My Take | There is no news now, only stories
- A pervasive culture has evolved in Hong Kong that relativises and weaponises ‘facts’ according to our political agendas and beliefs
Here are some news reports about last week’s protests.
BBC: “Police tackle 12-year-old to the ground in Hong Kong”
Apple Daily: “Police choke pregnant woman and pull her to the ground”
Meanwhile, Hong Kong Police Force’s own YouTube channel runs an extended video clip of officers frantically applying first aid and CPR to a protester who apparently collapsed and stopped breathing until medics arrived.
I would say all three reports are accurate, but hardly objective. There is no “truth” about the protests to be had from them, whatever the word means.
In this city, now completely politicised, there are no neutral facts to be had, not important ones anyway. They have been relativised and weaponised; and which versions you subscribe to depends on the social and political tribes you belong to and agendas you advocate.
That’s why police are perceived as either the protector of peace and stability or a brutal proxy communist occupation force; Beijing is either a Nazi-like monster or the saviour of the city; the opposition and protest movement are either the noblest champions of democracy and freedom or nihilists bent on bringing down the whole city with them.