South China Morning Post
EDT2 | EDT | HOW WE SEE IT 2011-10-31
Protesters need to occupy their minds
The people behind Occupy Central, now apparently expanding to Mong Kok, are in danger of inadvertently mocking themselves. As diverse as the protesters behind the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US and the so-called post-80s phenomenon in Hong Kong are, they have more or less clear messages. One group is against crony capitalism and the massive bailouts of large banks in the financial crisis. The other is opposed to the dominance of the local economy by a handful of large property developers and a few large corporations.
You may agree or disagree with them, but the issues they raise deserve a serious public hearing. The Occupy Central youngsters who call themselves Left21 and fancy themselves as Marxist revolutionaries are merely aping the Occupy Wall Street movement but without the coherent message. And their incoherence worsened yesterday with the attempt to expand to Mong Kok, a busy neighbourhood already fully occupied by poor and low-income households. As a financial district, Central at least has symbolism; Mong Kok is something else.
To be sure, the Occupy Mong Kok protest targeted an HSBC office and a large property that belongs to the city’s richest man, Li Ka-shing. But what was the point? The group – a handful whose number is dwindling by the day – has already occupied the ground level of HSBC’s headquarters for several weeks, much to the annoyance of domestic helpers who have had to share space with them on Sundays.
Curiously, they never thought of moving across the road to where Li’s flagship building, the Cheung Kong Center, is located.
Perhaps the children are just bored by Central, while Mong Kok offers more shops and entertainment. Copyright (c) 2011. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
