As a journalist, it is not always easy to maintain the fine line between observation and participation. Thus, when I finished work early last Tuesday and set out to join the massive demonstration against Article 23, I wanted to be counted among the 500,000. Although I joined the throng half-way through - walking downhill from Garden Road - like others I found myself uplifted by the civility and good nature of the thousands upon thousands of ordinary people who made up the crowd. I was glad I had come; the moment was a great one for the people of Hong Kong, unexpected even by the most optimistic of the organisers. It took nearly two hours to shuffle down Queen's Road East and up Battery Path to the Central Government Offices. The protesters seemed to fuse into a seamless whole in the narrow bottleneck of the last few blocks, yet as they wheeled and turned up the hill, not one person seemed fussed or bothered, or lost their temper when a neighbour accidentally jostled them. Like a Chinese version of Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagraha movement, or non-violent resistance, of the 1920s that so confused India's British rulers, anger and violence were absent in the demonstration. Its purpose was not to seek limited political ends but rather, in Gandhian fashion, a sweeping insistence on change. My immediate neighbours in the march, wet with perspiration despite the shade cast by Central's iconic skyscrapers, included families with children, a group of elderly women, an elegant young man wielding a paper fan with calligraphy, others holding miniature electric cooling devices. Some waved brooms or signs. I collected one from a trash bin outside Government House as a souvenir. It reads: 'With the economy so weak and unemployment so high, our incapable leaders have created confusion in the government.' Such sentiments have deep roots in Confucianism, and perhaps the Chinese psyche. A ruler loses the mandate of heaven when confusion reigns. So, does confusion reign in Hong Kong? Here I have to put my observer's hat back on, because for the most part, I thought the march was a huge missed opportunity. Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa is not Hong Kong's problem, and getting rid of him will not solve much and could make things worse. The chance that Hong Kong missed on Tuesday was to stand and fight for limited goals, in particular a chance for public participation in the shaping of the contentious security legislation. Many of the signs waved by protesters reflected a tragic lack of realism: 'Step down, Tung Chee-hwa! We don't want Article 23!' The fact is that Hong Kong has to live with them both. It is a much harder task to work with what you have than to fantasise about what you might have in a perfect world. At the end of the march, I was surprised - this being my first demonstration in Hong Kong - when the political display simply evaporated once I reached the Central Government Offices. People walked briskly through the gates and homewards, dumping their signs in bulging trash bins. Could those half-million people have stood their ground? Could they have waited all night if necessary, forcing Mr Tung to promise to delay the bill? Will they be back on July 9? Such pressure tactics are not yet part of Hong Kong's political culture, but they could be. Here are my three thoughts on getting some traction. First, start talking to each other as well as to the mainland government. The world has moved on since the Sino-British negotiations in 1983, and yet the political lines are drawn more heavily than ever between the pro-democracy and pro-Beijing camps. Neither seems to have a scrap of mutual respect, much less an understanding of the mainland's political chemistry or new crop of leaders. Without talking to the opposition, Mr Tung's government can never gain credibility. Without offering constructive proposals, the opposition dooms itself to irrelevance. The central government could help by developing more public and transparent modes of communication with Hong Kong, but this is a two-way street. Our politicians - even those who have been banned from travel to the mainland - should take advantage of opportunities for dialogue with mainlanders resident in Hong Kong and abroad. The mainland has changed immeasurably since 1997. Hong Kong, by contrast, seems stuck in a time warp. Second, Mr Tung should expand his circle beyond those who share his views, and give his associates greater freedom of action. This team needs to recognise its limitations as well as its strengths. Sadly, they have few political skills, and they need to begin to rely on those with a better touch. One obvious alternative would be to restore the role of the principal secretary to its former lustre, allowing the chief of staff to serve as chief salesperson for the government's policies. Third, on the complicated issue of the security law, like many other aspects of Mr Tung's administration, the process has been badly bungled. An extension of the consultation period, a split of the bill into two and delay of its more controversial parts, a forthright attempt to engage the public in discussion of the bill, and less defensiveness are the minimum concessions Mr Tung should make after July 1. For its part, the political opposition has yet to come up with a draft of its own model security bill. The Basic Law leaves no room for avoiding its enactment. Yet the security bill has become the source of deep public anxiety as a result of the government's impatience, combined with the intellectual vacuum of the pro-democracy forces. If the marchers last week want to make a difference, they need to get beyond the simplicities of pro-government versus anti-government, or pro-democracy versus anti-Beijing. What we all want is a stronger, better, more accountable government for Hong Kong - one that can support the mainland's continuing evolution as much as its own. Edith Terry is editor of the Opinion Pages of the South China Morning Post
