Not as spazy, scary, freaky as the people who know nothing about Hong Kong but try to argue with a passion that he knows Hong Kong people would rather be ruled by foreign colonialists.
The current Chinese government definately isn't communist. As best as I can determine, the curent system would best be described as a modern version of Fascism, perhaps we should call it neofascism or sinofascism. The quote from wikipedia pretty much describes the essence of the current chinese government: [rquoter] Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the needs of the state, and seeks to forge a type of national unity, usually based on, but not limited to, ethnic, cultural, or racial attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, corporatism, collectivism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, racism and opposition to economic and political liberalism. [/rquoter] Congratulations. Calling someone a fascist is usually an empty epithet, a word that I usually avoid as empty of real meaning. In this instance, however, the shoe seems to fit.
Crowds demand HK democracy Tens of thousands of people Sunday demanded democracy for Hong Kong on the 10th anniversary of its return to Chinese rule, hours after China's president warned them not to defy Beijing. _____ I wish the fine people of Hong Kong the best of luck in their continued quest for freedom and democracy.
Democracy doesn't equal British rule. As other posters have noted the British didn't grant democracy to Hong Kong until after they had already agreed to give Hong Kong back to the PRC and within a few years of the handover. The last colonial governor, Chris Patten, had been foreign minister under Margaret Thatcher and had been something of a cold warrior himself. While Patten probably did personally support the idea of democracy there is almost no doubt that the democratic moves he made were to stick it to the PRC. Its speculative if the Brits had hung onto Hong Kong if they would've on their own gone ahead and instituted democracy. The impression I have of Hong Kong is that while many want democracy they are fine with it being under overall PRC rule.
Exactly, I have no idea why some people have the problem to distinguish the difference between pressing for democratic changes and hoping for the return of colonial rule. Is it really that difficult?
They do. Hong Kong, with his huge highly educated and professional middle class, is moving forward and hopefully it can be the engine of the democratization not only in Hong Kong herself, but in the whole China too one day. If anything, the last thing we should hope for is the return of the colonial rule. Britain had never given HK people democracy in the first 140 years of their rule and they turned on the switch of the democratization machine only after they knew clearly that they had no hope to stay in Hong Kong after 1982. What make you think they would give HK people democracy if they knew they could hold onto the colony? The ruler is a democratic country doesn't mean their colonial possessions would have democracy too. History has proved that time after time.
You should be careful with such statements. I think you mean this only specifically about the HK situation with the British and the handover but it comes across much worse. Regardless of any external influences (US, UK, China), if the people of HK want a particular form of government then in our modern world they should be able to move towards that. As such, it does not make democracy "so overrated" if that is what they want. PS - I wanted to give Mr. Clutch and Mr. JustWannaChill kudos for their amusing and entertaining rapid-fire posts on the previous page. It was an interesting combination of funny, nonsensical, ironic, and polite.
Between two worlds ..... CHAN KWOK-BUN South China Morning Post ..... Friday, May 25, 2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hong Kong is an immigrant society. All who live here know that and do not pay it much attention any longer. The city's most valuable assets are its millions of hardworking immigrants. And that includes me. I was born on the mainland, grew up in Hong Kong and left the city in 1969 as a naïve 18-year-old. I studied and worked in Canada until 1987, when I moved to Singapore. Only in 2001 did I return to Hong Kong, to head the sociology department and the David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. So what does that make me? I'm a return migrant, an immigrant in my home town. There are many return migrants in Hong Kong. In the face of the anxiety about the 1997 handover to China, thousands of Hongkongers left for the west. A bulk of these people went to Canada and many have since returned. I have spoken in-depth with those who have returned from the United States, Canada, Europe, England, Australia, New Zealand and Sweden. They come from a cross-section of age groups and most stayed abroad for more than five years. Some had even returned a second time, their restlessness manifesting in what I call "circuit migration". More on that later. For now, I want to discuss the tensions that return migration generates. Most noticeable is conflict between husbands and wives, the gender politics within the family and marriage. A husband who returns to Hong Kong because he cannot develop a satisfactory career in the west because of racism could bring with him a reluctant wife. She misses the quality marital life in the west, where her husband had shorter working hours. She has made a sacrifice for her family. There is a paradox - the wife's sacrifice has become a powerful motivating force that pushes her husband to work hard, but in doing so he spends increasingly less time with his wife and children. So the wife and husband collude in the wife's misery. Not surprisingly, there is an ongoing drama of conflict among returnees between husbands who want to stay in Hong Kong and wives who want to leave. More widespread is the conflict between movers and stayers, which is often generational. Sons and daughters who have returned to Hong Kong realise they have changed, but their parents, and others of their parents' generation who stayed behind, have not. This occurs with friends, peers, and elementary and high school classmates. Returnees are frequently treated by the locals as "different", and they oscillate between the familiarity of home and the strangeness of the west. This often leads to nostalgia for the life they left behind. Returnees tend to live in their memories. They miss the democracy, transparency, quality family life, and cultural and artistic climate of the west. They miss the interpersonal intimacy between people and families, clean air, proximity to nature, abundant leisure and family time, and the physical space. They spend their time flip-flopping emotionally between here and there. The future, and with it the promise of yet another return, is always uncertain and unsettling. Yet there are moments of delight, and this is largely a positive force. Returnees are hybrids, commanding competencies in both cultures, and they possess local knowledge in both places - they get the best of both worlds. Extended cultural horizons often make returnees more socially intelligent, more able to understand complexities; they can harness some of the conflict they feel each day. But hybridity also has a darker side. If the returnee is not in a position of power, their hard-won creativity can be shackled. Managers identify difference and stigmatise it. So what do stigmatised returnees do? Some of them hide. They try to pass as stayers, but often not successfully. They form hybrid ghetto communities, they swap jobs often, or they move on. And that brings me back to the concept of "circuit migration". Some of the returnees I have spoken to have come back twice or even three times, caught in a cycle of racism and dismay at the glass ceiling in the west, and the economic pull of Hong Kong, where they no longer feel at home. It is likely that some will be posted to the mainland in the future, taking with them local knowledge of Hong Kong and the west. Perhaps they could be seen as path-breakers, but they will probably just be displaced again. These returnees seem destined to be eternal drifters, which reminds me of two classic 1960s essays by sociologist Alfred Schutz: "The Stranger" and "The Homecomer". He pointed out that the return migrant has often become a stranger in his birthplace. He has a hard time facing up to modernity. Homecoming is not such a heart-warming experience after all. Chan Kwok-bun is head of the sociology department and director of David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies of Hong Kong Baptist University.
