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Just Saying | Violence? What violence? It’s all peace and love on the Hong Kong protest front
- Yonden Lhatoo says speaking out against the violence and lawlessness marring the city’s protest movement has become risky business these days, with only one side apparently entitled to free speech and opinion
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“Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.”
Most Hongkongers, especially many of our younger compatriots with their propensity for protesting over reading and getting an education, have never heard of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, but they would do well to heed the lesson in this quotable quote by the late Russian historian and novelist. Even though it may require a little more thought than Bruce Lee’s catchier “be water, my friend” line that has become the preferred slogan of the protest movement.
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I’m talking about the twilight zone we’re living in these days after weeks of mass protests sparked by the government’s ill-conceived extradition bill, where we cannot even mention the violence on our streets that has become the new normal without being shouted down or besieged by a lynch mob in complete denial.
Only those who are purportedly fighting for democracy are entitled to freedom of speech and expression, apparently, and anything counter to the protest narrative, even raising an eyebrow at the unlawful means being employed to achieve a political goal, earns you the wrath of “the people”.
Take the brouhaha over University of Hong Kong president Zhang Xiang’s criticism of the violence and lawlessness on July 1 when young protesters smashed their way into the city’s legislature and trashed it.
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