Opinion | The sad irony in Hong Kong protesters’ fight for democratic freedoms

Protesters in Hong Kong are demanding greater democratic freedoms when democracies across the Western world are increasingly in crisis, as the rule of law starts looking like the rule of the ‘swarm’. This mob democracy cannot be what Hong Kong really wants

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A woman in a Guy Fawkes mask and other masked protesters gather outside the High Court on October 9, during an appeal hearing for pro-independence activist Edward Leung. Until the violence broke out, Hong Kong was widely admired as a beacon of civilised freedom and rule of law. Today’s vivid image is a city controlled by gas-masked black shirts. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 6:00am, 12 Oct 2019Updated: 6:33am, 12 Oct 2019

There are two great ironies about Hong Kong’s protests. First, while the rest of the world’s youth are protesting against government inaction on climate change, young people in Hong Kong have come out violently for local democracy and freedoms.

Second, even as Hong Kong’s young people wave the Union flag and Stars and Stripes, these Western democracies are experiencing political crises bordering on chaos, with an impeachment crisis in the United States and Brexit in Britain.

If electoral democracy means the majority of votes should prevail, why is Donald Trump the US president when he had 2.87 million votes fewer than his rival Hillary Clinton? Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson leads a minority government in parliament, steering a chaotic exit from the European Union.

The same countries that preach and spread democracy and freedom to countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria through active Western military intervention are, today, failing and failed states.

As one Singapore comedian puts it, colonisation comes from the word “colon”, out of which bad things come. Great Britain colonised Hong Kong, granting economic freedoms but not electoral democracy.

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