
Hong Kong Police shamed into retreat by everyday citizens - typeformer
https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cyau4z/meanwhile_in_shatin_citizens_response_to_the/
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11thEarlOfMar
The original Hong Kong police have their own children and family members among
the demonstrators and have a difficult time being physically tough,
particularly on the young HK demonstrators. Some as young as 10 have been
arrested.

It's therefore purported that many of the HK Police are actually mainland
military police who have been brought in to get tough. The uniformed don't
wear identifying badges. Some of them will dress as demonstrators and mingle
with them. The demonstrators can identify these infiltrators by their non-HK
accent and by the fact that they don't know the Hong Kong public transit
system. Their purpose is to identify demonstration leaders and disrupt plans.
The CPP military police apparently don't care about spraying un-involved
families with pepper spray or firing projectiles into the heads of
demonstrators. You likely heard about one nurse, who was helping wounded
demonstrators, losing an eye to a projectile fired by police at point-blank
range. The infiltrators are also purported to be the instigators of fires and
other of the more violent demonstrator actions in order to justify police
acting and using clubs, rubber bullets and pepper spray, as well as arrest
anyone they can grab.

This is all another shame. The pre-CCP Hong Kong police were among those of
the highest integrity globally. Now, they are comprised of unscrupulous
foreign agents whose objective is submission and suppression, and who are now,
at least in this episode, ridiculed into retreat.

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Iv
Police is never "shamed" into retreat. It takes decisions on tactical grounds,
something that protestors, usually more emotional, fail to grasp.

A retreat usually means that they have the crowd where they want it.

~~~
danaris
Police are humans too. They have emotions, and consciences, and, yes, a sense
of shame.

For some of them, these are weaker than their obedience to superiors and/or
adherence to fascist principles. However, that doesn't mean they don't exist.

Comments like yours dehumanize the police. They make them into a faceless
Other that cannot be truly understood or engaged with by any means save
violence. Worse, they do the same thing that the dehumanization of Nazis has
done in the US: they sow the feeling that it could never happen to us. That
these are monsters, not people. That they're somehow fundamentally different
from Real Humans.

The idea that no one has ever (or has recently) joined the police force
because of a real belief in justice and a desire to help people is just as
dangerous as the idea that every police officer is a fascist pig who wants
nothing more than to put their boot on the face of humanity forever.

The problems our country, and more broadly, our civilization has with the
police in this age _can_ be solved, and they can be solved without resorting
to massive violence, but in order to do so, we cannot rely on the same kind of
black-and-white thinking the worst of them use. We have to see them as people,
and find the ways to reach their humanity.

~~~
Iv
Of course they are human! But a police force works on a hierarchy and a
procedure code, not on the emotions of its members. That's a core point and is
actually crucial in a democracy: police do not act on their emotions.

And riot police especially learns to stay as cold-headed as possible and to
give tactical considerations over any other.

That gives the police an image of a cold-faced monster but I think protestors
insulting the police instead of winning them over totally miss the point. And
that "shaming of policemen" is just ridicule.

Recently in France there was some outrage in the media as there were report
that after a wave of suicide in the police some protestors chanted "Police,
kill yourself". Other protestors then took the counter and one of the popular
slogans was "Policemen, don't kill yourselves. Join us.". Police joining
protestors is the best possible victory.

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TaylorAlexander
Direct action is a very important part of democracy.

~~~
mc32
I just wonder if this tactic will work against an army from the outside?

I mean the HK police are part of the people. I bet the troops would be from
non Cantonese speaking provinces. I’m not sure they’d be “shamed”. One can
hope that if it came to it the generals and colonels would show empathy, but
the foot soldier is conflicted. The brass should be the ones laying down their
pins, stripes, badges and stars.

A foot soldier (infantryman) is indoctrinated, but the brass are educated and
should understand all the implications down the road.

~~~
philwelch
Once the PLA comes in, they will most likely follow the playbook from Beijing
in 1989. Use troops from distant provinces that are already unsympathetic
towards the protestors (an attitude China is heavily encouraging in the
mainland population already via state media) and overwhelm the protestors with
lethal force.

The CCP is for some reason waiting to see whether they will have to resort to
these measures. Probably due to anticipated blowback from the international
community and the risk of economic damage to HK itself. But once the army does
get involved, it’s all over.

~~~
toomuchtodo
How prepared are mainland PLA forces for urban insurgency tactics? Lethal
force is likely the spark that ignites the powder keg.

~~~
mc32
They wouldn’t have to. They could lay siege. It’s a port. It’s mountainous. It
doesn’t produce much of its own food. They could blockade it.

That said, if they bring in the PLA, it’s over. They are conscripts. One hope
is the generals would insubordinate.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
A siege buys time for international sanctions to be felt at home. If they go
all in with the violence that would inflame the situation and possibly unite
Hong Kong against them. It's really, really, really hard to rule over millions
of people who don't want you there. There's fine line they have to walk
between inflaming the situation and acting too slowly.

~~~
philwelch
Guess what, they did it in Beijing and it worked out for them. This isn’t a
fucking democracy we’re talking about.

