What I try to document here are some of the ways in which this
reconstitutive ‘boundary-making’ is occurring in Hong Kong. Sometimes
it occurs in the law courts, sometimes in official narratives and
discourse, sometimes in culture and sometimes in fleeting metaphors
and parables, insubstantial myths and rumours. All contribute to what
Cohen calls the symbolic construction of a community.147 Paradoxically,
however, I argue that though law and lawyers play their part in this
construction, by elevating the rule of law to such a dominant cultural
position, they may contribute to the disarming of democracy.
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