There is a specific, vintage flavor of absurdity that one can only find in the modern courtroom, particularly when a government decides that the act of memory itself constitutes an existential threat to the state. We turn our weary gaze to Hong Kong, a city that was once the vibrant, chaotic intersection of East and West, now rapidly transforming into a silent, sanitized diorama of compliance. The latest act in this tragicomic theater involves the opening of a national security trial for the organizers of the Tiananmen Square vigil—a ritual that has, for decades, been as much a part of Hong Kong’s identity as dim sum and humidity.

Two former leaders of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China have been dragged before the bench. Their crime? Ostensibly, it is “incitement to subversion.” But let us dispense with the legal euphemisms and speak plainly, shall we? Their crime was possessing a memory span longer than a goldfish and the audacity to light a candle in Victoria Park. It is a profound testament to the fragility of authoritarian architecture that an empire armed with nuclear weapons, the world’s largest surveillance network, and an economy that rivals the gods feels physically threatened by a few retirees holding wax sticks.

For thirty years, these activists organized a vigil to commemorate the crackdown in Beijing on June 4, 1989. For thirty years, this was allowed. It was a pressure valve, a moment of reflection, a uniquely Hong Kongese demonstration of civic conscience. But under the new National Security Law—that sweeping, nebulous blanket under which all dissent is suffocated—history has been retroactively edited. The Alliance is accused of being a “foreign agent” or inciting revolution, not because they built bombs, but because they refused to participate in the state-mandated amnesia.

The prosecution argues that the Alliance’s slogan, “End one-party dictatorship,” amounts to a call for the overthrow of the state. One might marvel at the sudden realization of this fact. For decades, this slogan was shouted through megaphones with the tacit permission of the authorities. Did the words suddenly become sharper? Did the acoustics of Victoria Park change? Or did the definition of “security” simply expand to fill every available cubic inch of oxygen in the room? The trial is less a legal proceeding and more a bureaucratic exorcism, an attempt to scrub the collective consciousness clean with the harsh bleach of legislation.

It is delightfully ironic, in a morbid sense, that by prosecuting these individuals, the state effectively validates the very event they wish everyone to forget. If June 4, 1989, was a non-event, or a justified restoration of order as the mainland narrative often suggests, then why is the commemoration of it treated with the gravity of a coup d'état? A confident government would shrug at a vigil. A terrified government, haunted by its own shadow, sends in the prosecutors. They are turning martyrs into giants and candles into searchlights, ensuring that even in the silence of the prison cell, the noise is deafening.

We must also appreciate the sheer intellectual dishonesty required to conduct these proceedings with a straight face. The prosecutors, the judges, the administrative machinery—they are all participating in a grand play where everyone pretends that “Nation Security” is actually at risk from a disbanded group of pro-democracy advocates. It is the banality of evil repackaged as the necessity of order. The defendants, having been denied bail for ages, are essentially political props in a lesson intended for the rest of the populace: keep your head down, your mouth shut, and your memories approved by the central committee.

This is the modern condition of the global authoritarian creep. It is not enough to control the present; one must also colonize the past. The trial serves as a notice of eviction for history itself. The West, of course, watches with its usual furrowed brow and issues sternly worded statements that are filed immediately into the recycling bin of history. Meanwhile, in the courtroom, the dismantling of Hong Kong’s soul proceeds with surgical precision, wrapped in the dull, grey language of the law.

Ultimately, this trial is not about whether these two activists broke a law; it is about the law being rewritten to break the activists. It is a demonstration that in the new Hong Kong, reality is whatever the state says it is today, regardless of what it was yesterday. The candle has been snuffed out, but the smoke still lingers, acrid and undeniable, filling the courtroom with the uncomfortable scent of the truth.