Joshua

What did you do when you were 18 years old? There was a boy in Hong Kong who managed to gather people in his country to fight against tyranny. His name is Joshua Wong. I watched a story of him through the movie called Joshua: Teenager vs Superpower.

The movie was started with a glimpse of Hong Kong’s history in the day when they handovered from British Empire’s territory at 1997. Since then, Chinese government handled Hong Kong as one of its area based on a principle called: one nation, two systems. It means that Hong Kong has its own government. The problem is, leader of Hong Kong was dictated—or chosen—by Chinese government. It means that their program would not be dedicated to the people of Hong Kong, because they weren’t choose their own leader. 

As time goes by, Hong Kong government was going to adopted the Chinese education system. Meanwhile, Chinese government thinks that Hong Kong’s students are not nationalistic enough. The nationalism term in Chinese national education context, means obedience. Joshua, was rise against that idea. Through Facebook, he and his friends creates an organization named Scholarism. They fought for their future by occupied public space. Long story short, in September 2012, chief executive of Hong Kong announced that national education system was not a mandatory. Joshua was win.

Another success story of defending Hong Kong’s freedom from Chinese pressure, was happened in early 2014. Joshua and friends, gathered with activist Benny Tai whom declared to fight for national suffrage. They tried to get out from Chinese domination in choosing their own political leader through a mass action called Occupy Central. CY Leung took a hard action to defend national conductivity. Police push mass hardly to clear the occupied place. Even more, they attacked Joshua when he was speaking in the middle of demonstrant. Nevertheless, Joshua kept his chin up. He said he will never stop make hong kong is hong kong again. 

At last, Scholarism turned into a political party. Some of the activist ride through it to make their political goals comes true—to fight for freedom beneath legislative board. On the other hand, Joshua was found guilty on unlawful assembly. A few days ago, Joshua was freed after he has been detained for one month. And Hong Kong, once again fell to the battlefield. This time, people fought for anti extradition law. Will they be the victor? []