Just a quick update from the Eastern Front. All my photos from Tuesday are up here, as well as some excellent shots from Sam Graham, a local journalism student.
The past two days has been more of the same: Wheeling and dealing inside the conference, scuffling and swimming outside.
Local media has been giving a lot of coverage to the proto-violence. And fair enough - it's not everyday that you have a week-long mini-riot in Hong Kong.
Jane Kelsey writes that "some local activists believed the TV station was deliberately sensationalizing its reports, making the tussle appear more like a war situation. Its anchorman was wearing a helmet in all his reports."
I think she means reporter (yes, having an anchorman in the studio wearing a riot helmet would be pretty silly), and it was quite justified, actually. All sorts of shit was being thrown around, mace was being sprayed everywhere, there were nails on the ground (as in hundreds of nails, scattered like they were dropped - what were they for? Not home improvement...)
Okay, it wasn't genuinely life-threatening, but it was certainly unsafe enough to warrant wearing a helmet, just in case it started raining mace.
Kelsey also wrote that the Korean contingent are "relaxed, but strictly self-disciplined, they exuded an aura that is hard to describe."
I've got a description: Militant.
It's not that they don't have a good cause, it's not even that I disagree with their tactics (I'm ambivalent at this stage). But let's be honest - the "direct action" arm of the group, they are not interested in peaceful, lawful protests. These guys are here with the specific intention of taking on the authorities (aka Law).
They know what they are doing. They are well-trained, disciplined, organised and determined. As much as these are Confusian virtues, they do not endear the protesters to the Hong Kong authorities.
They're certainly not marauding hooligans, and I doubt they're any threat to the public in general, but they are here to challenge the authorities, and the police, as the whacking-end of the authorities, can't really be expected to let them run amok.
And they haven't done a bad job with it. Sure, they've prepared like an obessive-compulsive Martha Stewart getting ready to have the Hordes over for dinner, but despite the ungodly amount of whacking-power they've allocated for this meeting, their use of it so far has been, indeed, measured and restrained.
I mean, pepper-spray really is the minimal level of force at their disposal, unless you count shouting menacingly. They had, ready to go, guys with tear gas, rubber bullets, big, fuck-off truncheons and full body armour, all sitting right there, metres away.
They were restrained.
Apparently, the protesters were, too. Local media are reporting, somewhat speculatively, that these clashes are just warm-up exercises, designed to test the police response. In fact, they even speculated that the swimmers and the funeral pyre were timed to test the ability of the police's ability to deal with multiple simultaneous events.
Both the local media and "police sources" are speculating that the protesters will disperse into the city and take the action there, in an attempt to stretch the police force to its limits. No doubt the police have long identified the key players and are keeping close tabs on them already.
In local slang, everyone is still waiting for "kick-off". We'll see if the fear-mongering was warranted...