在這陣革命醞釀期,對你人身自由最大的威脅,莫過於與動機不純,誠信成疑的人為伍。
人際間的信任彌足珍貴,可是中共的權力源於彼此忌憚,他們不斷破壞人際間的信任和關係網,營造一個猜忌的氛圍。中共在這種扭曲的環境下急劇滋生,民間無法透過互信建立任何公民組織,有利其維穩工作。
要勝過中共,大家必須掌握抗衡猜忌內鬥的法門。中共內部以至治國,一直有賴「誰也不信誰」維持運作,中共極擅於破壞人際間的信任,破解之道正是要建立真正互信。
即使追溯至共產黨早年延安時期,有志投共的理想青年一旦涉足中國共產黨,黨的首要工作就是搗毀成員間所有互信。就有如馴象師瓦解幼象的意志一樣,中共會透過利誘或暴力威逼,拆毀人類間互信的天性。
中共雖然透過統戰活動滲透香港各階層,然而對社會影響有限。香港人仍然懂得信任別人以及被人信賴,乍看稀鬆平常,事實上大陸人經歷中共70年統治後,大抵已失卻這種基本的生活思考能力。
香港人在雨傘革命中展示了市民間的深厚互信,當黑警揮棍肆虐時,抗爭者冷靜堅守防線,完全信賴身邊互不相識的同路人,跟警方的紀律有雲泥之別。
雨傘革命顯示出公民社會在驚人的互信下,透過非常規的方式發聲表達意見,令中共深受震驚。可是往後的日子,港人這種直接簡單的信任,並不足以應付中共專門破壞互信的間諜組織。
面對中共及其爪牙特首,港人可以利用一些簡單的方法,建立互信網絡,阻隔中共的滲透及滋擾行動。
如何鞏固互信以應付日後的抗爭行動?
建立及鞏固互信的最佳方法,是成立小型、緊密的人際互信小組,亦即8至10位你絕對信賴、彼此理念相近的朋友。
為何僅限於8至10人?
不如做個簡單測試,請短時間內列舉你絕對信任的人。
不太多吧?可能少於10人。
這並非因為你身處的世界信任稀缺,只是人際圈越大,圈中人的信任度就會隨之下跌,10人或以上的圈子將難以建立有實質意義的互信。
軍方特種部隊傾向採用6人小隊編制,因為小隊互信圈內,每個成員自律自發,互相援護。若成員失信於同伴即被撤換,讓小隊迅速復原運作。對比由幾位核心將軍指揮、人數眾多的戰鬥營旅,小隊沒有山頭主義,也毋須花時間尋覓可信的士兵辦事,效率更佳。
當你成為互信網絡的一份子時,你的人身自由較能受到保障,與其他圈子交流亦會容易得多。由眾多互信網絡組成的群眾,對比一大群「同桌吃飯,各自修行」的群眾哪個較安全可靠?不言自喻。
群眾間有充份互信時,行動者彼此有默契,訊息傳遞更為可靠,大家理念也大致相近。確立了互信網絡後,你不必認識每個圈子的人,但你會知道他們都可靠。企圖煽動內鬨的滲透者將難以得手,因為他們甚少以團隊行動,一旦他們嘗試刺激群眾製造混亂,很快就會被各互信圈子所認出、排擠並孤立。有良好意圖的單獨行動者,通常不會突然聚集群眾企圖生事。
建立互信網絡唯一弱點在於所信非人,另文再談。
問:建立互信網絡,可以消減輕雨傘革命時出現的山頭主義嗎?
山頭主義無法根絕,但可以減輕。互信網絡的政治光譜通常相近,如此一來,你可以更容易跟其他光譜的支持者互動;即使大家處事手法未必一致甚至各不相容。互信網絡成立後,大家可以更容易略過眼前分歧,為長遠的大目標共同出力。經典案例如立法會爆玻璃事件,引起爭拗的觸發點並非爆玻璃本身,倒是「我不知道動手的仁兄是誰?」如果當時存在良好的互信網絡,行動者是否滲透很快可以查清楚,如此一來,各行動派系均可受惠。
相反,中共極希望透過破壞民間互信將革命瓦解。各黨各派在這種氛圍下,極易受到煽動或離間互相私鬥。失去互信,中共必然擊破港人所有抗爭力量。正如富蘭克林名言:「若一盤散沙,不聞不問,則每人問吊可期!」面對史上最獨裁專制的中共政權,大家的獨立自由必須建基於合作抗爭,即使大家方針迥異,未必完全認同對方的行動亦要互相守護。互信網絡可以阻止中共將雨傘革命削弱成單獨個體逐個擊破。無論你在爭取民主路上屬於甚麼光譜也好,任何程度的團結,都勝過中共將猜忌病毒灌注入香港社會內。
互信是革命力量的加固劑,猜忌則會蠶食組織間的軟肋。
雨革初期,市民互不認識,本著共同理念建立默契,戰果令人嘆為觀止。直至雨革中後期,則須要靠信任及組織協調去維持。中共必然會無時無刻嘗試將之瓦解,民間互信是中共的頭號天敵,同時也是港人的最強武器,請務必盡展其用,萬勿自棄!
(編按:Richard Scotford 為本地英文雜誌《bc Magazine》記者,一直關注近期各區的反水貨客行動。本文原以英文寫成,2月27日刊於 Richard Scotford 的 Facebook 專頁,由熱心網民 Takki Ma 翻譯為中文,謹此致謝。英文原文附列如下,供讀者參閱。)
Trust
In revolutionary times like these, the biggest danger to your own personal freedom is surrounding yourself with people who may not be safe or have duplicitous, veiled intentions.
Trust is a very precious thing. The currency of the Communist Party of China (CCP) is distrust. They break bonds and relationships in order to create an atmosphere of distrust. In this warped World of their making, the CCP thrives within the fractures of society and human relationships. When no-one trusts each other it is very hard to get anything organised. This is how the CCP destroys any notion of civil society in China and ensures that no one defies it.
To get to the very top of the CCP you need to be a master in exploiting mistrust. The success of the CCP relies on no-one trusting anyone, ever. This also goes for CCP members, who have the least trust in anyone or their organisation. The only real antidote to CCP tactics is to create trust. The CCP doesn't know how to build real trust, it only knows how to break it.
Even as far back as the Yan'an days, starry-eyed, young wannabe communists would turn up at the border of the new Soviet, and the first thing the CCP establishment would do is get to work on destroying whatever trust the friends had in each other. Just like a Mahout breaking the will of a baby elephant, the CCP uses the threat or actual violence to break the natural tendencies that humans have to trust in one another.
Although the CCP, via United Front activities, has permeated all levels of Hong Kong society they have yet to have any major impact upon our civil society. Hong Kongers both know how to trust and be trusted. This sounds like a simple life skill, but many people on the Mainland are devoid of trust due to nearly 70years of CCP rule.
The Umbrella Revolution has shown that Hong Kongers are happy to put an enormous amount of trust in their fellow citizen-protestors. When the police were running rampage swinging batons and showing no discipline despite having so-called training, protestors stood their ground and calmly held their lines, showing maximum discipline and great trust in complete strangers who shared similar ideals and values.
The Umbrella Revolution was a fantastic display of a trusting civil society pulling together to express itself unconventionally. This scares the CCP. However going forward, the simple honest trust that Hong Kongers share with their fellow citizens will not be enough and will come under persistent attack by shady groups designed to break trust at every turn.
In order to take on the CCP and its lackey local government, Hong Kongers will need to create trust networks that will be very difficult for the CCP to infiltrate and disrupt using simple, well-used methods.
How to strengthen trust for the fight ahead?
The best way to protect and build trust is to create small, human-to-human trust networks. Or cells of 8-10 people you absolutely trust and know share the same values as you.
Why only 8-10 people?
Here's a quick exercise.
Quickly list all the people you absolutely trust in your head.
It's not that many right? Probably less than 10.
This is not because you live in an un-trusting world. It's because trust begins to fray at the edges once the numbers get too big. Groups that are over ten people start to unravel on real trust.
Military Special Forces now favour small teams of 6 people over large battalions of men commanded by a few key generals. A small group becomes self-regulatory, everyone can manage each other and make sure they remain within the trust-circle and values parameters. If someone breaks trust the person can be removed quite simply and the group regenerates itself quickly without major disruption. In larger social groups, this simple task is harder because factions can form and identifying those who are not trustworthy becomes both time consuming and difficult.
Once you are part of a small trust network, you will see that this protects your own personal freedoms and liberty and it can then begin to interact with other people's networks much easier. Large crowds of trust networks sharing similar ideas are much safer than large numbers of individuals who you 'think' have the same common goals.
When on a protest, you will know and trust the people standing next to you. You will know that the communications you're receiving are authentic and that you will be surrounded by many others that share your values. You may not know everyone in all the groups, but you know you can trust them because they are built on the similar values as your network. In this environment agent provocateurs are stifled in their activities as they rarely operate as groups. They are quickly shown up to be lone wolfs with no immediate network to back up their direction which is trying to agitate the crowd and cause chaos. Agent provocateurs operate by acting as individuals, coming together to incite a larger crowd. If they can be identified quickly as being at a protest with no close networks then their intentions can quickly be seen as suspicious. Singular individuals with good intentions generally don't try and rally people to do provocative things out of the blue.
The only weakness in creating tight, trust networks is choosing people to be in your network who are not trustworthy. I will discuss this in another post.
Q) Will creating trust networks help reduced the factionalism that is present in the Umbrella Revolution?
Well, it wont eliminate it, that's certain, but it will reduce it. You see, like attracts like. Trust networks will be created along the lines of the political spectrum you adhere to. In this way, the various democratic groups can interface with each other, knowing that they may not see eye-to-eye on method, but can identify and work with each other on greater causes. The classic example would be the breaking of the window at Legco. It wasn't the actual breaking of the window that pissed most people of, it was more to do with, well, who the hell is this guy and that guy? In a revolution that is permeated with trust networks, people can quickly be validated as the real deal, even though you might totally reject the methods they are using.
Conversely the CCP wants to riddle the revolution with no trust. In this climate, groups fight one another and are at the mercy of manipulative agent provocateurs at every turn. Giving in to distrust will assuredly bring about a CCP victory within HK. Or as Ben Franklin once stated, "If we don't all hang together we shall surely hang separately!" Or in order to guarantee our independence and freedom from the most tyrannical entity that has ever existed, the CCP, we will have to fight for it together and defend each others' rights when attacked, even if we don't fully agree with the actions or methods of all those involved. Trust networks go a long way in mitigating against the CCP carving up the Umbrella Revolution into bite sized chunks. It doesn't matter where you are on the democratic spectrum, anything is better than the CCP spreading the disease of distrust throughout Hong Kong's society.
Trust is the glue that bonds the revolution together. Distrust is the cancer that will eat away at the weak joint in between groups.
Fantastic things were achieved during the opening phase of the Umbrella Revolution. But during those times, the crowds that came together were just clusters of strangers sharing the same dreams and aspirations. In the next phase of the Revolution, we need to return with more trust and more organisation. The CCP will be working tirelessly to make sure that doesn't happen. It is their number one enemy, they hate trust above all things. Yet, for Hong Kongers it's our greatest weapon, don't squander it!