Spot the difference between the police at Admiralty
...and the police at Admiralty this past Monday
Last Saturday, I took in a screening of Matthew Torne's Last Exit to Kai Tak. The beginning of this
2018 documentary which takes a look at five people involved in the
Umbrella Movement and what they set out to do after the conclusion of
its "Occupy" phase began with visuals showing the firing of tear gas on September 28th, 2014
that were clearly meant to shock viewers as well as remind (some of)
them of the horrific actions by the police that prompted hundreds of
thousands of Hong Kongers to go out on the streets to protest.
It is a measure of what's happened over the course of this current summer of discontent that those scenes didn't have as much shock value as the director had thought would be the case; this not least since so much more tear gas has been fired since June 12th -- including some 800 rounds alone this past Monday
-- than was the case back on September 28th, 2014, and many, many years
before that date. And, indeed, after an interval of three days without
tear gas this week, the police have gone back to firing more tear gas at protesters this evening.
At one of her now rare public appearances yesterday, Chief Executive (in Name Only) Carrie
Lam claimed that the mass protests gripping the city having contributed
to an economic slump worse than that which had occurred during the 2003
SARS outbreak. At least one economist has disputed that the current economic slump is worse than 2003's: this not least since, "During SARS, people could not go out every day and there were no planes
coming to the city, with no tourists coming and property prices
falling,” he said. “Every day was like that."
I
also would like to put it to Carrie Lam that the main contributors to
the current economic slump may well be the Hong Kong police force and
their copious use of tear gas, including the area with the highest concentration of hotels in the territory (i.e., Tsim Sha Tsui) and popular shopping districts (e.g., Mongkok and Causeway Bay). Not to take away from the firing of tear gas in mainly residential areas (e.g. Wong Tai Sin) and other parts of Hong Kong that international tourists don't usually frequent, let alone are familiar with (e.g., Tai Wai and Yuen Long) but when those areas with familiar looking luxury shops and landmarks are made to look like war zones, it really does make for especially bad optics -- and that's been happening for close to two months now!
Over
the past weeks, I've had a number of friends and family living abroad
contact me to ask if I'm safe in Hong Kong after they read about -- and,
usually, more vividly, watched -- the protests and the police reaction
in this part of the world. Even while I've tried to inform them about the protests (and why people are protesting), I've also sought to assure them that it's actually not all turned anarchic in Hong Kong.
Among other things, I remain confident that the sight of large crowds of protesters is not a scary thing in Hong Kong -- and, indeed, can be beautiful and inspiring.
Sadly though, I'm much less able to vouch for one's feeling safe in the
presence of the increasingly out-of-control Hong Kong police;
particularly since, in addition to their trigger happy ways with regards
to tear gas, they also have taken to arresting innocent bystanders and looking upon them as "the enemy" along with anti-extradition bill/pro-democracy protesters. :(
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