Tuesday November 2, 2021; 8:56 AM EDT
- It is one of my favorite places on this planet. Ok, I can't say I have travelled widely, but in my travels, there's not quite a place like it. Over the past 30 years, I have visited countless times, and each visit is an eye opener and familiar at the same time. There's no other place that blends so many traditions into a quirky British and Chinese fusion, and moves with such dynamism and smarts.#
- But I have learned to keep quiet about what transpires in the territory, because the long arm of the national security law now trumps the Basic Law. Clearly, the government uses it to destroy and dismantle opposition, high and low. I would not only like to visit but also continue to transit through her wonderful airport on her wonderful hometown airline without fear of reprisal. That's a shitty way to live and a compromise one should not need to make.#
- Newspapers are full of daily reports about some police action to root out opposition or snuff out any last vestiages of freedom guaranteed by the Basic Law. Today's action only adds emphasis to these facts:#
- Attaining "universal suffrage" has been a main issue at the basis of demonstrations and political activism since the handover in 1997. What "universal" means is the important bit.#
- It is worth pointing out that leading up to the handover, the British colonial govt pushed through a number of reforms meant to strengthen democratic principles and make room for direct participation in local government, all with the aim of adding more safe guards to the territory. This was not without controversy among elites there, and in Beijing which obviously did not want divergence from agreements, and among some in London. But the reforms survived the opposition, and I think we can see how those changes opened a kind of deliberately "self-inflicted" chink in the colonial armor that gave standing to, and made room for, the political self.#
- That political self may now be keeping quiet and minding its own business in face of obviously politically corrupted policing and repression, but let's be real: despite what many want to believe, esp. among the well-healed financial services industry cadres, the number of people who participated in demonstrations and other actions was, to be precise, huge. Eventually, in some form of creative expression, that force will emerge again.#