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Whenever the country comes first, families get devastated (Lee Yee)

蘋果日報 2020/06/09 13:40



On June 4, Nip Tak-kuen, who has recently moved to the post of the Secretary for Civil Service Bureau from that of the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, posted on his Facebook page a message saying, “After the country, here come our families. It’s everyone’s responsibility to maintain the security of the country,” which was attached with a propaganda video about the Hong Kong version of national security law. To all the Tiananmen mothers and their sympathizers, nothing can be more sarcastic than this. In reality, it was right on this particular date that the country devastated their families.

Just two months ago, the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government controversially intervened in the SAR government’s issuance of a press release about Article 22 of the Basic Law, an incident widely speculated as the trigger of Nip’s transfer. Maybe as a remedy to this, just two days ago, he tried to show his loyalty to communist China by calling on all civil servants to understand that they serve both the city and the country as a whole. This has expectedly raised eyebrows of the civil servants and general public alike. While according to the Basic Law, the civil servants of Hong Kong are obliged to be accountable only to the SAR government, the “civil servants of the country” are rather required to support the communist party and the socialist system, uphold the guidance of the thoughts of Xi Jin-ping and accept the leadership of the communist party. What’s more, the Basic Law has allowed the SAR government to employ British and other foreign nationals to serve as civil servants in government departments at all levels. So to those with foreign nationalities, which “country” are they supposed to serve? And by requiring civil servants to “support the communist party and the socialist system”, does it contradict the Basic Law in terms of “having the previous capitalist system and way of life remain unchanged”?

And it is equally misleading to say that “it’s everyone’s responsibility to maintain the security of the country”. How can an ordinary member of the public be responsible for “the security of the country”? Is it by ratting the enemies out? And for someone like Nip who grew up in the colonial period, which was his “country” then? Was it the United Kingdom or China? If that was China, which wasn’t actually a country having the sovereignty of Hong Kong by then, does that mean Nip had had no home at all? All these just expose the confusion and improperness of the saying “After the country, here come our families”. Indeed, it is nothing more than a distorted notion instilled by communist China.

The whole idea should rather go the other way round: “After the families, here comes the country.” Universally, we are all emotionally and tangibly attached to our families, whereas “country” is just an abstract concept in our mind. Individuals make up the families, and numerous families form the country. Such a correlation and logic has even been found in ancient Chinese wisdom that outlines the process of “cultivating oneself, governing one’s family, then ruling the country and achieving ultimate peace.”

In a modern society, “country” is viewed as a combination of the people, territory and sovereignty, all of which is guided by the idea of “popular sovereignty”. As for communist China who believes in Leninism, the word “country” is rather interpreted as a ruling tool, a way to legitimize the “use of the machines of violence” such as police force, army and jails. In sharp contrast to the notion of “popular sovereignty”, statism sovereignty is all about the power to impose forceful oppression across its territory, against its people.

In the western democratic world, patriotism is about the love of a country that is defined and confined by a constitution. Hence a country is meaningful only when it safeguards its people’s various rights granted by constitution. Literally, the constitution of the US starts with the words “We, the people”, an idea used to be frequently emphasized by President Reagan in his speeches. In contrary, communist China equates the love of the country to the love of the communist party, which in practice means the unconditional support of the authority’s oppression against its people. For more than 70 years, such a brainwashed conceptual shift between “country” and “party” have shattered numerous families. The truth is: whenever the country comes first, families get devastated. And probably no one understands this better than the Chinese officials who have been so eagerly sending their families abroad.

As for the civil servants in Hong Kong, what they cherish are the job security, stable income and clear definition of obligations and rights. Being faithful to their duties, they earn the living they and their families deserve. After all, what matter most to them are their families. And when it comes to the notion of “country”, it should always be an option rather than an obligation.

Some may argue that if the country doesn’t exist, the people will become subjugated and families will no longer find peace. Ridiculously, the privileged in China have been choosing to abandon their country so as to preserve their families. So for those who have to stay, and for the Hong Kong people who are compelled to suffer from the oppression of the tyranny, being the so-called “subjugated” seems more a relief.

(Lee Yee, a prominent political commentator in Hong Kong who embarked on a career of writing and subediting in 1956, has been contributing unremittingly political commentaries to the local press.)

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