Former Hong Kong Chief Secretary and latter-day moderate pro-democrat Anson Chan doesn’t usually get angry, let alone spread jollity. But she delivers a little seasonal cheer today, by dragging laboriously anti-pro-dem South China Morning Post columnist Alex Lo into a corner and giving him a good spanking.
In her letter to the editor, Dame Conscience rebuts several of Lo’s critical comments about Hong Kong University law professor Johannes Chan, whose promotion was rejected amid much controversy a few months ago. More amusingly, she mocks his (and fellow democrat-skeptic columnist Michael Chugani’s) ‘nonsense’ on the subject, and needles him for his pompous ephebiphobia. He hits back with some defensive nitpicking that sort of proves her point (as I infer it) about his grumpy/fat/middle-aged/youth-hating persona.
I say ‘persona’ because I doubt that either Lo or Chugani really believe their own anti-dem diatribes – their tone is more ‘need the paycheck’ than ‘burning conviction’. The whole hang-up about Hong Kong’s stupid young people is straight out of the script issued by Beijing’s local Liaison Office, and is derived from standard Leninist logic. The Communist Party is infallible; therefore, anyone who disagrees with it is wrong, and either hostile or (if too young to know better) misguided by hostile forces.
Thus Hong Kong’s young people are not disgruntled because of poor governance, inequality, broken promises on reform, crazy rents or threats to freedom, but because they don’t understand. If they learn more about China, as ex-Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa recently proclaimed, they would miraculously realize and feel that everything is wonderful, and stop protesting and complaining.
As ever, no-one really mentions what some people term the ‘elephant in the room’: the inescapable fact that the Johannes Chan saga was planned and executed by the Communist Party’s United Front as part of a wide-ranging and ongoing campaign to subvert Hong Kong’s independent institutions and freedom. By not spelling this out – either out of squeamishness or obsession with the specifics of the case – Anson and other pro-dems are ignoring, and you could say unwittingly abetting, forces that are infinitely more evil than any SCMP columnist.
I declare the weekend open with a magnificent example of a true diatribe. In the SCMP’s truth-infested Business section, Peter Guy says ‘I spit on the rotting carcass of the parasitical tourism/‘retail’ sector’. This is also a classic example of how, on rare occasions, a writer should not keep it pithy (as I did there) – the more words, sentences and paragraphs, the better…
I could carry on reading this all day…
Sesame Street was brought to you today by the word ‘ephebiphobia’.
Always nice to see someone as formerly important as Dame Conscience come in and give some snot a good slap. After all you can’t very well not publish a letter from her or she’ll summon the press corps’ up to The Peak to read it aloud. As for Peter Guy, well its blindingly obvious, but so rarely spoken as well and out loud. Jack Ma you still have some work to do …
Merry Christmas one and all.
“Truth infested Business section”. Very good. On that note something caught my eye. In the print version of Guy’s article there are two photos which show depressed looking salesgirls with a tagline on the lines of “Stupid Sa Sa etc. It’s your own fault”. Cut to the e-version of same article. This time we have a photograph of Central with the tagline “A file photo showing shops closed at Causeway Bay after “Occupy Central” was officially launched in the early morning on September 28, 2014. Photo: May Tse, SCMP”.
Who needs wumao when the editors are doing very nicely on their own.
@”subvert Hong Kong’s independent institutions”
“independent” ?
I am struggling to think of one of significance which does not have a HK British Chamber of Commerce, AmCham or US-Fed funded NGO’s foot in the door….. except perhaps for the Medical Association which opts to lock out any professional who might come cheaper and probably better qualified.
In CCP parlance:
“Understanding” does not in any way refer to the comprehension of truths derived from observation, but a correct awareness of what one is supposed to think.
Likewise, “independent” refers to organisations showing appropriate displays of patriotism whilst overtly eschewing foreign affiliations, irrespective of whether they are possession of seemingly unlimited resources from undisclosed sources.
Neither of these words have been brought to you by Sesame Street, that being an Western hegemonic imperialist propaganda vehicle.
Also, the Lo-Chugani Waarghaarbl Monster is clearly working off a target ratio. For every 38 times they bash the pan-dems, they’re allowed to slag off the Heung Yee Kuk and the tycoons once each.
Anson has changed her spots. I remember in the mid-1990s attending a function with Dame Conscious as the key-note speaker. She laid it on thick about the majesty of the Joint Declaration, evoking the deep tones of Mrs T at her best, she voiced “Everything will be fine after 1997.” Then she stood centre stage at the Handover, reveling in her role as the continuity factor. However, things came unstuck when it gradually dawned on her that Beijing would not give her the top job, so off she ran to sit on the sidelines throwing large stones into the pond from time to time.
The Secretary for Commerce, Greg So, has accused lawmakers of spreading misinformation over the government’s copyright amendment bill. “How dare they! That’s My Job.”
So went on to (mis)inform the public that HKSAR, PRC and QianJin/RedDragon/etc, etc…. have jointly registered both a patent and general copyright in the SAR for lies, misinformation and misrepresentation as well as multiple/split personalities. Madame Quango, aka Anna Wu, aka Cry Shop, has agreed to give them a waver on monopoly for exercising all the same privileges in both the SAR and over the 9 dash line.
Merry X-mas, I’m out of this mad house for a week. It’s just to crowded with all those Brits riding just one fordable bike.
Nimby, my dear chap. Are you all right?
That last post of yours defies all comprehension.
Multiple/split personalities? I’m beginning to think you might be “Doctor” George.
Enjoy your break. It looks like you need one.
I am glad Anson chan took the time to write and submit the letter, but seriously she is capable of doing far more than this in the fight against the Chicomms.
Lo and Chugani will continue to abuse their platform to voice their anti-Hong Konger sentiments and propaganda and a single letter is not going to change that
I would just add four points:
* the split/multiplex personality is G Adams, with all his deliberate mistakes and cross-postings
* merely “subvert” the judiciary, ICAC, FCC, doctors, etc? This is just the first stepping stone to crossing the river
* to Alex we-are-all-Chinese Lo’s shortcomings should be added mild xenophobia, and to Chugani’s a certain dose of racism
*Peter Guy is about the best of those still standing. English translation: he must be on the way out, which will be a terrible shame
@Chief: our freedoms in Hong Kong are diminishing on a weekly basis but you and I are still free not to read the garbage of Lo, Chugani, Vagina etc.
@Qian Jin – you may have a good point for once – but why would it be better if they were all under the sway of the CCP instead of a variety of other external bodies?
By the way, Hemlock, something’s up with your spam filter. After months of me posting comments as Private Beach, it suddenly decided my comments were spam. Then I became Outside Influence, and now it doesn’t like that name either. Is it trying to tell me something? Perhaps I should emulate the cycling Doctor and keep using different names.