Some Protesters' Patience Has Evaporated

Protesters deface the bauhinia symbol in the Legislative Council chambers

It's after 10pm on July 1 and I should be pleased with myself for braving the 32 degree Celsius heat and high humidity to march on the streets of Hong Kong for over four hours, but I'm upset and angry seeing protesters destroying the Legislative Council as I write this.

In fact they had been attacking it before the march began around 2.50pm, but I hoped it would be an isolated incident and the protesters would be tired and move on. But they didn't.

Earlier protesters smash into the door of Legco

They tore off the bars of the gate, broke down the glass doors, ignored lawmakers' pleas to stop the violence and stormed into the the Legco chambers. They have now defaced the bauhinia symbol of Hong Kong and written swear words on the walls.

These violent protesters have completely undone what 550,000 people did earlier today, which was march peacefully.

At first the police pleaded with march organizers to either cancel the march, or just march to Southern Playground. We did not want to do that and finally made a deal to march to Chater Road in Central, and not end the march at Legco in Admiralty.

However, at Admiralty, some young protesters put up signs directing people to go to Legco and many did go, while the rest of us (me included) continued marching to Central with hardly any police in sight. I was already seeing on Twitter the violence that was happening in Legco and decided not to go anywhere near there.

Peaceful protesters march in Causeway Bay in the heat

But this also shows that these protesters are tired and frustrated from the fact that Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has not engaged with them at all. She promised to talk to the youth, but we have not seen her do that -- instead she met with senior police officials, thus indicating that her administration has no interest in holding an independent inquiry into the alleged excessive force used by the police.

When people's reasonable demands fall on deaf ears, that only escalates the situation. The protesters have even written on the walls of Legco: "The government made us do this".

Now the government has every reason to clamp down even harder on those who have committed violent acts. There is no reason for an independent inquiry or for Lam to completely withdraw the extradition bill.

A message for Carrie Lam to step down

People's patience have run out, but at the same time we should be playing the long game. Change is not going to happen in a few weeks. All the good will of the last few weeks have now been completely undone.

Even better it happened on the 22nd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China. What an eventful and memorable day.