Reflections on Sunday's largely peaceful, yet not entirely tension- and incident-free, protests

This past Sunday night in Central

Not against Starbucks per se but its association 

in Hong Kong with Maxim's (and Annie Wu)

I had lunch today at an eatery favored by Twitter hero Hong Kong Hermit located just a few minutes' walk from where two friends and I had our post-protest march dinner on Sunday.  Unlike two days ago, I didn't have to walk past a gauntlet of riot police on the way to my dining venue.  And my post-meal journey home today also differed from Sunday's in being, again, riot police-free.

Ironically, two out of the four times that I caught sight of a group of riot police on Sunday were away from the march route and after I had finished the pro-democracy/anti-government  protest march.  Actually, as with the peaceful mega marches of June 16th and August 18th, the police presence was far less than at smaller sized protests where violence erupted -- and tear gas buffets were unleashed.  Still, this is not to say that there weren't moments of stress and tension during the march itself.    

Within the first hour or so of what would be a multi-hour march, a friend told me that some people had been pepper sprayed by the police.  I admit it: I pretty much shrugged at the news since I went into Sunday's pro-democracy protest prepared for worse to ensue; this not least since the previous time I had gone and assembled in Victoria Park, lots of bad stuff went on to occur -- so much so that, as a result of my experiences that November day, I now know what tear gas combined with smoke from lit fires smells like.

I did get more concerned though when my section of the march stalled on the section of Causeway Road just to the left of the Central Library; this since reports were coming in that the police had raised the black flag (tear gas warning) on Paterson Street in response to surely reasonable requests by march participants to open up more roads since a whole hell of a lot of people were clearly out on the streets that afternoon.  Rather than stay and fight the police, however, a "Be water" directive issued on Telegram and other channels sent people searching for ways to bypass the section of the march that had come to a stop and rejoining the march at a section further along that was flowing, however slowly.

The first time along the march that I actually caught sight of the police was in Wan Chai.  The first group I saw was standing to one side of the march route, looking fairly chilled even if determined to make sure that all the march participants stayed on Hennessy Road.  Closer to the police headquarters though, the atmosphere was much more fraught with tension as a larger number of riot police stood on the overhead bridges that the marchers had to pass under to get over to Admiralty. 

Things weren't at all helped by many of the march participants feeling a need to unleash a string of curses and expletives at Hong Kong's most hated.  Don't get me wrong: I understand the anger and disgust that many Hong Kongers feel towards the police.  But I also am fully aware that the local constabulary don't need much provocation to unleash tear gas and other brutal force at unarmed individuals.  So I really would have preferred for people to continue chanting "Five demands, not one less" or "Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong" rather than risk endangering others around them by giving in to their impulses to rain insults at individuals with weapons capable of inflicting a lot more hurt and harm than any string of words.      

The fortunes favored the protesters on Sunday though; with no tear gas having been fired despite tear gas warnings having been issued on more than one occasion that day.  When it's realized that the Hong Kong police have fired 16,000 rounds of tear gas -- along with 10,000 rubber bullets, around 2,000 bean bag rounds and 2,000 rounds of sponge bullets -- in the past six months, it can seem downright miraculous that Sunday's protests were as peaceful as they were.

Those of you who are apt to make a hue and cry about protestor violence upon seeing such as vandalized Starbucks shops and (Mainland) Chinese bank branches: Please be reminded that the vast majority of Hong Kong protests and protesters are peaceful.  As for those who have come to look upon violence as the answer (or, at least, one weapon in the protestor arsenal): remember that it was the Hong Kong government that got them to conclude that peaceful protests (alone) are useless.