A message for our times on the back of a young protestor
Tolerance?
Before anything else, here's a correction re something I wrote in my blog post of May 7th: it wasn't the case that one police officer was arrested that day for being in possession of crystal meth that he had presumably procured by way of his involvement in a drug bust last Tuesday; rather, it was two -- with the second police officer arrested after 23 kilograms of the drugs were found over the course in a separate location over in Shek Kip Mei! This was followed up the next day (yesterday) by the arrest of two more police officers, in a case linked to the arrests made on Thursday.
And if there weren't already ample evidence of a good number of Hong Kong police officers having behaved pretty badly, eight more members of the local constabulary were arrested yesterday -- this time for having assaulted homeless people in Sham Shui Po and damaging their belongings back on February 28th. (Still, it's very much worth noting that not one police officer has been arrested for acts of brutality against protestors; this not only after their very obviously having gone way over the top in their reaction to often peaceful protests, to the extent that seasoned journalists have literally been having nightmares after witnessing those terrible acts. Indeed, as a leaked internal memo revealed, some of them have actually been given commendations for their actions!)
More than incidentally, yesterday evening saw more protests taking place, including one over at the super upscale Pacific Place mall. This time around, they were seen as a response to what had transpired in the Legislative Council (LegCo) earlier in the day as well as a continuation of the pro-democracy movement sparked by the failed extradition bill; not just eye-catching shenanigans by lawmakers but, as Cambridge academic Jeppe Mulich put it, "a seizure of power and a forceful ousting of democratically elected opposition lawmakers on behalf of Beijing."
In concrete terms, pro-Beijingers put a stop to entirely legal filibustering by pro-democrats, with the help of LegCo security (who are supposed to be politically neutral but, by their actions, show that they are not). This is in order to please the Communist Chinese regime that wants the Hong Kong government to enact a National Anthem bill that would criminalize the mocking of the Communist Chinese anthem that also officially is Hong Kong's (Why oh why did Hong Kong not get its own anthem the way that it has its own flag, Olympic team, currency and such?!). And never mind that in going about doing so they have, they are making Hong Kong lose still more international credibility and threatening to destroy Hong Kong.
Even a pro-Beijinger like former LegCo president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing has said that Beijing's tightening grip on Hong Kong will prompt more resistance on the part of Hong Kongers. And it's particularly poignant that he made the remarks that he did yesterday, in an interview with pro-democrat Emily Lau (a journalist turned politician who hosts a TV show these days), right while scuffles were taking place in LegCo (which have resulted, among other things, in pro-democrat legislator Ray Chan suffering a slipped disc after being manhandled by pro-Beijing politician Kwok Wai-keung -- and before being carried out of the room by four LegCo security personnel).
Predictably, there were more protests this evening -- this time over in shopping malls in Tai Po and Diamond Hill. This time around, arrests were made by the police; this even though the protestors were, again, peaceful and not doing much more than standing around chanting and singing Hong Kong's stirring unofficial anthem, Glory to Hong Kong.
This was a step up from the issuing of fines for breaching in social distancing that has become one way for the local constabulary to further harrass peaceful protestors. And proof that the Hong Kong police are far from impartial can be seen by way of their not having broken up the (mainly expat) crowds that formed in front of a 7-Eleven on Staunton Street or one now infamous stretch on Peel Street last night -- the first day that social distancing measures in Hong Kong were relaxed to allow such as the reopening of bars (though surely not the kind of (over)crowding that horrify many of us who really don't want a third wave of Wuhan coronavirus infections besetting Hong Kong).
Some bits of positive news to help keep me from feeling completely down: Hong Kong once again reported no new Wuhan coronavirus cases today; making it almost three weeks since the Big Lychee has seen a local transmission. Also, after a couple of weeks of it having vanished from supermarket shelves (because of lockdowns in the West and attendant transportation problems), I was able to procure a tub of Philadelphia cream cheese once more yesterday. In addition, and perhaps most personally satisfyingly to me, my housing estate finally has got a glass recycling bin again after its being removed in November by government officials fearing that protestors would raid it for empty bottles to make Molotov cocktails with!
I realize it may sound crazy but, for a time, I was actually taking my glass to put in recycling bins: first in Peng Chau (where they had never been removed -- presumably because it's one of the rare parts of Hong Kong that voted in a pro-government/Beijing representative in the November 2019 District Council Elections); and then later to a friend's housing estate in Tai Hang after the widescale resumption of glass recycling in January which nonetheless did not occur in my area until very recently. But after lobbying my building management to pressure the government to bring back my housing estate's glass recycling bin for months, my and their efforts have finally borne fruit. Which gets me thinking: resistance is NOT futile. Instead, if you at first you don't succeed, it can eventually pay for you to try, try and try again!
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