Somehow a friend’s post fed to me on Facebook a few days back, talking about the story of an ex-Dragonair pilot who had been laid off earlier and became a bus driver now, marveling his resilience in adverse circumstances and the positive energy emitted to empower younger pilots who shared his unfortunate fate. The post quoted him: “I love reading autobiography of the great figures, the most intriguing part of which is not about how successful they are, but how they fight uphill battle from rock bottom”. Very inspiring, though the culprits behind this pilot’s misfortunate such as the government’s incompetence in containing COVID-19 and the inadequacy of the Employment Support Scheme were never mentioned in the story. Perhaps nobody wants to know, as everybody craves only for positivity in this depressing time.

As encouraging as the story may be, I’m more interested in the page which originally hosted the post. As expected, I found other very “positive” posts, one of which described how happy those HK entertainers including Alan Tam, Kenny B and Jordan Chan were when recently gathering in Shanghai without the need to worry about social distancing measures and to wear masks, applauding the sustained success of the mainland in keeping zero COVID infection, and wishing HK would achieve that one day. How enviable.

Perhaps people are fundamentally lazy and hedonistic, hoping that someone can solve all the problems for them, sweet-talk them, take away worries from them, and make them proud. So, when someone is able to always keep COVID-19 infection at zero, tell you positive inspiring stories, comfort you that all current hardships will eventually go, and promise that the community will be strong if you follow his lead, you will be very tempted to support him, and in time even develop a tendency to defend him at all costs. Little by little you’ll choose to see and believe only in the goodies, turn a blind eye to all the underlying fallacies, easily let go of your values and beliefs for the “greater good”, and pardon all extreme measures and means in order to let the great leader help you achieve the happy end. You even start to fantasize that this community is a family and the great leader is your mother whom you naturally, unquestionably and filially obey no matter what. You are not brainwashed to do all these, but somehow, it’s in your nature and blood that you are driven towards that direction. It takes much more effort for you to do the otherwise. You think you’re living in wonderland, and you want to keep staying there.

As a result, though you don’t object to the presumption of innocence under HK’s common law system, you find it perfectly OK for Jimmy Lai to be denied bail when he was just charged with (but not convicted for) collusion with foreign forces. You have chosen to believe he is the number one threat to your wonderland and hence all principles have to give way to the attempts for his elimination. You may go as far as to wish him jailed for life. Similarly, though you care for youngsters in general, you find it perfectly OK for the 12 HK Youths to be detained in Yantian for prolonged period, denied the rights to be visited and to appoint lawyer of their own choices, and tried in the mainland at an unknown future date. Equally you don’t have any sympathy towards the countless youngsters who were adjudged to lengthy sentences for such minor offenses as possession of laser pens or plastic cable ties. You even rejoice at those young activist leaders cutting ties with their loved ones and going into exile one by one. To you they are all delinquents in the family and should disappear from the big picture, whatever it takes. Keeping the wonderland intact becomes your one and only goal in life.

With everything under the great leader’s control, you feel happier and safer each day. The legality of the government’s invocation of the Emergency Regulations Ordinance and the mask ban was finally sealed by the Court of Final Appeal. Hundreds of District Councilors who are somehow considered incompatible with the Basic Law will be disqualified by the NPC Standing Committee shortly. COVID-19 vaccines are being ordered by the government and will be available for injection soon. Wonderland is being cleansed so deeply that it becomes more peaceful, silent, pure and safe than ever. You become so proud to be a part of this place.

The safer wonderland is, the more fearless you are. Your step stops? You probably will cease being just a happy bystander, but take up a more active role in up keeping wonderland’s integrity. You will report anything suspicious. You will help silence those dissenting noise. You will suppress those delinquent family members. With any luck, you may even be hailed as a positive role model by the media, just like the ex-Dragonair pilot mentioned above. So sweet, congratulations!

(Adrian Chow Pok Yin, qualified HK lawyer, composer/lyricist/arranger/music producer, CASH music award winner, and Council Member (and Music Group Chairman) of the HK Arts Development Council.)

We invite you to join the conversation by submitting columns to our opinion section: [email protected]

Apple Daily reserves the right to refuse, abridge, alter or edit guest opinion columns for accuracy, length, clarity, and style, and the right to withdraw and withhold columns based on the discretion of our editorial page editors.

The opinions of the writers do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editorial board.

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play