Kapok: Unsophisticated zealots

Some people never fail to disappoint you, or rather to meet your expectations as being the least principled human beings there are.

Former dancers incapable of uttering three sentences with the slightest sense of community-oriented interest will dress up like juvenile Chinese Communist Youth League or even communists martyrs in Jinggangshan to put a show on what it means to be a patriot.

The fact that many people in both Hong Kong and Macao came as political refugees escaping the horrors of the Great Leap Forward or the Great Cultural Revolution seems to have been forgotten (always remember that when it is “Great”, it is most probably equally destructive, especially with “Great Leaders”!), thus showing that historical memory in the low forehead of ill-intentioned individuals will never perform what it is supposed to achieve, that is to prevent — at least try to — the most hideous self-inflicted man-made tragedies.

To these patriots I say: give up your foreign passport and move to the first system; stop praising the first one while enjoying the benefits of the second whose guarantee depends on people you keep insulting (or suspending)!

Legislator Mak Soi-kun belongs to this group of unsophisticated zealots who would simply be laughable if they were not dangerous. Oh! mocking we still do, just like when Mr Mak suggested last December that the reasons presiding over the destruction brought forth by Typhoon Hato could be found in the absence of patriotic sentiment displayed by the administrators in charge of the Weather Bureau! Even his usual partners in zealotry could not support him this time, and he had to concede defeat when his motion to push for more “patriotic education” among civil servants was turned down.

This is the kind of ridiculous claim that gives the people of Jiangmen 江門, the folk group supporting Mr Mak and his simpleton second in command, Zheng Anting, its nickname of Gangmen 肛門, meaning “anus” — a homophonic pun in Cantonese. This became an online meme on social media during the massive May 2014 protests against the government, when members of the Macao Jiangmen Communal Society were herded to take part in the unique yet sparse procession supporting the government. When interviewed by TDM at the time, most of the rather elderly participants admitted not being aware as to why they were taking part in the walk.

To be honest, this is not fair to Jiangmen, as it is the one place in Guangdong that provided a lot of courageous Chinese emigrant workers who built the railroads in the US, for example. Jiangmen was itself an open city to international trade starting in the early years of the 20th century. Kaiping, the UNESCO heritage site of the dialou, is a county that is part of Jiangmen, and testifies to a unique form of rural globalization. It is said that 100,000 people in Macao can trace their ancestry to Jiangmen, and I wonder how they actually feel about such ridiculous assertions.

And then, this week Mr Mak followed up on his “patriotic” obsession, claiming that one of the main reasons why the youth in Macao was not able to properly embrace its “love for Macao and for the motherland” had to do with the lack of proper markings alluding to the People’s Republic of China, hence his proposal to add such a reference to the ID card of every citizen — the first administrative document a teenager will have in his or her possession!

When it was still possible to conduct independent surveys in Macao, then professor Bill Chou was able to show that the usually assumed patriotic nature of Macao society was most probably an overstatement whose survival depended on Chinese language newspapers filled with patriotic rhetoric and richly-endowed traditional and communal associations.

Why the need to move to a post-2049 reference in 2018 then? Is the Macao youth in line with the one in Hong Kong who majoritarily supports independence? Is it an identity problem or the growing sense of an educated civil society that not all aspects of an authoritarian regime are worth espousing?

Published in Macau Daily Times on March 2, 2018

Kapok: The virtues of optimism

For reasons most probably linked to my carefree upbringing, I am resolutely optimistic about human nature, and the capacity for good rather than self-destruction. Given the present context, this has become a challenging position to hold: ineptocracy and populism prevail, and rational discourse has been submerged by emotive boasting. One of my secrets for this enduring optimism has been to keep my expectations low: being reasonably hopeful prevents roller-coaster effects, bearing in mind that what goes up will ultimately come down – and vice-versa.

When I read in some headlines this week that Mak Soi Kun, the legislator with the second-highest vote in 2013, was questioning the statistics provided by the Policy Research Office of the government in relation to population growth by 2020, it initially prompted a significant amount of exhilaration in my cortex: could it be that Mr Mak had read my column four weeks ago – the vanity of me! Could it be that the Study Report on the Population Policies of Macao is so obviously baloney that even a below-average – duty wise – legislator realises such and starts to question publicly the basis of such an important piece of decision-making material?

I had in mind that Mr Mak had fulfilled close to zero of the eight promises he made during his campaign, so, I went beyond the catchy titles, and confirmed that apples never fall far from the tree: instead of disputing the forecasted population figure of 710,000 by 2020 as too conservative, he was actually wondering why it was so high. Clearly, Mr Mak does not read Macau Daily Times, and obviously doesn’t get projections and reports from the Statistics and Census Office either, otherwise he would know that the DSEC has made a forecast of 752,000 by 2021 and that given the by-census latest results, the average growth rate of the past five years can reasonably lead us to believe that the population could reach 741,000 by 2020.

But then we will enter an electoral year, so Mr Mak was posturing as the true defender of the “real” Macao residents’ interests. The response of the head of the Policy Research Office was of similar nature: “this is actually just an indicative number,” he said, and of course only a limited happy few will be allowed to enter the gold-paved territory of our beloved SAR! No mention of the thousand hotel rooms opening in the next five years. No mention of the quadrupling of our territory because of the further integration with Hengqin.

Considering what Mr Mak stands for, this is worrying: he has Liaison Office endorsement; he works for the Nam Kwong, a company that openly states that it is “directly under the central government based in Macao”; and he, together with his second in command, Zheng Anting (a former junket operator), represent the Jiangmen communal associations – a very influential grassroots and pro-establishment network of associations of people originating from a neighbouring district (claiming up to 100,000 potential supporters), that benefits from lavish Macao Foundation funding. These are also the people who were directly involved in the Sin Fong Garden imbroglio. I don’t mind that Mr Zheng was not born in Macao, as he actually reflects the electorate: less than 39% of the 2017 electorate were born in Macao, whereas 54% were born in China. The question remains though: what interests are these people actually defending? And the same goes for Mr Chan Meng Kam (also not born in Macao), the so-called “king of the votes” who supposedly gives the communal interests of Fujian a voice in politics.

Contrary to some hasty news reports, there will be fewer people below 30 voting this year, compared to 2013: so indeed, the virtues of optimism will require due cultivation.

Published in Macau Daily Times on January 27th, 2017

Kapok: The Fongchikeongisation of the minds

Honestly speaking, I never expected some of my friends – many of them educated – to fall victim to arguments that only the most cynical and unrefined individuals would dare to use. But here we are, the amended version of the law on the control and prevention of smoking that is paving the way for a long-overdue full ban in public places appears to be able to bring the worst out of even the best, and the very little confidence one might have in people’s rationality can easily go up in smoke!
The most obvious arguments as to why, as a community, we should embrace a full ban on smoking in public have been stated by many, including myself (MDT, May 15th) and these are grounded in independent scientific arguments, both regarding healthcare and the impact on the most exposed business operations, and take into account global trends, including the ones that have affected China in the recent past. The key words here are “independent” and “global”.
When directly elected legislator Zheng Anting, who is a prominent figure in the Macao Jiangmen Communal Society, the one and only association that organized a counter-demonstration in May 2014 to support the Perks’ Bill, openly accompanies gaming promoters to meet with the secretaries in order to question the soundness of the full ban, he is acting as a lobbyist. When the same Mr Zheng quotes the survey done by one of the associations of junkets as well as a study commissioned by gaming operators in order to contest, supposedly scientifically, the arguments of the government in favor of the bill during a plenary meeting of the Legislative Assembly, he at best looks cynical, and for some, like a fool. Even if his intention is noble – I am giving him a lot of credit – in considering the adverse effect the bill could hypothetically have on employment in Macao, how can he sensibly expect to win the argument with such a lack of independence?
In a business environment, it seems perfectly legitimate for gaming operators to lobby the government, at every level and using whatever legal means, against a measure they perceive to be contrary to their interests, but Mr Zheng is not on their payroll; he is a directly elected member of the Assembly embodying the sovereignty of the people. And youth and limited experience are no excuse, as Mr Fong Chi Keong aptly reminds us.
Mr Fong has been a well-known and colorful figure in the Assembly for almost a quarter of a century. On the one hand, he is a true man of the people with a capacity to empathize with the many – I remember seeing him doing his own grocery shopping and talking to everybody in the Red Market, and that was not for show. On the other hand, his many outbursts and unfortunate, often gross, comments regarding many issues, including domestic violence and, most recently, healthcare have made the roster of Chief Executive-appointed legislators look really bad, if not completely irrelevant. By bringing in the arguments of “discrimination” against the poor, the infringement of human rights regarding a preposterous “right to smoke” and the colloquial portrait of Chinese people who “speak, smoke and drink,” Mr Fong appears to be calling for his own demise. The real discrimination is when people cannot afford to pay for expensive healthcare services for treatment for lung cancer or strokes. The real infringement is the government not considering the protection of the citizens – including the victims of second-hand smoking, meaning the vast majority – as its priority. And being Chinese today obviously goes way beyond a very outdated conception of culture that negates the capacity, if not the necessity, to change and adapt. Becoming “a world center for tourism and leisure” implies a few requirements!
Ultimately the question is not really whether there are better measures to prevent people from inhaling nefarious puffs today but rather removing, at long last, an exception in the law that should have never been inserted back in 2011 and strengthening measures that will imbue the government’s public policies with greater consistency.

Published in Macau Daily Times, July 10th 2015

Kapok: Paper patriots

Patriotism is a double-edged sword: mustered adequately it becomes a potent mantra for the community to feel more united, but a ponderous and rather superfluous summon can easily devoid it of any meaning, and ultimately be conducive to a suspicion that ulterior motives are at play. Patriotism then serves as a disguise, an absolute injunction voiced by people who do not want issues to be discussed and addressed, and thus the call to patriotism acts as a cover-up. Very often, it also helps castigate the people you disagree with as “traitors” and “enemies of the nation”, and when at war or in a revolutionary situation, there can be no worse characterisation as it often entails the worst possible sanction.

In Hong Kong and Macao, the debate about what constitutes a “good” patriot is a story intertwined with the history of contemporary China. Sun Yat Sen, the father of the Republic that we celebrate every October 10th, found refuge, resources as well as a stage in both foreign enclaves to lambast the Qing court calling for a revolution. Interestingly enough for Macao, Sun is often presented as the first Chinese doctor to have practiced Western medicine in the territory at the end of the nineteenth century, thus importing foreign techniques to cure the Chinese body. Today, Hong Kong and Macao have returned to Chinese sovereignty, and there is no doubt that both SARs are thus Chinese, and yet because of their remarkable status, valid for 50 years, and a promise of political liberalisation contained in either the Basic Law or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the debate about what it means to be “patriotic” goes on. And again, the pace of change is at the root of the questioning.

Is it what legislators Sio Chi Wai and Zheng Anting had in mind when they went on a rant about patriotism during the first plenary session of the Macao Legislative Assembly on October 16th? Both of them heavily criticised the “Occupy Central” movement in Hong Kong, insisting on its illegality and the harm it is bringing to our sister SAR for itself, its people and because of the image it offers to the world. Mr Sio insisted on the role played by the Internet in distorting information and polarising young minds, thus easily bringing about distrust and dissatisfaction with the government because of too much eagerness for change. He remarked that the “one country, two systems” formula’s success in Macao owes much to the strict compliance with “the love for our nation and Macao” as “the social basis” of the SAR’s legal system. Mr Zheng went one step further, worried about similar brewing trouble in Macao, calling upon the government to further “patriotic education” and strictly apply the national security law adopted in February 2009.

Mr Sio’s position comes as no surprise. Being appointed by the Chief Executive, he is a defender of the orthodoxy. He is also the secretary of the second commission of the Assembly, the one responsible for introducing in May the now infamous perks bill that pushed some 20,000 people onto the street—mostly young and mobilised via social networks! In June, representing the interests of employers, Mr Sio made it very public that he was strongly against a significant amendment of the Labor Relations Law, especially regarding the ridiculously low capping of earnings for the calculation of compensation fees for laid-off employees—set for now at a maximum of MOP$14,000 a month… what an irony! In August, Mr Sio was also among the two legislators openly calling for a boycott of the civil referendum on universal suffrage jointly organised by pro-democratic groups. As far as Mr Zheng Anting is concerned, he was elected for the first time in 2013 as second on the list of Mr Mak Soi Kun, a widely recognised pro-Beijing supporter. Moreover, Mr Zheng serves as the vice-president of the Jiangmen Folks Association, the one group that openly defended the perks bill in May and even organised a “favorable” counter-parade that gathered some 1,000 people—mostly elderly though.

Winning young minds goes beyond incessant cant, half-veiled threats and blind acts of faith. Remember that Joshua Wong in Hong Kong started his activist career via his Facebook Scholarism group precisely out of concern about the introduction of patriotic education.

Published in Macau Daily Times, October 24th 2014.