that country, people’s repression often happens one after one. What often happens here is the destruction of people’s democracy under the main communist administration in China. This is an evil imperialist policy carried out by the current Chinese state administrators. Today, China has done the same to Sri Lanka.
Priyantha Hettyge