Police

I just went to an anti-WTO concert at Arts Centre. Again, no special meaning. Just a friend asked if I wanted to go and I happened to have nothing to do tonight.

It’s a concert you could never expect what would happen next. It’s divided into different segments with different bands you never heard of before (well, for me, at least); while you also couldn’t hear what one of the MC was saying with the other one’s basically doing some “background sound”.

The bands’ quality varied. With the better and more experienced ones, they would tell you the background of the song and what they wanted to deliver via the song. Even if you don’t understand the language (one song’s in Filipino), the music could still touch you. However, there were also some bands you didn’t even know what they tried to do, and how that related to (anti-)WTO, globalization, justice…..

There’s one band singing two songs to “praise our police”. One song’s name was “None” (沒有). The other was “Police’s Coming” (警察殺到). So you know what they wanted to talk about.

The songs reminded me about the police recruitment API (Announcement of Public Interests, i.e. government commercials/advertisement) I watched at the KCR on Sunday.

The setting’s a rainy night, with a car crushed up side down and the MAN DRIVER trapped inside. A group of five to six POLICEMEN tried to push the car over to save the MAN DRIVER. When the POLICEMEN went “one, two, push”, one of the POLICEMEN hurt HIS leg with blood coming out of HIS boot. However, HE didn’t stop nor screamed. HE kept on pushing until they rescued the MAN DRIVER, and the background came a slogan “The Mark of Pride and Care” (一段痕跡 一段經歷). At the end, one POLICEMAN (without seeing HIS face) did HIS police salute and then some words came out telling you the police was hiring.

This API ignores me a lot. First, it’s a single sex world – POLICEMEN and MAN DRIVER. Where’re the women? (Well, don’t complain, you should be pride that I learn my gender perspective.) Second, I don’t need our police to value any other things more important than their own lives (I don’t need them 攞命博). We are recruiting police that serve the community, not hiring SUPERHEROS (watch out, it’s SUPERHEROS! SUPERHEROINES are not welcome.) We don’t need a Superman.

It really ignores me.

I never doubt our police’s efficiency and professionalism. But when you have quite extensive power, we always need to be on guard if someone will overdo.

P.S. I always remember what my colleague from Save the Children told a group of international school girls when they asked if we found our jobs at the Save meaningful – “Every job’s serving the community. If you put your heart on it, every job’s meaningful.”

We need people with heart. We don’t need superhero.