Abuse of civil disobedience

Tai Yiu-ting, key organizer of the "Occupy Central" movement, has spent a great deal of effort in promoting and defending his unlawful campaign. But whatever the reason or the cause is supposed to be, it can't justify the call to break the law in a civil society as Hong Kong.

To win sympathy and support, Tai has tried to add a pinch of sacredness to his campaign by calling it "civil disobedience". However, this is an abuse of civil disobedience.

Civil disobedience is justifiable in situations when people fight colonial rulers for national independence such as in the cases of Mahatma Gandhi's campaign for independence from the British Empire and the Egyptians' revolution against British occupation.

It is also sympathized in cases where people rebel against great injustice in a highly oppressive society, such as Nelson R. Mandela's fight against apartheid in South Africa and Martin Luther King's fight against racial inequality in America.

In all these cases, other than civil disobedience or the worse, bloody revolution, there was no means for the oppressed or the enslaved to achieve their objectives and secure their deserved civil rights.

In contrast, here in Hong Kong, a civil society where people enjoy a high degree of freedom and civil rights, the channels for discussions, negotiations and making compromises on issues, including constitutional reform and election formats, are readily available so as to render civil disobedience unwarranted.

This is especially the case given that Tai's "Occupy Central" movement will cause huge damage to the local economy as estimated by many experts, and undermine the city's much treasured rule of law.

The law professor has also defended the movement by arguing that his unlawful campaign is different from offenses that are committed in pursuit of self-interests. If Central is truly occupied and paralyzed, the only ones who will stand to gain are the advocates of radicalization.

The author is a current affairs commentator.

(HK Edition 07/09/2013 page1)