A tradition becomes an act of protest as students paint and repaint The Cannon
“Awareness is always the first step to change. You’ve got to be aware of a problem or a situation before you can do anything about it. … Painting The Cannon is not about the paint, it’s about the message you send people. It’s about the impact you make for people. Maybe someone from Hong Kong is feeling depressed and they see The Cannon and they know that other people are going through the same thing.”
This quote comes from a student who identified themselves as one of the main organizers who led the initiative to paint “Stand with Hong Kong” on The Cannon. For a variety of reasons, including the fear of repercussions given the ongoing political situation in Hong Kong, students quoted in this article have requested to remain anonymous. The Ontarion prefers to quote from named sources, but in some circumstances including where an individual’s safety may be compromised, anonymity is granted. We feel that having the perspective of the individuals involved warranted such special considerations.
“We came to show support for what’s happening in Hong Kong,” a student told The Ontarion.
Students from the University of Guelph’s Hong Kong Student Radio Association came together on Sunday, Nov. 24 at around 9 p.m. to indulge in that long standing U of G tradition, painting The Cannon. Old Jeremiah was painted black with yellow writing on either side, reading “Stand with Hong Kong” and “Free Hong Kong.”
Early on the morning of Monday, Nov. 25 the work of the Hong Kong Student Radio Association was erased. “When we came back in the morning one side of The Cannon was covered with purple paint. Our Lennon wall” — referencing a bristol board photographed near The Cannon covered in notes with messages of freedom — “was gone. In the afternoon, someone came and scraped off the words Stand With Hong Kong,” explained another student.
Rumours began to spread that it was members of the University of Guelph’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association that had done the redecorating. The students from the Hong Kong Student Radio Association decided to repaint The Cannon again with the original slogans. “Around 5:30 p.m. I came here to guard The Cannon and already 30 people were standing there ready to paint it red, the colours of the Chinese flag. So me and my friends came to ask, what’s going on? Why did you guys do it? And the whole thing got heated up,” a student told The Ontarion. By 7:00 p.m. on Monday The Cannon was fully painted red.
A post on Reddit made on Monday included a link to a nine-minute video in which students can be heard debating and at times arguing the political situation in Hong Kong. The user who made the post offers their account of the night, saying, “there was a large confrontation where the Chinese students said “Free Hong Kong” is an offensive, separatist speech and must be censored.” According to their post, things began to calm down around 7:30 p.m. and some mutual understandings were reached. This was repeated to The Ontarion by students still standing with The Cannon the following day. Around 8:30 p.m. people began to leave. It was around this time that the campus police arrived.
By the end of the night, The Cannon had been painted over again, this time it was yellow with the final message reading “Love and Peace.”
Around 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 26, an unidentified man began to vandalize The Cannon. Softening the paint with diet coke and using a boxcutter, he carved “Death to the CPC” and “riot” into The Cannon.
“We tried to stop him,” said another student. “It looked really bad because it looked like the Hong Kong people were doing it to the Chinese cannon. So we covered it up with white paper.” The student explained that the Hong Kong students had originally painted The Cannon as a form of peaceful protest to raise awareness, not to start a fight.
By the evening of Nov. 26 students were again gathered around The Cannon, waiting for more paint, to cover up letters still carved deeply into the layered and still wet surface of Old Jeremiah.
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A rough timeline of The Cannon:
