Whose side are you on - the protesters who turned violent against mainland shoppers on Sunday, or the shoppers who were verbally abused and had their wheeled suitcases kicked by the protesters? TV images of young Hong Kong protesters pushing an elderly shopper to the ground left Public Eye speechless. We were disgusted by images of protesters so violently confronting a mainland mother with a shopping trolley that it made her four-year-old daughter burst into tears. Fair play is ingrained in the psyche of Hongkongers. Sunday night's barbaric attacks on mainlanders were plain wrong. There is no way to justify it. But whose side will you be on the next time you can't board several MTR trains in a row because of the visitor crush, or have to line up for hours for the Peak Tram? If you live in a border town, will you curse the influx of mainland visitors and parallel-goods traders the next time your foot is run over by a wheeled suitcase, or you can't buy daily necessities because they have cleaned out all the shop shelves? Emotions can be a double-edged sword. You can feel sickened by last Sunday's ugly scenes but at the same time feel angry that your quality of life has been ruined by the influx. Public Eye has repeatedly warned that public frustration at the city being overrun by mainlanders is a time bomb waiting to explode. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying needs to show that his priority is to serve the people of Hong Kong, not the interests of the central government. He can do that by forcefully telling mainland leaders that Hong Kong can no longer handle the growing visitor influx. Just saying that it is a difficult matter on which Beijing calls the shots is simply not good enough. We shouldn't be forced to choose which side we're on.

One person, one vote is dead. All 27 of the so-called pan-democrat legislators joined hands for the first time on Monday to pass the death sentence by making clear they will stand united in voting down Beijing's democracy framework for Hong Kong. Beijing has made equally clear it will not amend its framework. That virtually assures the re-election of Leung Chun-ying under the existing system by the 1,200-member election committee. Who knows, he may even get more than the 689 votes he got last time. The democrats will then have to rethink their mocking "689" nickname for Leung. But after they kill off one person, one vote, what is their game plan? Will the democrats continue to hold Hong Kong to ransom with filibustering and non-cooperation in Legco? Or will they let the next chief executive, whoever that may be, govern for the sake of Hong Kong people? No amount of non-cooperation will make Beijing meet demands for so-called true democracy. So if the democrats won't accept anything other than their version of democracy, which they will never get, will they at least separate political reform from other issues that impact the lives of Hongkongers?