The vehemence with which some New Territories villagers cling to their traditional rights has caused a lot of trouble in the past.
People who have had special privileges handed to them on a plate are invariably reluctant to give them up, whether it is whites in a racially segregated country, or colonial administrators in a newly independent nation. But the principle of equality in a generally fair society should be of paramount importance everywhere as we prepare to enter the 21st century.
That is one good reason why the insistence of so-called 'non-indigenous' villagers on being allowed to participate fully in the life of their community will become a swirling current against which the Government cannot hold the floodgates closed indefinitely.
Yesterday's victory allowing Tse Kwan-sang to contest the election in Shek Wu Tong is the second time courts have ruled against the blatant discrimination of the traditional system. The Government is appealing a March judgment by the Court of First Instance that says that preventing non-indigenous villagers from voting is unlawful. It may appeal the latest case. But the issue will not go away.
A system which allows people who have never lived in their ancestral home to vote in rural elections, yet bars those who were born there and never left the place, is so ludicrously skewed as to be laughable - except for the appalling discrimination that results.
Until women won inheritance rights in 1994, many had property taken from them by distant male relatives. They never had a say in how the village was run, until sex discrimination legislation redressed that wrong.
