The protestors had intended to demonstrate peacefully; they were decently attired and not geared up for battle.
It was, after all, a call for democracy: to allow men of all social classes to vote, instead of the existing, exclusive rights afforded to the upper class, landed gentry back in 1819.
Obviously, it would be another century before women were allowed to vote, but alas, civilisations only take baby steps towards progress.
The government of the day, peopled by those who had much to lose, set the cavalry on the 60,000 protestors, resulting in 650 people injured and 18 dead.
It’s a moment of shame for the British, particularly as men of all social classes had sacrificed their lives and fought in the Battle of Waterloo just four years earlier, only to be told that their voices were not important enough to be heard at the ballot box.
This event does not take up much space in the history books; the subsequent governments preferred that British schoolchildren learn about foreign conquests and victories, like Colonialism. This has clearly led to the inflated opinions of the have-nots, those who believe they are greater than they really are, many of whom sincerely believe that Brexit would teach the EU a lesson and “take back control”.
This massacre, ironically called Peterloo, did however, lead to the birth of the Manchester Guardian. For back then, just as things have been in Malaysia in the past, the newspapers colluded with the government to generate propaganda that vilified the protestors: painting them out to be trouble-makers, and blaming them for the bloodshed.
The Manchester Guardian had aims to set the story straight, as it was founded by an outraged witness to the scene of the massacre. The Guardian exists even today, balancing the nonsense spewed by the tabloids with “the other side of the story”. It does seem to serve the more educated of society in these times, while the Sun and Daily Mail dole out the lies to the working classes, who obediently and compliantly lap it up.
How things have changed.
And what is astounding is that they have changed aplenty, and yet they haven’t. Across the world, China grapples with such a similar situation to that which befell the UK just 200 years ago.
Good ole China is seeing birthing pains with its civilisation. Mind you, it has already steamed ahead with its industrial revolution. Indeed, despite the global warnings of China’s slowing GDP, China has plenty of scope yet to develop and it certainly will chug along at full speed.
Its attempts to control its massive population, is another kettle of fish, though.
The real measure of its progress to become a true super-power of the world is in its political and social sphere. It’s not in the cities that it builds, but in the communities that it fosters. Physical development is much easier than mental and emotional development.
China’s communist party is the equivalent of Britain’s landed gentry. Hong Kong is the equivalent of Britain’s scene of the massacre: St Peter’s Field, near Manchester.
And in Hong Kong, the seeds of discontent will flow to disable the monopoly of China’s mainstream media. News outlets are sprouting, the product of indignant protestors and malcontents who do not believe their government represents them in any way.
China, after all, is one of the few countries in the world that does not allow its citizens to access Facebook. Weibo, its Chinese counterpart, is heavily monitored by the authorities. I suspect comments unfriendly to the Communist Party are quietly logged and the "errant" user put on a watchlist.
Chinese cell phone users (and unsuspecting tourists) are watched by the government surveillance app.
China makes a lot of effort to stifle an uprising, and it does have the technological means at its disposal to do so. This is a battle of wits and stamina; it’s man vs machine.
Offline, China has been developing programs to enable authorities to restrict travel access to dissidents and vocal opponents of the Communist Party. It watches your shopping habits, even your waste disposal habits. It uses your biometric data to identify you and boy, does it have an extensive database.
More recently (and this is one of the issues that sparked the protests in Hong Kong), it tried to put forward a bill to repatriate Hong Kong citizens who disagree with it to the mainland - presumably, for punishment.
It’s draconian and narrow-minded, the sort of rhetoric you would expect from a tin-pot dictatorship, not a budding economic super-power.
China may lead the world in its technological advancements, but in terms of social advancements, it is barely taking baby steps, if not crawling on fours.
But the moment will come when China comes to grips with being a proper nation with rules and regulations that the rest of the world will admire and long to join.
The journey may be full of pain, angst and strife, but the moment will come.
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