Thread by @aaronMCN

THREAD: On my third visit to CUHK this week, it’s become clear that the events following Tuesday’s clash will be remembered negatively

It remains to be seen whether the setback will only a temporary one, such as what we saw after the second day of the airport shutdown in August

I’ve talked to CUHK students, and though all those whom I spoke to support the overall protest movement, they are angry at their campus being vandalised

One alumnus put it to me very simply; he said they came out on Tuesday to defend the campus from the police, not to destroy it

That same alumnus is a long-term participant in Hong Kong’s protests going back years, and has also joined in frontline action

He described to me a significant difference in view between students and outsiders. For the latter, the campus became a strategic base to be exploited

Another CUHK student, whom I met on Tuesday afternoon before the clashes, put it this way today: “I won’t be sad if our campus is destroyed when we are bravely protecting our home from police attack, but I do feel really sad seeing it destroyed unreasonably in the past two days”

What this tells us is that even though many protesters have grown very accepting of escalated actions, they still want to know and understand why vandalistic or violent actions are necessary, and what the end goal is. Indiscriminate action is still too much for people to accept

That brings us to the 3am presser, where a small group announced they would partially reopen the Tolo Highway for 24 hours in return for a guarantee that the DC elections won’t be cancelled

The SU was not consulted but was merely informed about this less than an hour beforehand

Today I spoke to Ben Wan Yuk-kwan, CUSU Financial Secretary, and he said the union were later asked to make another statement pledging full support for the outsiders’ actions

Wan went on to allege that the union members were threatened with violence if they did not do so

When I went down to the bridge today to talk to the few outsiders who were still there, they either claimed ignorance of this or claimed it was a miscommunication

One person said that someone had pretended to be a CUSU member falsely and the threats may have been directed to him

Additionally, the same alumnus I mentioned earlier said that he doesn’t believe the outsiders really mean their threats, but it displays a poor attitude towards students and alumni that is worsening the situation regardless

The bridge is still under the control of a few dozen protesters and there are no police in sight, but there are neither enough people to continue to mount a defence nor does there seem to be much energy to sustain the action, not least because it takes so long to travel here now

It’s also clear any negotiation is going to make little or no progress

Ben Wan said that last night, an offer was communicated to them whereby everyone would leave empty-handed, and the firefighters and professors would handle the Molotov cocktails and anything else dangerous

This offer involved no entry to campus by the police, and Wan and some of the other union members believed it was a good deal, but after discussions with other students, the trust deficit in the police and the government could not be overcome, and the stalemate continued

Outsiders I spoke to talked about their intention to help the defense of the campus, but it’s clear that some have not communicated diligently enough with students

The division is not concrete however, as there are still students on the bridge mingling comfortably with outsiders

That makes me think, although this sort of infighting mirrors what happened to the Umbrella Movement, it is only temporary

The cracks in unity don’t feel as serious today as they did on the second day of the airport occupation, and the movement continued regardless after that