Alex Lo

Opinion | Many Hongkongers have ‘a need for chaos’

Nihilistic slogans such as “If we burn, you burn with us” have become increasingly common among rioters in Hong Kong. Could this be part of a worldwide trend?

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A demonstrator wearing a gas mask stands facing riot police during a recent protest. Photo: Bloomberg

Alex Loin Toronto

Published: 9:00pm, 10 Oct 2019Updated: 6:57pm, 31 Oct 2019

“Self-destruct together.” “If we burn, you burn with us.” Such nihilistic slogans have become increasingly common among rioters. They cast a pall over the more uplifting ones such as “Liberate Hong Kong” and “Revolution of our times”. Yet, as my colleague Yonden Lhatoo has recently suggested, many people seem fine with that as rioters take their destruction of the city to a new level.

I wonder if it’s just Hong Kong people, who have to face such a terrible dictatorship as the Hong Kong government, and its bloodthirsty tyrant, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor. Lam this week asked the public to speak out against the riots. That has fallen on deaf ears. Should that be surprising?

A recent award-winning study has exposed similar nihilism in advanced Western democracies, which may help explain Brexit and the Donald Trump presidency. Could what’s happening in Hong Kong be part of a worldwide trend?

Titled “A need for chaos”, the study by two political scientists in Denmark and one in the US was named “the best paper” in the political psychology division at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association last month.

The researchers conducted four surveys in the United States of 5,157 participants, and two in Denmark, with 1,336, with the following statements and more. Those who answered “yes” were identified as people being “drawn to chaos”.