Wednesday last week marked the darkest day in Hong Kong’s history, as the territory degenerated into a fascist police state that assaulted innocent citizens, breaching their civil rights, and imposing a rule of fear and oppression.
This month, Hong Kongers have transformed their scattered protests against the Chinese extradition bill into a massive, spontaneous democratic movement that opposes the administration of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥), who was handpicked by Beijing to forcibly integrate the territory into the Chinese political union.
Striving for their limited autonomy, local activists have drawn on a repertoire of tactics, appealing slogans, motivating scripts and elaborate rituals to achieve mass mobilization and adopt a nonviolent strategy that won global sympathy and support for the cause.
More than 1 million protesters joined the heroic march on June 9. When the Lam administration refused to back down, its indifference fueled popular discontent. Tens of thousands of high-school and college students went on strike on Wednesday last week. They occupied the downtown area outside the territory’s legislative building for hours, forcing the government to postpone a second reading of the controversial bill.
However, the political victory was short-lived, as hundreds of riot police were deployed to clear the protest site. They pepper-sprayed people along the way, threw more than 150 tear-gas canisters, and shot at unarmed civilians with rubber bullets and bean-bag rounds. Some police officers even attacked journalists, pastors and activists who shielded young students from harm.
After the violent crackdown, the police allegedly arrested several injured students in hospitals and searched their dorm rooms. The excessive police violence completely destroyed the limited legitimacy of the Lam administration in the eyes of Hong Kongers.
Tactically, Hong Kongers have impressed the world by doing everything right in terms of nonviolent activism and mobilization. They are now confronting the local Hong Kong state in two major battles.
The first one is an information battle. Despite the official propaganda that has demonized demonstrators as “rioters,” the effective use of social media has expanded the flow of credible information and the public’s access to firsthand accounts given by victims of police abuse.
Everyone is outraged when watching YouTube and Facebook videos of riot police attacking unarmed civilians — young and old, male and female. People inside and outside Hong Kong accessed information online censored by Chinese and Hong Kong state-controlled media.
Social media empowers ordinary people, equalizing their power relations with an autocratic government. In particular, the availability of independent sources of information enables people to decipher the official lies and propaganda.
The second battle is the ongoing power contest with the police. It is in the sphere of violent confrontations that the local authorities have outdone the protesters.
Both ideological and economic forces have sealed the unholy alliance between the Lam administration and law enforcement, prompting the police to support an intensifying trend toward suppression, censorship and ultimately fascism.
This pivotal and dangerous trend reminds us of historian George Browder’s insightful analysis of early 20th-century German policing in his 1994 book, Hitler’s Enforcers: The Gestapo and the SS Security Service in the Nazi Revolution.
Browder draws on the example of Nazi Germany to argue that certain personalities were drawn to the Nazi’s authoritarian policing, and that the heavily politicized environment to which police officers were exposed had predictable impacts on their personalities and violent behavior.
Exhibiting the mode of authoritarian policing, the Hong Kong police today reveal a strong anti-liberal, nationalistic and autocratic orientation. Without an internal mechanism of checks and balances, this mentality has been reinforced in the training process, favoring the collective over individuals, easily manipulated by political actors to support autocracy.
On many occasions, Hong Kong’s police chief and frontline officers have enthusiastically endorsed and implemented Lam’s policy of hardline repression and terror. They have made enemies out of prodemocracy students, who have frequently been harassed by law-enforcement agents.
Such conservatism is derived from their contempt for British colonial regulations, which instructed the officers to adhere to human rights standards and show restraint in handling public demonstrations.
Sadly, after the riot police fired the first shot at peaceful demonstrators on Wednesday, direct orders from Lam to clear the public square led to widespread police brutality. Once the government suspended constitutional liberties and disregarded legal restrictions on state violence against citizens, it created dangerous conditions for the police to commit gross and flagrant violations that have shocked the conscience of the world.
Besides the ideological factors, the desire for job security has prompted people of the lower-middle class and working class to see policing as a way out of poverty and unemployment. Joining law enforcement appeals to people with high-school diplomas and associate degrees. These officers are grateful for long-term employment security, which is hard to find in other professional sectors with their educational credentials.
Economic concerns have exacerbated the police’s subconscious hatred toward the prodemocracy legislators critical of their misconduct. Such a close-minded mentality is strengthened by their training.
Refusing to rock the boat, these officers, without critical and independent thinking ability, are induced to accept Hong Kong’s incremental transition to an authoritarian police state, proclaiming to restore order and respect for the police, and defending the territory against the threat of what Beijing perceives as a “color revolution.”
In peaceful times, the officers feel bitter when they are criticized by Beijing and the local authorities for being soft on demonstrators. In crisis situations, they are keen to show political loyalty and seek more rewards from the ruling elites.
Taking into consideration their paramilitary nature, Hong Kong’s police officers are different from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) only in name and uniform. By waging war on civil society, the police serve willingly as instruments of political control and exploitation. Treating political dissidents as condemned criminals, frontline officers believe that they can brutalize them with impunity in front of cameras.
Confronting the truth is bitterly painful, but this is a major step to liberating a society from fear. This is also true for Hong Kong’s police force. When the political dust settles, the territory must establish an independent truth and justice commission to investigate the unprecedented level of police violence and intimidation that took place on Wednesday.
The best approach is modeled on Taiwan’s pursuit of transitional justice: making official apologies, punishing perpetrators, offering reparations to victims, financial or otherwise, and publicizing cases of human rights abuses. Otherwise, the collective wounds and trauma will lay the ground for new crises to come.
Joseph Tse-Hei Lee is a professor of history at Pace University in New York City.
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