OtaCat: October 2019

I've had a lot of things happening throughout my life and at times I try and distract myself by going on joke sites like 9gag, youtube or just scroll across facebook. Since June, all those platforms have been bombarded with two main news; Hong Kong protest and climate change protest. We seem to be living in some sort of a mass protest stage which happens in wave every couple of decade, like the equal rights protest, climate change protest (there were some pretty huge one in the 70s and 80s), peace protests etc. The difference this time is that social media has given these protesters another platform to fuel each other in and the protests have become global much faster. There is one thing that's common about the recent protests though, which is that people seem to want the government to make changes. A funny fact is that HK protesters want less government control and climate change protesters want more government control. (Yes, I know some climate change activist will say they don't want 'control' but they don't actually realize that 'control' is what they're actually protesting for. Control on transportation, regulations on power output and consumption, control on import and consumption etc) I've already stated my discontent with climate strike, my views have become a bit more radical in its opposition, but I won't delve into it. Today what I wanted to talk about was my discontent towards HK protests.

So most people know the history and the reasoning behind the protests, but just in case they don't here's a brief overview. I'm going to copy and paste from BBC news since I can't be bothered typing everything myself.
"3 April, Hong Kong's government introduced plans for changes to legislation that would allow for criminal suspects to potentially be extradited to China."
"On 9 June, an estimated one million people marched to the government headquarters to show they were against the proposed bill."
Since then there were protests pretty much every weekend.
"On 9 July, Carrie Lam reiterated that the extradition bill was "dead" urging protesters to stop their actions. She still refrained from fully withdrawing the bill." "It's not just about extradition any more"
"By this point, here is what protesters still want:

The withdrawal of the "riot" description used about the 12 June protests
An amnesty for all arrested protesters
An independent inquiry into alleged police brutality
Universal suffrage in elections for Hong Kong's chief executive (the territory's leader), and Legislative Council"

So the protests are still going on. There were quite a few violent clashes and it's still happening.

Initially, my heart went out to the protesters. Although I didn't physically support them, I thought it was brave and beautiful what they were doing. This is when the protests were peaceful. They marched, sang songs, and held candle light (more like phone light now) sit in for their cause.
However, it didn't take long for the protests to turn nasty. I don't mean the police. They were nasty too, but what the protesters were doing and what they're still doing is nothing more of just mindless vandalism and fascism.
I just want to verify one important note
I still believe the cause of the protest (well... some of them that is, like freedom and universal suffrage etc) is a good one. I believe in their rights to protest and I believe they should protest. Also I do not support violence from the HK police. I did see the videos of rubber bullet shooting, beating and water blasting protesters and I don't support that at all.
What I don't support and believe, is the way they're protesting and what they have done. Here's a list of things that protester have done that I don't support.

1. Masks. Gandhi would frown at HK seeing all those masks. It didn't start with the masks which was one reason I thought they were brave and fighting justly, but as soon as they did, they showed the world that they were cowards. They basically sent this statement to the world "We want to act like we're brave and fighting for a cause, but not actually fight since fighting requires putting oneself on the line and we don't want to do that." It wasn't fighting against police brutality, since if the police wanted to use force, they'd use it whether the protesters were masked or not, but they were mainly afraid of being arrested and other consequences such as losing jobs. Well here's my view. If they actually believed that their cause was great and just, they wouldn't fear arrest. In fact, in other grand protests, people were even proud to be arrested, because they became the face and the story of the protesters to the international eyes. If their cause were just and they got arrested for peaceful protesting, they would proudly wear the label or badge (as a figure of speech) and say "I fought bravely with no shame for a just cause". But no. They decided to be cowardly. And don't give me this bs that it wouldn't be the same in europe or america. Masks protests are banned. It's illegal for a very good reason which I'm going to talk about now.

2. Vandalism and violence. Ever since the masks came out, the number of violent incidence with the police and other chinese people have sky rocketed. Protesters started vandalizing shops, subways and streets more frequently. Protesters started picking up bricks to throw, they started bringing Molotov cocktails to throw and started fire throughout the city every now and then. Then because they were cowards hiding behind masks, blamed the chinese or americans for infiltrating their protests, WELL WHO ALLOWED THAT TO HAPPEN?? HMM?? I have no doubt that there are infiltrators causing a scene just to get things violent, but I also have no doubt that there are HK protesters themselves are also going around doing the things I've just listed. This is exactly the reason why masked protests are banned around the world. With anonymity, dark nature of human beings start to arise. "I can set fire to this and get away with it." "I'm angry at this guy, now I can beat him up and get away with it." "I can break all the windows steal a bunch of stuff and get away with it." Having a chance of getting away with things and having a mass that thinks the same way is dangerous. They also cannot blame everything on the 'infiltrators'. Protesters did not stop the few people smashing windows, blocking subways and writing graffiti on the walls. In fact, protesters themselves chained and beat up quite a few people they believed were from china. I'm going to link all the videos showing this at the bottom. Also that thing about blocking the subways and beating up chinese people brings me to my last point.

3. Fascism and restriction of other people's human rights. When I saw them occupying the airport and causing almost 300 airplanes to delay for not just a few hours, but a few days, my emotional support for the protesters were lost. As one interviewee stated "You don't fight for freedom by taking away others." And this was just the beginning. Here's a part of the definition of fascism for anyone who doesn't know what that means, "fascism is... characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition"(from wiki. I can't be bothered with references) Ah... yes... "forceful suppression of opposition". Just in case people don't know, suppression can happen in multiple ways, including restriction of others freedom or rights. Like the freedom to travel which is exactly what happened in HK airport and subways. A mother begged because she has a baby at home she needs to get to. A traveler slept on the floor with no shower for 3 days because his flight was delayed and couldn't leave the airport because he was uncertain when his flight would be announced. A student was missing her university lessons due to delays. A worker was worried he'll miss too many days of work. Few people got no compensation and had to fork out more money to book new flights instead. Whilst most of these were just minor inconvenience, at heart it was still a restriction of freedom. These people were in the cross fire and they did not deserve this treatment to support someone else's cause forcefully. What have they achieved? Well they lost a lot of support internationally which is what they achieved.
Another example of "forceful suppression of opposition" is when the protesters started beating up people who expressed their support for china and vandalize companies and shops that were deemed 'chinese supporters'. What kind of a dictatorship is this? Freedom of speech still should apply to these people. Most shops they vandalized seemed like they were just normal businesses with people just making a day to day living.

4. Last thing I'm just going to mention is the mess they're making of their own city. In most recent photos, you can see rubbish, rubble, broken windows and graffiti everywhere. Vandalism is a small part of the mess. Businesses are failing, and livelihood was lost in many parts of the city. People, including tourists don't feel safe on the streets anymore. They caused a separation between people and in some cases, even segregation.

Image result for hong kong street mess