Kapok: Opaque and unaccountable

How many times have you heard the assertion “information is power”? Then, if politics is not only understood literally or even figuratively, and yet, on the conservative side — the Bismarckian “art of the possible” — one has to be reminded that politics deals with power relations or, to be more accurate, how power is distributed in society and the institutions it builds for itself.

So, clearly politics and information are connected, and just like a real market economy cannot be functional (in principle) without transparent access to information, there can be no legitimate government with a slight pretense to democracy or minimal claim to rule for the benefit of the community as a whole that will not somehow nurture open access to information.

How can public policies be grounded without an informed decision-making process? What are the chances that these policies will have positive and long-lasting effects if they are not designed from the input of all stakeholders? And how can the community feel engaged and thus fully benefit if citizens are not given access to the whole picture, thus demonstrating that indeed the government went for the “next best” possibility, at the very least?

Finally, without transparency, things will never get better, as policies will not be amended and adjusted as a result of critical appraisal, but rather are liable to be flat out abrogated and replaced based on the whimsical posturing of those who mistake populism for popular sovereignty.

Indeed, we should worry when the former editor-in-chief of Sonpou, Mr Lei Kong, is indicted for slander and fined MOP50,000 for simply having characterized the Pearl Horizon’s fiasco as a “suspected fraud” on the part of real-estate developer Polytec Asset Holdings Ltd, and for suggesting that unacceptable delays were due to constant changes in plans submitted to the Environmental Protection Bureau.

Sonpou is not any newspaper; it is the oldest running liberal-minded weekly in Chinese (born in 1989!) and Mr. Lei is unanimously respected in Macao for his independence of mind. Back in 2008, he was among the few to participate in a round-table I organized on the possible hazardous consequences of the national security law proposal. I remember him bravely stating that Macao would stay safe — the proposal was eventually passed in March 2009, but with several significant amendments — as long as Hong Kong would not enforce it!

In the Pearl Horizon case, key to Mr. Lei’s defense was the very fact that homebuyers had never been informed that the concession of the land plot on which the project was being developed would expire on 25 December 2015! Ever heard of “asymmetrical information”? And then Polytec was suing Mr Lei for MOP2 million and is now considering appealing, as Mr. Lei was declared innocent of defamation even though it was found that he had somehow breached the Civil Code. Even a professional journalist with 30 years of experience now feels deterred, so what impact will this have on aspiring young reporters? And the irony of it all is that Polytec’s defense lawyer is none other than Leonel Alves, a former legislator who helped the very liberal Press Law passed in 1990!

Besides such a blatant indirect attack over freedom of expression, the constant lack of transparency and absence of publicly available and reliable information are proving extremely detrimental to the system as a whole. In the latest survey on Macao politics commissioned to the Public Opinion Program of HKU, the Chief Executive (CE) is registering his third worst ever rating since 2009 — on par with 2014, when the whole government was revamped! And then, if there were “democratic elections” in Macao, only 29.8 percent of the people would vote yes for Mr. Chui (53.9 per cent would vote no), which is the second worst result for the incumbent CE after 2017 — remember Hato?

Now we are being told that the two studies commissioned by the government on the possible development of Macao’s gaming industry in the next two decades are being delayed. The first gaming concessions are supposed to be renewed in 2020… will we once again repeat the appalling Interim Review released in 2016?

Published in Macau Daily Times on January 11, 2019 

Kapok: Being positive

Let’s start by what could be deemed “positive news” by some: despite (or because) of last week’s upheavals — the dreadful challenges brought about by undeviating Typhoon Hato — Macao society has demonstrated a remarkable resilience capacity: ill-prepared, confronted with overwhelming threats to their safety and earthly possessions, deprived of reliable information both before and at the time of the devastating gale, ordinary citizens unintentionally raised to hero status by displaying the very traits that make us so distinctively humane: our propensity to empathise and our moral urge to exert solidarity.

Overall, mutual aid prevailed over petty self-centred interests, and images of ordinary bravery were on par with frightening snapshots of destruction. Then came the news of three persons having lost their life, ultimately climbing to ten victims. Ten too many, and yet cleaning up started, mainly induced by grassroots and neighbourhood initiatives.

Civil security forces untiringly joined hands with residents — permanent as well as blue-card holders — soon to be seconded by PLA soldiers unprecedentedly called in to provide much-needed relief. The city as a whole was bracing for a second impact as Typhoon Pakhar was fast approaching and even though discontent was starting to grow, the collective bond weathered the storm, undistracted by the lingering bitter taste of incomprehension and unfairness.

These are indeed “uplifting” news. Dare I say not quite surprising? Despite the lamentations regarding the teaching of history and the ambiguities of a holistic destiny for our SAR, there is indeed a shared collective memory in and of Macao, one that is expressly connected to typhoons and the threats they represent, one that flows downhill from the Guia Lighthouse beside which typhoon signals have been hoisted since the end of the nineteenth century.

But positive news is not propaganda, quite the contrary. Positive news is produced by journalists whose stories help put on an equal footing the bright and the dark sides of current affairs. Positive news has the ambition, as one motto goes, to “offer quality, independent reporting on progress and possibility.” It is not and should not be a self-mutilating effort at not reporting the ugly side of things, and it is just an attempt at tilting the balance back towards constructive thinking, but certainly not a replacement for a more critical if not confrontational approach.

When the authorities prevent five Hong Kong journalists from entering the territory on the ground that they ‘pose a risk to the stability of internal security’, they are simply trying to sweep back the dirt under the rug while conspiring against freedom of information and crippling our Basic Law. Contrary to what Secretary Wong says, these were not “any” individuals, but the stories they published in Apple Daily, HK01 and the South China Morning Post had indeed been relentlessly exposing the shortcomings of the Macao government in the early hours of the disaster and the ineptness of the (non-existent) preventive measures at a time when most of the households were entirely deprived of clean water and electricity.

When the Macao Media Workers Association denounces in a public statement the documented pressures exerted over five local media editors to encourage more “positive news” and shield the Chief Executive from any criticism for the sake of public order and social harmony, they are denouncing blatant attempts at censorship and induced self-censorship.

Threatening would be rumour mongers and arresting three elders and a teenager for circulating hair-raising fallacies over WeChat about additional victims instil more doubts than certainties. Rumours do not initially feed on themselves. As social scientists reckon, they spread through “social cascades” and “group polarisation”, and the primary causes are the lack of transparency and trustworthy information.

When will they learn?

Published in Macau Daily Times on September 1, 2017

Kapok: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

I must admit that I usually don’t easily gulp overly nationalistic injunctions, and hence consider appeals to “national unity” and unquestionable flag-waving displays of national pride with great suspicion. In that respect, I follow a long, ironically partially French, tradition of anarchist thinking, still very much alive today, the one of Georges Brassens who derided in his songs “the race of chauvinists and cockade-bearers” and “the happy fools whose hometown means the world”. Cabu, Wolinski, Charb and Tignious, the four (now for sure) world-renown caricaturists who were cold-bloodedly executed in the terrorist attack against Charlie Hebdo on January 7 belonged to this very same tradition: one of irreverence for self-confident powerful people as well as one of absolute rejection of every single form of intolerance—religious, but also political, social and economic. Core to that credo is the intimate conviction, one that can be traced back to Plato and the use of the Ring of Gyges described in the Republic, that power holders will always be tempted to abuse their power, and ultimately, as Lord Acton beautifully puts it that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
Yet, after the dismay and awe triggered by the double terrorist slaughter that took place in the very heart of Paris and ultimately claimed the life of 17 people, including three policemen, whose job, as state representatives, was precisely to make sure that citizens’ rights were protected, a new kind of emotion kicked in. All of a sudden, individuals and governments alike, French and from all around the world, felt that a symbol had been partly destroyed and purposefully threatened, something essential to what makes us human beings, decent and civilized people. Of course, compared to the horrendous massacres that took place almost concomitantly in Yemen and Nigeria, claiming the lives of possibly thousands, one has to feel humble: Islamic terrorism mostly kills Muslim victims and to be honest one could even say that in comparison Europe is more fearful than actually devastated by terrorism. But symbols, and hence representations are what make us distinctively human. Thus, “liberté, égalité, fraternité” (freedom, equality and fraternity), the motto of the French Republic suddenly made perfect sense, as something that should be embraced and cherished. Feeling patriotic was suddenly universal and unmistakably worth espousing. The freedom to express my opinion, the equality of all, whatever the gender, race and religion, and the much needed fraternity to surmount this upheaval and possibly prevent what made this self-devouring brutal act possible. The point was not anymore whether one would agree or not with the provocative drawings of Charlie Hebdo, but the realization that these “foot soldiers of liberty” were the guarantors of the outer fringe of our freedom of expression within the boundary of the law. Hence close to 4 million people in the streets of France on Sunday 11 to pay tribute to those departed. Hence the totality of the members of the French assembly chanting the national anthem to salute the Prime Minister’s speech on Wednesday 14, a first since the armistice of 1918.
To my great consternation, that very same freedom of speech was invoked on January 13 to defend the unsavory comments made by legislator Feng Chi Keong during the plenary discussion related to the new Domestic Violence Law. Mr Fong, in his usual table-talk manners, clearly implied that it was okay to beat one’s wife once in a while when she was arguing too much or being seemingly unresponsive to sexual arousing—going as far as saying that marriage was some form of bestial arrangement to satisfy sexual needs. What shields Mr Fong is not the protection of freedom of speech, it is his legislative immunity. What protects Mr Fong is the fact that the penal code does not clearly define the “apology” or “instigation” of violence and discrimination towards women despite the fact that Macao is a signatory of the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. What protects Mr Fong is not the respect he commends in the community, it is the fact that he is not accountable to an electorate. The problem is: Mr Fong is designated by the Chief Executive, and is the president of the charitable association behind the Walk for a Million as well as the president of the Kiang Wu Hospital Charitable Association, among many other things. We trust that he could be made accountable in other ways…

Published in Macau Daily Times, January 16th 2025.

Kapok: Sealed Lips

What’s happening with TDM (Teledifusão de Macau, the public TV)? Why, all of a sudden these big changes in debate and current affairs programs in Chinese? Macau Forum (澳門論壇) was suspended at the end of December and now the “Wind and Fire Station” (風火台) is promised to a thorough reshuffling after Chinese New Year. The interruption of Macau Forum has created a stir among the pro-democrats in Macao, ultimately triggering a bold response from the New Macau Association that has decided to host an alternative New Macau Forum on the Internet. Remember, we are in an election year: any encroachment on freedom of expression is going to be more closely monitored than usual and of course will have a deeper impact on both the degree of fairness of the coming legislative campaign and its ultimate outcome.
Macau Forum started back in July 2011, and was aired every Sunday morning from an open stage in Jardim Areia Preta, opened to the public and gathering between three to four guests discussing for 50mn wide-ranging current affairs topics pertaining to Macao (general livelihood issues as well as various governmental consultations) and inviting questions from the public. This particular program was modeled on the very successful 45mn City Forum broadcasted by RTHK, Hong Kong’s public TV, in Victoria Park on Sundays since April 1980. Many acknowledge that City Forum has become one of the highlights of mediatized political debate in our twin SAR, and even more so since the hotly contested political reform package in 2010.
Let’s be honest: Macau Forum never managed to find a wide following. According to audience surveys, a maximum of 40% of the population would watch the forum occasionally. When one looks at the number of page views from the archives, only the first broadcast of the program has been watched more than 1,500 times, and only one in recent months (early September) managed to attract close to 1,000 views on the Internet, most of the installments stalling at around 200 views. Nevertheless, Macau Forum very often got quoted in the printed press the next day, and the impact was thus wider than live watching and Internet second life. Was Macau Forum ever really given a chance to strive and find an audience? It was originally presented by veteran TDM journalist Yip Kuok Va, the very same person who is presenting the Thursday evening 40mn debate program “Wind and Fire Station” today under threat: for some reason, he was discreetly replaced by two young journalists — less argumentative to put it nicely — in April 2012, and then invited guests started to be very often less controversial. Now, what was originally characterized by TDM CEO as the “most important program” of the public station has simply been dismissed after just a year and a half of existence on the pretext of “lack of human resources”: is it credible?
Nobody can say that there is absolutely no freedom of expression in Chinese electronic mass media in Macao as far as political debate is concerned: after all, the most challenging broadcast is aired daily as a call-in morning program (澳門講場) on the public radio and is so popular that every single administration has a staff summarizing every morning what is often seen as the pulse of Macao society. On Lotus TV, Macao Tales (澳門開講), a daily 1-hour call-in program, has also been gathering momentum since it started in October 2011.
So why stop Macau Forum now? Are traditional associations such as the Neighborhood Association and the General Association of Workers that afraid of getting into a democratic debate that would necessarily force them to take some distance from the government? If suspicions that some pressure has been imposed from above to shut down the program have for now remained groundless, what is really despicable is the resounding silence of the five journalists associations of Macao: not a single one of them has voiced out any concern! But how could it be otherwise when one of the most two important of these is headed by a member of the National People’s Congress and the other one by the Head of Chinese News at TDM?

This is the longer and html rich version of my column published in Macau Daily Times on January 25 2013.