My Take | Black swan in the skies over Hong Kong

Hong Kong has been compared to Northern Ireland during the years of “the Troubles”. I am rather reminded of Beirut. There was a haunting description by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the financial mathematician, of his idyllic childhood growing up in this once great cosmopolitan and religiously tolerant city in his bestseller The Black Swan.

When troubles first started, everyone thought they would last only for a few weeks, at most months. Those who took flight thought they would return shortly when the problems blew over.

Many, it turned out, ended in permanent exile. Both internal politics and external conflicts tore apart the city and the country itself. The collapse of his beloved Beirut into civil strife and war was for Taleb an example of what he calls a “black swan”, extremely low probability events that turn out to have a huge, often devastating, impact. Of course, after the event, everyone and his dog have their own theory and explanation.

Hong Kong is on the edge of such an abyss. Who would have predicted this in early June? Anyone who claimed they did is either lying or deluding themselves. The city had always been an oasis of calm and stability in a world of endless conflicts.

Now, it is being battered by powerful and destructive forces from both domestic developments and outside factors over which we have little control.