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ABSTRACT
The act naam-chaau (mutual destruction) can be taken as a move, a process, or a terminal strike registered at specific junctures in the intensifying situation of Hong Kong, triggered initially by the government's attempt to amend a law to allow it to extradite alleged individuals in the territory to China despite massive opposition by people across social sectors. In the course of the leaderless popular movement against government since June 2019, through media publicity, flash protests and overseas lobbying, the work of naam-chaau has given rise to higher level damages, restrictions and concerns beyond police frontlines. The popular English phrase “If we burn, you burn with us!” is often adopted to annotate tactical actions which undermine the legitimacy of the state apparatus in question. During the “Be Water” resistance movement, physical and non-physical confrontations are mediated on multiplying levels or “front lines” of the resistance. Noting the continual evolvement of such tactics and with a focus on the widening significance of violence — not least that of the police- and system-violence — I reflect on the situated moves of naam-chaau as a terminal reciprocity. With a perspective on mutual destruction as a real possibility when the new Hong Kong normalcy comes to stay, we could look at this gaming tactic on three levels, culminating in what has been characterized as “the endgame.”
Special terms
| naam-chaau/lanchao | = | 攬炒 |
| Ngo-yiu Naam-chaau/Woyao Lanchao | = | 我要攬炒 |
| yung-mo/yungwu | = | 勇武 |
Notes
1 This paper grows out of a workshop presentation on Keywords on Hong Kong I made at the Division of Humanities at National Technological University in Singapore on 26 October 2019 and a work-in-progress seminar I presented at my own Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University on 4 November 2019. My ongoing exchanges on this and related topics with Ashish Rajadhyaksha during the past few months have been very helpful. I thank Ashish and everybody concerned who gave me feedback on various occasions.
2 The lobbying for the passing of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 by the US Congress and Senate is an example of such a project. Under the new federal law, Hong Kong or Chinese officials or relevant individuals will be sanctioned for their involvement in human rights violation.
3 In the course of the current movement, over 7000 people have been arrested (by early January 2020). This number exceeds the total number of people in Hong Kong prisons: 5739, as of September 2019.
4 In late November 2019, all the universities in Hong Kong had to close their campus and stop all on-site activities due to the damage, shock and terror generated by the police actions at Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Polytechnic University as well as other university campuses.
5 Demonstrations are ongoing during weekdays. Everyday protests of the kind include such regular activities as wo-li-lunch (“Lunch with You,” lunch hours demonstrations at major business districts), and wo-li-shop (“Go Shopping with You,” at various shopping malls in town).
6 Brian Kai-ping Leung’s address on 1 July 2019 at the Legislative Council. After protesters broke into the council chamber, Leung took off his mask and delivered a manifesto for the resistance movement.
7 Brian Kai-ping Leung, “I am Leung Kai-ping,” video-recorded public speech presented at the rally “Sovereignty in the People” held in Chater Garden, Central, on 16 August 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqlkZkEDvl8. Leung is currently in the US pursuing graduate study.
8 Chan (Citation2020).
9 Brian Kai-ping Leung, “I am Leung Kai-ping,” video-recorded public speech presented at the rally “Sovereignty in the People” held in Chater Garden, Central, on 16 August 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqlkZkEDvl8.
10 See, for instance, Fong (Citation2019).
11 In the autumn of 2019, when the regime of violence punished pilots at Cathay Pacific and union organizers at the Cathay Dragon, the retortion against businesses that kow-tow to Beijing began with the tactical initiative and networking of a “yellow” circuit of consumption and livelihood. Yellow is the symbolic colour of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.
12 For instance, cultural critic and political commentator Leung Man-tao asks, after naam-chaau, “then what?” See Leung (Citation2019). Now the problem with this kind of “what next” argument lies mainly with taking the individual acts of resistance (albeit in the naam-chaau mode) as examples of a set of means leading towards a foreseeable goal.
13 According to Fong (Citation2019, 5), the hinge is on Hong Kong’s unique place as an “internationally recognized free market and rule of law.”
14 Frontliner Fung, as cited in Nicholas (Citation2019).
15 Cited in Fanon ([Citation1961] Citation1990, 50).
16 Creator of the now famous slogan (光復香港, 時代革命), Edward Tin-Kei Leung was the former spokesperson of the Hong Kong Indigenous, a localist activist group. In June 2018, he was sentenced to imprisonment for six years for riot during his participation in the 2016 civil protests in Mongkok known informally as the “Fishball Revolution.”
17 See Lo Si-tak (Citation2019). He argues for giving up the hope that things will ever go back to normal again.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Stephen C. K. Chan
Stephen C. K. Chan, Professor of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, has published internationally on Hong Kong culture, cinema, literature, education and cultural studies. His research covers cultural politics and identity narratives; martial arts cinema; pedagogy, creativity and performance. Currently Chair of the Association for Cultural Studies, Chan was convener of the inaugural Steering Committee of the Consortium for Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Institutions. He serves on the Editorial Board of Cultural Studies and Advisory Board for Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Router: A Journal of Cultural Studies, Communication and Society, and Localities. He is a founding core member of the Scholars’ Alliance for Academic Freedom.