My TakeCall me crazy, but it’s time for all of us to try to be politically correct
Furore over columnist Chris Wat’s use of the words ‘mentally ill’ to describe pro-independence party is a bit rich considering others, including pan-democrats, use similar terms to label their rivals
We all make mistakes and say the wrong thing in public. Comparing our adversaries to mental patients seems to be a recurrent one for local politicians.
Since both sides of the political divide have made the same kind of politically incorrect comments, I suggest the Democrats refresh their memories and get off their high horses.
The latest furore was triggered by provocative columnist Chris Wat Wing-yin after she called the emergence of a pro-independence party in Hong Kong “a revolution launched by a group of mentally ill patients”.
“Patients could not control their own strange acts and speeches,” she wrote. “But the reactions and interpretation of the normal people around them could definitely affect the condition of patients, thus affecting the overall safety of the public.”
I agree it’s insulting – to mental patients. The remarks so incensed Democratic Party member Ramon Yuen Hoi-man, a Sham Shui Po district councillor, that he not only demanded an apology but wrote to the Equal Opportunities Commission asking for an investigation into the incident.
Recently, pro-Beijing lawmaker Ann Chiang Lai-wan also got into hot water for comparing her pan-democratic rivals to a bunch of crazies.