Si chiama Joshua Wong ed è il maggior protagonista della sollevazione popolare a Hong Kong contro Pechino: gli studenti e tutti i manifestanti vogliono che la Cina garantisca ad Hong Kong il mantenimento della democrazia.
Il ragazzo guida la ‘rivoluzione degli ombrelli’, ma è stato arrestato lo scorso fine settimana insieme ad altri 74 giovani studenti. Subito dopo il suo rilascio, ha voluto parlare ai giornalisti da vero leader e, in diretta tv, ha invitato la Cina a desistere dalle sue intenzioni.
Come riporta il [url”Guardian”]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/01/joshua-wong-teenager-public-face-hong-kong-protests?CMP=fb_gu[/url]:
“With his floppy hair, baggy shorts and stripy T-shirt, accessorised with a yellow ribbon around each skinny wrist, the only thing distinguishing the 17-year-old from the other teenagers on Wednesday was the bank of television cameras facing him.Joshua Wong is too young to drive or buy a drink in a bar – let alone vote – yet has become the face of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and an inspiration to citizens three times his age.
The co-founder of Scholarism, the student movement which kickstarted the demonstrations, is already a veteran activist. At 15, he battled against plans to introduce “national education”, which critics attacked as pro-Beijing “brainwashing”. Scholarism’s campaign brought more than 100,000 people on to the streets in protest; the proposals were duly shelved and Wong became something of a celebrity. He is probably the first mass protest leader who has had to call a press conference to discuss his exam results (he met university entrance requirements, though he has said in the past: “Teachers have always said my only strength is talking and that I talk very fast.”)
But his 40-hour detention from Friday, along with others who stormed into the blocked-off government complex at Admiralty, kickstarted large-scale protests and catapulted him to global attention. The arrests galvanised those previously indifferent to last week’s student protests and sparked the wider civil disobedience movement that has paralysed a large part of downtown Hong Kong.
The sudden fascination with Wong’s role is not entirely to his satisfaction. “If a mass movement turns into worshipping a particular person, that’s a great problem,” he warned in 2012, after the campaign against national education. More recently, asked about his own heroes, he stressed: “You don’t need role models to be part of a social movement as long as you care about the issues.”
Anche che in ogni movimento di protesta mediatico ha un volto di donna giovane e vestito alla moda come leader non sappiamo se leader davvero, sicuramente sul piano mediatico quindi destinato a restare mai un bruttone operaio.
