Balance sheet

It’s certainly the HK authorities strategy to paint a picture of the demonstrations being entirely consisted of outsiders. As I have reported before that became less and less the case as the week progressed. On many occasions, including quite late in the sit-in in Gloucester Road on Saturday night, I got talking to local people who weren’t journalists.

True, some local people came along out of curiosity, but the effect the experience had on them will hopefully last a long time. The Sunday Morning Post reported after the protests that students at Baptist University had raised HK$6,100 to buy fruit and chocolate for the protesters. Groups of Hong Kong residents shouted at police as they attacked the demo:
“Stop, stop. You are not human beings” and “Shame on you, we are all protesters here!”

For others who were more comfortable with watching and taking photos or video coverage, the sympathy still lay with the protesters. Again, the Sunday Morning Post reported the words of David Chan:
“As soon as the Korean Farmers rushed forward, police sprayed them with pepper spray. Police even cracked a couple of heads with their batons.
“They were only protesting peacefully. The Koreans should attack them in retaliation, I have no sympathy for the police. They deserve whatever they get.”
Another skeptical onlooker said “I want to remember this moment. And I want to see if what happens here today is what police say later.”

Especially considering the property and people of HK were treated with nothing but respect by the protesters, no cars or shops were smashed, not even a single McDonalds or Starbucks was scratched, the press didn’t have any images of ‘wanton violence’ to focus on.

In the Sit-In we spent quite some time chanting “We love Hong Kong” (and it is a pretty spectacular place, with some fantastic people living there) while making a heart shape above our heads with our arms. The conduct of the protests while determined and uncompromising was difficult for anyone to have differences with.

A lesson to be learned further afield? Certainly in Stirling during the G8 protests where activists smashed up an out of town shopping mall, they only achieved the alienation of local people and further condemnation in the press.

Not so in HK.