It’s been quite a time in America — arguably unprecedented — with massive Black Lives Matter demonstrations erupting across the nation following the death in police custody of George Floyd. And all of it in the midst of a killer pandemic, economic upheaval and a frightening, and for many psychologically debilitating, uncertainty over what will happen next.
Importantly, the BLM protests have also popped up in many smaller cities in America’s hinterlands, communities not generally thought of as activist hot spots. Click here for a sampling of the coverage of how widespread this has been, care of USA Today, or here for The Washington Post.
There are many offshoots to this monumental story, the core of which is the state of race relations, policing injustices and the Donald Trump administration’s response to this national reckoning.
One sidebar (from The Washington Post, again) is the absurdly hypocritical response of some authoritarian nations — perhaps China above all — to America’s turmoil.
That’s the nature of international political maneuvering, isn’t it? Never miss an opportunity to blame your adversaries when they display problems — no matter how unequal the comparison —that they’ve pestered you about for years.
I’m reminded of the quote attributed to G.K. Chesterton: “When a man concludes that any stick is good enough to beat his foe with — that is when he picks up a boomerang.”
I will pick on China — you would not be wrong to think, “What, again?” — because of its Hong Kong problem that has, understandably, largely been absent from American press coverage of late.
Why understandably? Because, as should be obvious, the first responsibility of American mainstream journalism is to cover important domestic stories. Moreover, I’d wager that few Americans currently give a hoot about Hong Kong’s concern, given what’s going on in their own lives and streets.
So even normally well-read GetReligion readers may have fallen behind on the crucial human-rights angles in the Hong Kong story. This quick remedial from the BBC will help. As will this Fortune magazine piece explaining why Beijing may now be willing to risk the loss of Hong Kong’s financial benefits.
Since this is GetReligion — where how the media covers religion issues is our raison d’etre — I’m obligated to drill further into the Hong Kong issue. Doing so raises the following question for me:
Why has the fate of Hong Kong’s religious believers — in particular its internationally connected Christian minority — received so little mainstream coverage as Beijing keeps tightening its hold on the ex-British crown colony and its people? Is it because of the sort of journalistic oversight that we complain about here so often? You know, the elite media’s general blind eye when it comes to religion issues and their importance to many.
After all, the American press has provided extensive coverage of China’s brutal treatment of its Uighur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, the Mainland’s underground Christian congregations and even the Falun Gong sect. So why not additional coverage of Hong Kong religious groups?
In this case, I think there is another question to be asked. A critical question, if I may say so. It is: Of what journalistic importance is the plight of Hong Kong’s religious believers compared to the overall plight of all Hong Kong residents?
Relatively little, is my answer. I think the more important Hong Kong story is Beijing’s reneging on the political agreements it signed on to when the British pulled out, and its serious human rights violations.
Of course religious freedom was one of the crucial issues raised when these agreements were being negotiated (see these 1997 Terry Mattingly columns from Hong Kong, here and then here). And of course religious freedom will suffer tremendously in Hong Kong under full Chinese domination. That’s a given, just as religious freedom suffers everywhere that Beijing’s paranoid and heavy hand falls.
This USA Today opinion column from last year makes that abundantly clear. So does this piece from the Jesuit magazine America. Finally, this recent essay published on the Union of Catholic Asian News website offers more of an insider’s view of just what Catholics face in Hong Kong.
Still, I submit, religious freedom issues in Hong Kong are subsumed by the territory’s much greater fight for political freedoms and basic human rights. Moreover, Hong Kong itself is not a particularly strong center of vocal religious affiliation.
So it’s one thing for religious leaders in the United States, regardless of their leanings, to be vocal about political and civic issues, and for the mainstream press to give them voice. That certainly includes the BLM protests, in which various religious figures have protested side by side with ordinary citizens of virtually all American religious persuasions, and others with none.
But Hong Kong is not America and it’s wrong to equate its culture and concerns with our domestic expectations. In fact, I’d say to do so is downright ethnocentric.
If you want the latest on Hong Kong believers, look for it in the more narrowly focused denominational press and the religious media in general. That’s their job.
Don’t look for it in the elite mainstream media any time soon. It’s just too preoccupied with a monumental American story — several of them, in fact — that likely will determine the outcome of the upcoming presidential election.
Agree? Disagree? Let me hear from you in the comments section just below.