Brendon Hong's "be water" report — Hong Kong's resistance to tyranny

© 2019 Peter Free

 

08 August 2019

 

 

How not to be sheep — Hong Kong's youthful resistance

 

Reporter Brendan Hong eloquently wrote about Hong Kong's resistance to communist China's encroachment upon its former liberties:

 

 

[G]roups of “front line” protesters have adopted tactics and strategies of their own to express their dissent in ways that resemble guerrilla warfare rather than planned rallies.

 

The overarching philosophy behind blackshirt actions is “Be Water,” two words lifted from Bruce Lee’s idea of how to overcome what may seem like insurmountable fear:

 

“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water... Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

 

Taking the concept even further, protesters have even formulated four principles:

 

“Be strong as ice, be fluid like water, gather like dew, scatter like mist.”

 

I have more than once heard individuals say, “We’re all afraid. But if that’s why we do nothing, then our future is fucked.”

 

Texts like Mao Zedong’s On Guerrilla Warfare, which describes the asymmetric battlefield tactics . . . blend with the idea of “being water” to move dozens, even hundreds, of people from one district to another with unpolished efficiency.

 

[O]ne blackshirt cited Sun Tzu’s The Art of War to me, emphasizing the need to understand one’s enemies, or else face constant defeat and peril.

 

The idea is to force the police to keep up with mobile groups of protesters who aren’t weighed down by their gear, sapping the security forces’ energy and morale through repetitive motions . . . .

 

[T]hey have refrained from inflicting property damage, which has been a trademark of the blocs in Europe, most recently in Paris.

 

© 2019 Brendan Hong, Enter the Dragon: Hong Kong Protesters, Inspired By the Late Great Martial Artist Bruce Lee, Stun Beijing, Daily Beast (07 August 2019)

 

 

Most important

 

Hong Kong's blackshirts are motivated by their active attachment to at least some of Liberty's principles.

 

 

The moral? — Unlike our apathetic American public . . .

 

. . . some of Hong Kong's combines motivated energy with tyranny-resisting courage.

 

The contrast between the two cultures is stark. It does not favor ours.

 

From my American perspective:

 

 

If you cannot become one of Chris Hedges' humanity-protecting artists and prophets — be like Bruce Lee's water.

 

 

Freedom dies, when resistance to tyranny and oppression wilts, unspoken and unacted, in our souls.