One law for the rulers...

 

By Their Fruits...

 

I Ran

Watching BBC News earlier today, I was struck by some key characteristics of the current Iranian election:

• The ruling elite selects the winner in advance and ensures that their selected candidate receives the most votes.
• To make sure of this, many popular opposition figures are barred from standing for office.
• The government also puts pressure on the media to suppress dissenting voices. 
• However, the government does not exercise ultimate authority; on all major decisions, it defers to the dictates of a self-appointed higher power that tolerates no defiance.
• In the face of this situation, many citizens are becoming disillusioned with the prospects of achieving change through electoral politics and are not bothering to vote.

Now, where else in the world does this remind me of?

Lest We (Are Forced to) Forget

Few people in Hong Kong take the South China Morning Post seriously as a news source any more, but one of the few remaining points of excellene in the paper is Harry's cartoons.  With the Victoria Park candlelight vigil banned for the second consecutive year, the June 4th Museum closed on the bureaucratic  pretext that it requires a public entertainment licence (massacres are so entertaining, aren't they?), and organisers of the vigil being arrested or already in prison, today's cartoon is particularly poignant: 

The Hong Kong Free Press also has a number of articles marking the date.  And Hemlock is incisive as usual - pointing out that the aurhorities' clumsy efforts to suppress remembrance of the 1989 events are merely bringing more attention to them (the Streisand effect at work).

P.S. A valuable resource: How to Respond to Tiananmen Trolls.

When in doubt, see Rule 2

 

We are the people our government warned us against

 

Be careful what you ask for

As in past years, the Hong Kong government is conducting a public consultation exercise on what should be in the Chief Executive's annual Policy Address.  This seems a particularly pointless exercise this year, as what the majority of people want is not only clearly unattainable under the current regime, but even to demand it is probably no longer legal.  Still, I am wondering what would happen if a million Hongkongers wrote in to say they wanted this year's address to consist of only two words: "I resign".

Return of the 4 o'clock fairytale hour

See here for an account of the police's rewriting of the Yuen Long attack story.

Mirror, Mirror

If music be the food of love, play not

Hong Kong's Education Secretary Kevin Yeung has instructed that: “Schools must not allow their students to play, sing or broadcast any songs which will disrupt the normal operation of schools, affect students’ emotions or contain political messages.”  Well, there goes the music syllabus!

I'd like to teach the world not to sing

As the national anthem law comes into force, just over a year after the start of the Hong Kong protest movement, Education Secretary and all-round wanker Kevin Yeung declares that schoolchildren will be prohibited from singing songs in school which contain political messages expressing a political stance. So, no "March of the Volunteers" then?

Legal disclaimer: I am not insulting the national anthem, only the jerks who seek to use it as another weapon in their campaign to remove Hong Kong's freedoms.  "Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves!" is a truly noble sentiment - in the right context.

Mixed Messages

In a couple of weeks it may become illegal for me to post this.

Lawyers speak a different language

So is that a yes or a no?  Our devious Justice Secretary isn't saying.

Lord, what fools these ministers be!

This is Hong Kong's "Secretary for Justice" - who decided that this would be a good time, in the middle of months of violent clashes on the streets of Hong Kong, to fly to London (presumably at the taxpayers' expense) to promote the territory as a centre for dispute resolution.  Truly, these people make satirists redundant.

Cycle of Violence

How much intelligence does it take to recognise that if you curtail all peaceful channels for expression of opinion and for achieving much-needed change, only violent channels remain? Apparently more than the pathetic Hong Kong government can summon up.

The Sleep of the Volunteers

While Hongkongers are eagerly adopting a new anthem of resistance, already on YouTube in multiple versions on numerous instruments and translated into several foreign languages - read its history here - the government is presumably pressing ahead with its (already failed) plan to enforce "respect" for China's official national anthem - March of the Volunteers - through legislation.  This would make it illegal, among other things, to change the words of the anthem.  I am not sure what the implications of this are for translations into other languages - there are already many, including an English version performed by the legendary American singer Paul Robeson even before the founding of the PRC (which ironically later hounded the anthem's lyricist to his death).

Robeson's version (see the link) has different words to the current official ones, which come out in English as:

Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves!

With our flesh and blood,let us build a new Great Wall!

As China faces its greatest peril

From each one the urgent call to action comes forth.

Arise! Arise! Arise!

Millions of but one heart

Braving the enemies' fire! March on!

Braving the enemies' fire! March on!

March on! March, march on!.

Another (slightly less clumsy) version:

Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves
With our very flesh and blood Let us build our new Great Wall
The Peoples of China are in the most critical time,
Everybody must roar his defiance.
Arise! Arise! Arise!
Millions of hearts with one mind,
Brave the enemy's gunfire, march on!
Brave the enemy's gunfire, march on!
March on! March on! March on, on!

Out of curiosity I fed the Chinese words of the anthem (from here):

(( 义勇军进行曲))
起来！不愿做奴隶的人们！
把我们的血肉，筑成我们新的长城！
中华民族到了最危险的时候，
每个人被迫着发出最后的吼声。
起来！起来！起来！
我们万众一心，
冒着敌人的炮火，前进！
冒着敌人的炮火，前进！
前进！前进！进！

into Google Translate, and got this [my emphasis]:

Stand up! People who don't want to be slaves!

Make our flesh and blood into our new Great Wall!

When the Chinese nation is at its most dangerous time,

Everyone is forced to make the final snoring.

We are all united,

Take the enemy's gunfire and move on!

Take the enemy's gunfire and move on!

go ahead! go ahead! Into!

stand up! stand up! stand up!

So as Hong Kong's protesters no doubt mark China's National Day tomorrow with mass singing of "Glory to Hong Kong", let us all look forward to the final snoring of the PRC!

Hong Kong Police adopt new motto

Suspicious Minds

The government has officially denied the rumour that a protester was killed by the police action in Prince Edward Station a few days ago.  Meanwhile the police stated that reporters were removed from crime scenes to protect the privacy of suspects.  Seeing what the police already get away with in front of the camera, if I was one of the protesters, I would rather endanger my privacy than risk what they might do to me when no one is filming them.

At least one of these pictures is adapted from the indispensable  Hong Kong Free Press.

Stirring the Pot

The cop who wasn't there

So, let me see whether I've got this right.  According to Yau Nai-keung – Assistant District Commander of Crime Yuen Long - the police were called to the scene of a possible crime, but hung around for 2.5 hours waiting for all evidence of the crime to be erased before they actually went in to check it out.  This seems a distinctly odd method of policing - in fact, its sheer absurdity reminded me of Major Major in Catch-22, who only sees people in his office when he's not in his office.