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Alex Lo
SCMP Columnist
My Take
by Alex Lo
My Take
by Alex Lo

Thanks for nothing as Occupy trio face jail

  • Leaders of civil disobedience movement are scholars guilty of pride, arrogance and naivety, who led idealistic youngsters to the barricades and shut the door on any form of democracy
Alex Lo
Alex Lo
Why you can trust SCMP

The “Occupy trio” deserve jail. They themselves said so, long before the Occupy protests started in 2014.

They said they were launching a civil disobedience movement for democracy in Hong Kong. This meant breaking “evil” laws and governance. The three – the Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, Benny Tai Yiu-ting and Dr Chan Kin-man – have said all along that they were ready and willing to take the punishment imposed by unjust law.

So many youngsters from the Occupy protests and Mong Kok riot answered their call and ended up in jail – some for years. The nine protest leaders, including the trio, who were convicted in court this week, have a moral duty to join them.

Of course, jailing the nine, or not, solves absolutely nothing. The damage has been done; the rupture in the social fabric may be irreparable.

The crime they are convicted of is causing public nuisance, but what they are really guilty of are the sins of pride, arrogance and naivety.

They are scholars who thought they could apply theories they read from books to the streets of Hong Kong; devout Christians who thought the moral charity they learned from the Bible would guide their way.

They raised the hope of many young idealistic but inexperienced people and sent them to the barricades, telling them it was all it took to achieve the nirvana of Western-style democracy.

Many took them at their word. But if theirs was the only “real” democracy, then any other versions offered by Beijing or the Hong Kong government must necessarily fall short, or worse, be a total con job! Hong Kong could have had universal suffrage for the chief executive election in 2017. But no, they and their allies in the legislature said, the one being offered was deeply flawed, did not meet “international standards”, and was nothing like the “real” one they demanded; and so it must be rejected.

But if we had full franchise in 2017, we would now be debating how many more, perhaps most, of the seats in the legislature could be converted into directly elected ones next year. Now we are stuck, with no prospect of electoral reform.

The Occupy trio offered an uncompromising ideal, but not leadership or political experience. Neither they nor their followers knew how to negotiate or compromise. It was all or nothing, and that’s what we have now – nothing.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Thanks for nothing as Occupy trio face jail
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