an online prayer to break the silence in Hong Kong

Although this year on June 4 it will not be possible to commemorate the anniversary of the Beijing student massacre in Victoria Park, a group of Christians has invited people to sign the text of a prayer that will be published as a private announcement in the Christian Times. The text talks about the repression that took place at that time, but also about what is happening today in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong () – June 4 is approaching, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, which turns 35 this year. A date that was traditionally commemorated in Hong Kong with a vigil in Victoria Park, until the harsh repression deployed by Beijing in 2020 silenced and sent all the promoters of the latest initiative to jail in June 2019.

Accusing it of an attack on “national security”, China also imposed silence on Hong Kong over what happened in Tiananmen Square. Even the Catholic diocese no longer organizes the suffrage mass for the victims of the massacre, which was previously celebrated punctually. And to try to make the void less visible, this year the “pro-Beijing” front is organizing to physically occupy Victoria Park – the place where for years thousands of people gathered with lit candles on the night of June 4 – with an open-air fair.

In this context, the initiative of a group of evangelical Christians from Hong Kong who are looking for another way to break the silence imposed by the authorities takes on great importance. The website China Aid informs that for a few days the chinese text of a sentence dedicated to the 35th anniversary of the Beijing student massacre, and invites everyone who identifies with that text to sign it personally. The intention is to publish it as a paid advertisement on June 2 in the Christian Times, Hong Kong’s evangelical weekly. “No individual or organization started this petition, it was signed jointly by individual people,” the promoters specify in a note. Currently 225 people have signed it, but accessions will remain open until May 19.

The chosen title makes the tone of this sentence clear: “By the rivers of Babylon, we sat weeping.” It is the beginning of Psalm 137, which narrates the experience of exile of the people of Israel. The memory of the “ruins and rubble” of Jerusalem is associated with the brutality of the repression in Tiananmen Square, against “the warm blood and passion of so many young lives.” “Although there are no stars or candles to light tonight – the text says – let us light a candle in the depths of our soul in the light of God’s miraculous grace. Let us carry forward his unfinished work with light and prayer. Lord, may they not be forgotten.”

The sentence also alludes to the situation Hong Kong now finds itself in, with a power that “stretches its brutal hands to every corner, sowing fear and intimidation.” And adopting the words of the apostle Paul in the Letter to the Romans, he asks God to teach us to preserve even in this time “the strength of kindness, tolerance and love” and to “repair the fractures of society, safeguarding righteousness and not allowing the truth to disappear from society.

Lastly, the prayer remembers those who have been scattered, imprisoned or exiled. “With your powerful arm – the text concludes – help us and sustain us, so that we can understand your will, discern it, believe in it and practice it in the midst of the convulsions of the world, while we wait for your return.”