Do Hong Kong protesters know what those flags they are waving stand for?

Uninformed Americans instinctively tend to support any activity labelled “pro-democracy,” generally choosing not to look beyond the headlines, whatever is served up to them on a 24-hour news network or making the rounds on Facebook.

As a visiting American, I recently spent several weeks observing the troubles in Hong Kong. Perhaps my observations are worth noting because I am not biased towards either side and I have spent more time with tear gas than the good senators from the United States recently did on their whirlwind visits combined.

What I have seen time and again is remarkable restraint and professional behaviour from the Hong Kong Police Force and remarkable hooliganism from the protesters.

Irrespective of politics, it is commendable that the younger generation is politically aware and has impressively employed technology to organise and assemble. Unfortunately, this peaceful movement has been usurped by mayhem, something missing from the headlines in the West. Some protesters seem to have no purpose other than to provoke the police and maximise damage to MTR stations, shops owned by mainland Chinese and other infrastructure.

Others set fires and assault individuals on the streets who do not share their opinions, lynch-mob style.

Without exception, every police-protester engagement I witnessed was provoked by protesters, and police force, if used at all, was non-lethal.

The police were routinely subjected to vitriolic insults, stones thrown at them, laser pointers being shone in their eyes and, in some cases, petrol bombs. Arrests were made, same as they would be in the US. The protester definition of “police brutality” may need revision.

Hong Kong police: remarkably restrained or masked thugs?

Invariably, pro-democracy messaging groups follow these encounters with what can only be construed as propaganda which would have you believe that all young protesters are innocent simply by virtue of being young protesters.

Regardless of your opinion of the Hong Kong police, their job includes protecting public and private property. No matter how high-minded a protester considers his or her personal ideals, those ideals are not shared by all Hongkongers, and do not bestow on the protester a special dispensation to destroy infrastructure and property.

Choosing to play this game means risking arrest. That is how it works the world over, including in the great democracies of Britain and the US, the flags of which the protesters love to wave but which stand for values beyond universal suffrage, such as respect for law and order, and other people’s property and rights – values which seem to have escaped the protesters in their rush to destroy.

Jeffrey Jednacz, Bangkok