#8379 Civil disobedience- a price worth paying In response to #8369: I do not exactly know your political affiliation as reflected from your post. If your political affiliation is against Hong Kong democracy, then I believe my passage is of no avail in persuading you. Yet, if we stand on the same side supporting Hong Kong democracy, but simply disagree on the method in achieving it, I am more than willing to explain the rationale of the movement I would offer two angles of argument: 1) Underlying basis of the movement: The freedom of demonstration and freedom of assembly have NEVER been used as arguments to support this movement. The freedom of demonstration and freedom of assembly are arguably with limitation even under the law, such as public order and national security. Therefore, protestors today are not justifying their actions in terms of these “freedoms”. They are engaging in civil disobedience, which their action deliberately breaks the law, in support of a greater cause. You have falsely created a dichotomy between freedom of demonstration/ assembly v. other HK people’s “rights” to road usage. This is not the crux of the debate. By creating this false dichotomy, your underlying argument seem to be that these protestors are “selfish” in their cause because their freedom of demonstration seem to neglect others’ right to road usage. Yet, let me respond to your underlying argument with this: The underlying support/ justification of the Occupy Central movement does not stem from a freedom of expression or a freedom of assembly. In a rights paradigm, we can generally divide rights into two categories: individual rights and communal rights. Freedom of expression arguably falls in the former, while the support of democratic pursuit falls in the latter. I would argue that the Occupy Central Movement stems from the right to a democratically elected government, in respect of the constitutionally guaranteed right under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Art. 15) entrenched in the Basic Law (Article 39). What the movement embodies creates a far greater resonance than the right to freedom of assembly. Therefore, it will be wrong to characterize their actions based solely on the freedom of demonstration. It is based on a far greater and more important goal than that. 2) Disruption to daily life I would respond to your argument in three layers: firstly a principle justification for why there should be democracy in HK, and this far outweighs the disruption to daily life; secondly, the strategic reason for adopting this action and thirdly how this disruption can be mitigated. 2.1 I would like you to understand that this movement is not created in a vacuum. You have to understand the political context of the movement before you can give the movement a fair assessment. Instead of limiting your timeline to recent day activities, you should look back into the last ten years and see why HK people are forced to take this action. My argument is that there is no other alternative in forcing a concession from the Central Government and HK Government other than this movement. The Central Government has created an excessively harsh barrier on the right to genuine universal suffrage. That is despite the fact that the pan-democrats have repeatedly provided different alternatives (with or without civil nomination). The barrier is so high that anything close to political competition is out of the table. It is in this context that the movement comes into place. The context being: any meaningful negotiation does not yield positive results. It is no longer negotiation, it is brutal imposition. If you do support genuine universal suffrage in Hong Kong but would prefer something less “obtrusive” (in your own language), I challenge you to give an alternative to this movement. Every movement entails some sort of collateral damages. The most important consideration is whether the negative outcome can be justified by a greater goal. I would argue that the negative outcome of an undemocratic Hong Kong far outweighs the “negative consequences” of road blockage. The executive-legislative gridlock we are facing today, coupled with an undemocratically elected Chief Executive and a functional constituency dominated LegCo, have seriously impaired effective governance. If we decide to accept this proposal, we are likely to face a further entrenched gridlock. It does not follow that democracy necessarily solves all the problem, but it is important to realize that a government truly mandates by the people improves, if nothing else, her accountability and responsiveness to HK people. On the contrary, it is beyond imagination that we decide to accept this proposal and believe that future changes are possible. From a legal point of view, article 45 of the Basic Law, coupled with NPCSC’s interpretation, mean that HK will achieve the ultimate goal of universal suffrage by 2017. It means that if we accept this proposal, HK has technically achieved universal suffrage. There would be difficulties, legally, to allow any further changes to the election mechanism unless NPCSC makes an alternative interpretation. From a political point of view, accepting the proposal legitimizes an illegitimate government. It provides every reason for the government-elected to propose the enactment of Article 23, National Education etc. essentially because this is a “popularly-elected” government so to speak. It is with this background and context can we draw the conclusion that at this juncture, the Central Government and Hong Kong Government have forced HK people to the corner. If we would like any genuine democracy to be implemented in Hong Kong, which is, as I demonstrate, crucial to Hong Kong’s development, we have to take a more radical step. 2.2 In justifying the means of the action, it is important to note a realist paradigm in this movement. The movement aims to block the roads indefinitely until Central Government or Hong Kong Government make a concession. But the last thing the movement wants is to block the roads indefinitely. The movement aims to create this resonance among society, creating sufficient pressure to force this concession out as soon as possible. This concession doesn’t necessarily need to be accepting all the demands of HKFS and Scholarism, since we understand that the art of politics is compromise and negotiation. It may well be the fact that civil nomination would still be out of the table. But at least we would want a concession on the composition of the nomination committee, to ensure that there is a fair and open competition. This is apparently the bottom-line of almost all HK people who support democracy. Therefore, even if it is accepted that there is disruption to HK’s traffic, I would urge you to think (i) who has truly caused this movement and (ii) whether the “not in my backyard mentality” is the correct approach to this movement. Regarding the first point, I have sought to demonstrate the unyielding attitude of the Central government and HK government have forced HK people to take this action (i.e. this action is reactive, not proactive). Secondly, if you support democracy and want this movement to end as soon as possible, I would suggest you to lend your support to this movement by creating a greater pressure. The last thing the movement needs is the NIMBY mentality. “We support democracy, just don’t affect us.” There is always a price to be paid in a movement. If you are not willing to go to the front-line, I totally respect your decision. But a price you can certainly afford to pay is to bear with the inconvenience that is caused in recent days. I would urge you to respect others who are supporting your cause. It is false to say that the protestors are fighting for THEIR rights, so they are disrupting you. They are in fact fighting for YOUR rights, for HK people’s rights. 2.3 I agree that for the movement to gain popular support, there should be some mitigating actions that lessen the degree of harm to HK people. I am not sure whether your argument is premised upon recent news (which I say are only rumours) that emergency services are affected. I personally support the creation of a humanitarian corridor to allow emergency services to pass through. Yet, it is just blatantly wrong to say that the movement is the sole cause of these problems. Firstly, from what I see, ambulances have never tried to pass through those areas. They only argue that because there are protests, so they adopt an alternative strategy. This is an unfair assessment of the nature of the protest. Protestors are being portrayed as cold-blooded and they would not allow any ambulances to pass through. This is apparently wrong given the fact that in Mongkok yesterday, protestors allow ambulances to get through. Ambulances should have tried to get through the area even in Admiralty. I believe that when protestors are civic-minded enough to clear away rubbish on the streets, they are more than willing to allow an ambulance to get through out of emergency.. Secondly, please do not accept the “stories” given by Pro-Beijing newspapers in a wholesale manner. I personally see stories about people incapable of seeing their family members for the last time. But as pointed out by other newspapers and internet media, the factual matrix of those “stories” are so illogical to render any credibility to them. I would encourage you to keep a critical mind before making any assertions.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 18:10:05 +0000
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