tim's experiment

The political impasse in Hong Kong is beginning to resemble the Palestinian problem: everyone can see what needs to be done except the only people who can do it.

The solution has to come from the Government. This is after all what we grossly over-pay them for. The people in the street are amateurs.

The solution must start from a recognition of the problem, which is that people will not longer follow a leadership which they despise. This requires an acceptance from our leaders that, as the old Prayer Book put it, “we have done things which we ought not to have done, and we have not done things which we ought to have done. And there is no health in us.” It is no good hoping that when the protesters give up and go home we can all go back to where we were. It will “never be glad morning again.” Nor is there any point in reflexive attempts to score political points by investigating the financing of Occupy, or compiling flagrantly biassed videos, or pushing out half-forgotten old men to urge surrender. It is a characteristic of protests that the protesters have little time for advice from those who do not share their objectives and their hardships. So if you are a billionaire, or the former Chief Executive who abolished the wholly elected municipal councils, you can save your breath. Anyone else who hasn’t risked the pepper-spray facial is not going to get much of a hearing either.

It is good that the government talks to the students, but this is not going to lead to an exit because many of the protesters are not students and do not accept student leadership. What is necessary is for the government to work out what needs to be done and do it, without supposing that it can negotiate a prior quid pro quo, and without listening to those people who will decry any change as giving in to illegality. When it appears that people have a government which is sensitive to their needs and desires, then people will go home.

The steps that might work, which vary in difficulty, may be listed roughly as follows:

1. Mr Leung has to go. He is quite right in saying that this will not solve the political problem. But that is not why people want it. They want it because they are fed up with him, his weasel words, his sleazy friends, his undisguised contempt for the political views of the majority of the population and his inability to appreciate, let alone articulate, the desires of Hong Kong people.

2. An easy one: the fence round the “Civic Square” should go. If the government is worried about the vulnerability of its front door, reinforce the front door.

3. There should be an inquiry into the handling and regulation of protests. This is not intended to pillory the police, but it has become clear that there is a very large gulf between what the police regard as a routine way of controlling crowds, and what many of us find acceptable. This has to be bridged somehow. People need to be able to demonstrate without, as a matter of course, wearing goggles.

4. We should humbly ask the NPC Standing Committee to reconsider its decision on political development, in the light of the undisputable fact that the information on which that decision was based — supplied in good faith if you will — has turned out to be hopelessly wrong. The committee may refuse, or may having reconsidered reaffirm its original decision. That is its right. Hong Kong people may have to put up with the arrangements currently on offer. They do not have to put up with being told that those are the arrangements they asked for.

5. There should be an end to the politicisation of appointments to advisory and other posts in the government’s gift. The Chief Executive has the right to appoint people he likes and who support him to the political sinecures created by the “responsibility system”. There is no justification for allowing political history to influence appointments to tribunals, advisory councils or public bodies like the MTR board or the Airport Authority, and it is fatal for suspicions to arise about appointments to the leadership of the police and the ICAC. What is required is an independent body like the one which appoints judges.

6. Another easy one: Mr Robert Chow should be quietly told to fold up his tent and go home. No petition or demonstration organised under his auspices can be taken seriously, and continuing attempts to conjure up a spurious “silent majority” are a symptom of an establishment which “doesn’t get it”.

7. The continuing erosion of freedom of the press needs to be addressed. The easiest way of ensuring that all voices can be heard might be to allow community radio.

8. Instead of displacing some hapless rural villagers the government could meet at least some of its land requirements by curtailing the huge acreage devoted to rich people’s hobbies. We do not need so many golf – or horse-racing – courses. Of course it would take years for anything along these lines to bear fruit, but it would be a move in the right direction.

9. The MPF needs reform to make it less friendly to financial landsharks. And a serious intention to introduce a small but universal pension would go down well.

10. Some serious undertaking about the arrangements for the Nominating Committee – which may after all be unavoidable – would show good faith. Let us have no nonsense about Legco having the last word. The Government’s tame majority will give it whatever it wants. An end to corporate votes would be a good start.

I do not suggest that the Government has to do all of these things. But it has to do enough to suggest that it has got the message. Hong Kong people do not want a government which listens only to the Liaison Office and the Real Estate Developers’ Association. Is that so hard?