Like a lot of Hong Kongers, I am not used to waiting.

Hong Kong people have been immersed in a culture of instant gratification for decades. Everyone is impatient, hoping to achieve what they want in a flash. Such a mindset is a commonplace among interpersonal relationship and economic activities. To them, waiting feels like inactivity or slothfulness. Such a mindset is also found in resistance movements. A lot of protesters crave for a speedy accomplishment of a protest. Whenever an objective is not summarily realized, some of them will query something being wrong with the means of resisting while some will be supine in the face of further protests, or even depressed and in the end give in.

Inarguably, our opponent is formidable. If we think we can beat it in one go, we are too naive and impractical. That being said, no matter how daunting an opponent is, he is not a forever winner and has his Achilles' heel and time of feebleness. No matter how firm and solid a high wall is, it will crumble one day. It is just that no one can foretell when the day will come. We have done what we ought and are able to do over the past few years. Be patient for a little longer, then we will see the change. For the time being, we need to learn to wait.

Yes, waiting is intolerable, not least when one is placed in the dark, like the awful plight, the dark era of autocracy, Hong Kong is currently in. The harm the autarchy does to people makes it difficult for anyone to stay undisturbed. We will become disconcerted. If we do nothing in the face the autocracy pressing forward step by step, it feels like we are awaiting our doom. We always feel like having to take some actions against the autocracy, but it seems the people in power aren’t moved a bit by whatever we do. To this end, we feel powerless and despondent.

If you want to be able to wait, you need to have confidence. Imagine you were in the countryside and only the last bus would send you back to the city area. You had been waiting at the bus stop for a long time. Would you keep on waiting? If you believed the bus was just delayed on the way for some reason but would arrive in the end, you would go on waiting. But if you were convinced it wouldn’t come, you would rather try to get back to the city area in your own way than keep waiting, in spite of not having a clue how to move on and knowing that the road was long.

Are we confident that the dark era of Hong Kong will go by, and the golden age will arrive? A lot of people are pessimistic about it. Some have opted for backing down, while some continue struggling despite being of the opinion that they don’t stand a chance of turning the tide. I can’t tell you exactly why I am confident. My belief is that righteousness will come to us one day, though I might not be able to witness it in person that day. So, I opt for waiting.

Even though you are confident enough and don’t mind waiting, you still need to learn to be tolerant. When you keep waiting for a long time, perplexity will eat away your will, batter down your confidence and finally crush your resolve to keep waiting. I have heard of an analysis of penalty kick. The ball comes to the goalkeeper from three directions – the front, the left or the right, the probabilities of all of which are the same. Nonetheless, statistics suggest that most goalkeepers pounce either leftward or rightward while only few stay motionless for the ball coming from the front. Why? It is because goalkeepers request themselves to do something. If they stand still, it feels like they don’t even try to fulfil their duty. The fact is they don’t alter the probability of fending off the ball with their feet fixed on to the ground. During the process of waiting, tolerance stops us from doing anything pointless, and encourages us to accept that sometimes we need to stay put.

Does it mean we don’t have to do anything while waiting? Not necessarily. If we are confident in the resistance movement being brought into play, and the achievement is to finally materialize some day we just can’t forecast, the things we do while waiting are different. What we are going to do is not only for the success of the resistance movement, but serving two functions.

It is not easy waiting in the dark. What we need to do in this period of time is something that can help us pull through such a long wait. It might be related or seem unrelated to the protest, but anyhow it reminds us about our objective of resisting during the darkest hour, as well as preventing us from being devoured by the ostensible hopelessness before our eyes and the disconcertedness during the long wait. What shall we do in practice then? It doesn’t really matter as it is subject to individual needs.

During the long wait, we can also do something constructive. As the objective of resisting is to establish democracy, we can do something together to help foster quality thoughts and noble sentiments about democracy so that one day when there is a genuine democratic election held in Hong Kong, we are able to live up to it. It is just like a bride grooming herself while waiting for the bridegroom to pick her up so that the latter will see a beautiful marriage partner.

(Benny Tai Yiu-Ting is a Hong Kong legal scholar and democracy activist.)

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