Opinion | Retribution on Mong Kok store shows up incivility of Occupy's civil disobedience
Alice Wu says it is clear that some protesters are in fact engaging in 'uncivil' disobedience, as one Mong Kok store found out
With some protest flashpoints now taking place outside the main rally sites, the Occupy movement has adopted a wholly alien take on civil disobedience. The trio who founded the movement may have turned themselves in to the police, but last week's defining moment has to be the "Mong Kok shopping escapade".
It all began when a salesperson in one Mong Kok shop allegedly told protesters they were the reason the shop was losing business. As retribution, a group of "Occupy shoppers" last week stopped the store from closing and "occupied" it. Supposedly exercising their right as consumers, they ransacked the store, unfolded articles of clothing, and removed clothes displayed on mannequins before buying something.
While they didn't loot or damage property, what they did was sinister. This was no "creative" interpretation of consumer rights. It was an act of revenge on someone simply for having a different opinion.
Civil disobedience isn't about revenge or intimidation. More disturbing is how such a protest is a display of the growing gulf that separates us from the democratic values we've supposedly been fighting for. Freedom of speech that is exercised only when one agrees with what's being said is no freedom at all. And throughout the past three months, this is just the sort of disturbing "freedom" we've seen played out openly on our streets.
It's also the type of abuse of rights that we have condoned for years among our rowdy lawmakers. There's something wrong with narcissism so inflated that one feels perfectly entitled to exercise one's rights at the expense of other people's.
It's not only the bullying; it's also the schadenfreude blatantly glorified in the name of activism. For speaking his mind, the salesperson and his colleagues had to be punished with disorder and by being forced to spend time putting back all the displaced merchandise. That was why the "Occupy shoppers" ransacked the place: so they could feel gratified that they had created a need for someone else to exert themselves. It was a twisted way of exercising power over another, and a big slap in the face of equality.