Repugnant behavior imported from elsewhere often sullies the streets of Hong Kong. Recently, the stench of African corruption, violence and misrule wafted among the skyscrapers.

Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe’s spendthrift wife Grace had arrived on a regular overseas shopping spree. Critics often call her “Dis-Grace”, and she demonstrated why. Noticing a media cameraman aiming a lens, she reacted with delusional rage and violence much like her elderly husband directs at the public back home.

Representing British newspaper The Sunday Times, photo-journalist Richard Jones had caught up with 43-year-old Mrs Mugabe outside the swanky Shangri-La Hotel, where she and her entourage stayed. At first, her bodyguard tried to seize the camera. Then Mugabe joined the assault, pummeling Jones as the bodyguard held him. “She was screaming, completely crazy,” said one witness, a visitor from Austria.

“She stood there in a mad rage, screaming something at me, and kept lining up punches, all into my face,” Jones said. “She had nice jewelry and knew it’d cut me, I’m sure. She looked totally deranged.”

The “first lady’s” bulky diamond rings inflicted cuts and bruises. Hong Kong police were called and briefly detained the bodyguard. Hours later, Mugabe boarded a plane and flew home to a land beset by misrule and corruption.

In Zimbabwe, hyperinflation ravages the economy. Jobs, food, fuel and consumer goods are in short supply. A cholera epidemic rages. The capital city’s water and sewage systems have broken down. Most schools and hospitals are closed.

Among Hong Kong’s many shortcomings, its unelected government gladly admits unsavory people who hold and abuse power elsewhere. Often, the undesirable political visitors hail from Beijing. But sometimes watchful pedestrians also may glimpse the likes of Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra or the Philippines’ Imelda Marcos, both accused of grand-scale corruption.

In contrast, the truly principled visitors likely to speak up for Taiwan independence, Tibetan freedoms or the Falun Gong, may be turned away at the airport. For this, Hong Kong people should hang their heads in shame.

In Zimbabwe, millions of people already hang their heads. They’re too weak, beaten and impoverished to raise them.

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