Hong Kong - Where do we go from here?

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The world is divided. It seems that after 70 years of relative peace the world has forgotten what it meant to live in a world ravaged by global wars. The rise of the right and right-terrorism, religious predomination of social discourse and ideological war fares seemed to be the token of our everyday lives.

I have been resisting to comment on a lot of social and political issues since witnessing a lot of unjust within our so-called democracy. I do not like the results but then at the same time democracy means that you don’t always get what you want and that is something I am willing to accept. To further participate in those discourse or not, that’s up to me. After all it’s my life I don’t need to justify it.

However, recent events in Hong Kong had really struck a chord inside my heart. I have left my birthplace for many years now, looking for a different life and different opportunities. So naturally I do not think it is my place to comment on recent events, no matter what emotional attachment I have with this place.

Hong Kong has been through a lot. Its role as the historical and political prize in a larger scale international balance of power had rendered this place a lack of identity politically and ideologically. That’s one of the reasons I left – I want to have an identity and I believed that neither the Brits nor the Chinese will give that to me – nor do I want to rely on them to give it to me because that would feel more like a charitable gesture, which I certainly did not think I needed it.

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Back to the recent events – the cause of it seems to be about the Extradition Bill that the Carrie Lam Government tried to rush through. It triggered 2 million people marching in the streets – quite a spectacle for a territory of around 7 million people. The Bill was eventually retracted but not repealed. Things should have ended there but the unrest continues for weeks on and got to a point that violence was resulted on both sides. Last night’s airport shut down because of flash mob protests will permanently stain the city with this political brush, and whatever this colour ended up to be, it will not be a pretty one.

However, when you look deeper into this, is it just about the Extradition Bill or is it an extension of the Yellow Umbrella Movement or even something that dated further back?

I am not interested in fractional politics and have always been an advocate of practical and correct solutions. Hence my attempt to stay away from the foray of discussions and outcries that a lot of my friends are conducting on social media. However, if we look into the current situation is there a way out? Or we are just waiting for another Tianman Square to happen within Hong Kong and destroy this once priced jewel of China and Britain once and for all? What good is going to come out of the current tides of clashes between the authority and the protesting citizens?

If we look at the history of Hong Kong, it is never a territory of democracy. It was given to the Brits after the Opium War by the Qing Government. Nobody in the territory had a say about it. Since then it was ruled by a Governor appointed by the Brits and had been performing the role of the goose that laid golden eggs ever since. Freedom is what Hong Kong benefited from the British rule. It was relatively untouched by the Cultural Revolution and other political turmoils in their mainland counterpart. Since then China has an official language different from Hong Kong and the two seemed to be unrelated apart from sharing a border.  However things changed when the rising Chinese Government showed its determination to take Hong Kong back in 1997 when part of the lease of Hong Kong was up. The Brits tried to negotiate a solution but the now more powerful Chinese Government wouldn’t have anything for it as it considered the annexing of Hong Kong a humiliating part of the Chinese history. So Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 – another situation none of the Hongkongese had a say on. To avoid Hong Kong British citizens flooding to UK because of this, Hong Kong citizens lost their full British citizen status and became Overseas Nationals who have no right to work in UK, practically cut them off from access to UK. The consolation prize was a programme awarding limited number of people to move there so Hong Kong citizens can fight among themselves through a stringent screening process like hungry kids in an orphanage.

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The world’s One Country Two System was conjured and put in place to resolve the social and cultural difference between the mainland and Hong Kong. 50 years of unchanged rule was also granted and to be reviewed after that.

Since then Hong Kong had gone through a lot. Without a doubt the Chinese Government would want to assimilate Hong Kong as it sees Hong Kong as its legitimate territory, thus seen a lot of unpopular bills and actions in the last 20 odd years – the education bill, the general election issue that triggered the Yellow Umbrella Movement and the recent Extradition Bill. It is no question that a lot of Hong Kong people, especially the younger generation have no trust, or according to the Chinese Government, loyalty to the Chinese Community Party (CCP). However, to the Chinese Government’s credit they have been extremely restrained. The fact that they poured enormous amount of money during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) to keep Hong Kong afloat was a sign showing that they were determined to do anything to show the western world that they can govern Hong Kong as good as, if not better than, the Brits. It is essentially a costly face saving exercise.

Fast forward to today, the question we should ask is what do we want Hong Kong to become and what can it become? Let me put it right out there – I do not believe anyone can purely rely on ideology and emotional drives to put food on one’s table. We all live in a real world, so we need to always stay realistic and practical so we will be doing the right thing without wrecking what we are trying to protect. So let us look at this pragmatically.

First of all, there will never be independence for Hong Kong. Any people who think that this can be accomplished are burying their heads in the sand. The ship for independence had sailed since the Brits agreed to hand Hong Kong over back to China in their Joint Declaraion back in the 1980s. Hong Kong is and will always be the prize to be won in political tussles. Any other expectations are only wishful thinking. Further, Hong Kong has no resources to stay independent as they do not have a strong leader like Singapore did, and truth to be told Singapore did not start out as a democratic country in any sense. So are Hong Kong people willing to trade an absolute sovereignty in the form of CCP for a new dictator to gain independence? Also even if Hong Kong gained independence, what kind of government can be in place to keep the place afloat when there are no real directions or blue prints from any of the political parties available? How is Hong Kong going to resolve natural resources issues when it relies so much on China to provide those? Certainly they can’t expect China to be as supportive and available when you stuck your middle finger in their face right?

Secondly why is One Country Two System not working as it was constructed? Looking back into the last 20 years, both sides played a part in undermining this establishment. However, every time again it is about ideology and nationalist sentiments. When someone is willing to sacrifice the whole of the territory for personal ideological and nationalistic gains, are they still for Hong Kong or against Hong Kong? The focus should be what is to be gained when you wrecked the place you want to gain from. Looking at the current situation in Hong Kong, I personally believe that there are third, fourth or fifth parties trying to exploit the situation for personal, political, social and financial gains. The distrust that was stirred up and the eventual violence that spilled all over the territory are more than emotional uprising and spontaneous actions. In the midst of outrage and anger did anyone looked into the whole situation objectively? Or objectivity no longer applies when you just want to get your message across?

Thirdly, what do we want Hong Kong to be at the end of the day? Would you still be able to raise you head high and stay proud once Hong Kong’s name as the Pearl of the Orient is destroyed by the recent or even future events? Do we eventually want Hong Kong to become the next Tianman Square? How much of your current freedom do you cherish and do you want to win a battle and lose the war? Instant gratification is not something that could always pay dividends in the long run. If all parties, as they said are for the better future of Hong Kong, wrecking it to rebuild is not the most sensible approach unless you are sure that Hong Kong is a geographical phoenix that could guarantee a rebirth after death.

I understand where the younger generation came from as it is their home and they don’t necessarily feel they are Chinese citizens. But like it or not, unlike my generation, they are, as long as they were born after 1 July 1997. However, if they keep Hong Kong vibrant, they can still have choices – that includes to stay or to leave. But if they wrecked the system I can assure that this basic freedom could be gone for good. I am not saying this because I left and can now make easy statements, for I went through the period of identity searching, and being a blue collar family kid living in public housing growing up among the wealthy and the privileged at school is not the easiest thing to deal with, especially when you witnessed how your peers were provided with opportunities while you need to fight and create your own. But with a free and stable society that will still be possible. If you tore the very fabric that provides that possibility you are just binding yourselves with your own undoing.

I don’t want to take sides and I know not taking sides will be the most unpopular stance for most, but while I believe in what we may become depending what we are doing now, a sensible, practical, and correct approach will always have higher chances yielding the fruit you want to pick. Ideologies and political aspirations are always good on paper, and emotions are always good for instant gratifications but where do they lead in the long run? When emotions are running so high that we got ourselves tunnel visioned, are we losing the bigger picture that could benefit all and granting the opportunistic parties a way to reap the profits at the engaging parties’ expense? I personally think these are questions to be answered.

I wish the current situation could be resolved soon in a peaceful and happy manner. When you poke the dragon you should know the dragon will always breathe fire at you. This is not about how to tame a dragon but how to gain yourself proper upper hands in this David and Goliath relationship, if we can’t even consider this as a fight.

The Perfect Balance

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The world seemed to have gone crazier and crazier every day. Sometimes I wondered whether it is because a lot of us have become so accustomed to a more peaceful lifestyle in our parts of the world, so we got bored, and we need someone or something to hate to make life more meaningful. The tolerance and respect that was built up since the last great wars seemed to have waned so much that mankind is happy to go down that road again and impose a self-inflicted wipe out. Thanos’s snap (or decimation) might be fictional on screen and on page, but sooner or later mankind might just as well do that to itself.

The vegan activist protests this morning that brought the Melbourne CBD to a halt is one of the good examples. I mean their intentions were good, to protect animals etc. but then bringing the city to a stop during rush hours to state a point? That is seriously too much. At the end of the day going vegan is a personal conscience and choice. I respect that, but at the same time they need to respect others too. Mankind were not born herbivores, and that’s why we need meat as part of our diet. I applaud those who make a stand for their conscience and want to go vegan, but it is not those who consumed meat that caused the issue. It is the people who operate the business who are the problems, so got hassle them, go hassle the government. Don’t hassle other people simply because they are having a diet that they were biologically built to consume. There is a reason that humans were built as omnivores: to have choices in their diet and be balanced. And I would expect any reasonable human being to apply this to other aspects of their lives. It is not your job to force your conscience and believe on to others, especially through the disruption on other people’s lives. If so, you just became the Pharisees and Sadducees of modern diets.

The perfect balance, a concept that I felt less and less being understood and appreciated. Someone questioned my belief about my non-vegan diet as compared to my strong stand against global warming and fights for environmental protection. The mixed up of these issues seemed to make me look paradoxical about my beliefs but they are not. I oppose inhumane treatment of animals, but at the same time I believe a balanced food chain is essential for the Earth to survive, and by protecting the Earth that we live in we are doing our best effort to maintain the balance of this food chain and thus the world. In Florida, local fauna is being annihilated by introduced pet pythons that were released into the wild because they grew too big. This disrupts the balance and thus leads to the extinction of local fauna. That is similar for Australia’s cane toad situation. Mankind being the most developed species on Earth has the natural obligation to protect this world, and hence the fauna, flora and landscape of this Earth. The balance between obligations and rights is what needed to be achieve to protect our own existence in this world. But a number of those currently in power are not, so we are upsetting the balance and destroying the very fabric we rely on to survive. Also, the notion of some of these people that this will not happen within their generation exposed how selfish they are to be even in power. I oppose them because they are destroying the perfect balance I seek to make this world a better place.

Similarly, those who enforce their beliefs on those are doing the same thing in a social and communal context. We are entitled to what we believe in but that does not give us the right to dominate and force our beliefs on to others. The society flourishes and progresses because of different views and opinions that seeks to balance and counter-balance each other. As soon as we ignore this important aspect of a harmonious society, we push our society onto the blink of unrest or even war. And thus I oppose that too. And in my opinion that’s what the vegan activists were doing today in Melbourne CBD.

I was brought up as a Christian and that is as hardcore a faith as you can expect. However, what I took from the Bible are not just the 10 commandments but the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. You cannot miss any one of them to live a balanced life. However, nowadays, what we saw in a number of so-called religious institutions or leaders, or even political leaders who claimed to be following the Christian faith, the teachings were just there for them to pick and choose to justify their means and ambitions. This fundamental imbalance in their so-called Christian faith is the most un-Christian you could expect. This leads to all the unrest in the world that we are experiencing in this day and age.

I might be too idealistic to fight for this long absence perfect balance, but I have the confidence that I am not the only person who felt that. I do believe that we don’t need to go to the Thanos’ extreme to achieve this balance, but just really live a life based on a collective non-radicalised conscience.

When Wentworth Falls

The Australian public has been served unjustly several months of turbulence in the last few months. The knifing of Malcolm Turnbull to the rise and fall of Peter Dutton and the ‘accidental’ Prime Ministership of Scott Morrison, then the byelection at Wentworth and the recent rumoured knifing of the fresh National leader with an option of returning to the home wrecking, cheating and womanising Barnarby Joyce who went on to take a handsome amount of money to fix his image.

It has been some time that Australians have been treated unfairly. Since ‘Kevin 07’ Australians have endured waves after waves of narcissistic infighting of the so-called elite Australians in Canberra. From Kevin Rudd to Julia Guilard, then back to Kevin Rudd, then switched over to the Tony Abbott promising a stable government going to do their job properly, only to be knifed by Malcom Turnbull and then as a pay back, Peter Dutton ramped up his far-right support only to find himself second to Scott Morrison. The Parliament was shut down for a period because of these politicians in suit who actually behaved like thugs in suit were engaging in a full-on internal war among themselves.

The Merry-Go-Round of Prime Ministers made Australia a butt joke internationally and put Australia on an undesirable radar of failed governance. This happened while Australians believe more attention should be paid on climate change, the conservation of the Barrier Reef, the refugees’ issues, public health, public education, pension, supporting young people who are struggling to get a job etc. Australians maybe a tolerant bunch and battlers, but there is a limit to such tolerance.

Today, at the Wentworth byelection, Australian democracy struck. Despite Scott Morrison repeatedly raised the issue of a ‘stable government’ (hello?) and ‘you know what you get’ (hello? Are you sure what you are doing is what Australians wanted?) and John Howard’s pitching in on the same topic (bad move, remember what happened when he did that in 2007?), Kerryn Phelps, an independent won the seat with the biggest swing against the Liberals (22.1% at the time of writing) and snatched the seat form the Liberals for the first time since federation. The Liberals conceded defeat but the main questions of this whole saga still linger – would the prominent parties ever learn? Do these people who claimed to represent day to day Australians really know the people they claimed to represent?

Looking back from 2007, this was what the Australian public was served by the bunch in Canberra:

• Infighting between John Howard and Peter Costello, leading to the rise of Kevin Rudd. The Liberal National Coalition lost the election

• Discontent of a faction of the Labor party against Kevin Rudd, leading to Julia Guilard to challenge Kevin Rudd and replaced him

• Julia Guilard was deemed unpopular enough to win the next election against Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd returned and knifed the person who knifed him

• Kevin Rudd proved to be too late to mend Labor’s image, Tony Abbott won the election

• Tony Abbott introduced a number of unpopular policies and his cabinet members making unpopular comments such as ‘Colonisation made Australia a better place’, ‘Poor people usually don’t have cars and even they do they don’t drive very far’, and ‘What does time matter when they have water lapping at their doorsteps (about the Pacific Island countries) leading to Malcolm Turnbull challenging Tony Abbott, and finally got the top job he always wanted

• Peter Dutton led a full-scale assault with his far-right cohort trying to remove Malcolm Turnbull, failed for the first time

• Peter Dutton challenged again two days after his failed attempt, Parliament shut down because of this, and Scott Morrison reaped the benefit of the situation and became Prime Minister

None of these events the Australian public had a say. Every time when a challenge happened, it was because of factional infighting, and in two occasions, the persons who were showed the door became the ghost of the party that kept on undermining their nemesis until they were undone themselves. And ironically, these are the same people who kept increasing their pay checks while tightening other people’s budget under the claim of ‘Australia needs the best people to govern and make important decisions for them’. Did Australia really have the best people when it was just a revolving door of people in the top job?

Many a time in different opinion polls Australians expressed their preferences on important issues such as marriage-equality, climate change, refugees’ treatment and public health. However how many times did these so-called representatives acted accordingly? Marriage-equality was only made possible after a plebiscite that the Australians disagreed on indicated that the majority of the country wanted marriage-equality. After dragging a lot of people through mud the Coalition government wanted to claim credit while at the same time discredited the same group of people during their ‘No’ campaign. Climate change denial is rife in the Morrison government and Turnbull was knifed because of his belief in climate change. Peter Dutton wanted to gag all workers on Naruu so inhumane activities were covered up and he could wash his hands clean. My Health Record had so many loopholes on privacy that people were opting out despite the initial good it could provide. So how could these people claim to be representing Australians when general Australians hold completely different views against them?

Some people said the loss in Wentworth byelection should be a wake-up call but then at the time of writing the Nationals are considering knifing their own leader again. So really my question is would these people ever wake up? Or are these people so obsessed with themselves that the rest of the country do not matter to them anymore? For those people who wanted Barnarby Joyce as leader again, do they think he, who took such a handsome amount for a ‘redeeming’ interview from a free to air channel represents what rural Australians going through day in day out?

The best part about the Wentworth byelection is that it showed that Australian democracy still matters. Unlike in the States where the powerful few continued to change laws and legislation against the people they claimed to represent so they can stay in power. However, placing so much weight on one occasion could cloud our vision of the real situation – is the country going to be continued to be run by a bunch of thugs in suits who cared about nobody but themselves? – and this applies to both dominating parties in the country. I personally think independents making the call for policies is a good thing as this could limit the play of biased-collective interest. The days of voting of big parties for stability is over and maybe this kind of disruptive shakeup will do the Australian Government good. Only time will tell.

Patriotism is not racism

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On my way home yesterday I drove pass the NSW Parliament House on Macquarie Street. A bunch of people conglomerate outside the gates, police were on guards and there were pickets. On one of them it wrote ‘Patriotism is not racism’ but the others were basically about driving out migrants and stopping immigration.

That particular picket really caught my eye and my mind. I do agree patriotism does not equivalent to racism, but then when you peel the layers off, if this ‘patriotism’ is based on race then it is not patriotism in its purest form but an excuse for racism and race hate.

In the pre-historic or medieval age, maybe patriotism is race based, as people movements were quite limited. To fight for survival one must defend their grounds and at that time society and communities are, well, more ‘racially pure’. But fast forward several hundred years, we now have driverless cars and social media and international flight services. Inter-racial and cross-cultural interactions are just part of our lives. Racial or cultural segregation are no longer options. A lot of modern countries are now built upon the contributions of people from different racial and cultural background. The so-called Western Countries, are now mostly geographical references (well except for Australia and New Zealand I suppose) as compare to the old racial Anglo-Saxon references. As we know for example, America has a huge Latino, African-American and Asian American population who pay tax and contribute to the advance of the country. Similarly, in Australia, there is a huge Asian Australian population, together with Indigenous, Continental, European and Mediterranean Australians who constantly working very hard to make Australia great.

Patriotism is an ideological entity that binds people together. In Australia we shared the same identity as Australian. Modern Australia does not belong to a particular race or culture.  Attempting to own Australian patriotism with a racial brush inevitably turn this patriotism into racism.

At times I feel sad for the White Supremacist in our government and in our community because after all the benefits they have enjoyed from people of other cultures, they still failed to understand that this is a society built upon the interactions and stimulation of racial and cultural interactions. Do they actually think that the technologies they use every day are actually apparitions of a pure Anglo-Saxon (or as they called it the Western) culture? If they enjoyed a good Samsung TV or their Galaxy 9 mobile phone, they are products not exactly from their own racial background. Even the good old iPhone that so many people loved are not exactly built in the West.

Patriotism is a good thing, because it binds people together. But no-one or no particular sector or race owns patriotism of a country or nation because it is a collective property and ideology.

I can understand how some fear changes. But to put this really bluntly, First Settlers in Australia are migrants themselves. Trying to change history by saying Australia is a Western Country without acknowledging the genocide and breeding out of the Indigenous people via the Stolen Generation program does not change the fact that the so-called ‘White Australians’ are First Migrants, even if they want to call themselves as First Settlers. Claiming lands and countries cannot be done through race anymore in this modern world. It is ok to express your freedom of speech and views but if this is done through the expense of people of other racial and cultural affiliation, it is racism not freedom of speech. It is only through the collective efforts of everyone in this great country that patriotism can be exhibited and exercised in the most beneficial and purest form in Australia.

I do not disagree with this bunch of people about patriotism is not racism, but as I pointed out earlier, if this patriotism is based on which race can exhibit this sentiment and ideology within the same society, it is racism. Making Australia great does not mean excluding other people, but helping other people who joined this great nation to integrate. There will always be people who failed to integrate. This does not only refer to new migrants of particular religious faith or cultural background, but also existing citizens who failed to acknowledge our country and society has changed over the last 200 years. However, I would not call all Anglo-Saxons are racists based on a sector of out spoken White Supremacists in our Parliament and in our society, as nobody should generalise a whole racial or religious group based on the behaviours of a sector of people within that group.

Patriotism is a necessity for Australia to continue to be a great country that we enjoy. But if people are trying to manipulate and distort this sentiment and ideology for their own social political agendas, they should always be called out and views should always be corrected.

What really is Freedom of Speech?

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In the recent years, it seems that the debate on Freedom of Speech never stopped. The infamous “Right to Bigotry” and the right-wing consistently slamming opposite media and other people who don’t agree with them as “suppressing their rights to freedom of speech” have turned our society into nothing but a school yard bully ground.

Among some of the most cited support is someone’s religious freedom, especially Christianity being threatened by, for example the existence of other faiths, such as Islam, or the existence of people who are attracted to other people of the same gender. These people fought for their rights to condemn publicly and to uphold their bigotry against people they don’t like. These kinds of behaviours were extended into the highest levels of our society, just looking at the Trump mess in the States, and locally, our Australian Parliament. These people time and time again presented themselves as victims but at the same time continuously slinging mud to their victims whom they claimed to be oppressing their freedom.

But truly, what exactly is freedom nowadays in our society?

Being raised in the Christian faith I never doubt one’s freedom to express his or her views. But also because of my academic training and professional training, I believe in speeches based on facts. And this is the side of things that really troubled me whenever I read news articles about certain certain personality moaned over his / her loss of freedom of speech because of political correctness, and they are being cast as villains of the society.

Let us break this down:

Personally, as a responsible member of the society, I do not believe that freedom of speech automatically gives people hall passes to attack others irrationally simply because they “believe” in something. For example, in Australia some Ministers such as Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott continuously advocate things that have no statistical support, such as migrants are destroying the Australian economy (statistics showed, all of their Coalition seats’ economic growth were contributed by migrants), White farmers in South Africa were being persecuted (statistics showed they were not being killed more than Black South Africans) and Melbourne is overrun by Muslim gangs and people were afraid to go out (statistics showed there was no such trace and people of Melbourne refuted the claim). My question is, is it that our society has evolved, or in my opinion, devolved into a state that when you are in a position of power, you can just tell any lies and force other people to believe you? The so called popular politics certainly put people like Donald Trump into the White House and we can see how many lies where thrown out from the White House since then, from the number of attendees at the ceremony to their infamous alternative facts since then.

The recent saga with rugby player Israel Folau’s condemning gay people to Hell and Greg Hunt challenges Patricia Karvelas over the Young Liberals’ right to freedom of speech by proposing debate  allowing gay-conversion therapy and remove gender fluidity in our legal system, are great exhibits of freedom of speech, or simply freedom only exist when it fits them. Israel Folau’s certainly has his right to what he believes, but does he hold the right to attack others because of his belief? That is a question people need to ask. If Christians think Muslim has no right to criticise Christians, why do they think they have the rights to attack other, and argue that this is their rights to freedom of speech and religion? Yes it is a Christian’s duty to spread the Gospel, but I personally do not believe in condemnation under the disguise of personal freedom will do any good to the society or to the non-believers. There is a reason the Gospel was once known as the Good News, but with behaviours of “Christians” like Israel Folau, I don’t know what value it would add to the faith and how “good” the “news” would be. No wonder the number of Christians has been dwindling. As for Greg Hunt’s high horse speech about freedom of speech, I personally do not understand how he understands freedom of speech when your speech’s sole purpose is to remove other people’s freedom, including who they can love and who they want to be, which I supposed are basic freedoms in our society. When one so called right to freedom is infringing on another’s right to freedom, should it still be exercised within our modern society?

I am sure because of my disagreement with these people, I will be quickly labelled as a leftie, but I am not, as I had time and time again spoke up against a lot of so called “lefty-principles”. What I am looking for is a responsible society that does not build its foundation on popularist sentiments but facts and correct information. The likes of Fox News throwing out lies, e.g. against victims and survivors of the Florida High School Shooting, when condemned, counter attacked by saying their rights to freedom of speech is being threatened while they tried to put down all other views different to them in the society, is not an act or realisation to freedom of speech. They are acts of tyranny disguise as exercising their rights to freedom of speech. And unfortunately, a lot of people, including ministers, officials or other people of social status are jumping on to this kind of band wagon. Whenever someone disagreed with them, they put them down in the name of freedom of speech, without actually exposing themselves as the people who are putting down freedom of speech itself.

It saddens me that our society has come to this and seemed to have learnt nothing from history. I just have a fool’s hope that eventually this rough phase of mankind will pass and ration and kindness will return to our society.