On the afternoon of November 26th, a fire broke out in multiple residential buildings in Hong Kong’s Tai Po Hong Fuk Court, resulting in significant casualties. As of now, the fire has caused over a hundred deaths and more than two hundred people missing.
“The residential building is part of Hong Kong’s so-called ‘Home Ownership Scheme Estates,’ which is one of Hong Kong’s subsidized public housing programs. The Hong Kong Housing Authority constructs public housing and sells it at low prices to low-income citizens.” According to investigations, the building’s exterior wall has protective nets, waterproof tarps, plastic sheets, and a considerable number of bamboo scaffolding that has not been dismantled. Additionally, a nearby building not affected by the fire has foam sealing outside each floor’s elevator lobby window.
After the fire, reactions from major mainland Chinese media seemed relatively indifferent, merely reporting on it with few details; meanwhile, foreign liberal media focused on criticizing China’s rule over Hong Kong, emphasizing “since Hong Kong’s sovereignty was transferred in 1997” in many reports.
Hong Kong’s bourgeois government has taken a vague stance on the cause of the fire, without providing a clear response. They only mentioned possible reasons such as non-compliance of building materials with fire safety standards, and they pretended to arrest a few bourgeois elements. However, a significant portion of the public and small bourgeoisie pointed out that a major reason for the fire was the use of bamboo scaffolding on the building’s exterior. Some right-wing factions argued that the main cause was unrelated, claiming that bamboo scaffolding fully complies with standards and is more “economical” and “cheap.”
Due to limited information, I have not yet identified the main cause of the fire. But regardless, the social class reasons behind it remain unchanged: the decayed rule of the bourgeoisie. In Hong Kong, a place where land is extremely valuable, the bourgeoisie, in order to save money, constructs densely packed buildings, with some neighborhoods having less than 5 meters of space between structures! Moreover, outdated firefighting responses and unscientific urban planning prevent fire services from arriving at the scene promptly.
In recent years, fires caused by various unreasonable factors under capitalist society have been increasing, such as the Australian bushfires, Los Angeles fires, and the Chongqing mountain fires mentioned in “The Chinese Revolution.” These are not natural disasters but man-made calamities caused by the bourgeoisie. To prevent such fires as much as possible, it is necessary to overthrow this decayed capitalist system.
