The Struggle Continues

Two protesters apologize about what happened last night with eye patches

Today protesters apologized for their horrific behaviour in Hong Kong International Airport.

The heartfelt apologies don't forgive what they did, but at least they admit their mistakes and are willing to do some self-reflection unlike a person we all know.

The airport had to be shut down due to overcrowding

Last night was shocking and hard to understand and accept. After a three-day peaceful protest at the airport on the weekend, it escalated to another occupation on Monday after Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor continued to condemn the protesters, while reporters were frustrated she had nothing new to say, or would she directly answer questions.

The entire airport was covered in people wearing black and the sheer numbers of people overwhelmed the Airport Authority who shut down the airport for the rest of the afternoon. Reporters said the chanting was non-stop and loud. They were very angry.

Another occupation of the airport was decided for Tuesday from 1pm onwards, but for some reason the protesters would not allow people to enter the departures area. They physically blocked them, restrained them, and shouted at them.

Travelers were desperate to make it to the departure gate

Going to the airport is stressful enough and yet the added layer of protesters made many travelers desperate and freaked out which is understandable. People had to force their way to the departure area or even beg protesters to let them through. It was shocking and embarrassing. Why were protesters doing this?

And then it escalated into paranoia when they saw two men who were mainlanders in their crowd and assaulted the first one, thinking he was an undercover Chinese police officer, when in fact he was there to see his friends off at the airport.

He fell unconscious and the protesters even prevented emergency services from collecting him. What is going on?

The second one apparently smirked and said he supported the Hong Kong police and dared protesters to beat him. Again he was roughly treated and even hog tied with plastic ties. It turns out he was a Global Times reporter and Editor-in-chief Hu Xijin confirmed the young man worked at the paper.

This young man turned out to be a Global Times reporter

This was the perfect storm for state media to pounce on these two incidents, claiming that the protesters had terrorized these two men, the latter one already declared a hero only an hour after the incident ended.

But that's not all.

There were tensions between the riot police and protesters. At one point a woman was just tear gassed in the face and crouched down when a riot police officer literally pounced on her about to beat her with a baton. Others rushed to her defense and the scuffle resulted in one young man grabbing the policeman's baton, that left the police officer terrified and reached for his pistol and point it at the crowd.

Thank God he did not shoot. He slumped to the ground, probably relieved.

In self-defense a police officer brandished his pistol

Eventually the Airport Authority got a court injunction to legally remove the protesters out of the airport.

Today all of us were trying to make sense of what had happened and why.

The protesters themselves are doing some massive soul searching too. They were probably paranoid that police may have been undercover around them, but cooler heads must prevail from now on. This cannot continue.

At the airport, some protesters held handmade signs profusely apologizing for what they did and said they were desperate after having exhausted all means to get through to the Hong Kong government.

But the must continue the fight.

An acquaintance posted a quote from Frederick Douglass, an African-American former slave who became a social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman. Douglass championed equal rights for people of colour -- including Chinese immigrants, as well as for women.

Abolitionist, social reformer, and orator Frederick Douglass

He said this on August 3, 1857:

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

Thank you for the reminder that the struggle must continue.