Kapok | Apologies warranted

Eric Sautedé

New Year greetings is a must for a politician and even more so for a statesman: it provides the perfect occasion to reflect on past deeds and put achievements as well as setbacks in a different light, when one is not only judged on his action but also on his capacity to reflect upon his action; it corresponds also to a new beginning, a form of rejuvenation stemming from the course one is capable to draw for the future, with clarity of mind and rigor of assessment, striking a fine balance between what is desirable and what is feasible. Ultimately, this is an opportune time to mend fractures, heal wounds and bring the community together, especially because it also corresponds to a time of rejoicing, even though Christmas in our part of the world tends to be overly concerned with its highly consumerist side. But in Macao we are lucky: handover day falls on December 20th, and so everything is about values and virtues, with handover celebration speeches extending their long shadow over the final two weeks of the year.

As it is often the case in Chinese, Mr Chui Sai On chose an adage in four characters — two times four actually — to title his New Year wishes: “bai zhe bu nao, ying nan er shang,” that can roughly be translated by “being undaunted by repeated setbacks and meeting the challenges head on.” It conveys the virtues of perseverance, and the capacity to surmount any kind of adversity. No doubt that this is fitting after the disaster brought about by the devastating typhoon Hato in August that claimed 10 lives, maimed more than 240 others and caused more than 11 billion in physical damage. Mr Chui makes no ambiguity about it as he devotes a lengthy paragraph making up one fifth of his greetings to the matter. To say what exactly?

First, that this was the worst typhoon since 1953 and that everybody had been taken by surprise as the community had grown complacent as it had not been confronted with such upheavals in the “relatively peaceful past decades.” Then, Mr Chui goes on in praising the remarkable traditional virtues displayed by the Macao people, especially the ones of “inclusiveness” and “mutual assistance”, overcoming the difficulties thanks to a remarkable sense of solidarity. Had Mr Chui stop there, I don’t think I would have even bothered writing this column: after all, the rest of the greetings is just one big exercise in stuffing as many slogans as possible — “one belt, one road”, five-year plan, “centre for tourism and leisure”, “economic and trade co-operation platform for China and Portuguese-speaking countries”, etc. And then, Mr Chui’s greetings appear in the  Chinese language “Macao Daily News” next to the ones of the director of the Liaison Office in Macao, on page 7, in which Zheng Xiaosong provides a long commentary on the vision provided by the just concluded 19th Party Congress in Beijing. No wonder then that Mr Chui would make five references to the “one country, two systems” formula whereas he mentions only once the “high degree of autonomy” in his short recitation.

Even the overemphasis on the element of surprise and the common (and yet wrong) understanding that one cannot anticipate the unexpected are not that shocking after all: one cannot blame Mr Chui for not having read Emile de Girardin whose words should serve as the incipit of any policy address — “To govern is to foresee” (Gouverner c’est prévoir).

But when one fails to anticipate, when one promises repeatedly to build adequate infrastructure to fight flooding and natural disasters and yet one fails to deliver and is thus indirectly responsible for the death of 10 people, what should one do at the very least? Apologize! Not a word asking for forgiveness in Mr Chui’s sermon. Is being indomitable grounded in a total lack of empathy and sympathy? Isn’t Mr Chui aware that he is running the most reviled government since 1999?