This morning, some people have been mourning over the loss of Lee Cheuk-yan in the by-election, claiming it as “the fall of Hong Kong”. Meanwhile, some commentary claimed that localist opinion leaders (such as myself) have been the worst, as we advocated for a “scorched-earth”/”kamikaze voting” strategy and dissuaded voters from supporting pan-democrat candidates, resulting in the loss.
What are the facts? There are several of them. For starters, in new public housing estates such as Tak Long and Kai Ching, Lee Cheuk-yan yielded way fewer votes than Chan Hoi-yan, who was backed by CCP’s propaganda machine and election manipulation mechanism, which means that the gerrymandering done by the Liaison Office and Hong Kong Government has been effective. As pan-dems such as Lee himself welcomed Chinese immigrants with open arms and advocated for their access to public housing, the situation today is but the result of what they had previously planted, and has nothing to do with others.
Secondly, the mechanism for pan-democrats’ campaign propaganda has come to an end. On the election day, 3 newspapers voiced their support for Chan, much like what the Apple Daily would do for Lee, but due to the difference in the make-up of readers (and let’s not bother to discuss those of Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po), Apple Daily failed to operate like Oriental Daily. Oriental’s day-to-day coverage on small government handouts and vulnerable groups, as well as their mocking of university students, all appeal to the aesthetics and ideologies of HK’s blue-collar workers. Whereas to assume all blue-collar are pro-establishment would be a slippery slope, it is, however, an easy job for Oriental Daily to lead the masses into hating a self-aggrandizing and incompetent union leader. Despite the fact that Apple Daily readers are also the most vocal ones to interact on the Internet and can hardly be manipulated by media, Apple Daily wouldn’t stop rooting for unpresentable candidates. No matter how decent they seem at first, Apple’s Choices either slowly fade into oblivion, like Joshua Wong, or are simply an embarrassment to start with, such as Alvin Yeung. To put forward candidates like such almost amounts to announcing the death of the campaign in the entire election. Some pan-dems, such as Longhair Leung, even went to the depth as to provoke and taunt undecided voters. Such electoral suicide reflects pan-dems’ complacency and refusal to learn.
Thirdly, these politicians are unbearably annoying to start with to the point they almost call for a beating. Both Lee and Frederick Fung were sellouts to HK people on various political issues, and they fail to manifest any passion and dedication in their day-to-day community service. These numerous notorious incidents have been deeply embedded in our memories. As the colloquial term say it, the reason why we “vote with tearing eyes” is because even their usual supporters find them simply unpalatable. If a political sector who needs to run for campaigns have run out of choices but old useless candidates, then it’s simply announcing its doom and demise, especially during the times where the youth struggle to find a place and are at odds with useless old bums. As they approach retirement age, instead of competing with youngsters and embarrassing themselves, how about being supportive to youth and taking up mentoring roles?
Lastly, if one seeks help, one should remain humble, especially for politicians, whose role is but to appeal to the masses. They need to stop bickering with voters; otherwise they might end up seeking employment service themselves.
During the by-election, we all thought the “Disqualification Issue” is the trump card. As we can now learn from the facts, the “Disqualification Issue” may only be a concern for the self-anointed progressives. For many people, the alleged “Disqualification Issue” is no grave matter.
If we were to ask why the “Disqualification Issue” failed the mobilise the masses, I would allude to the movie NO, a film adapted from the history of Chile's referendum. In the movie, the dictator Pinochet orchestrated a referendum to extend his rule. The opposition needs to call on the electorate to vote NO. They set out the film TV commercials, with scenes of hardcore riot police beating up citizens, ending with a call to vote against.
The opposition presented their work to a young advertiser, who finds it ineffective. The advertiser said that such serious theme has little appeal to the masses. He noted that a message needs to be targeted to the public as a product is targeted to its market.
The public we refer to is essential an apolitical bunch. They need to make ends meet, have a family to take care of, have classes to attend, lives to live… Force-feeding them with political ideals will not be able to affect them; the message itself must be approachable.
Professor Ma Ngok noted that the gravest takeaway from this by-election is that the ordinary citizen is not as receptive to the “Disqualification Issue” as we all expected.
Those who are repulsed by the “Disqualification Issue” pay close attention to political news everyday, like you and I. We can tell the difference between localists, "yit-po-shing" (Civic Passion-Proletariat Political Institute-Hong Kong Resurgence Order), moderate pan-dems, radical pan-dems, left-wingers, right-wingers… etc. There may be one or two hundred thousands of us in society. Yet most of the Hongkongers we meet on a daily basis cannot tell Youngspiration, League of Social Democrats or Demosistō apart.
A lot of youth who regard themselves as woke would curse these “Kongformists” as undeserving of democracy. The “Kongformists” are those who pay little attention to politics, and even those who have been subconsciously persuaded by TVB and pro-Beijing newspapers to believe that politics is chaos.
The aforementioned crowd makes up the majority of society. That is the reality. They are exactly the people whom the advertiser in the movie NO is trying to mobilise. The opposition cannot regard them as “Chilean conformists” and give up trying to sway them, only to bemoan there are too many “Chilean conformists” in Chile for democracy to happen.
For you and me, the “Disqualification Issue” is an egregious assault on the law, due process, reason and common sense. Yet most people cannot even find time to care, or simply don’t want to care. Especially when television and newspapers nowadays are all under the enemy’s command, giving them even less incentive to care.
This year or so, the government stripped many candidates’ rights to run for office unreasonably. It has also stripped six LegCo members of their seats. Why is the daily passerby so nonchalant to such ridiculous and barbaric acts?
From daily observation, I see that regardless of adults or students, they have come to roll the word “DQ” on the tip of their tongue, as if it is nothing out of the ordinary. I think there are a number of reasons why this has occurred:
First, the mainstream media have all been homogenised. Mainstream media, especially TVB, have basically given a cold shoulder to the issues of government stripping candidates’ right to run as well as elected candidates’ right to represent. Even when there is coverage, it is stuck with the formulaic expression of “They have been too radical. The government is acting in accordance with the law. Pro-establishment scholar points out it is within the government’s right to do so.”
On another matter, the expression “disqualification” is a complete disaster. What is happening is candidates’ rights to run and elected candidates’ rights to represent being stripped away, yet you let the mainstream media lead you on and call it “DQ”. The average Joe hears two English letters and does not associate it with anything negative. This blurs the severity of the incident. Disqualification to the ordinary citizen is like a referee stripping a rule-breaker’s right to play, most commonly seen in sports competition. Anti-DQ to the innocent ears sound like we are in the wrong to begin with.
There’s a more serious point: Yau Wai-ching’s “Re-fucking of Chi-Na” have been looped ad nauseam by the mainstream media, so much so that the public has come to equate DQ with “Re-fucking of Chi-Na”. You who are politically attuned will know even using that as an excuse to strip a legislator of her seat is out of line, but the commoner sentences the legislator to death the moment they hear a swear word.
An election is about rallying people to vote. For many people to be rallied, it takes more than an appeal to ideals. There needs to be an appeal to emotion and relations. An appeal to emotions is to make the public feel the need to vote. This needs to go beyond ideals. They must have an emotional motive, such as grief, anger, fear, hope, sympathy… etc. To be stripped of the right to be elected and to represent is a grief-worthy and angering issue in itself, yet the incident is too abstract in reality, coupled with the aforementioned reasons, it failed to rally the people.
So how can the masses be rallied? Whatever I can think of, I am sure my democrat friends can also think of. Here are my two cents:
First of all, it is important to capture the attention of those who do not care about the “Disqualification Issue”. How? Since the television and newspapers are all under the regime’s control, we must sow our seeds humbly on the streets and promote in local communities. This seed-sowing process demands time and patience and requires our constant commitment. As to whether the democrats had spent enough time and patience on that, I’d say there is room for improvement.
This seed-sowing approach is no panacea. There are those who are immune to such medicine. The “Disqualification Issue” failed to capture the imagination. How can such imagination be presented? Take the anti-national education movement for example. If it weren’t for the overwhelmingly leftist “The China Model” textbook, the public would not be aware how chilling the whole thing is. Yet when it comes to the government stripping of legislators of their seats, there wasn’t enough grief, fear and frustration. Better for Hong Kong Island, there were a bunch of commies who were verbally abusing pan-democrat volunteers on the day of the by-election. Kowloon West did not have that to count on.
For the majority of the public, the “Disqualification Issue” is irrelevant to daily life. If campaigners cannot make people empathize with the “Disqualification Issue”, then they should seek issues that are more tangible in daily life. These issues can be the overwhelming surplus in our reserve, resettlement and payments for reconstruction (Want to guess how many voters can understand “Say no to the Commodification of Housing”?), the national anthem legislation, Carrie Lam giving a free pass to the UGL/ $50 million case, SJ Teresa Cheng knowingly breaching the law, uniformed groups being asked to march by CCP stylistic standards… etc. These issues are comprehensible to the commoner, and only by comprehending the issue will he or she finds meaning in voting.
I understand Carrie Lam has quite a remarkable skill in giving the impression that “whatever’s at fault is not my fault”, and many do believe her. At the same time, the resources made available to pro-communist political parties is 10 times that of pan-dems. They have infinite resources to build grassroots networks and count votes. And let’s not forget, TVB was shameless enough to insist on not hosting an election forum, giving a cold shoulder to this entire by-election.
This by-election saw a major loss of votes in the public housing estate areas, meaning grassroots voters. This electoral result is a siren to the pan-democrats. The reality is that the referee, the linesmen and the host are all under the CCP. If democrats do not ponder on how to attract grassroots voters and the politically indecisive ones, a repetition of Kowloon West’s defeat is not impossible.
In the movie NO, what did the opposition use for the final version of their advertisement? It was song and dance modelled on commodity advertisement. There was no catastrophe in the ad, the imagery and music grab your attention immediately. The message of the advertisement is simple and direct: to vote, and vote NO; without a dictatorship there will be better days ahead. Only by grabbing the masses’ attention can you appeal to them. Do you know what the electorate of Kowloon West remembers most? “Vincent Cheng? He’s the brother in law of Myolie Wu.”
(P.S. Perhaps I’m being too clever too late with the full benefit of hindsight. Yet I’m not satisfied with being clever after the facts, nor am I here to boo and challenge. Beyond writing this article, I have strived to find my elders and friends to vote. With circumstances like these, I promised myself I will help out with canvassing in person in the upcoming election, let this be my proof.)
Since a series of LegCo disqualification (DQ) events last year, the party and the SAR government have been colluding to deprive Hong Kong people of the right to elect their representatives freely and deny the right to stand in election by means of political censorship. From now on, only the party's political proxies can be chosen. A sound justification for DQ is not bothered with anymore.
I agree with Professor Ma Ngok's article very much: Why not revert to the appointment system before the 1980s when things have degenerated to this stage? Why cloak ourselves with the façade of democracy?
The misfortune of being DQ-ed does not only fall on Agnes Chow, nor is it limited to LegCo. In the past few years, there were waves of DQ in society. There have been all sorts of political censorship to disqualify people in universities, the civil service system, media organizations, and the business sector. DQ was born in a new political order, dimensionally unprecedented, where the nation’s sovereignty hangs above the established social and political rights of citizens. This is an act of state that propels Hong Kong politics into the abyss of uncertainty. When the censorship incidents were reported, they often end with people’s submissive acquiescence rather than a reflection on the part of the state apparatus. An authoritarian regime’s greed cannot be satiated by its success in the political field. Beijing's strategy in ruling Hong Kong will be the full politicization of Hong Kong society, it will settle for nothing less.
In face of DQ events, we feel indignant, but we cannot lose our acumen and direction despite the ever-harsher political suppression. A macro perspective is especially needed in times like these. We should realize that the series of government suppressions is a stretched-out revenge for the Umbrella Movement. The government's target is not only the participants of the Occupy Movement but Hong Kong itself.
If we are to describe in detail this political scheme, which has begun, we can call it a “21st century nation re-shaping project”. The strategy is to overhaul the socio-political system and identity in this city through a top-down approach, so as to achieve what Beijing calls - “winning minds and hearts”, thereby getting rid of people's potential imagination for democracy. The goal is to turn SAR into a special economic zone.
This scheme may be highlighted by the abandonment of an entire generation of Hongkongers – not just Agnes Chow's generation (who were born in the 1990s) but the last four generations before Chow until the Baby Boom (basically those who have lived during the colonial era). The next generation, meaning the current secondary school students, is not considered “red” enough, and the scheme aims to create a national identity starting with primary school students.
If we say the Khmer Rouge changed the national identity through genocide, the “identity revamp project” will be completed through these four ways:
1. Reinterpret the existing legal and political system; distort and weaken the original protection of Hongkongers' socio-political rights; justify the socialist regime's intervention in every aspect in Hong Kong; monopolize all interpretations of legal and political discourse in Hong Kong. These will turn Hong Kong into a Chinese-style authoritarian legal and political system, instead of a liberal democratic polity.
2. Through the strategic allocation of a huge amount of social resources to the Greater Bay Area, redefine the geographical boundary by means of regional planning. Replace Hongkongers with Bay Area people. Making the daily life, capital, labour more flowing, changing Hongkongers' city life, and gradually dissolving the city identity of Hong Kong.
3. Let the party's force permeate in each and every aspect of society, going beyond political associations as it currently stands. Implanting the authoritarian regime into education, judiciary, workplace, departments and other social resources allocation system. Eventually, an ordinary citizen’s access to social resources will be conditional to his succumbence to the authoritarian regime instead of stressing the principle of fair competition. The life of those who do not stick to the regime will be arbitrarily DQ-ed or restricted.
4. Renovate the existing establishment and make it a stricter tool for united front work, or Tongzhan. Completely control the network and media information. Staging a “media war” for every social and political incident every day. Creating internal conflicts among the people – to affect the enemy and to extinguish self-recognition by mobilizing the people.
Most countries (including democratic ones) hate dissidents and will put labels on them to make their demands seemingly unreasonable, unrealistic and unfeasible. Some may ask, what can a commoner do when he may be DQed at any moment and the Basic Law may be reinterpreted at the regime’s whim?
Firstly, it is about rationality. People must have their own acumen and confront wrongdoings under this lopsided social system. At the same time, not only do we need some small victories, we also need moonshot thinking. We should construct our agenda with politically unfeasible ideas, so as to break the shrinking political room.
Secondly, it is about practice. The regime tries to give you up, enslave you and force you to emigrate. We should prove that even when the regime has stolen the sovereignty to suppress the people, the people remain determined not to submit to authoritarian rule. We should make the regime know that society is filled with people more capable of conducting good governance and winning hearts. The regime needs to know that their authoritarian way is only fit for ruling a land of puppets.
This will be the largest humiliation to Beijing's “new constitutional” rule in Hong Kong.
