HONG KONG — When Hong Kong public libraries pulled
books about dissent from circulation last month, Pong Yat Ming made an offer to
his customers: They could read some of the same books, free, at his store.
اضافة اعلان
Pong, 47, founded the shop, Book Punch, in 2020, after
Beijing imposed a national security law in response to the anti-government
protests that rocked Hong Kong in 2019. The law broadly defined acts of
subversion and secession against China, making much political speech
potentially illegal, and it threatened severe punishment, including life
imprisonment, for offenders.
Pong said he had opened Book Punch precisely because he did
not want the city to fall silent under the pressure, and because he felt it was
important to build a more empathetic, tight-knit community as the law cast its
shadow over Hong Kong.
“The social movement has changed the way people read and the
value they place on books,” he said. “I want to bring out that kind of energy,
that desire for change through reading.” He added: “Books are powerful, like
forceful punches responding to the social environment.”
The venture is a potential minefield. The security law has
brought mass arrests, a rout of pro-democracy lawmakers, changes to school
curricula, a crackdown on the arts and rapidly growing limits on free
expression. It has also forced booksellers to confront questions about how long
they will survive and how much they might have to compromise. A lack of clarity
about why certain
books are suddenly off-limits has complicated decisions about
which titles to stock.
As they navigate the constraints of the sweeping law, many
independent bookstores have strengthened their resolve to connect with their
readers and crystallized their roles as vibrant community hubs. In interviews,
booksellers said more people had rushed to buy books and photo collections
documenting the 2019 protests, driven by the fear that these records would one
day disappear. Some customers, meanwhile, have simply turned to their
neighborhood bookstores for a sense of connection.
At Hong Kong Reader, a hushed upstairs space in the bustling
Mong Kok district where a regal, one-eyed cat reigns, visitors have created a
“Lennon Wall,” leaving messages about their hopes for the city on colorful
sticky notes in a narrow back corridor. At Book Punch, an airy loft in the
working-class neighborhood of Sham Shui Po, customers gather for discussions
about democracy in Hong Kong and elsewhere. At Mount Zero, a jewel-box-size
bookstore in the Sheung Wan district, the owner hosts visits by politically
controversial authors.
“There’s
been a greater need for people to gather around the hearth and keep warm
together,” said Sharon Chan, owner of Mount Zero.
A Book on Civil Disobedience Vanishes
After the national security law passed, changes swept
through the city’s public libraries. Dozens of titles “suspected of breaching”
the law have been pulled from their collections in recent months, according to
Hong Kong’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department, which oversees the
libraries. They include the memoirs of pro-democracy activists and treatises on
political self-determination in Hong Kong, local news outlets reported, citing
publicly available library databases.
Among the withdrawn material is a 2014 book called “Three
Giants of Civil Disobedience,” which outlines the philosophies of Gandhi,
Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. Its author, Daniel Pang, a Christian
theology scholar, said he had been dismayed to learn that it had disappeared
from circulation.
“The only reason I could think of is because it contained
recommendations from Benny Tai and Joshua Wong,” he said, referring to two
well-known activists who have been charged under the national security law.
Blurbs from them appear on the book’s back cover. “Or because of its subject
matter: civil disobedience,” Pang added.
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