Protesters and police are descending into totalitarianism. Hong Kong needs an Athenian moment to save itself

Police and the protesters appear trapped, unable to negotiate and pushing each other to greater extremes

To protect its freedoms, Hong Kong’s individual communities and institutions should put issues affecting them to a vote – and the majority should not be held hostage by the few

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Published: 9:00am, 19 Nov 2019Updated: 9:12am, 19 Nov 2019

The protesters poured out of the front gate of the university. As soon as they entered the street they were descended upon by riot police in full gear surrounding them on three sides. The students engaged the riot police with sticks, and the police shot choking amounts of tear gas and used their shields and batons to beat the protesters. It was 1994 in Seoul, and I was watching the tail end of the South Korean democracy movement engage what was formerly an instrument of the dictatorship.

Much of what is happening in Hong Kong bears similarities to what I saw then, but there are striking differences too.

I spent Thursday and Friday talking intensively with the protesters behind the barricades at the University of Hong Kong. My goal was to learn from them, and to try to reduce the probability of serious injury or death. Most of the protesters I spoke with are idealists, all of them espouse democratic goals and values. Most of them also believe that the violence they use is in self-defence.

Hong Kong is facing a terrible crisis. It may be the case that neither side understands Talcott Parsons’ problem of order. Every time the police escalate in violence, or enforce decisions that further restrict freedoms and representative government, the government loses a little more legitimacy. And less legitimacy means more disorder, requiring more use of force. Each time the movement escalates in violence, it too loses a little more legitimacy, resulting in greater isolation and potential resort to violent tactics. The result when neither side understands this is, according to both Parsons and Thomas Hobbes, that life for all will be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.

This escalation cycle of violence could create a “totalitarian mirror”. Without realising or intending it, institutions can easily come to resemble each other. What if it turns out that the greatest threat to democracy and individual liberties is not people who say they want more freedom, or people who say they want more efficiency, but people who are willing to pick up a gun to make other people do what they want?

It seems to me that at present the Hong Kong special administrative region government has no ability to negotiate independently of Beijing. Members of the administration cannot criticise the police in the slightest, much less accept the highly justified demand for an independent inquiry. This is abnormal.