Add oil, Hong Kong, as our beloved city burns with ugly hate

I never thought I’d live to see the day. I’ve warned about it many times, but always assuming sanity would prevail and that day would never come.

And yet here we are, talking about a complete breakdown of law and order in Hong Kong, once one of the safest cities in the world.

Last Sunday night, when anti-government protesters were exercising their supreme right after every “peaceful” mass rally to take over main roads, trash police stations and clash with the riot squad in the heart of the city’s business district, something far more nefarious was transpiring at the local railway station up north in Yuen Long.

More than 100 thugs, criminals and good old boys from nearby villages, apparently protecting their turf, went on an unthinkable rampage, indiscriminately attacking anyone in their way with sticks and metal rods. They were primarily targeting people wearing black – the signature colour of the protest movement – but they beat up bystanders and even passengers on a train.

We’ve all seen the video clips of the brutality and terror they unleashed that night in the MTR station, all that screaming and blood and not a single police officer in sight to protect the victims.

Some of the assailants were suspected triad gangsters, and arrests have been made, but that’s just a Band-Aid fix for the unspeakable damage to the city’s tattered reputation and the further rift this outbreak of extreme lawlessness has created in an already deeply divided society.

Fast forward to Friday’s protest at the Hong Kong International Airport and it seems we chroniclers of history in the mainstream media missed quite an ugly story while marvelling at the beauty of peaceful demonstrations in this city.

‘The whole car smelled of blood’: Victims describe brutal Yuen Long attack

An elderly man wheeling his suitcase out into the arrival hall in the middle of the anti-government rally slapped down a placard being held up by a protester and all hell broke loose.

A viral video clip shows youngsters trying to stop him from leaving and becoming completely unhinged in the process. The howling mob hounds the hapless old man all the way out of the terminal, screaming obscenities in his face and manhandling him. A piece of paper pasted on his back complains about “no law” in the city.

Opinion: Violence? What violence? It’s all peace and love on the Hong Kong protest front

What is this, Cultural Revolution 2.0? The only thing missing was a dunce hat on his head and hysterical red guards yelling at him to “confess”.

“Add oil, Hongkongers,” a Cathay Pacific pilot announced over the intercom, in support of the protesters, on a flight coming in from Japan. Hearts and minds were instantly won with that touching show of solidarity, but he forgot to mention that the terminal floor was slippery with hate, whatever lubricant those young champions of freedom were high on as they tormented that old man.

“Where are the police? What’s wrong with them? Why aren’t they doing their jobs?” everyone keeps asking these days.

Oh, so you do want police to do their jobs? I’m a bit confused because all I see is intense hatred for them whenever they arrive at any scene. Or are you saying they should only stop crimes against the protest movement while the protesters themselves are not answerable to the law?

The good, bad and ugly of Yuen Long, a town caught up in protest violence

Is that why nobody had a problem with violence when hooligans blocking traffic in the name of democracy beat up a van driver on the day of the railway station attacks, damaging his vehicle even as he begged them not to take away his livelihood?

For months now, this protest movement and its supporters have systematically stripped our police force of its authority and credibility, demoralised frontline officers with constant abuse and bullying, and urinated all over the rule of law.

We are now paying the price. Want to add some more oil to this bonfire of hatred?

Yonden Lhatoo is the chief news editor at the Post