Hello everyone, we're here at ART of the MOOC with Joshua Wong. Joshua is very young, but he's done many, many things in his life already. [LAUGH] He's a key part of the Hong Kong student movement, scholarism, and many other fantastic social movement initiatives, and so we're very lucky to have him. Thanks so much, Joshua, for being with us. And so for the first question, many of our students are learning how to even initiate a call for a social movement or something they care about and think should change. What have been, in your years of activism, the main kind of tools and methods that you use for organizing? >> From my experience, now I'm 18 years old, and I start to organize those movement from 14 years old. Actually I've organized two main movement, named the Anti-National Education Movement, and the second one is the Umbrella Movement. I'm in the last year of call to action. From my point of view, I think the value behind or strategy behind is to let yourself turn from the minority to be the majority. I mean, at first time, actually, you will just be minority. No one will really support you or care about you easily. But you need to have your quote should set to be, I need to turn my value or my belief to be the majority supported. So how to get the majority supported? From my point of view, two sides, also we need to have some progressive action to give more pressure to the ruling class, businessman, or the government. Other than that, we should also have some of the propaganda to get the majority support. I mean, in a movement, actually, only minority group of people will join an action. Say, for example, in Hong Kong, even with 7 million people, only 1.2 million people have involved in the Umbrella Movement. If you count the whole percentage, it's around only 20% of Hong Kong people joined the movement. But why we can continue to get the global support and concern is because we use a lot of propaganda, I mean, in Facebook, Instagram. Even a lot of the singers, artists, they have produced a song about the Umbrella Movement. And a lot of the artists, in the past, they would just talk or discuss about some issue that's not related to politics, but this is the first time for them to support and show the stand to support democracy. So, anyway, to sum up, it has been in organization movement. We are the activists. We're really interested in organizing direct action, even civil obedience. But other than that, don't forget the part of propaganda to get the majority of people to support. Even the majority of people, they would just support, but not involve in the action. They may also create their more bucket and power for yourself to continue your movement. >> Right, right. One of the really striking parts of your involvement in these two movements has been the success in involving youth, right? Many of the people who show up at these protests are 12 year olds, 14 year olds, and this is incredible and has inspired many people around the world. Are there specific methods that you have found are better for these age groups, or is it all the same? >> It's really important for, this really important strategy behind. Actually, in Hong Kong last year, movement with 13 years old students joined student strike, 14 years old and for civil disobedience, and 15 years to be arrested by policemen. I think it's quite unusual, uncommon for secondary school student in junior form to involve in strike or direct action. I mean in foreign country, it's really special for the situation in Hong Kong. But once the strategy behind is first we put a lot of effort to manage our Facebook. I mean, my Facebook page has 450,000 people liked and score resumized organization paycheck for 310,000 people like it. But compared to the political party in Hong Kong, they make just around 40 or 50,000 people like it. It is quite diverse, because we come from Internet. And we organize from Internet. For our generation, that means people born after 1990. We will not use email. Email is old already. And we will, all of us, we will use Facebook group to manage our things and to have more discussion and while we can build our network. In Hong Kong, there's only 7 million people. But my Facebook page can reach 1 million people per month. This is the importance of it. In Hong Kong, people above 30 years old will not know what is Instagram. They do not know what is Instagram. There's not the things that they would use for their own generation. That's why we put a lot of effort to establish hashtag to let the people upload their photo to show their stand on supporting the Umbrella Movement. This is the strategy, I mean, put more resources and effort to manage the Facebook and Instagram 24 hours per day. Yeah, it's really important. But from the security forum, actually, email had been hacked by people from mainland China. Last month, one year ago, we have been hacked for two times. Actually, because all of the personal information, database, the minutes of our meeting, always save in Google Drive. And it's been hacked by others already. And of course, some worry about safety or security problem on Facebook, but from my point of view, Gmail or using email actually is more danger than using Facebook. Because it's more easy for you to access in the email system. Anyway, well we tried to, if, we're talking about something is really sensitive or really important or confidential, we'll not leave any minute in the Internet. Just for example, someone may know that actually why last year we started the Occupy Movement on the 28th of September, it's because on the 26th of September, we have the action to regain the citizen's square. I mean, climb through the three meters barrier and go into the citizen's square. This is the action we planned before the action start three hours. We plan at evening 6 o'clock, and we start the action at 9 o'clock. And whole of the action, we do not enemy is reckon safe and Facebook, Gmail, Google Drive, or any Internet or Whatsapp application. And the advantage is the police men would not know any detail. >> So there's no records of any of- >> No, no record at all. >> How did you manage to do that? >> We- >> In person meetings, [CROSSTALK] >> We ask everyone, because we didn't plan a gray radical action, in the evening around 9 to 10. So around 6 o'clock in the evening, we ask every member volunteer come to the meeting room. And all of our put in the room, yeah. >> And the reason I ask is so that our students can learn. You know how to do these things. [LAUGH] It's very important. >> Actually [CROSSTALK] >> There's no organizing school, right? You have to learn it on the street. >> And even the normal university, if you are major in politics or sociology, then you may learn. Some fear really behind a social movement that they will not teach you how to face the second- >> No, not at all. >> Yeah, it's really important, yeah. Actually, in Hong Kong, always we will define politician as the counselor member in the legislative council. And it's quite special for the relationship between activists and politicians in Hong Kong. Because most of the time, activists such as Shuo Long Wu always challenged those politicians and give more pressure to them such as some of the politicians. And even they say they support democracy, if you ask them to involve in civil disobedience, they will say, it's too radical. It would lost my water support. Yeah, I view it as a quite special situation for them, because they may just want to keep this, rather then pushing forward to continue the fight in the row of democracy. Yeah, but from my point of view, it depends on how you define politician. If you define politician as anyone who involve in policy discussion or even organizing the political movement, of course, I'm a politician because I organized the [INAUDIBLE] movement already. But from my point of view, actually, every Hong Kong media will ask that, Joshua Wong, will you run in election in the future? Actually, if I need to run in an election, the minimum common is I need to be 21 years old. So even next year, we will have the election of the legislative council, I could not wish the requirement, because I am just 18 years old now. Of course, I would not say I would never run in an election. But I think it's very important for every activist to remind ourselves. If we involve in a social movement for a period of time, some of the politician or party may ask that, hey, would you interest to run in an election? If you run in an election, you will get a save, and you will have high salary. You will have really great power and more influence. I've got this in fact. Actually in Hong Kong, if you become one of the council members, the salary is really high. If we organize in social movement, if we have to pushing forward to get our own right, regain our right from the ruling class, we should set our target, and run in election is just only one of the many forms to reach our goal, yeah. >> Well, thank you so much Joshua for being with us. And I think students will learn a lot from you and be inspired by you as a student. >> Okay, yeah, thank you. >> Bye. >> Bye bye.
