Opinion | Living in Dark Mode

Even though the two protests are not comparable, I wonder how those who lived through the 1967 riots look back on that time. I suppose the question isn’t what history will think of us. If the Communist Party remains in power and erases our history, the question is whether we’ll have a history at all.

In May, before all of this began, I took a trip to the Isle of Skye. I read books and downed many, many pints of beer. Sometimes, as a mental exercise, I try to pretend I’m still there, sitting in a bed-and-breakfast overlooking the undulating hills of Scotland, and ask myself how I would feel if I saw on the news what’s happening in Hong Kong today.

Tear-gassing was once considered an unreasonable use of force; now it is barely worth a retweet. We make tear-gas jokes, play tear-gas canister bingo, checking off a district whenever the police fire canisters at a new location. We map out a safe route before making plans to meet for hotpot. We check Telegram for protest updates before a date. A banker books a plane ticket to get to work, to take the airport train when the roads to her office are blocked. We have all weaved the certainty of violence into our routines.

I am sitting at the park near my flat with my friend A. Newly sober, he refuses my offer to pour him some wine. I have just come from a vigil for the 22-year-old who died. A. is from Pakistan, but he has lived all over the world. I tell him I don’t know how I’m still functional. He says that in Pakistan, a bomb once exploded in the shop next to him and he barely noticed. “You get used to it,” he says.

But I don’t want to get used to it. On the bad days, usually after a particularly ruthless police clearance operation, I can’t sit or eat. Sometimes I throw up, and sometimes I can’t breathe. I consume copious amounts of alcohol. I feel like a phony, talking about the movement on social media but putting in nowhere the hours or the risk that others do. After a couple of days, I find the strength to make dinner, the peace of mind to read and write, the desire to exercise and take care of myself. I’m terrified at my body’s ability to cope, but more terrified of what would happen if the coping mechanism stops working.

Everyone wants to know how this is going to end, but no one has an answer. I know this: We are going to be living with the consequences of trauma for years. They can scrub the walls clean of the graffiti, but the horrific images will continue to eat away at us: a protester shot at point-blank range; a tear-gas canister erupting onto someone’s back, burning the flesh blue-black; a man pressed to the ground, bleeding profusely and teeth knocked out; a pair of punctured eye goggles. The trials for those who participated in the 79-day Umbrella Movement in 2014 have only just ended. We will spend the next couple of years watching the government throw hundreds, if not thousands, in jail.