From sacrificial lamb to figure of ridicule

Democrat Howard Lam Tsz-kin is probably the most ridiculed person in Hong Kong at the moment. Not only does he face five months in jail for falsely claiming that he was kidnapped, drugged and tortured by mainland agents, no one, not even his Democratic Party comrades, have shown him much sympathy.

There is little doubt that he deserves the punishment handed down in court, against which he will appeal while on bail.

People have speculated widely on why he did it; most miss the mark. Given his political and theological backgrounds, it’s not so hard to understand why he did it at the time in August 2017.

Given this consideration, he is not wholly undeserving of sympathy, however misguided and deluded he might have been. The judge rightly observed that Lam showed no remorse and refused to acknowledge his misdeed. Lam’s claims struck a sensitive chord, even fear, with many Hongkongers who worried about the possibility of mainland authorities breaching the “one country, two systems” principle by detaining locals at will.

That was precisely why he did it. Some people thought he suffered from a personality disorder. Others thought he just wanted attention. Many believed he wanted to blacken the name of the central government and sow distrust.

But the summer of 2017 was when the government started giving details about setting up a joint immigration and customs checkpoint at the West Kowloon terminus for the cross-border high-speed rail link. The opposition raised the spectre of uncontrolled mainland agents detaining and interrogating people in the heart of Hong Kong. But their campaign of fear, at least to many pan-democrats such as Lam, failed to mobilise a strong public base to oppose the so-called co-location arrangement.

More than likely, Lam wanted to raise the alarm, and was ready to put on a performance to do so. A devout Christian, he was to have travelled to the United States to pursue graduate studies in theology.

He probably thought that was the last service he could perform for Hong Kong before leaving. Now he is likely to have to study his Bible in prison.

It was his cross to bear. He punctured his own thighs with staples in crosses, and claimed he was tortured. Their shape was probably not an accident, though it was a dead giveaway. He offered himself as a sacrificial lamb for Hong Kong, but instead made himself a figure of ridicule.