Happy Independance Day to those friends in the USA, albeit four days late… or Happy Canada Day to those in Canada – eight days late. To be politically correct, I should also wish those in Burundi, Somalia, Rwanda, Belarus, Venezuela, and Malawi best wishes for their national days!
Then last but not least of course, Happy SAR day to those in Hong Kong – though I often wonder what it is we’re celebrating.
Yet again another article appears in the SCMP, part of a long string of articles debating the future of Hong Kong’s democratic reform: this time the DAB suggesting that there should be no universal sufferage on chief executive elections earlier than 2017, with full legco elections coming even later. This only a couple of months after DAB chairman Ma Lik ignorantly played down the events of the 1989 Tiannanmen Square ‘incident’.
The article laughably suggests that each “candidate must obtain 50 votes from a nomination board of 800 members before being put in a ‘one man, one vote’ election by the public or legco – with a similar 800 member nomination committee for chief executive. In another words – universal sufferage, but you can only pick from pre-approved candidates (by Beijing, no doubt).
It is of course times like this when you feel like practicing voodoo is a good idea – or to find a punching bag effigy of the said idiot and whack the living daylights out of it.
How one can be a complete stooge, a mouthpiece of a one party state with total disrespect for freedom of speech, a man who claims to be patriotic but not giving the slightest damn about people’s general aspirations, a spinless coward who has profited personally from being friendly to Beijing… it’s amazing what can come out of some people’s mouthes.
Watching shows in Beijing celebrating the 10th anniversary since the ‘Great Hong Kong Takeaway’, all the fanfare here is praising the central government support for Hong Kong, Hong Kong’s economic development – they of course all paint a rosey picture. It’s no surprise there are no mentions of the real struggles back at home. In watching the BBC’s reminiscing of the final few years of colonial rule under Chris Patten you get a very different picture – Patten’s efforts for last minute government reform; moves appreciated now by most but having enraged many at the time, mostly tycoons who have profited from befriending the Communist party. Gordon Wu (chairman of Hopewell Holdings) was even quoted to suggest self censorship would not be a problem and would not bother him.
China is by and large a very different place now to fifteen years ago – but deep down the same core problems exist. Pathetic would be a good phrase to describe the leadership here. Much has been achieved in concrete terms, economically and politically, but the tit for tat childish behaviour of key figures continues.
And yet, with 40 years to go till 2049, it’s happening in Hong Kong too.
The central government ought to speed up their brainwashing – at least by then 40 years later, we’d all be too ignorant to complain.