Carrie Lam and the government seem to have completely buried their heads in the sand. Why can’t she just withdraw the damn extradition bill? Why is she so stubborn and irresponsible? Hong Kong is crippled every weekend by these protests. Today it was estimated that 1.7 million people attended the demonstrations even though it was pouring almost all day.
Carrie Lam must go, she had so many opportunities when she could have diffused the situation and could easily have nipped it at the bud but instead her pigheadedness and genuine belief that she is superior to all Hong Kongers has lead us into this political disaster. At this current juncture I cannot offer a proposal on how we could diffuse the situation. The protesters are furious because of the police abuse and their collaboration with triads in the Yuen Long attacks; the fact that police have not charged a single one of the white-clad thugs who beat up people in black indiscriminately is testament to their collaboration. The government cannot back down now because they would lose face. Carrie Lam has prided herself on being Number 1 her whole life and at school when she came fourth one year she cried and then the next year she regained the position of Number 1. In a similar way when she first became the Chief Executive she was only fourth (after CY Leung, Donald Tsang and CH Tung) in terms of how many people she managed to get to the streets. Her determination did not falter and quickly she gained number 1 position and managed to get in one day more people than all the chief executives managed to get in each of their respective tenures. She will go down in history as the only Chief Executive of Hong Kong to have achieved (cumulatively) tens of millions to demonstrate; this number is still growing so we must wait before we start counting how much of a number 1 she is.
Today is the 18th August, 2019 (Sunday) and we see demonstrators leave from Victoria Park in droves and many continued until late into the evening. Here are some pictures from the various parts in Wanchai and Causeway.