Blood Ties

 

The Lion Rock Spirit Lives

 

The picture shows a group of people who rushed to lift the taxi that crashed in Taipo yesterday (at a spot where I've crossed the road hundreds of times) to free victims trapped underneath.

This is far from the first such case in Hong Kong.  Years ago I helped to lift a car that knocked down a young boy in North Point.  Meanwhile it has been widely reported that in mainland China, most people will steer well clear of helping accident (or worse) victims rather than get involved in potentially messy consequences.  

There would be scope for an interesting master's thesis on why mutual aid thrives in a supposedly competitive capitalist society while being conspicuously absent in a supposedly collectivist one.  Suffice it to say here that "one country, two systems" is not just about politica and economics.

By Their Fruits...

 

Lest We (Are Forced to) Forget

Few people in Hong Kong take the South China Morning Post seriously as a news source any more, but one of the few remaining points of excellene in the paper is Harry's cartoons.  With the Victoria Park candlelight vigil banned for the second consecutive year, the June 4th Museum closed on the bureaucratic  pretext that it requires a public entertainment licence (massacres are so entertaining, aren't they?), and organisers of the vigil being arrested or already in prison, today's cartoon is particularly poignant: 

The Hong Kong Free Press also has a number of articles marking the date.  And Hemlock is incisive as usual - pointing out that the aurhorities' clumsy efforts to suppress remembrance of the 1989 events are merely bringing more attention to them (the Streisand effect at work).

P.S. A valuable resource: How to Respond to Tiananmen Trolls.

Bob-a-Job

The embattled Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko is quoted as describing protesters against his rule as "people with a criminal past who are unemployed".  With that many unemployed in the country, it's not surprising he had to rig the last election to stay in power!  Let's hope that he himself soon joins the ranks of the unemployed so his people can look forward to a better future.

Return of the 4 o'clock fairytale hour

See here for an account of the police's rewriting of the Yuen Long attack story.

Mirror, Mirror

Big bad wolf in Granny's clothing

Former Hong Kong Justice Secretary Elsie Leung may look like a harmless grandma, but make no mistake, when future historians compile a Roll of Dishonour of those who have connived to enslave Hong Kong, her name will be high on the list alongside those of CY Leung and Maria Tam. Her claim yesterday that for a mainland security agency to operate in Hong Kong under China's new national security law for the SAR is no more worrying than it is for MI5 and MI6 to operate in the UK or the CIA in the USA is totally disingenuous.  Leung may pretend to be stupid, but she knows full well that those agencies are accountable to the elected governments of their countries, while whatever agency operates in Hong Kong will be accountable only to a brutal dictatorship that holds millions of its own citizens in captivity without trial, and is determined to stamp out the freedoms it once promised to Hong Kong.  Who is she trying to fool?

Bombe Surprise!

After arresting a number of people accused of plotting bomb attacks in Hong Kong, the police described them as using violence “to intimidate in order to achieve political ends”.  So, exactly what the police themselves have been doing for nearly nine months now.

Now the government's budget proposes a 7% boost in police manpower.  There are two problems with this.  The first is that the last thing most Hongkongers want is more cops on the street when they have totally lost faith in the force already.  People are tired of being teargassed, pepper-sprayed, beaten over the head and having their freedom of assembly violently repressed.  Meanwhile the government continues to ignore widespread demnds for an independent inquiry into the force's conduct, even though some of its own erstwhile allies have joined the call for it.

The other problem is that the force has so thoroughly disgraced itself that it is hard to imagine it still being an attractive career option for anyone sincerely wanting to serve the community.  This means that most of the 2,543 extra posts created are likely to appeal only to thugs and bullies, of whom we have far too many in the force already.

Unfortunately, the government is following its usual "eat your shit first or you don't get your candy" strategy by lumping this increase together with other budget measures in a single bill, so that the only way democratic lawmakers can vote it down is to also reject the popular and much-needed relef measures in the budget.

Uninformed

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam denies observing any police brutality during the past seven months of protest.  Strange - you'd think with her massive salary, she could afford to own a television.

Meanwhile in the UK, Home Secretary Priti Patel denies seeing any evidence that Meghan Markle has faced racism from the British press.  Also strange - surely a Cabinet Minister should read the newspapers?

Lord, what fools these ministers be!

This is Hong Kong's "Secretary for Justice" - who decided that this would be a good time, in the middle of months of violent clashes on the streets of Hong Kong, to fly to London (presumably at the taxpayers' expense) to promote the territory as a centre for dispute resolution.  Truly, these people make satirists redundant.

Cycle of Violence

How much intelligence does it take to recognise that if you curtail all peaceful channels for expression of opinion and for achieving much-needed change, only violent channels remain? Apparently more than the pathetic Hong Kong government can summon up.

Hong Kong Police adopt new motto

Suspicious Minds

The government has officially denied the rumour that a protester was killed by the police action in Prince Edward Station a few days ago.  Meanwhile the police stated that reporters were removed from crime scenes to protect the privacy of suspects.  Seeing what the police already get away with in front of the camera, if I was one of the protesters, I would rather endanger my privacy than risk what they might do to me when no one is filming them.

At least one of these pictures is adapted from the indispensable  Hong Kong Free Press.

History repeats itself

The Brexit Party Thurber style, or Britain goes to the dogs

Pompeo and Circumstance

It is obvious that Trump and his evil crew are itching to start a war with Iran - perhaps hoping for a Falklands effect.  However, that only worked for Margaret Thatcher because she won the war she entered. 

Being someone who neither studies history nor learns from it, it may have escaped Trump's notice that the Iran Hostage Crisis was the largest single reason why Jimmy Carter failed to win a second term as President.  However, you can be sure the Iranian authorities haven't forgotten.

Both Sides Now

You could believe that Donald Trump is sincere in his condemnation of racism following recent mass shootings - or you could look at his past record of racist statements.  The choice is yours.

The End of Empire

Between 1975, when I arrived in Hong Kong, and the end of colonial rule in 1997, I cannot recall a single time when the Hong Kong Police used tear gas.  Today, it is almost a daily occurrence.  Things sure get better, don't they?

Nasty Woman

Pro-government Legislative Councillor Ann Chiang - the one who falsely suggested a local expatriate blogger was a foreign provocateur, and who called for a government ban on protests just before her own party stages one today, asks why Civil Human Rights Front convenor Jimmy Sham has "never mentioned his sexual orientation" in relation to his role in the Front.  Could it be because his sex life is:

• a) irrelevant to his political activities; and
• b) none of her damn business?