IT is astonishing that in this day and age Mr Jonathan Wright of Lamma, whose name stands in sharp contradiction to his ideas, does not see the absurdity of writing to a newspaper whose readers he describes as ''the pinnacle of political awareness'', in order to deliver himself of an arrogant, ignorant and impliedly racist complaint (South China Morning Post, April 7). No, Mr Wright, Mr (or Mrs) Hongkong is not an ''unprincipled, ignorant barbarian''. He is a family man who wants to pass on to his children the opportunity of a better life, the value of an education and the respect for work and effort which is common to decent people the world over. That is why his community's future concerns him. He doesn't ''plan to flee to Canada at the slightest murmuring of trouble here'' (despite Allen Lee's remarkably insensitive suggestion to that effect on Larry King Live), because he doesn't have the earning power to qualify: he will stay. Despite having been denied the opportunity to participate in any form of political process until recently, the average man seems to me to understand the issues relatively well. I actually happen to know a number of really average people - not maybe of Mr Wright's intellectual power, but average enough to have realised that, if Taiwan and Korea have been compelled by the force of economic development and the articulacy of a new middle class to make the leap from military dictatorship to emerging democracy, it can hardly be thought excessive for Hongkong people to be given the chance to shape their own destinies. And possibly dangerous to deny them. Surely there is no better way for a democracy like Britain to demonstrate its faith in its own values than by offering people the choice to live by them. (Even, Mr Wright, to the people you describe as ''simple, crude''). Sir, it is time for some of your readers to enter the 20th century. PAUL SERFATY Mid-Levels
