Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2019. ix, 256 pp. (Tables, figures, coloured photos.) US$26.95, paper. ISBN 978-1-5017-4092-3.
In fall 2014, to demand for genuine universal suffrage for the election of Hong Kong’s chief executive, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers descended on the streets, commencing a 79-day-long occupation of major city districts that is now known as the Umbrella Movement (UM).
Take Back Our Future marks a timely and necessary scholarly intervention that addresses both the internal movement dynamics and the wider structural contradictions that led to the rise and fall of the UM, allowing us to reflect on its theoretical and practical implications for Hong Kong and beyond.
The 11 essays in this excellently edited collection are well sequenced, historically sensitive, and possess good comparative insights. Backed with rich empirical data, each author speaks with authority on a specific aspect of the UM, covering the social origins of the participants (Samson Yuen), their mobilization tactics (Oscar Ho), intergroup relations (Wing Sang Law), and the state’s repressive mechanisms (Edmund W. Cheng). The spotlighted actors in these chapters encompass the media (Francis L. F. Lee), prodemocracy parties (Ming Sing), student activists (Alex Yong Kang Chow), and trade unions (Chris K. C. Chan). As such, reading the book front to back gives a sense that each chapter provides a vital puzzle piece that readers can use to form a complete picture of the UM.
The volume’s interrogation of the why and how of collective action in a hybrid regime marks a strong contribution to social movement studies. It also contributes to Hong Kong and China studies by resituating the UM and its legacy through the lens of “eventful sociology,” capturing a recurring feature of Hong Kong politics in which eventful protests such as the UM have had transformative impacts on politics and society.
Ching Kwan Lee convincingly argues in chapter 1 that the UM was a popular response to the recolonization of Hong Kong by the Mainland Chinese government. Here she pushes back against the narrative that lumped the UM together with other urban revolts around the world—that it was a reaction to income inequality. Rather, the “China factor” (25), specifically the recolonization processes of political disenfranchisement, economic subsumption, and colonization of the life world, is key.
Chow, one of the UM student leaders, offers an ethnographic account of how the UM’s prefigurative experiments to envision an alternative urban commons and a leaderless movement have both propelled and fractured the movement. Focusing on the Occupy Mongkok site, Yuen discusses its sociocultural and tactical differences compared to other protest sites, and how it foreshadowed the rise of militancy among certain cohorts of protesters. Law follows up by examining how the different activist factions (such as democrats, localists, and students) struggled over the framing of their cause and strategies, unwittingly splitting the movement from within.
Francis Lee analyzes the relationship between the media and the UM, demonstrating how mainstream and digital media have both enabled and constrained the movement. Chan meanwhile tackles the question of why trade unions have not played a more prominent role in the UM, arguing that it is due to their internal divisions, weak organizing power, and liberal biases. Cheng then catalogues the regime strategies that succeeded in stifling dissent, which include disciplinary exclusion of defiant elites, patron-client politics, ideological work to win hearts and minds, and attrition tactics. He helpfully explains why elite defections to the prodemocracy cause are unlikely, and why movement participation has become costly over time. Ho then presents a photo essay that zeroes in on the protesters’ creative expressions, suggesting that they are intricately linked to Hong Kong’s local cultures.
Jieh-min Wu’s essay about Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and its comparisons to the UM—a surprising yet valuable addition to the volume—is the strongest in terms of engagement with the eventful approach of the book. However, Wu could have substantiated a few minor details to help readers unfamiliar with the Taiwanese context to better appreciate his analysis. For example, Wu has alluded to the 1990 Wild Lily Movement several times, but to what degree has it shaped the protest repertoires and collective consciousness of Taiwanese student movements and society at large? Much of these gaps in details are because Wu faces a unique disadvantage of having had to illustrate a number of issues on his own: Taiwan’s (geo)political history, the Sunflower Movement, and the comparative lessons for Hong Kong. On the contrary, other chapters can easily build on the overview of Hong Kong’s political history in chapter 1. That said, Wu’s thoughtful case study offers a counterfactual that puts in stark relief Hong Kong’s vulnerability to China’s political influence and the weaknesses of Hong Kong’s civil society.
One may also object to the deterministic tones of some authors’ structural analyses. For example, Sing explains in chapter 7 that the conflict between student leaders and prodemocracy parties reflects the tension between the logic of movement activism and the logic of electoral politics. While student activists radicalized to seek maximalist goals, prodemocracy parties compromised to survive in electoral politics. Though the argument is persuasive, there are instances elsewhere where such tensions are overcome, as Sing acknowledges in his conclusion. The question to be asked is then: Why did the parties lack the foresight of incorporating the student bodies—a critical constituent—into the broader prodemocracy coalition, which would have allowed them to build trust and relationships years before the UM?
This volume is undoubtably a must-read for anyone who wishes to make sense out of one of the most dramatic episodes of contentious politics in the twenty-first century. In fact, I find all of the chapters to be fairly accessible to any interested nonacademic readers. However, because the volume was published in 2019, it misses out on the political sea-change that has taken place since. As Sing suggests in the book’s afterword, Hong Kong’s post-UM trajectory has been a rapid “turn to greater authoritarianism” (243) and hardening state-society antagonism. While most of the findings still hold up well, a sequel may be required to reconsider some of the more optimistic assessments in these pages.
Wei Lit Yew
Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong