[liberationtech] What could we at Liberationtech do to help pro-democracy HK activists protest China's new security law?

[aryt alasti]

Mass protests in Sudan appear to have been significantly successful.

https://theconversation.com/how-the-people-of-sudan-pulled-off-an-improbable-revolution-132808



Aryt

On Wed, May 27, 2020, 10:15 AM Richard Brooks <rrb at g.clemson.edu> wrote:

> Waiting for the species to evolve does not seem particularly
> useful. Nor does just stating that all forms of government
> are equally bad.
>
> I have seen technical interventions bear fruit:
>
> -Election monitoring reducing fraud in Senegal, and
> post-election violence in Kenya,
> -Large-scale protests in Burkina Faso did result in
> deposing a dictator and replacement with a democratically
> elected government. Which is not perfect, but better.
> -Post election coordination in Gambia did result in
> dictator YahYah Jammeh being replaced with a democratically
> chosen president. Who is not perfect, but better.
> (Worse would have been difficult.)
>
> Good things can happen. Political planning and coordination
> is needed and change will need time. My colleagues
> talk about working for their grandchildren.
>
> Hong Kong has multiple problems. No one is going to confront
> the PRC. HK is unpopular with the majority of the PRC
> population who see them as spoiled. The PRC clearly has more
> military and economic might. On the other hand, HK is
> useful for the PRC.
>
> Giving the HK population the ability to send information
> to the outside world is not likely to be useful. Giving
> them safe and unfiltered communications channels to
> access external information and to communicate internally
> is probably worthwhile.
>
> I am not certain if protest might not just lead to an
> eventual violent confrontation, although they have
> done a good job of keeping the worst from happening so far.
>
> On 5/26/20 6:29 PM, Raymond Saner wrote:
> > thanks Hans, you bring up the old and still relevant question:
> revolutionary or evolutionary change?
> > we have the old adage in Europe which states:  plus ça change, plus ça
> reste la même chose and plus ça reste la même chose, plus ça change
> >
> > best, Raymond
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: LT [mailto:lt-bounces at lists.liberationtech.org] On Behalf Of
> Klein, Hans K
> > Sent: 26 May 2020 17:41
> > To: grarpamp <grarpamp at gmail.com>; lt at lists.liberationtech.org
> > Subject: Re: [liberationtech] What could we at Liberationtech do to help
> pro-democracy HK activists protest China's new security law?
> >
> > Well, I would propose a softer version of the posting below.
> >
> > As currently practiced, liberation technology and its policy partner,
> democracy promotion, build on an implicit and overly-simple model of
> democracy. It involves catalyzing large public protests that destabilize
> governments.
> >
> > The model supposes that destabilization is followed by "democracy", but
> in fact destabilization is more often followed by chaos, civil war, and
> foreign intervention.
> >
> > Libya had a brief democratic moment, but now it has a civil war; so far
> the list of interveners includes France, Italy, US, Turkey, and Russia.
> Syria had its moment, but then came foreign intervention in the form of
> various radical mercenaries backed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and even the
> US.  Ukraine had its big demonstrations, but the people in the Maidan were
> then given a government hand-picked by foreign powers  (See: BBC [
> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 ], Consortium News [
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGq_Xvzn_3I ] .)  In every case, the
> people (the "demos") of the country came out as the loser.
> >
> > What is a more effective model of democracy promotion?  I think it is
> one based on organic growth in the society.  Political development takes
> time;  the clock speed may be measured in human generations.  The
> successful model requires patient nurturing and no threatening or
> attacking. The terrible democracy recession that we have seen in the last
> 10 years is in large part a reaction to outsiders seeing democracy as an
> act of "liberation", i.e. as a rapid and kinetic process that can deliver
> immediate results.
> >
> > In each case, we can ask what is worse: the problem or the cure?
> >   Syria: Assad or the civil war
> >   Libya: Ghaddafi or the civil war
> >   Ukraine: Yanukovych or the civil war
> > (You can pose the same question of Iraq and Afghanistan...)
> >
> > A useful question would be: given the learning that (hopefully) has
> taken place, what could we at LiberationTech do to *effectively* promote
> democracy?
> >
> > Hans Klein
> > School of Public Policy
> > Georgia Tech
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: LT [mailto:lt-bounces at lists.liberationtech.org] On Behalf Of
> grarpamp
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2020 6:32 AM
> > To: lt at lists.liberationtech.org
> > Subject: Re: [liberationtech] What could we at Liberationtech do to help
> pro-democracy HK activists protest China's new security law?
> >
> >> What could we ... do to help pro-democracy ... activists ...
> >> do things that have not been done in the past.
> >
> > Stop teaching them that they can somehow break free from whatever
> shithole government they're under now by claiming democracy is some magical
> font of freedom worth aspiring to. It's not, at all. It's just another form
> of same slavery, force, murder, trickery, theft, war, false authority...
> > Spread out, infused, diluted, harder to see and kill than their average
> dictator, by design... a ruse, a ploy, a trap for confusing the sheeple.
> And it worked.
> > "B-ah-ah-ah" they all said, "oh please give us that" they begged, while
> scrambling over each other in queues hundreds deep to cast discard their
> own fates down some worthless memehole in a box... a final act of spiritual
> suicide transformed into one of joy by the programming of the wolves that
> still rule over all of them.
> >
> > Regarding "government", there is only one thing that hasn't been done in
> the past.
> >
> > --
> > Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major
> commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you
> moderated: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt. Unsubscribe,
> change to digest mode, or change password by emailing
> lt-owner at lists.liberationtech.org.
> >
>
> --
> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major
> commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you
> moderated: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt. Unsubscribe,
> change to digest mode, or change password by emailing
> lt-owner at lists.liberationtech.org.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ghserv.net/pipermail/lt/attachments/20200527/ca0cca1d/attachment.html>