Whose Police?

Just outside the market building in Taipo, a big banner exhorts those reading it to "Support Our Police".  It appears from the two-hands logo in the corner to have been erected by the objectionable Robert Chow's Alliance for Sleaze and Hypocrisy.  And there lies the problem: if they are "our" police, who are we?  Any police force that Robert Chow (still claiming to speak for the mythical Silent Majority despite opinion polls showing support for the government shrinking to well below 50%) claims proprietorial rights over is certainly not my police force.

The Hong Kong government is trying to frame a political problem as a law and order problem, which means the police are being forced into a political role - defending an unpopular, unelected and unrepresentative government - that should not be their job.  And the recent attack on TVB and RTHK journalists by the "Support Our Police" blue-ribbon mob suggests they don't have much idea what the police should really be doing - keeping the peace.  A peace that is mostly being disturbed by those claiming to support the police.

Occupy Centrsl with Peace, Love and a Sense of Humour

Wait and See

Has someone poisoned Hemlock?

Last night and this morning I tried to post comments on Hemlock's must-read "Big Lychee" blog, only to receiuve the following message each time:

What I was going to say today, after CY Leung's latest nonsensical outburst,  is "Can someone buy CY a wheelchair as a retirement gift?  He must have run out of feet to shoot himself in by now."  That seems a useful enough suggestion to me.

Either Wordpress suddenly dislikes me, or there's something funny going on.  The odd thing is that comments from others seem to be getting through OK.  Any ideas?

Anyway, do read Hemlock's posts for the last two days.  He has a real talent for cutting through the Hong Kong government's crap and skewering their stupidity with incisive reasoning.

Poor Excuse

 

A Clash of Menus

External Forces

CY Leung tells us that "external forces" are behind the turmoil in Hong Kong.  For once, he is absolutely right about something.  Many of the mysterious masked thugs trying to block delivery of Apple Daily and attacking the protesters in Mongkok are not even Cantonese-speakers, so they're probably not Hongkongers.

Then we had the busloads of external forces who came here to join Robert Chow's ridiculous anti-democracy march.  And there are even reports that Leung and/or his senior officials are secretly visiting Shenzhen to receive covert instructions from external forces across the border.  Why don't they all keep their noses out of Hong Kong's affairs and let us decide our own future?

CY Leung fiddles while Hong Kong burns

[Apologies to The Violin Monster for the use of his photo.]

A Message from Robert Chow

Mongkok is not, so CY Leung tells us, the most genteel part of town - or the most gentile, if you believe the ATV news subtitles.

Infinite Wisdom

Despite its generally pro-Beijing editorial stance in recent years, on the whole the South China Morning Post has done a fair job of covering the Occupy movement.  However, one sentence in today's account of the clearance of the Mongkok protest site defies the laws of physics:

Since Portland Street and Nathan Road run parallel to each other, they can only intersect at infinity!

Another thing I noticed in the Post's latest online poll - 3 of the responses here are favourable to the police, and only 2 unfavourable; there is no neutral choice on offer.  And while I don't believe most cops are bad, "Poor" is a very mild description of the stupidity, incompetence and brutality we have seen from a a few of them in the past three weeks.  "Bloody awful" should have been one of the offered choices.

I suspect the results (54% negative, 46% positive) owe more to attitudes towards the protests than directly towards the police.  There are some sociopaths on the pro-government side who would be perfectly happy for them to replicate the Tiananmen massacre on Hong Kong soil (well, tarmac).  If the police cut off Joshua Wong's and Benny Tai's heads and paraded them around Central they would consider it an excellent performance.

A Simple Question

I haven't posted much here lately, partly because I'm busy and partly because many others are in a better position to comment on the Occupy situation than I am.  But I would like to know the answer to one simple question: have any of the pro-government legislators actually gone to the protest site and talked to the protesters to find out their concerns and understand why they are there, or are they solely relying on their own propaganda for information?  Sadly, I fear I know the answer already.

Hint - it's just outside the LegCo Building.  You won't need your chauffeur-driven car, just walk a few steps.  Go on, the students won't bite you.

Career Opportunity

With some sources reporting that a number of Hong Kong police officers are resigning, unhappy at what our totally discredited government is asking them to do, I thought it would be a useful public service to help update the police's recruitment poster.

Arguments from History

"If we didn't have democracy during 155 years of British rule, why do we need it now?"

Of all the specious arguments being put forward by enemies of democracy in Hong Kong to justify acceptance of China's fake political reform package, this one - which I've seen several times recently - must be the most brainless.  It is just idiotic on so many levels - not to mention ironic that the comparison with British rule is being used to bolster the arguments of those who were most opposed to it at the time.

• Britain didn't have full universal suffrage itself for half of those years - it only achieved it in 1928 when the voting qualifications for women  (some of whom first got to vote in 1918) were made the same as those for men.
• 155 years ago, nowhere else had true universal suffrage either.  Most places in the world didn't have sanitation or universal education, either - should all these omissions be perpetuated indefinitely?
• What does it matter now what Britain did or didn't allow to Hong Kong people?  We should be asking what is right for them now, not taking colonial rule as a guide to the future.
• From the 1950s onwards Britain gradually introduced local self-rule in most of its colonies, leading in most cases to full independence.  Those few which remain colonies today, such as the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, freely elect their own local leadership.  However, it is generally known that the Chinese government discouraged any such moves in Hong Kong.
• At one time Chinese people were not allowed to live on The Peak.  By the same logic, why should they be allowed to do so now?

Ho Tung Gardens, the first Chinese-owned house on The Peak, erected in 1927.  Photographed in the 1970s.

What remains of the site today, thanks to an uncaring government with no respect for Hong Kong's historical or architectural heritage.

• And finally, by the same token, if Hong Kong wasn't under Chinese rule for 155 years, why does it need to be now?

Could CY Leung Pass the Turing Test?

Most of my readers have probably heard of the Turing Test.  It was devised by Alan Turing, a British computing pioneer who helped Britain win World War II by breaking Germany's secret codes.  In less enlightened times, he was rewarded by his grateful country by being punished and driven to suicide for his sexual orientation.

Turing put forward what has become the standard test for artificial intelligence.  A person sits at a keyboard and conducts a conversation online, not knowing whether the entity at the other end is a real person or a computer.  Artificial intelligence will have come of age when the tester is unable to determine from the responses that a computer is in fact a machine, not a human being.

What I wonder is, given his tendency to substitute pre-programmed responses for genuine dialogue, whether Chief Executive CY Leung would be judged by the tester to be human or some form of artificial intelligence?  Perhaps a requirement to prove oneself human should be added to the requirements for nomination as a CE candidate?

Silence of the Damned

Most of the usual pro-government loudmouths are keeping unusually quiet at the moment about the current events in Hong Kong, but not Robert Chow, self-appointed (and self-inflated) spokesman of those with nothing to say.  Chow popped up on television yesterday asking the Occupy Central protesters to end their occupation of the streets soon so "ordinary citizens" could go about their business.  What does he think the thousands of protesters (and hundreds of thousands likely to join them over the holiday tomorrow) are - little green aliens from the planet Twinkletoes?  They are ordinary citizens of Hong Kong - unlike the busloads of mainlanders Chow imported to boost the numbers on his anti-Occupy march last month.

To claim, as Chow does, to speak for the "silent majority" relies on two assumptions, both false: 1) that those who do not speak out all agree with you; and 2) that they want you to speak on their behalf.  It takes a remarkably big ego and small brain to believe both of these.

A Reader, Not a Leader

CY Leung's TV address to the Hong Kong people yesterday:

Look briefly at camera.
Blah Blah Blah.
Look down at Beijing-provided script.
Blah Blah Blah.
Blah Blah Blah.
Blah Blah Blah.
Look briefly at camera.
Blah Blah Blah.
Look down at Beijing-provided script.
Blah Blah Blah.
Blah Blah Blah.
Blah Blah Blah.
Look briefly at camera.
Blah Blah Blah.
Look down at Beijing-provided script.
Blah Blah Blah.
Blah Blah Blah.
Blah Blah Blah.

...and so on.  All delivered in that infuriating flat robotic monotone which he probably thinks indicates calm assurance but which actually signifies a lack of passion and emotional engagement.  The man has no personal warmth whatsoever.  And at a time of crisis, people want a leader who talks to them directly from the heart, not just a zombie reading a prepared statement which he has clearly not even looked at in advance.

As for the content of both his public appearances yesterday, it was just more reading from the same tired script.  "Beijing won't change its mind".  "Occupy Central is illegal" (we know that - what part of "civil disobedience" doesn't he understand?)  "Government won't tolerate illegal activities".  "Strictly in accordance with the Basic Law" (untrue, but that's for another post).  And Blah Blah Blah.

Clearly Leung - like his two predecessors - totally lacks imagination.  He looks increasingly like an actor who has learned his lines thoroughly but then finds himself on stage with someone like Spike Milligan or Robin Williams, doggedly trying to stick to the script while they improvise entire new plotlines all around him.

At this point, there are only two useful things that Leung could say to the Hong Kong public.  The first is "I misrepresented Hong Kong's views to the NPCSC and helped create this mess we're in.  I'm sorry."  I doubt he will do this, but there are still one or two of his government ministers who have a little integrity left - I'm hoping they will break ranks, admit they got it wrong, and say they don't want to be part of this sorry show any more.

The second is "I resign".


Video - I couldn't find a video of his second speech yesterday, which was in Chinese, but here's the earlier one in English where he's also obviously reading woodenly from his script.  It's hard to see why he needs one when he's repeated all these lies and half-truths so many times before.  Perhaps his handlers at the Liaison Office are scared he may stray off-message if they don't put the exact words into his mouth.

They've got the guns, but we've got the numbers

Whoever is in charge of the police operation at Admiralty today appears to be a complete idiot (or taking orders from a complete idiot, probably Police Commissioner Andy Tsang, or even his boss CY Leung) .  Not content with already using pepper spray and tear gas to escalate a mild protest into a riot, they have now threatened to open fire on the crowd with live bullets.  I can think of nothing more certain to provoke the Hong Kong people into a mass eruption of anger against the government which would make the Article 23 demonstrations look like a church picnic by comparison.  I also suspect many of the police would feel very uneasy at being part of it.

Either the government has no idea of the level of resentment it has built up in Hong Kong, or they are already determined to replicate the Tiananmen Massacre on Hong Kong soil.  Either way the future doesn't look good.  This is not the Hong Kong any of us wants.

CY Leung Reacts to Occupy Central

There is much that could be said about Occupy Central and the events of the past few days.  All I will say here for now is that I want to live in a Hong Kong where the police force protects ordinary citizens from criminals, not one where gas-mask-wearing shield-carrying riot police protect a clueless and unelected government from the people.

The Great Pretender

Former Secretary for Justice Elsie Leung, now Deputy Director of the Basic Law Committee, said a couple of days ago that "People wish to have universal suffrage in 2017, and they should not be deprived of their chance".

No argument with that, but then she turned stupid: "When you label it as true or false universal suffrage I think it's meaningless.  I mean you can't say that just because it's not the same as what I want and [sic] therefore it's not true universal suffrage".

I don't believe for one moment that Elsie Leung is too simple-minded to understand the difference between an election allowing voters to select from a range of candidates representing a wide spectrum of political viewpoints, and one where the choice is between 2 or 3 identikit candidates all effectively handpicked by the Chinese Communist Party.  In other words, she is pretending not to understand the difference with the intention of reducing a serious divergence on political principle to a mere question of personal preference, like the choice between Pepsi and Coke.

Leung is playing the fool for political advantage, and she wants you to be fooled too.  Don't be.

A Child's Guide to Hong Kong CE Elections