Its tough looking at the situation in Hong Kong. There’s so much suffering, and it deeply affects me personally - part of my roots are from Hong Kong. There seems to be no way out of the turmoil. I can’t bring myself to think politically, because if I were to engage with it at that level, I have to pick a side, and both sides seem to be a losing battle; between pro-democracy and pro-China.
The way I see it, one of the explanations of the resulting situation is social inequality, but that answer leads to no end. The empirical evidence on inequality is quite clear, that the only viable compression to long-term inequality is through violent means; Warfare, State Failure, Pandemics and Revolution. To say revolution in Hong Kong as an inevitable consequence of human nature is such a pessimistic answer. The same as saying that there’s nothing we could do but let the patterns of history play itself out again. :(
I have to view it form another perceptive, as a socially constructed phenomenon. That in appearances, it curious why there seem to be only two groups in opposition, pro-democracy and pro-China. From a macrocosm perspective, the two groups seem to be a battle between Western values against the Eastern values. If we were to trace their philosophy, the two would share different first-principles. The former from rationality since the Greek period, and the latter from moral virtue in Confucianism, and both build their empire from different grounds, constructing different approaches and progression.
Once the existing structure is dramatically shifted in the case of integrating China into westernizes Hong Kong, chaos will occur. The human’s belief is shaken and immediately relies on its defence mechanism.
Currently, we see both sides in the extreme form leading to the outbreaks of violence. Riots being emphasized in the news outlet and social media, leading to more tension at an international level. The world is spectating, picking a side as well.
But I prefer to be optimistic, there should and could a more hopeful alternative. Being a socially constructed phenomenon, it is possible to choose a new moment, a synthesis of the two. I see it as a humanitarian movement, of the position that violence as a means cannot justify whatever end. It could be an opportunity for people of Hong Kong to spark a third movement, to re-establish whatever small hope of peace left in Hong Kong. To accept the current state of oppression but to hold it back, and internalize it for the moment, and to work towards their sense of justice incrementally and widely deem acceptable from both sides. That I see, is the only positive way out of the mess, although working it through is complicated and I have no definite answers.
