Fault Lines Laid Bare in Hong Kong By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW Published: August 7, 2013 (New York Times) To her supporters, Alpais Lam Wai-sze, an award-winning primary schoolteacher who shouted obscenities at the Hong Kong police last month over their handling of a street dispute between a pro-Chinese Communist Party group and an anti-Communist group, is a free-speech heroine. To her critics, she’s a foulmouthed person who should apologize for directing unprintable words toward police officers. To still others, the incident in the crowded Mong Kok district of Hong Kong is just a storm in a Chinese teacup — though it triggered a 3,000-person-strong demonstration here last Sunday that saw yelling and punching between Ms. Lam’s critics and supporters, who broadly divide into two camps — pro- and anti-party, pro- and anti-Hong Kong government and pro- and anti-police. Slogans flew. As the crowd pushed and shoved, people whose identities aren’t entirely clear attacked two photographers from liberal news organizations. Adding to the melee, some stormed a stage erected by Ms. Lam’s critics, who had gathered to rally in support of the police, and waved the British colonial-era Hong Kong flag as well as Taiwan, Tibetan and British flags, according to the local news media. Such displays are guaranteed to irritate China, which took Hong Kong back from Britain in 1997 and allowed it to keep its different political and legal system but which is believed to be increasingly impatient with the depth of anti-Communist feeling here. The columnist Alex Lo, dismissing it as “a minor spat,” described the event in The South China Morning Post thus: “The furor started on July 14 when Lam was videoed shouting foul language at police officers over their handling of a dispute between the Falun Gong and the Hong Kong Youth Care Association, a pro-government group.” (The spiritual movement Falun Gong is critical of the party and regularly stages demonstrations here alleging that the Chinese authorities harvest organs from its live practitioners. Falun Gong is banned on the Chinese mainland but allowed in Hong Kong.) “She went into a tirade against the Chinese Communist Party, about how it condoned the harvesting of human organs, and professing herself to be a true Hong Kong person speaking her mind,” Mr. Lo wrote. Reflecting how Hong Kong politics is almost always, somehow, about China, he warned that pro- and anti-Beijing groups were “milking the incident for all it’s worth.” “It was all a bit off topic and unrelated to the issue at hand. But it was a hot summer; and we are all a bit tense and under pressure these days,” he wrote, adding: “It’s time to calm down and move on.” Yet the street-shouting incident, captured on video, is the talk of the town. Ms. Lam, seemingly contrite, has apologized to her pupils and school for her language. But her outburst has highlighted a question hotly debated here in the media, among friends and in educational institutions: How can Hong Kong, population seven million, continue to protect its right to free speech when China, population 1.3 billion, seems increasingly to be calling the shots? What really bothered Ms. Lam, according to multiple news reports, was a sense that the police were favoring the pro-Beijing group as it allegedly tried to interfere with the Falun Gong practitioners who had gathered, as they often do, to express their views. Some blame the unpopular administration of Hong Kong’s chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, suspecting him of doing the party’s bidding. “Our chief executive” — selected by a carefully vetted group and officially appointed by Beijing — “is useless,” said Jennifer, a Hong Kong-born Chinese who is helping me improve my Cantonese, the local dialect. She asked that only her first name be used to protect her privacy. When Mr. Leung talks about supporting Hong Kong’s distinctive way of life, “he talks a lot, but he doesn’t do anything,” she said. “Since the mainland took over Hong Kong, it has only wanted Hong Kong people to become like mainland people,” she said. That is upsetting, because, she said, most Hong Kong residents really do not want to become like people whom they often view as downtrodden and less educated. Jennifer, who is fluent in Cantonese, English and Mandarin, China’s national dialect, which is now a required subject in local schools, believes there are really only two camps among young Hong Kong people like herself. “They either want more democracy or they are apolitical,” she said. “And most support the teacher because they think she is protecting free speech.” In Apple Daily, a local newspaper, the columnist Li Yi asked: “Where is Hong Kong at today?” This is “a moment of attack on Hong Kong’s undoubted core values,” he wrote, which people here broadly understand as involving freedom of speech and an independent judiciary. Mr. Leung, Mr. Li suggested, is building a kind of “Hong Kong-Communist Party alliance.” He praised Ms. Lam for her courage. “Lam Wai-sze, who has well-defined likes and dislikes, isn’t afraid to bellow in the face of power,” he wrote. “Hong Kong people who enjoy their freedom have no right to criticize her, but should respect her. Teacher Lam Wai-sze, you have no need to apologize. You are a model Hong Kong person.” And so, even if the swear words of a schoolteacher may not seem like the best possible advertisement for free speech, that is exactly how the issue is being seen by many, if not all, here. As Mr. Lo noted, the pro-Beijing news media have severely criticized her, and there are critical voices among parent associations and the police. Then there’s this, noted by some local news outlets: Ms. Lam may have lost her temper as she tried to reason with the police, but she is also the recipient of a coveted government honor, the Hong Kong Chief Executive’s Award for Teaching Excellence for the year 2010-11 — for moral and civic education.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Aug 2013 04:12:25 +0000
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