Monday 22 July 2019

Another step in Hong Kong's Ulsterisation

Yuen Long MTR station in the evening of 21 Jul 2019. Sourced from Channel News Asia. 
It was the summer of 2016. A few months had passed since the civil unrest in Mongkok. Edward Leung, and also a few others, were just barred from standing in LegCo election later that year. I was reading McKittrick and McVea's history of The Troubles. It was around that time I got a minor epiphany: Hong Kong society was becoming more and more like that of Northern Ireland.

Deryck Chan and I discussed this and we both agreed, with the hope that we would be proven wrong. The conversation is in the picture below. Three years had flown by since.

Conversation with Deryck, 2 August 2016. Click to enlarge. 
Last night, in the suburban commuter town of Yuen Long, the city probably took another step in its descent to violence. A gang of thugs in white, armed with clubs, attacked anyone they could find in the train station - children and pregnant women included. Many but not all of the passengers were returning protesters wearing black from central Hong Kong. Hours passed before police arrive at the scene, right after the thugs left.

But this, of course, was not new. Thugs, ostensibly with no connection with the government, attacked protesters in the early days of the 2014 Occupy movement too. So did members of public reasoned with the attackers, or begged them to cease, with the same punch in the face. Sadly, this is not a new step.

What's new is this: in some videos, people in black fought back and chased away those in white with whatever sticky objects they could find by the road. Another Rubicon has been crossed: people took justice into their own hands when they lose confidence in the system.

It may be hard to believe this now: less than five years ago, protesters trusted the same system so much, they raised their hands in face of pepper spray and tear gas. They wanted to show their peaceful intent as if it would have helped their cause. That trust, first earned then inherited, is no more. It had been spent, bit by bit since 2012, in exchange for short-term political gains as one supposedly impartial public service after another was brought into politics. We are now in uncharted waters and can only guess what may ensue.

Hong Kong's modernity had largely been put together in the last 20 years of colonial rule, under instructions that can be broadly summarised as 'avoid embarrassing the Secretary of State'. Its foundation has always been delicate. At its heart is a public administration that was ostensibly apolitical and impartial, serving all with an efficiency that Hong Kong could be proud of. It was supplemented by elaborate performances of public consultations. The whole thing was then dressed up to mimic democracy, which has been put out of reach.

Humpty Dumpty is sitting on a wall. If he loses balance and falls, he probably can't be put together again.

It takes tact to simply keep the show running. Governments can only stay tactful for so long before they start playing with fire - sometimes probably without knowing.

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