A Revolutionary Priest in Hong Kong

Hong Kong — In Hong Kong director Ann Hui’s award winning movie Ordinary Heroes, a movie about Hong Kong’s social movements in the 1970s and 1980s, one memorable character is a Cantonese-speaking Italian priest.

Franco Mella

He participates in almost every major social movement to fight for the right of underprivileged people in Hong Kong. During these movements, he often quotes Mao Zedong, plays guitar, and sings The Internationale to encourage people.

This priest and these stories are not fictional. They are based on the life of Italian priest Franco Mella.

Sixty-three-year-old Mella [pictured left and top right] is a priest of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, a Catholic order founded in Milan in 1850. But conventional is not a word often twinned with his name. An activist through and through, Mella is devoted to both his order — and to communism.

“Communism believes that all the people are brothers and sisters. And people should be equal all over the world. These are the same with Christian belief. The only difference is that Christians believe in God, communism believes in the people.” – Franco Mella.

Clad in jeans and a white shirt, Mella looks more like the grandpa next door than a priest.

From his perch on a bench near the Clock Tower on the southern tip of the Kowloon peninsula overlooking Hong Kong Harbour, he greets passersby with a cheerful “Hi!”.

Those who know him — many of them people who have experienced his English Corner programme — greet him with affection.

Mella’s English Corner seeks to help people improve their English by explaining Hong Kong’s right of abode controversy to tourists to raise international concerns about the issue. Mella launched it about seven years ago as a means of fighting for the right of abode in Hong Kong for all children of Hong Kong parents born on the mainland.

This is a problem that has divided families. It is a result of the wording of the Basic Law, the mini-constitution drafted by China to cover post-colonial Hong Kong after its resumption from British sovereignty in 1997.

The Basic Law decrees that offspring of a Hong Kong resident with right of abode in Hong Kong also had the right to live and enjoy all the rights of citizenship that their parent — or parents — are entitled to. However, it did not set cut-off points.Hong Kong right of abode is granted to those who have lived (legally) in Hong Kong for seven years. But the rules were unclear on the status of offspring born in China before a parent had racked up the seven years required to claim Hong Kong permanent residency.

Could the offspring born before a parent had gained right of abode claim the right to migrate to Hong Kong with full rights of citizenship once a parent had gained permanent residency in the former British colony? And what of the offspring’s offspring?

The Hong Kong courts ruled that yes, they could.

But unhappy with the judicial ruling the Hong Kong administration turned to Beijing which over-ruled Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal. It decreed that only offspring born to a parent after he or she had gained permanent residency could claim right of abode.

At a stroke, families were split. Hundreds of mainland-born offspring, some babies, others adults, faced deportation.

Franco was quick to take up cudgels on their behalf.

He was an experienced activist. One battle was on behalf of mainland brides — another Hong Kong anomaly. Hong Kong immigration controls entry of non-mainland Chinese spouses claiming right to land on the basis of marriage — but has no jurisdiction over mainland spouses wishing to join their Hong Kong-resident partners. Their applications lie in the hands of the mainland immigration authorities.

Franco campaigned on the mainland spouses’ behalf — with limited success — arguing that family reunion was a paramount human right.

He has been fighting the right of abode issue for 11 years now but says only one third of those affected have won the right to stay.

He is not discouraged.

“We will not see the results of some struggles at the end of this life,” he says. “But we have to fight as long as we have breath in our mouth. You have to fight intensively and constantly, that’s the law of revolution.”

“Revolution” is a word Franco often uses, and so are Mao Zedong’s quotes. In 1978, when he was arrested alongside a number of Hong Kong boat people, fighting for the right to settle on the land, he held up Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book, a Cultural Revolution-era collection of quotations drawn from Mao’s speeches and publications.

He encouraged people by reciting, “Only people have the power to make history!” and “Our enemies are paper tigers!”

Accused of being a Maoist, Franco responds by saying he believes one quarter of his gospel spirit comes from Mao Zedong.Born in Milan to a working class family in 1948, Franco Mella became familiar with the communist movement in Europe in the 1960s, particularly in Italy.

“Influenced by the Cultural Revolution, many young people in Europe started to care about society and common peoples’ lives,” he said.

“I started to join activities of Marxist-Leninist communist party from then.”

He wanted to go to China after graduating in 1974. But in the 1970s, that was not possible, so Franco came to Hong Kong instead.

In order to share the experiences of the working class, he worked in factories despite the opposition of the church. Until he left Hong Kong for the mainland in 1991, he worked in 14 Hong Kong factories.

In the late 1970s, hundreds of fishermen still lived on their boats in the waters off Hong Kong’s Yau Ma Tei district. There was no electricity, no tap water and they had no access to toilets on board.

People fought to get resettled on land. When Mella found they were not well-educated enough to express their requests he decided to live on a nearby boat to teach their children. He lived afloat for 10 years until all the families were resettled ashore in 1990.

The boat people  were grateful for his efforts to help them. “You have done so much for us. How can we repay you?” one asked. “Do you want us to become Christians?”

Mella believes that communism is a new interpretation of Christian belief and so does not think it important to convert people to Christianity.

“The Kingdom of God is much larger than the church,” he says. “My greatest hope is that people really believe in communism and believe in building a new heaven and earth, even if these people are atheist.”

Mella’s dream of working in China came true in 1991 when he was invited teach English in Taishan, Guangdong province.

Every time he sought to make changes, such as trying to improve the lives of child beggars and orphans, he would be interrupted and stopped by local officials because, he said, they did not want a foreigner to see the “bad” side of the country.

But as he often says, “It’s a long-term struggle. You cannot ask for immediate results.”

He also believes that “the people in China are healthy; it’s just some leaders that are corrupt.”

When asked whether it is really possible to establish a new heaven and earth in China, the kind, relaxed, next-door grandpa suddenly turns serious and replies: “If it is impossible, our fate is useless. If you don’t think it’s possible, you don’t believe in communism.”