Kapok: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

Eric Sautedé

I must admit that I usually don’t easily gulp overly nationalistic injunctions, and hence consider appeals to “national unity” and unquestionable flag-waving displays of national pride with great suspicion. In that respect, I follow a long, ironically partially French, tradition of anarchist thinking, still very much alive today, the one of Georges Brassens who derided in his songs “the race of chauvinists and cockade-bearers” and “the happy fools whose hometown means the world”. Cabu, Wolinski, Charb and Tignious, the four (now for sure) world-renown caricaturists who were cold-bloodedly executed in the terrorist attack against Charlie Hebdo on January 7 belonged to this very same tradition: one of irreverence for self-confident powerful people as well as one of absolute rejection of every single form of intolerance—religious, but also political, social and economic. Core to that credo is the intimate conviction, one that can be traced back to Plato and the use of the Ring of Gyges described in the Republic, that power holders will always be tempted to abuse their power, and ultimately, as Lord Acton beautifully puts it that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
Yet, after the dismay and awe triggered by the double terrorist slaughter that took place in the very heart of Paris and ultimately claimed the life of 17 people, including three policemen, whose job, as state representatives, was precisely to make sure that citizens’ rights were protected, a new kind of emotion kicked in. All of a sudden, individuals and governments alike, French and from all around the world, felt that a symbol had been partly destroyed and purposefully threatened, something essential to what makes us human beings, decent and civilized people. Of course, compared to the horrendous massacres that took place almost concomitantly in Yemen and Nigeria, claiming the lives of possibly thousands, one has to feel humble: Islamic terrorism mostly kills Muslim victims and to be honest one could even say that in comparison Europe is more fearful than actually devastated by terrorism. But symbols, and hence representations are what make us distinctively human. Thus, “liberté, égalité, fraternité” (freedom, equality and fraternity), the motto of the French Republic suddenly made perfect sense, as something that should be embraced and cherished. Feeling patriotic was suddenly universal and unmistakably worth espousing. The freedom to express my opinion, the equality of all, whatever the gender, race and religion, and the much needed fraternity to surmount this upheaval and possibly prevent what made this self-devouring brutal act possible. The point was not anymore whether one would agree or not with the provocative drawings of Charlie Hebdo, but the realization that these “foot soldiers of liberty” were the guarantors of the outer fringe of our freedom of expression within the boundary of the law. Hence close to 4 million people in the streets of France on Sunday 11 to pay tribute to those departed. Hence the totality of the members of the French assembly chanting the national anthem to salute the Prime Minister’s speech on Wednesday 14, a first since the armistice of 1918.
To my great consternation, that very same freedom of speech was invoked on January 13 to defend the unsavory comments made by legislator Feng Chi Keong during the plenary discussion related to the new Domestic Violence Law. Mr Fong, in his usual table-talk manners, clearly implied that it was okay to beat one’s wife once in a while when she was arguing too much or being seemingly unresponsive to sexual arousing—going as far as saying that marriage was some form of bestial arrangement to satisfy sexual needs. What shields Mr Fong is not the protection of freedom of speech, it is his legislative immunity. What protects Mr Fong is the fact that the penal code does not clearly define the “apology” or “instigation” of violence and discrimination towards women despite the fact that Macao is a signatory of the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. What protects Mr Fong is not the respect he commends in the community, it is the fact that he is not accountable to an electorate. The problem is: Mr Fong is designated by the Chief Executive, and is the president of the charitable association behind the Walk for a Million as well as the president of the Kiang Wu Hospital Charitable Association, among many other things. We trust that he could be made accountable in other ways…