Since the handover 15 years ago, central authorities have worried about subversives - democrats who would undermine Hong Kong's economic success if their demands were ever met. Now we know that the subversion is coming from an entirely different quarter, and it is more serious than thought, as it threatens to undermine the very bedrock of our way of life: the rule of law. These subversives are a powerful bunch, because they are the insiders - they are the establishment.
Today, the insidious has become overt - the subversion has been exposed. Crony capitalism was a conspiracy theory, now it is fact: no less a person than our chief executive has accepted dubious favours from tycoons. Senior civil servants are above the law: they can build illegal structures in flagrant disregard of the law their own departments are trying to enforce, and get away with it. Academic independence is being compromised: a professor can publish an incomplete opinion poll that could influence an electoral process, and still avoid being defrocked. There are worrying signs of emasculation of the press. No area seems immune.
Hong Kong's way of life is under attack, and needs a champion. That champion has emerged in an unlikely place: it is the man in the street, who is finally compelled to speak out. This citizen of Hong Kong knows that we have a pearl of great price, and that is a respect for the law.
Several years ago, I wrote in these columns that the greatest change in Hong Kong since the handover has been the rise in the sense of citizenship. Before the handover, we were colonial subjects. After the handover, we became citizens with a sense of belonging, with a sense of responsibility for our own future. Without the rule of law, we will revert to being subjects again.
Many people are appalled by the bigotry of the 'anti-locusts' movement. When people are compared to insects, bad things happen - the Nazis referred to Jews as lice, Hutus referred to Tutsis as cockroaches. But it is not enough simply to be appalled.
Underlying the 'anti-locusts' movement is a deep-seated anxiety that our way of life and principles are being eroded, that we are being subsumed into a system that is anathema to us. Bigotry is not the response of a self-confident community, it is the response of a community that feels under threat.
