Hong Kong: A Declaration by Post-80’s Youth against Unrightful Authority

Blindfolded for 22 years, it is time to lift the shroud of pseudo-democracy.

22 years ago, in December 1988, the public consultation of the draft for Basic Law came to an end. It was a historical moment of political awakening for Hong Kong citizens. Indifferent to the 60,000+ proposals submitted by Hong Kong people (see note), Beijing was adamant on adopting the conservative package going against popular opinion at that time. This decision triggered two historic social actions: burning of the Basic Law draft and initiation of a hunger strike in protest. This was a critical moment for Hong Kong citizens to safeguard the ideals of “Self-Governance, High degree of Autonomy”, to tear away the façade of delusions and deceptions. The criticism received by the conservative package then: “An undemocratic beginning; taking leaden steps along the way; but with no end in sight” is unfortunately still applicable to the current political reform package. This statement has foreshadowed our painful struggle for democracy over the past 22 years.

13 years after the hand-over, Hong Kong’s progression towards democracy is now hanging on by a thread. Not because of the Pan-Democrats denouncing the reform package, it’s our Government having once and again pushed forward a bogus proposal that is pseudo-progressive, sheltering government-business collusion and yet shamelessly call it an embodiment of mainstream opinion. It is not only a standstill, but a regression that makes the chant “Act Now!” ring ominously hollow. We can’t help but wonder where the promises of “Self-Governance, High degree of Autonomy” had gone. In the current package, we’re hard-pressed to find traces of such ideals. It is nothing but a sham.

The call for a democratic political system began way back and the demands cannot be made clearer: Increase the ratio of directly-elected seats in the Legislative Council; abolish or reform Functional Constituency (eg. problems caused by company votes, group vote counting, and dominance of real-estate and engineering sectors) so as to undermine Government-Business collusion; universal suffrage for Chief Executive. However, none of these goals, which we have been demanding for over 20 years, are being tackled by the political reform package proposed by Donald Tseng. On the contrary, the suggestion to add district council members to the Legislative Council is clearly an attempt to thwart the genuine progress we seek, lleading us astray with such confounding motions. Government officials proudly proclaiming this proposal to be representing the majority are in fact, making a mockery of us.

All these years in our pursuit for democracy, we may have faltered or stumbled, our path has been obscured by bluffs and deceit, and yet we persist. Looking back at how far we have come, all the more we have to hold on to our beliefs. Only then can we avoid pitfalls and unveil delusions, to truly advance once and for all. This is the moment of truth, the time to come forward and protect our rights. Emulating the pioneers 22 years ago, we, the Post-80’s Youth against Unrightful Authority will gather outside LegCo from 2 pm 12 June – 12 pm 13 June 2010, a week before the LegCo cast their votes for the Reform motions. We will protest by blindfolding ourselves for 22 hours continuously, all the while writing these cherished words of “Self-Governance” (港人治港) and “High degree of Autonomy”(高度自治)

This quest for democracy that had began 22 years ago with the Basic Law burnt to ashes ---we resolved to see it to the end.

For true democracy, act now!

Note: In 1989, during the first consultation of the draft of Basic Law, the Democrats collected over 60,000 proposals calling for universal suffrage of the Chief Executive and half of the Legislative Council by the year 1997. Beijing went on to adopt a far more conservative package by Zha Liang-yung (查良鏞) as a draft for the second consultation. From July-October of the same year, shortly after the June-4th Massacre, towards the end of the second consultation, Beijing once again refused to acknowledge proposals that had extensive public input. (An example for this was the “Bi-bureau Consensus Package” suggesting universal suffrage for LegCo in 2003) Hong Kong citizens burnt the Basic Law again in protest.