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Making a difference

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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.

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