My Take | Us vs Them: Hong Kong’s dangerous tribal mentality
- When it’s all stick and no carrot, you will only drive the most maladjusted and alienated elements underground, and they will come back to haunt you in even more terrifying ways
An assailant severely injured a police officer then killed himself. He is now called a hero, a comrade, a brother, a martyr. Parents take children to pay respects. Mourners put white flowers at the crime scene. Some people are shocked by the public reactions. They shouldn’t be.
At least this time around, people can’t blame the injured officer for being stabbed in the back, quite literally, in a completely unprovoked attack.
When a community is highly polarised and social order is breaking down, people revert to a tribal state. It’s Us vs Them. You are either with us or against us. There is no right or wrong, reason or morality. Or rather, whatever your side does for the cause is right or can at least be justified and explained away. Social media encourages and exaggerates such tribal tendencies. People in the middle, reasonable people willing and ready to compromise, are marginalised.
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Assailant dies after stabbing Hong Kong police officer and then himself on busy street
As a community, Hong Kong has not reached that stage yet, hopefully. But it may be heading that way. And I think there is no debate that a substantial minority of people are already entrenched in such a tribal state. Violent or not, anything done against the police, government officials, or people from the mainland is justified as an act of protest. They are, well, them, not us.