Note

1. There can be two categories of injustice, i.e. private injustice and public injustice. Loosely defined, private injustices are those that happen between private agents whereas public injustices happen between the state or public authorities (and agents or representatives thereof) and the citizens under them. Assuming the given laws are just, private injustices are the concerns of private law whereas public injustices are defined by public law — except criminal code also deals with some private injustices such as most murders. But Injustice as a moral concept and the instances thereof often cover more that what is written in the laws.

2. We should not, however, possess an superstition in laws, or the implementations of laws. This is because not all laws are just, and not all implementations of laws are just.

3. The Situation is of course, tragic and saddening. Cases of private injustice and public injustice are observed, and can be fact-checked.

4. It is well observed that many people have a great concern of Private Injustices, including occupations of roads, destructions of public facilities and vandalism against private shops. It is often claimed by the Public Authorities that such private injustices are damaging the Rule of Law and have greatly destabilized the Society. The concern and suggestion are shared by many of the People in the State. Many of them also use this concern and suggestion, in addition to other reasons, to condemn the Protestors.

5. If Injustice is bad, must be condemned and must be mitigated, then all injustices must be condemned and mitigated, be it private or public.

6. The greatest flaw in the concern and suggestion as outlined in Para. 4, and the whole discourse around them, is that Public Injustices — those willingly or unwillingly committed by the Public Authorities, and those deliberately or ignorantly committed by the State — have been largely ignored or dismissed in the publications from pro-State/pro-Authorities parties. This is observable on social media and news in the State. This is the Negligence.

   1. Many people in the State talk about the Situation as if it only emerged a few months ago. But the Situation has evolved from the History even since before 1997. The Negligence is most salient when many of the people in the State, even those working for state media reporting on the Situation, do not look into the History and know little about what the society and politics of the Island, and what the Island had gone through — not even after 2014, when umbrellas show up in sunny days again. The People of Island have tried peaceful ways to mitigate or rectify Public Injustices since long time ago. Fall 2014 is the first outcry, and now is only the (much) louder extension of it.

   2. Given Para. 6, many of the People in the State, particularly the pro-State/pro-Authorities parties (including agents of the State), are thus not neutral or objective, while many of them also claim they are objective, and condemn ‘Foreign Media’ or pan-Liberals as hypocritical manipulators. This is the Hypocrisy.

7. It is the Wall by the State, rather than the people, decide what contents can exist in the bubbles of people. The Hypocrisy is thus worsen by the ever taller and thicker Wall, and has greater negative influences due to people’s fear of not only being punished by the State, but also worsening daily relationships. The ecosystem of information in the State is rather imbalanced. This is the Bubble.

8. Para. 6 & 8 partly justify some pan-Liberals’ extra focuses on Public Injustices. Such extra focuses are also justified by the fact that there are the state and public authorities that the victims of private injustices can turn to for help and remedies. Yet for public injustices, what can people turn to for help and remedies when there is no God exist? Foreign Powers, Superstate, Rebellion.

9. The strategy of turning to Foreign Powers for help and remedies is not obviously wrong in such cases, even though, according to some unspecified ideology, it is not patriotic. But to judge immediately Foreign Intervention being always evil and wrong presumes that all compatriots and the state or public authorities are good and just. But such presumption is not automatically justified or proved. There have been (many) cases that people and the state commit great evils against their fellow compatriots or citizens. It is also not the case that Foreign Powers only do evils, for the State itself is a foreign power to others.

   1. In fact, it would be a great thing if all states on earth can really take up their responsibilities of protecting all human rights for all in non-violent, diplomatic ways. Otherwise, people are bound to rebel against the states when they can no longer bear, and thus revolutions happen.

   2. People of the Island could have turned to certain international organizations for help. But anything that is foreign or international can always deemed by the State as inappropriate for its country and people, particularly when these foreign or international concepts or practices are not beneficial to the agenda of the State or the Party. And here, it is one instance of the Inconsistency: the Anti-Mask Law can be justified because ‘this is the international practice’, but the international practices of universal suffrage and democracy (that are the integrated part of the due process leading to the passage of anti-mask laws in foreign countries) are not suitable for the Island or the Country because ‘we are in our own (thus different) context.’

   3. Another instance of the Inconsistency is the condemnation of the violent actions of some Protestors. But if the Party could legitimately and morally founded the State via their own violence — such as a three-year civil war against the previous state when there had been constitutional reform, election of the National Congress, and election of the government — why cannot the Protestors use their violence to achieve a better tomorrow? If the Public Injustices through out the history of the current State can be justified by the teleological or utilitarian argument that the outcome (whenever it comes) is best for all, regardless of what methods have been adopted, then why cannot the Private Injustices by the Protestors be justified or forgiven? If one can be praised as a revolution, surely so can this one — for given the Hypocrisy, it is not up to the State to deem what is history. But at least if Public Injustices are ignored and not well examined, surely Private Injustices can also be ignored and not well examined.

10. If one is to be neutral and objective in the Situation, all injustices has to be fairly noted and condemned. But public injustices are almost always more severe, and in particular, the Public Injustices, for they have been THERE for a much longer time regularly affecting much more people than all those particular Private Injustices in the recent months, and public injustices are always harder and much harder to be rectified or even mitigated, and public injustices can lead more constant and regular private injustices.

11. Given the Negligence, Hypocrisy, Bubble and Inconsistency in this Country regarding the Situation (as well as other situations), if one is to condemn or even prevent pan-Liberals’ extra focuses on Public Injustices, such person is likely not neutral or objective but commits the Bias, as the Negligence, Hypocrisy, Bubble and Inconsistency together structurally assist the State to suppress the Protestors and discussions of many other possible solutions, including genuine political reform that would lead to a better tomorrow for all.

12. A pursuit of objectivity is meaningful in the Situation, given how well modern technologies can preserve facts, or scattered pieces of incidents so that, hopefully, one day people would be able to conclude the fact and truth of what had happen during the Situation to the most power of the best evidence they would present. Until that day, at the moment, a pursuit of neutrality is meaningless. Not only because the Negligence, Hypocrisy, Bubble and Inconsistency have made the epistemic calibration too difficult, but also — and crucially because such calibration is itself relying on values, when the Situation is not only a war between parties but more a war between values. It has never been the issue about methodology, about how Freedom, Rule of Law and Human Rights can be achieved; it has always been about whether and when there should really be Freedom, Rule of Law, and Human Rights in this Country, about the practices of the acclaimed values, about the fulfilment of the promises. It is fundamental and concerns every aspect of everyone’s daily life, let alone the next generations. In such a war, one has to make a choice, and hopes that through all the struggles against the Wall, one bears only the least bias and never commits the Bias, and that one can safely bring in more to help people to reach the day when truth be found.

Last modified on 2019-11-21