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| The bricks that are 15metres from the battles |
The police routes of protesters last night
were nothing more than akin to chasing birds of the lawn and thinking you’re
tough for doing it. One person can easily route 100s of birds, because they
DON’T FIGHT BACK. likewise, 20 PTU violently thrashing at everyone will route
100s.
The confidence of the hardcore
police units to beat protesters is shown in the fact that they don’t even
bother to carry shields. Just batons so they can move fast, hit hard and feel
like they are somehow powerful.
Unfortunately, HK’s Black Police Force, they
are now unashamed of this now and happily cheer and jeer at the protesters when
they think they’ve scored victory, misunderstands this fight. They think it’s
about power. When the Police completed their last charge this morning and
stomped right into the main protester site, they were high on what they thought
was a victory for them after a terrible night of collapse after collapse.
And then this morning we hear CY pipe in that
the protesters should not mistake the HK Police forces restraint with weakness.
Which we could say exactly the same thing about the protesters.
Last night, I spent a fair amount
of time discussing with protesters who had found a huge stash of bricks right
next to Lung Wo Rd, the heart of the battle. After being routed once by the
police, people were angry and wanted to use the bricks against the PTU.
Everyone knew they would come again, no one was surprised and some protestors
wanted to hit back at the PTU when they came cockily charging. Fortunately,
good sense prevailed and we managed to convince them that bricks would not help
the cause. So the bricks remained untouched!
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| A small amount of bricks that had been loaded on to the road. Fortunately, those with good sense had arranged for them to be removed before the second police attack. The protesters of the personification of restraint in the face of extreme violence. |
The point is, which I’ve said all
along is it is beyond preposterous to say that the reason there have been no
major injuries so far is because of the restraint of the police. This is both
ignorant and naive to believe or say. The reason why there has been no extreme
violence is because of the restraint and good sense of an ad-hoc group of
protestors who constantly squabble and bicker over method but all share the
same high goal.
There is no rational or logical connection
between no negotiation and therefore straight to violence. People try to sell
us this idea, and often we accept it blindly as though this is a normal state
for citizens to be in with their government and police. But it’s not rational.
Just like in our homes, if a person is being defiant, we’re not justified in
going Route One to physical violence. The same is true for politics, or I can’t
negotiate with these people therefore I will just brutalise them.
So in this light, how can we see last night's
event? Certainly the police got routed twice to start and then the police routed
the protesters twice. So was it a draw? Maybe the police won? Their route took
minutes whereas the protesters push took hours.
The fact is, this is a true Civil
Disobedience Movement and in such a fight, the protestors need to show the
inhumanity and unreasonableness of the Government. And the best way to do this
is to prove that the Gov will choose violence over discussion and negotiation
and will brook no dissent and instead violently clamp down on it.
After 64 days, the HKFS call to action proved
that the government will not and cannot compromise. Maybe you already knew that
and think people didn’t need to push it so far to show this. But again this is
naive. There’s a significant difference between personally believing and
proving. Whatever your thoughts on the Occupy Movement, your opinions on the HK
Gov and Police are changed forever and will never return back to what they once
were. As for the young people of Hong Kong, The police and Gov have lost an
entire generation. they will not forget what they saw. This is the success of
the Occupy Movement. This was the victory from last night.
Everyone's future in HK is at
stake here. The Government has proved itself to be unashamedly malign to a
significant proportion of the population and the HK Police have proven beyond
doubt that they will happily run any of the government’s detractors off the
street time and time again. The Police Force and Gov are stripped of any shame.
They may well win by shear brute force , but they will never be able to get
people’s trust. That has gone forever.
【文、圖來自作者 Facebook，題為編者所加】