Kapok: Accountable Responsility

For any political leader, probing the hearts and minds of constituents is of utmost importance, whatever the political regime. In a democratic setting, elected officials have learned to engage at every turn with the people they derive their power from. Gone are the days when one would regenerate his or her “representative” status only at election time: one’s presence on Twitter is imperative, and not only to cunningly (often perilously) grab the headlines, but to foster public participation and nurture one’s political course of action via the many corrective bits that constitute an audience’s reaction, measured in levels of re-tweeting, liking and commenting. The power and beauty of social media do not only spring from their instantaneity and their reach but from the reactivity and interactivity. They are indeed a much more sophisticated channel than basic opinion polls that verge on popularity contests. Social media allow for participative democracy to cut across a mere slogan, even though they cannot and will never replace the act of voting, which is the actual exercise of power by the citizenry, and thus of accountability.
In an authoritarian context, regardless of the oligarchic or corporatist manoeuvrability, citizens are also being called upon. The lesson retained from the twentieth century is that no form of dictatorship can aspire to longevity if it does not somehow live up to the promise of a “rule for the people” – the greater good of the community remaining a distinctive finality. Thus demands from the society have to be accommodated, albeit with very stringent constraints. In Iran, many believe that the “Islamic Republic” serves as a “façade” for religious interests to clinch power while allowing for civil society to be placated. Quite tellingly, social media were at one point used as reversed illiberal weapons to track down activists challenging the regime, and today still, most Iranian netizens are denied access to Twitter while President Hassan Rouhani prides himself on having 378,000 followers (last tweet on August 9th) while even Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, is followed by less than 150,000 people. In the People’s Republic of China, many policies are opened to so-called “public consultations” and clearly there have been some interesting attempts at (very) local democracy. The regime today hammers that “democracy” is indeed one of the twelve core socialist values – along with freedom. But here again, engagement of and with the people follows very strict rules, as more than 250 human rights lawyers have been learning the hard way during the summer. Moreover, if China is home to the biggest Internet population on the planet – 668 million – and allows for citizens to express their concerns and participate in the public sphere, this can only ensue in a narrowly enclosed perimeter: Xinhua ultimately rules and the new cybersecurity law currently “under discussion” will fully “legalize” the usual practice of suspension of service and denial of access as soon as there is a hint of threat to “social order”. Thus, Virtual Private Networks that have been heavily targeted since January 2015 could be deemed “illegal”.
Public consultations and the use of social media can be characterized as a form of responsibility sharing. For a leader today, the source of political legitimacy matters less than the impression (at least) that he is ruling for the benefit of the whole community. Shouldering off part of the responsibility thus really comes handy. The ever-increasing use of “public consultations” in Macao is a good reminder that despite our lack of democratic institutions, the commitment to liberal values enshrined in the Basic Law together with their actual practice can be put to very potent use when it comes to accountability. Nobody will be voted out (or weep and resign), but then prospective public policies are openly discussed and challenged, omissions and shortcomings alike: the meticulous account provided by some media – the public meetings transcripts by All About Macao in particular – regarding the present public consultation on new reclamation areas is in that respect to be commended. Irrefutably, the quality of our future rests upon our freedom of expression.

Published in Macau Daily Times on August 21st 2015

Kapok: Under (tight) Scrutiny

On the very day newly elected legislators were taking their oath, several members of Macao Conscience, a political grouping created in 2009 that has been regularly staging civic happenings, openly challenging the government and denouncing by-and-large conflict of interests affecting Macao politics, took to the streets to directly question the “claim” that legislators are genuinely representing the interests of the Macao residents. At stake, the fact that 17 legislators out of 33, or 57% of them, are still either handpicked by the Chief Executive or returned by so-called “indirect elections” for which functional constituencies did not even bother to pay lip service to the idea of political competition, one of the requirements for an election to deserve its name. 
At the heart of their appeal for the Chief Executive to come up with an agenda for political reform that could lead to a universal franchise to elect the totality of the legislature lies the promise entrenched in article 68 of the Macao Basic Law that “a majority of the [Legislative Assembly’s] members shall be elected” as well as a UN Human Rights Committee recommendation issued last March stating that “Macao should consider taking all preparatory measures with a view to introducing universal and equal suffrage in conformity with the [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights] as a matter of priority”. 
This group of a handful of demonstrators delivering their petition to the government’s headquarters was headed by none other than Jason Chao, president of the New Macao Association and unsuccessful candidate to the Assembly: if you cannot bring the fight “inside”, the least you can do is to continue carrying it “outside”.
Tight scrutiny of the legislators is the vocation trumpeted by the freshly launched website aptly entitled “Macao Legislators Supervision Station”: deploring the opacity of the workings of the Assembly, the website aims to offer a comprehensive track record of the voting behavior of each individual legislator, thus creating some kind of real-time accountability system by default. It also provides detailed information about the assets owned and positions occupied by each legislator as they appear in the recently advertised Declarations of Assets posted on the website of the Judicial Court of the Macao SAR. 
Additionally, one can find the complete contact details of each lawmaker, including postal address, website, Facebook account and email address, making it possible for any citizen to engage with his or her so-called representative(s). Unfortunately, only eleven law proposals and projects as well as resolutions and propositions of debate and hearings are for now taken into consideration, but more will be added in the future. Graphic and news flashes functionalities, again individualized, are still in the making, but the result of this illustrated data collection about our legislators is already pretty striking. There, one comes to realize the deep divide that exists between elected, selected and appointed legislators—the “rubber stamp” characterization of the two latter can truly be seen by a blind man! “King of the ballot box” Chan Meng Kam is on the one hand not shy at all in divulging his assets and yet his track record in the assembly shows that he has abstained or been absent 7 times out of 11—a populist with uncertain opinions? Such is not the case for Melinda Chan Mei Yi, the accessible lady of the people: she opposes or she approves, nothing short of a yes or no… but still, more on the side of the government!
Ultimately, even the new president of the Assembly, businessman turned politician Ho Iat Seng, as well as his deputy, trade unionist Lam Heong Sang, made very ostentatious declarations on the day of their inauguration that “supervision of the government’s actions” should definitely “be reinforced in the future”! Well, talking about conflict of interests, Mr Ho is also the only member from Macao sitting on the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the one institution supposed to interpret the Basic Law in case of a dispute and if all else has failed when it comes to enjoying a “high degree of autonomy”… With the upcoming election of the Chief Executive in 2014, there should be more to scrutinize!

Published in Macau Daily Times on October 25 2013.

Kapok: Hell is other people

French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre acknowledged that the famous sentence — “Hell is other people” — he included in the play No Exit (1944) had often, if not always, been misunderstood. People assumed that what he meant was that our relationships with other people always have a degree of malevolence, and thus that our relationships with others are always “infernal” by nature. He later explained that what he really wanted to express was that IF our relationships to others were distorted and malign THEN other people could only be seen as “hell”. He further asserted that “the other” was the most important part of us, in order to understand ourselves. Without the other and an open mind to otherness, there is no way one can truthfully understand who he or she is. And yet, if one becomes overly dependent on judgments made about them by others, then one’s life indeed becomes hell. This distorted view of the “other”, the foreign, the alien is exactly what is poisoning the debate - or the lack thereof - regarding the government’s proposal to assist foreign students who have completed their diplomas in Macao to gain easier access to the local labor market.
Ever since the government announced that it was looking at adopting a facilitating policy pertaining to non-resident students in mid-May, debate has been fierce, especially because few details were given on the triggering factors, workings, projected consequences and scheduling of such a plan. Democrats and union representatives have been the most vocal in echoing concerns muttered by the population — as much because of the lack of particulars as an “instinctive” protective move in favor of Macao’s local labor force. For a liberal mind and an educator, this comes as a surprise, at least regarding the Democrats (unionists lost their “internationalist” Marxist approach in the 1970s). 
More than anything else, young people from Macao need to learn to compete and prepare to be challenged. Protective, not to say shielding, measures can only be transitional. In France, when one talks about “national preference”, such attitudes are immediately associated with a far-right and xenophobic political movement. When a French right-
wing Minister of the Interior issued a circular in May 2011 that restricted the number of non-European Union foreign students allowed to stay and work in France after completing their diplomas, it sparked an uproar, and the circular was immediately abrogated by the new socialist government, sworn in May 2012. It was not the idea that being “selective” was wrong per se, but that one could not claim to attract talented people to study in the territory — an embodiment of soft power — and at the same time refuse these talented minds to stay on if they chose to do so. Are the Democrats and unionists in Macao less liberal-minded? I believe not. What is at stake here is the ever-deepening wariness between, on the one hand, representatives who derive their power from the people and, on the other hand, the government along with the alienated business elite that supports it.
The failure of the motion calling for a plenary debate on the proposal to allow non-local students to work in Macao on June 11 in the Legislative Assembly is a sad reminder that the gap is widening to a point that will almost certainly be impossible to mend; among the nine who supported the motion, we find three democrats, four unionists (including an independent), the elected representative from the neighborhood associations and a populist born-
again “lady of the people”…out of nine, eight are directly elected legislators! The main arguments aired by the 10 naysayers have to do with the excessive politicization of the debate in the run up to the elections in September (none of them are actually directly elected) and the lack of time left in the present session of the Legislative Assembly. It is rather unique indeed to hear “politicians” declaring that they don’t want to engage in political debate, and for business-minded people to deny the benefits of productivity gains: why did the government introduce the proposal in May in the first place and isn’t there at least two months left before the end of the parliamentary session?

Published in Macau Daily Times, June 14th 2013

Kapok: Pluto-mediocracy

It was indeed a small piece of news: a local tycoon’s construction company being granted a renovation work contract for a government building without having to go through a public tender. This is not illegal: the laws that apply make room for exceptions to “public tendering,” and in this case the justification given for the MOP27 million contract was that “security issues” were involved, as the renovation work would take place next to the government headquarters, thus requiring “special and confidential” treatment. Yet I could not help reminding myself what Au Kam San, a democrat legislator, once had said: “exceptions have become the rule in Macao,” giving evidence that out of a few hundred construction and renovation projects that should have gone through public tendering, only a handful had actually complied. In that particular case, the company involved, Man Kan Ltd., had already been granted at least four such contracts by the government, as reported by Hoje Macau, and “all the renovation works for government buildings since the handover” if we trust José Pereira Coutinho, another vocal and independent legislator. Moreover, Man Kan Ltd. is not run by any mini-tycoon… its chairman of the board is none other than Fong Chi Keong, who happens to be also the president of the Association of Building Contractors and Developers, the vice-president of the Macao Chamber of Commerce, the chairperson of the Kiang Wu Charitable Association (founded in 1871) that runs the Kiang Wu Hospital, the chairman of the Macao Daily Readers’ Charity Fund that is behind the charity “Walk for a Million”… and also a legislator, sitting as one of the four indirectly-elected legislators representing the business interests in Macao.
Mr Fong is a well-known figure, and he claims ancestry in the territory over some 200 years, and thus has formed connections that cut across the hold of the four main families (the two Ho, Ma and Chui). A round face adorned with a crew cut and a sharp gaze behind large metal-framed spectacles, he is also known for his coarse language, so much so that a Youtube channel called the “Cannon Channel” 大砲頻道 is dedicated to his many blunders and less than subtle passing judgments. Many times over he has felt threatened by youth, questioning the sanity of young “agent provocateurs” manipulated by old democrats or characterizing young people daring to voice out their frustrations as “losers”. Of course all this is compensated by lavish charity spending in several youth-oriented ventures, as Mr Fong has allegedly given away a hundred million yuan to the Nanhai district for educational purposes—all the more commendable for a man who barely finished high school. For sure Mr Fong does not really approve of the concept of accountability, and he often reacts very buoyantly albeit senselessly when his stewardship is being questioned, whether it concerns the final destination of the money raised by the “Walk for a Million”, the discrepancy in salary raises at Kiang Wu Hospital or even his excessive absenteeism in the legislature… Only his Man Kan Ltd. dealings manage to keep him quiet!
A mere “edit (slightly) and paste” of what was once noted by the great German sociologist Max Weber perfectly applies to Mr Fong: “There are two ways of making politics one’s vocation: Either one lives ‘for’ politics or one lives ‘off’ politics”. In fact, the two often come together: one who lives for a cause also lives off that cause. The problem arises when one exclusively lives “off” politics!

Published in Macau Daily Times, May 24th 2013

Kapok: Tyrannies of Numbers

It is indeed an oft-repeated mantra regarding China: one of the issue that blurs our analytical perspective is that numbers are big there; and when I say big, I mean huge; and when I say huge, I clearly imply massive. Economic growth, population, size of cities, Internet users, and members of the Communist Party: everything is enormous, beyond any other country except for India. But then numbers in India, although the country has been part of the original and fast rising BRIC league right from the start (expanding now in BRICS, BRICSI and even TIMBI!), have been regarded up until recently as an impediment rather than a blessing: illiteracy rate, criminality, the multiplicity of states and union territories making the federation more fragile, and even the “inferiority complex of the majority” of Hindus vs. Muslims, etc. Now that the “demographic dividend” along with the benefit of “free thinking” fuelling modernized entrepreneurship seem to have shifted in favor of India, China’s horizon appears to be rather darkened because of its outdated “one-child policy” along with its very constrained paths to innovation, enlightenment far too often falling victim of plutocracy. Size does matter, but the very nature of the social, economic and political fabric of a nation will ultimately matter even more.
Macao has to suffer from its own tyranny of numbers: insolent years of GDP growth at a time of world recession; gambling revenues six times the ones of Vegas; largest casino premises in the world; biggest water show on the planet; one of the world’s lowest rates of unemployment; and of course one of the most indecent government surplus in the world when countries considered to be birthplaces of modern civilization are selling off national treasures to any investment fund, sovereign or less so, showing up with cash-laden briefcases. When a government is running a deficit and credit becomes scarce, austerity measures or budget rigor, as we now call it in France, become a necessity—yet the timing of such measures is still hotly debated. When a government is barely spending 45% of its revenues, what do we call it? Preemptive rigor or blindness to much needed investments for the future?
Wednesday’s tropical shower should act as a wake up call, a strident whistle blow in the deafening silence of ineptitude. In just three and a half hours, one meter of water fell on Macao, cascading in steep staircases, submerging roads, tossing vehicles on the side and flooding car parks and ground floors in several parts of the city—some below sea-level, but many above. I incidentally happened to be driving at 8pm that day, and witnessed first-hand the chaotic stir all of a sudden engulfing the city, from peninsula to far-off Coloane, bridges included. For some reason it reminded me of the 2011 Bangkok flooding that took months to recede. Nothing of that magnitude in Macao, and yet the lessons from the Thai capital’s upheaval found some strange echoes in Macao’s own commotion. Bangkok happened to be a manmade disaster brought by years of unrestrained urban development that had totally destroyed one of the oldest and most sophisticated drainage-canal systems. Macao’s drainage system has never been that sophisticated, but it is clearly obsolete and certainly not on par with the needs and challenges brought by ten years of fast and furious economic development. We indeed have Third World problems in a First World territory with First World revenues: luckily for us, the pouring lasted just a few hours and the next day was sunny.

Published in Macau Daily Times, May 11th 2013

Policy Address: Better vs. More

After a few years observing Macao politics, I have learned just but one thing: lower your expectations of change otherwise you are in for great(er) disappointment! Nothing out of the ordinary, really, as this just confirms an old adage and thus constitutes common wisdom. This of course applies to the “Policy Address” that Mr Fernando Chui Sai On will duly recite on November 13. And yet, remembering the very powerful speech on “A More Perfect Union” literally chanted by Barack Obama in March 2008 on the road to winning his first mandate as the first ever-American black President of the US, I cannot help but think that this is wrong, that I should be more hopeful… That the need for far-reaching change should be embraced, and that human beings being in essence innovative creatures should rightly expect such transformational cravings, as long of course as they are not rooted in mere ideological fables completely disconnected from the reality of life. But of course things are different when you have to earn the trust of the people through universal suffrage, something that leaders in Hong Kong will experience in 2017.
Every single year, the “Policy Address” in Macao looks more or less the same, and fails to convey any sense of powerful vision on what needs to be done for the community in the short, medium and long terms, and this despite the fact that senior civil servants have been working for months on their reports for the Chief executive to prepare that speech—especially regarding possible questions that could be raised by the only popularly accountable politicians in the city, that is to say 12, soon-to-be 14, members of the Legislative Assembly returned via popular suffrage.
The first part of the address is supposed to be some kind of review of the year passed: unfortunately, it reflects every single year a very narrow understanding of the word “review” and corresponds merely to a pompous exercise in self-proclaimed self-satisfaction and self-promotion. In Chinese, the word that is used is 回顧 (huigu), which simply means “looking back” and is thus devoid of any appraisal or assessment dimension. The word for a more critical review would correspond to 檢查 (jiancha), and as one of my Chinese colleagues genuinely commented, this usually is an exercise done by someone else, not by the government regarding its own action. And yet Hu Jintao himself is pronouncing a huigu at this very same moment in Beijing, and despite him being part of the far more constrained “first system”, he is nevertheless highlighting a few pending issues that he himself along with his governing team have failed to properly address: on top of economic hardships and the huge issue of seemingly unstoppable mounting wealth inequalities, corruption is in his own words being characterized as a potentially “fatal” blow to the Chinese Communist Party that will require absolute and immediate attention by the new leadership! Thus a semantic distinction will never solely explain the lack of courage—courage to face one’s own shortcomings—and vision—vision for these shortcomings to be tackled properly and bring the community as a whole into the next beneficial and hopeful phase of change—that has been crippling the policy address over the past six years, ever since Macao became the most profitable place for gambling in the world. 
Then will come a long list of measures that will supposedly help address the pressing issues facing Macao. As if semantic limitations were not enough, time-span restrictions come into play: the policy address is almost solely designed for the year to come, as if the government was effectively managing issues as they arise, not projecting itself in the mid- and long terms. Some policies actually take time to implement—and very often in Macao too much time, like the LRT, the medical facilities or social and economic housing residences—and one could easily imagine an agenda for policy design, implementation and review in which the scheduling would be delineated concurrently for one, three and five-year objectives—vision, again. Even firemen today know that prevention and preparedness encompass more than two-thirds of their job, and let’s be honest, almost all our senior officials in Macao have been the same over the past 13 years—plenty of time beyond the one-year political myopia!
Now, let’s strip down the issues to a few key elements—in fact two—that have been guiding the roadmap of policy making in Macao for the past ten years and a bit more since Macao has moved from being a successful to an incredibly successful gambling haven after that particular industry had been liberalized in 2002. With success come change, fast change and the need to adapt. This is true both in terms of economic outlook—growth needs to be nurtured to endure—and social prospects—the more a community is impacted, the greater its needs. You can call it the necessity to establish “a more perfect union” or build “a harmonious society”; it always boils down to making the community stand as one, a community in which the whole is more than the sum of its parts. With success also come means—and the government in Macao is presently spending only a quarter of its fiscal revenues, mostly derived from gambling—and thus the capacity to enrich the quality of life of the community and prepare for the future. Now, does the solely redistributive approach of the Macao government correspond to these necessities? There is no doubt that the casinos in Macao have improved to an amazing extent (more and better services, higher salaries for the employees, greater job prospects, etc.). Can we say the same for these areas between the casinos that we call our city? Have public transportation, housing, healthcare, sport facilities, education at all levels, retirement homes, management of the flux of foreign and domestic workforce, the environment, etc. overall bettered at the same magnitude? Will it take Macao to become just one big casino for these changes to be on par quality wise? Is that sustainable? Then comes the second key element: the need for diversification—the Loch Ness monster of Macao! Ladies and gentlemen it is there: the Hengqin island development is a unique opportunity if properly embraced by the Macao government when it comes to clarifying the statutes under which the island is going to be developed with Macao money. A real touristic and recreational hub for China and, beyond, Asia, just like it is envisioned in article 118 of the Macao Basic Law! But then, just as courage and vision are needed, this requires competence (aka “scientific policy-making”, real one), and if competence is not met then accountability kicks in and provides for alternative solutions. 
There is a growing sense of frustration among the people of Macao, and it takes not much for that frustration to transmute into anger, and for that anger to lead to more explosive forms of social discontent. The very weak scope of the political reform that was adopted this year constitutes an incredible missed opportunity for courage, vision, competence and accountability to potentially become cornerstones of Macao politics: will more half-baked consultation processes do the trick? Is the glass ceiling of vested interests that unbreakable?

Published in Macau Daily Times on November 13 2012.

KAPOK: The Blame Game

From a purely heuristic point of view, the Lau Si Lo resignation rumor has two virtues. On the one hand it allows us to reflect on the ins and outs of a rumor: who has an interest in spreading it? Why and how does it spread? Ultimately, that might be conducive to doing something about it. On the other hand, it entices a debate on responsibility, blame and citizen empowerment.
In his little book aptly entitled On Rumors, American law professor Cass Sunstein distinguishes between four main types of rumor propagators: the ‘narrowly self-interested’, the ‘generally interested’, the ‘altruistic’ and the ‘malicious’. The narrowly self-interested ones are in the game for personal gain, either for money or to get ahead in a competitive environment. The generally interested ones seek to attract attention and to raise eyebrows in public, for the benefit of a group interest. The altruistic have a different playing field: they vie to promote the public good and are often genuinely outraged by what they denounce through the spread of rumor. Finally, the malicious just want to inflict pain, to injure others for the sake of doing so. What all of these propagators have in common is that most of them are no way near knowing the truth, and can offer little or no evidence of what they profess. Also, a rumor will be spread by different propagators at the same time, and so the question remains: what makes a rumor “successful”, if by successful we mean spreading widely, even though it might very well be false?
Sunstein thus emphasizes the importance of what he calls ‘prior convictions’: “whether people believe a rumor depends on what they thought before they heard it.” Firstly, because our beliefs are ‘motivated’ by our hopes, goals and desires. Secondly, because the rumor adequately or less so fits what we already know. Thus “thresholds” for accepting rumors are different from one place to another. Then the transmission of the rumor comes into play, mainly as a result of ‘social cascades’: firstly ‘informational cascades’, imperfectly informed or totally ignorant, one finds it increasingly difficult to resist what one hears from others; as well as ‘conformity cascades’ - one does not want to be seen as socially inapt by escaping peer pressure in not believing. Of course, ‘group polarization’, and thus the strengthening of one’s own convictions through discussions with like-minded people also play a role.
As of now, while reading the newspapers and discussing with friends who know presumably little about the Lau Si Lo case, I would acknowledge that there are only three types of propagators, as I haven’t read or heard any purely malicious comments regarding Secretary Lau’s potential dismissal. What is striking though is how nobody has really challenged the rumor, except for the person concerned and his boss, who have offered up to now only a mere denial or muttered response — and rightly so as the pace of government cannot be the same as the media’s.
Extensive ‘prior convictions’ seem to be giving an additional momentum for this rumor to stick and amplify: starting with what we know for sure — a very critical CCAC report regarding the LRT and the nullification of all the La Scala land grants by the government in September — all the way to what society widely postulates since the unraveling of the Ao Man Long scandal in 2006 — that corruption, conflict of interests and clientelism are original sins in our policy.
What is to be done then? How can rumor be fought in an environment where the culture of irresponsibility is tolerated, the lack of responsiveness on the side of public authorities is putative, and extremely powerful individuals are completely unaccountable, either through elections or vivid grilling by a truly muckraking press? At the end of the day, responsibility has to be shared in a community and we all must assume part of the burden. Nothing new under the sun here: both Socrates and Confucius were advocates of this individual imperative! You and I are also to be blamed for not being demanding enough…

Published in Macau Daily Times on Friday 12 October