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Opinion | After the 1967 summer of discontent, Murray MacLehose led the crusade for a happy and prosperous Hong Kong. Where is that spirit today?
- Housing, education, medical care and social welfare: the issues addressed by the governor in the wake of the 1967 unrest are again front and centre in Hong Kong’s latest summer of discontent. Will the government take a leaf out of MacLehose’s book?
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The Hong Kong government is besieged by its own citizens. Clouds of tear gas drift above streets that convulse with angry demonstrators, as police and radical protesters clash amid flames and gunfire. Blood splatters the pavement as pro-China and pro-Hong-Kong factions brawl. There are ominous rumblings of Chinese forces gathering across the border. The future of Hong Kong, in the eyes of its people and the world, is bleak and uncertain.
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Just another weekend in 2019’s long, hot summer of discontent? The description is apt, but it was equally fitting during Hong Kong’s summer of unrest in 1967. The parallels are striking. Five decades ago, it took leadership that committed to real solutions to social problems, not political problems, to right Hong Kong’s ship.
It took the arrival of an action-oriented leader of social change, Murray MacLehose, governor of Hong Kong from 1971 to 1982. Affectionately known as “Murray-in-a-Hurry”, MacLehose would later describe his mission in Hong Kong in simple terms: “My job was to make Hong Kong as contented and prosperous and cohesive as possible.”
Hongkongers are victims of their own laissez-faire system and a non-interventionist, administratively focused local government, not the machinations of the Chinese state. Hong Kong’s leaders, or their successors, need to take a page out of MacLehose’s book and take up the crusade for people’s contentment and prosperity.
Although political issues dominate headlines and public debate, much of the discontent can be traced to the reality of day-to-day life. The proportion of people living below the poverty line was 20 per cent in 2017, according to government statistics. That is 1.3 million people.
This goes some way to explaining why millions have taken to the streets in recent months. Unemployment is low, at less than 3 per cent, but for most who work in this famously hardworking city, it is their low income relative to Hong Kong's high costs that makes getting ahead virtually impossible.
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