Fear of losing the Hong Kong way of life is driving the street protests
Stephen Vines says lack of democracy alone doesn't explain people's anger
What really propelled the anger that lay behind this week's massive July 1 demonstration and is manifested in so many other ways?
There is intense frustration, and also revulsion, over the hypocrisy of Hong Kong's ruling elite. But this is dwarfed by a bitter feeling of having been cheated and threatened by the removal of the fundamental underpinnings that make this place special.
When the concept of "one country, two systems" was under discussion in the early 1980s, many critics argued that a one-party state would never allow Hong Kong to have any real degree of autonomy. However, there is an optimistic spirit in this city and a majority chose to believe that somehow the "two systems" part of the equation would indeed flourish.
When the State Council in Beijing recently went out of its way to put in writing a firm warning that Hong Kong's autonomy was entirely subject to the dictates of the leaders in Zhongnanhai, the apologists still sought to put a positive spin on this.
However, when the warning was coupled with a direct attack on the independence of the judiciary, most people clearly understood that if Hong Kong's rule of law was to be undermined, it would deal a crushing blow to lingering hopes for preserving a much valued way of life.
Losing what Hong Kong already has tends to worry people a great deal more than failing to get what they want in future.
This explains why it was not just the determination to achieve democracy that managed to mobilise hundreds of thousands of people to march through the streets and to participate in numerous other anti-government rallies. It needed something more to provoke this sense of anger.
