Hong Konger

The news from home over the past few weeks have become increasingly dire. Never in my imagination would I have thought that the streets that I am intimately familiar with would become backdrops to rallies upon rallies, and police brutality. My heart feels the despair and the frustration of being a witness to it all. 

I know why the youth of Hong Kong go out day after day to rally; they have little choice for it is their future for which they are fighting. When the normal avenues of appeal are not honoured, then the only act that remains is the act of defiance. So they go, in the face of tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets. They go despite the very real risk of being arrested, convicted of rioting and subsequently jailed for years, or worst being preyed upon by the police and pro-Beijing factions in the most violent manner. 

On the other end, we see the escalating retaliatory measures taken by the police. Who are perhaps themselves backed into a corner, forced to dehumanize the citizenry in front of them as there is no chain of command to lead them otherwise since those in government remain uncharacteristically silent. But that is perhaps in the playbook. I can see how the police are being pitted against the insurgency with little guidance but to resort to violent retaliation, unsavoury tactics to "maintain the peace". 

Unwittingly, both sides are being pitted against one another, pawns upon a much bigger chessboard in which ultimately the objective is for the mainland to be justified when they eventually take down Hong Kong in one fell swoop; all in the name of restoring law and order. So much for one country two systems, an experiment that simply did not work. 

So I watch, from afar, increasingly agitated, gradually disillusioned as the once Pearl of the Orient is tarnished beyond resemblance. I write this knowing full well that I may not be able to return, but then again I have lived a life of an exile for far longer than I would like to admit. So I will not remain silent. #antiELAB #HongKongers