Everybody loses in Hong Kong game of political stalemate

If the images last week of young people in Mong Kok not shopping for sneakers but instead battering the pavement to throw bricks at police officers – and an officer aiming his gun back at them – were shocking, the recriminations have been stubbornly familiar.

The roles, even the lines, are well rehearsed now. The government, whether intending to assert its authority or simply carry out routine administrative tasks, takes clumsy actions that seem completely oblivious to public sentiment.

Then the discontents, sensing an opening, chaotically overreach, likewise oblivious to the spectre of mob violence and anarchy they represent in a city composed almost entirely of families who came to Hong Kong to escape mob violence and anarchy.

The government and its supporters are sharp in their rebukes, condemning the naive and reckless – also unpatriotic/subversive/separatist – youths who would try to tear apart the fabric of society, undermine the rule of law and abuse our sterling police force. Voices of the protest movement preface their pronouncements by saying they are not trying to justify violence, but that the government should accept some responsibility for breeding discontent.

The government does no such thing. And so we are left no closer to passing intellectual property laws that strike a healthy balance between fostering creativity and protecting free speech, nurturing lively but respectful discourse in our universities, or keeping Mong Kok the safe shopping district where I can find rare Nikes and sink my teeth into a stick of fishballs.

Both sides keep playing the same game to the same standstill, only instead of a draw, everyone loses, the spectators most of all. This feels painfully obvious to me and, I can only hope, to government and protest leaders as well. Why then aren’t they trying to change the script?