Time to end the occupation - peacefully

On Tuesday morning, I had half an eye on the TV news from Mong Kok, where bailiffs and police were preparing to dismantle pro-democracy protesters' barricades. For a long time, little happened. Bailiffs read out the court injunction, and activists shouted back.

Suddenly, I looked up and saw buildings and police cars being set alight. The action had turned to Ferguson, Missouri, where serious disorder had broken out after a grand jury decided not to indict policeman Darren Wilson over the shooting of Michael Brown. Then the news switched back to Mong Kok. People were slowly moving a tent to the roadside.

The first few days of the Occupy Central civil disobedience campaign were chaotic and worrying. Scenes of tear gas being fired were shocking and made headlines around the world. That aroused public sympathy for the mainly young demonstrators, while the police - in a difficult situation - were left looking less good.

Things could probably have been handled better. But the students acted on the spur of the moment, and it was an unprecedented situation. In the following days and weeks, the protest sites were mostly calm. International coverage even made the street camps into tourist attractions. The police mainly kept a low profile.

One journalist with local roots wrote a moving account of the first few weeks of the protests in a leading international magazine. The tear-gassing of unarmed civilians, he wrote, reminded him of scenes in Islamabad, Cairo and Ferguson.

I have checked. Islamabad this year has had scores of deaths in terrorist attacks. Some 800 people died in Egypt's 2011 revolution, and anti-regime protests in Cairo this year have claimed yet more lives. Ferguson, as we have seen, has burning vehicles and rock-throwing. Whatever strife we have in Hong Kong, there is simply no comparison.