So tonight @ezracheungtoto and I went out to Tin Shui Wai, expecting a round two after confrontations there earlier in the day. Instead we got a pack of maybe 100 young protesters who wandered the neighborhood vandalizing all things MTR for 3 hours.
They also smashed in stoplights and set fires and put up half-assed roadblocks. We couldn’t figure out why the police didn’t come.
Finally after much destruction and one nasty fight, everyone dispersed. As we headed home we ran into maybe a dozen police vans filled with riot cops coming back to Tin Shui Wai station from elsewhere. An amazing sign of how thin the police here are stretched.
Of course when you attempt to govern with police, and your police are set up for law enforcement, that’s what happens. Also when you rule with police, the best way for people to show their discontent is to act out in a way that attracts police.
This isn’t chaotic hooliganism. For all the vandalism, it was targeted and surprisingly controlled. It’s about Beijing’s and HKG’s political failure. In a place with the social trust and development HK has, only a catastrophic meltdown in leadership can cause scenes like this.
Truly I am not trying to justify this. It was painful to watch. Given run of a police-less place, residents of one of HK’s poorest districts destroyed facilities that serve them and stole nothing from stores. The point is why? The answer: HK is in advanced political decay.
