Occupy Central is Hong Kong's 'mad as hell' moment
Self-serving arguments from property tycoons and government officials are demeaning to an educated population who support the local democratic process
"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" asked punk rock icon Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. He directed that leering remark at disenchanted English youth in the 1970s, but he could just have easily been describing the emotional undercurrent of disenfranchisement that feeds the Occupy Central movement.
The movement has been vilified with the kind of fear-mongering reserved for medieval witch-hunts. Doomsayers are warning about the kind of chaos and turmoil that resembles a zombie apocalypse rather than civil protest.
Brusque declarations and a blunt white paper from Beijing are predictable, but the arguments from Hong Kong's business establishment have been disappointing because they are unsophisticated and out of touch with events in the rest of the world.
Their views are shaped through yesterday’s Hong Kong. They cannot envision the future
A protest and show of support of this magnitude for local democratic process will actually be a healthy event for Hong Kong's development as a financial and business centre. International investors welcome political dissent and positive change towards a more civil society rather than outright insurrection. Similar protests regularly come and go in London and New York without invoking the apocalyptic scenarios. Hong Kong has experienced large-scale marches and protests before with little trouble so there is no reason to believe Occupy will cause chaos.
Terse warnings by property tycoons and Hong Kong's former central banker Joseph Yam Chi-kwong proclaim that protests will be bad for business and social stability. They have predictably backfired as more than 700,000 people participated in an Occupy plebiscite. Between the greater social good and political expediency, our business leaders chose the latter. Between the truth of history and their own business, they chose their own business.
These self-serving arguments are demeaning to an educated population. Describing how Occupy will hurt businesses only draws the cynical response that what is good for the tycoons' business is not necessarily good for Hong Kong. It also shows that most of our tycoons and government officials lack international perspectives. Almost all of them have never lived or worked extensively in a democratic and developed country. Their views are shaped through yesterday's Hong Kong. They cannot envision the future.
For someone who once served the people, Yam surprisingly says Occupy creates political risk that endangers Hong Kong's status as a financial centre. But, he forgets that five years ago, global financial markets endured the worst implosion in history. Most major financial institutions and central banks barely survived an event far worse than a protest.