Kapok: Paper patriots

Eric Sautedé

Patriotism is a double-edged sword: mustered adequately it becomes a potent mantra for the community to feel more united, but a ponderous and rather superfluous summon can easily devoid it of any meaning, and ultimately be conducive to a suspicion that ulterior motives are at play. Patriotism then serves as a disguise, an absolute injunction voiced by people who do not want issues to be discussed and addressed, and thus the call to patriotism acts as a cover-up. Very often, it also helps castigate the people you disagree with as “traitors” and “enemies of the nation”, and when at war or in a revolutionary situation, there can be no worse characterization as it often entails the worst possible sanction.
In Hong Kong and Macao, the debate about what constitutes a “good” patriot is a story intertwined with the history of contemporary China. Sun Yat Sen, the father of the Republic that we celebrate every October 10th, found refuge, resources as well as a stage in both foreign enclaves to lambast the Qing court calling for a revolution. Interestingly enough for Macao, Sun is often presented as the first Chinese doctor to have practiced Western medicine in the territory at the end of the nineteenth century, thus importing foreign techniques to cure the Chinese body. Today, Hong Kong and Macao have returned to Chinese sovereignty, and there is no doubt that both SARs are thus Chinese, and yet because of their remarkable status, valid for 50 years, and a promise of political liberalization contained in either the Basic Law or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the debate about what it means to be “patriotic” goes on. And again, the pace of change is at the root of the questioning.
Is it what legislators Sio Chi Wai and Zheng Anting had in mind when they went on a rant about patriotism during the first plenary session of the Macao Legislative Assembly on October 16th? Both of them heavily criticized the “Occupy Central” movement in Hong Kong, insisting on its illegality and the harm it is bringing to our sister SAR for itself, its people and because of the image it offers to the world. Mr So insisted on the role played by the Internet in distorting information and polarizing young minds, thus easily bringing about distrust and dissatisfaction with the government because of too much eagerness for change. He remarked that the “one country, two systems” formula’s success in Macao owes much to the strict compliance with “the love for our nation and Macao” as “the social basis” of the SAR’s legal system. Mr Zheng went one step further, worried about similar brewing trouble in Macao, calling upon the government to further “patriotic education” and strictly apply the national security law adopted in February 2009.
Mr Sio’s position comes as no surprise. Being appointed by the Chief Executive, he is a defender of the orthodoxy. He is also the secretary of the second commission of the Assembly, the one responsible for introducing in May the now infamous perks bill that pushed some 20,000 people onto the street—mostly young and mobilized via social networks! In June, representing the interests of employers, Mr Sio made it very public that he was strongly against a significant amendment of the Labor Relations Law, especially regarding the ridiculously low capping of earnings for the calculation of compensation fees for laid-off employees—set for now at a maximum of MOP14,000 a month… what an irony! In August, Mr Sio was also among the two legislators openly calling for a boycott of the civil referendum on universal suffrage jointly organized by pro-democratic groups. As far as Mr Zheng Anting is concerned, he was elected for the first time in 2013 as second on the list of Mr Mak Soi Kun, a widely recognized pro-Beijing supporter. Moreover, Mr Zheng serves as the vice-president of the Jiangmen Folks Association, the one group that openly defended the perks bill in May and even organized a “favorable” counter-parade that gathered some 1,000 people—mostly elderly though.
Winning young minds goes beyond incessant cant, half-veiled threats and blind acts of faith. Remember that Joshua Wong in Hong Kong started his activist career via his Facebook Scholarism group precisely out of concern about the introduction of patriotic education.