Hong Kong Occupy Central co-founder Benny Tai should come down from his ivory tower
Alice Wu says with his latest idea for yet another impractical voting strategy, the Occupy Central co-founder shows that he does not understand the complexities that come from working with people
Human progress owes a lot to the many who have taken on the rigorous exercise of repeating their experiments, toughing it out through the painful cycle of formulating, testing and modifying hypotheses without any promise of a favourable outcome. It’s not for the faint-hearted.
Occupy Central turned into something even Tai admitted was “beyond what [he] imagined”. Though somewhat dulled by time, the emotive reactions evoked by the mere mention of it remain strong today. It was his brainchild. But when it hit the ground in the autumn of 2014, it quickly spiralled out of control. Love and peace were lost in the process. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Occupy Central is on: Benny Tai rides wave of student protest to launch movement
Tai saw Occupy Central as a political and social awakening. It’s time that he, too, was awakened to reality
And now, there are reasonable grounds to suspect the practicality of Project Storm. What Tai proposes – for the pro-democracy camp to try to field candidates in all constituencies in the district council elections – is simple fantasy. Political parties field as many candidates as they can in elections, as that is their bread and butter. Resources, or rather a lack of, usually dictate matters. Imagine if there were unlimited political aspirants and unlimited resources to cover campaign costs. There would be no uncontested seats, for one thing. Yet, maximising outcome with minimum wasted effort and expense is something we all have to live with, including politicians.
Tai’s plan also requires that all pro-democracy parties take up his campaign message. But no amount of “faith” will achieve this, unless he is ready to get involved in the day-to-day frustrations and hard work of dealing with people who have their own minds and ways of working. He will have to deal with people trying to align different views and interests for a common cause (basically, the work of running any political party), rather than just telling them what to do without a care for what that entails.
Tai saw Occupy Central as a political and social awakening. It’s time that he, too, was awakened to reality. Once is chance, twice is coincidence, the third time is habit. His loftiness extends beyond his ideas. And should he not address that – the arrogance that he is somehow above the very real and messy problems people face – the impracticality of walking his path will remain, as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be.
Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA
