The Hong Kong umbrella movement : a students’ or a people’s movement?

To Western media, the ongoing large-scale protest movement in Hong Kong (HK) is known as the “Umbrella Revolution”, led primarily by university and senior high school students. The umbrella, in this civil resistance movement, is construed as a symbol after having been astutely used for blocking the police’s pepper spray and tear gas. The movement leaders deny the movement as a “revolution” and simply call it a “movement”. They claim that they have no intention to overthrow the government or anything close to it; as, obviously, they do not want to irritate the Chinese authorities with the term “revolution”. However, Chinese leaders in various occasions have already linked the HK protests to a “colour revolution”. Students in this movement have asked for more democratic elements to be infused into future HK elections in order to make those genuine democratic elections.