In
Cantonese, the word sounds for “to stop; to conclude” – Zhong Zhi – sounds exactly
like the words for “Middle Finger”.
In
a nutshell: Corrupt Chinese Communist officials stopped the debate. The filibuster referred to in our previous post has ended.
And
in return, we would like to give a “Middle Finger” to the Communist Party of the People’s
Republic of China, and all their loyal “dog” supporters.
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A
lot has happened in the Hong Kong legislature since our last post less than a week ago.
Our
People’s Power hero Wong Yuk Man had just had cataract surgery within the past
couple of weeks. The stress of
continuing with the filibuster had adversely affected his eye condition. His doctor warned him he could not continue
like this – he could lose his eyesight.
The
Pro-Beijingist legislative councilors were rubbing their little plump hands in
glee at the news. They plotted another
tactic (because turning up at the legislature for the meetings to make quorum was
just killing them). We will request that the legislative meeting be held round the clock,
24 hours a day – there’s only three of them (Wong Yuk Man and Albert Chan of
People’s Power, Leung Kwok Hung of the League of Social Democrats) with Wong Yuk Man
driving the engine of the filibuster. They
won’t be able to continue indefinitely without rest since Wong Yuk Man is sick –
we have to take advantage of that! Let’s
make our arch-enemy Wong Yuk Man go blind!
Luckily,
another independent councilor Cheng Ka-fu decided to join the filibuster. The filibuster on Wednesday recommenced
at 11 a.m. without Wong Yuk Man but kept going on strong.
After resting during the day, Wong Yuk Man joined the filibuster late at
night, boosting the morale.
The
spirits of the Pro-Beijingist councilors, trapped inside the legislative hall
(Oh god, I’m so tired! Oh god, I’m so
bored!!!!) flagged. They made mockery of
the legislative process, openly practicing their calligraphy, sleeping,
watching movies on their computers, etc. etc. – activities normally chastised by
the Legislative President Tsang Yok-Sing.
Since Tsang Yok-Sing is a Pro-Beijingist and a Communist Party Member to
boot, he did nothing to curtail this flagrant disregard of legislative process.
Meanwhile,
outside the legislature, supporters of the filibuster gathered in a peaceful
demonstration. The Pro-Beijingist
faction, wanting to cause trouble, hired busloads of “anti-filibuster”
supporters to turn up at the site. They
tried to get the peaceful pro-filibuster protesters to cross the line by
hurling insults and throwing water bottles at them, but got arrested for
assault instead. Oh, excuse me - what anti-filibuster
supporters? What a joke. Many were actually triad members, paid $300.00 HKD an hour (including meals, drink and transportation! Wow, good deal!) to cause
trouble.
The
filibuster continued inside. The
Pro-Beijingists were like, completely dying
after midnight. Around 3:30 a.m., Leung
Kwok Hung demanded a head count – the Pro-Beijingists were ONCE AGAIN failing
to meet quorum (like, not returning back after sneaking off to the washroom). Legislative President Tsang Yok-Sing called a
recess around 4 a.m.
In
truth, Tsang Yok-Sing wanted to seize this opportunity. He was up to no good.
Beijing
had already pressured – no, ORDERED Tsang Yok-Sing to stop this filibuster, no matter
what it took. Beijing realized that it
was a battle that the Pro-Beijingists couldn’t win, because the lazy, flaccid bums
with no stamina and no endurance simply couldn’t last, even if they didn’t have
to do anything except show up and twiddle their thumbs. And in any case, the Pro-Beijingists had no spirit of righteousness to spur them on - they were just following Beijing's orders and looking out for their personal interests to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong. And then, there were rumors that more and
more of the initially cautious/scared independent councilors were rallying in
support of the filibuster. It was bad
enough dealing with three councilors – what if that number became five, or
ten? The filibuster will go on forever,
and Beijing would lose face.
Unaware
that spectators in the top balcony were filming him during the recess, Tsang
Yok-Sing took the command he received from Beijing and got one of the pages to
take it from his secretary Pauline and deliver it to one of the Pro-Beijingist
councilors in the front row – the guy in the pink sweater. The camera's microphone picked up on what they hissed at
each other “Wait until everyone comes back and we will make our move on them!”
the Pro-Beijingists said.
Anti-Legislative
fairness/Anti-free speech shenanigans of the Pro-Beijingists at the Hong Kong Legislature,
caught on film
Everyone
came back in after the break. Mr. Pink
Sweater immediately got up, and read from the paper passed secretly to him from
Tsang Yok-Sing, pretending that he was unilaterally making a motion in the
council, when in fact he was acting in cohorts with Tsang Yok-Sing and the
power of Beijing behind them. “Blah,
blah, blah, the filibuster group is so repetitive, they had to be stopped 75
times because they repeated or got off topic [cites a list of other statistics
that no way he could have come up with just by himself], this can’t go on
forever, blah blah, I move for the Legislative President to stop this at once!”
And
Legislative President Tsang Yok-Sing pretended to think really hard for a
second, and then said: Okey-dokey, no problem!
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The
filibuster was stomped on by the Legislative President Tsang Yok-Sing, who was
not authorized under any rule or precedent of the Legislature and in effect had
no authorized power to do what he did. He did it because Beijing made him do it
– he has been tough but fair so far at his post, but as Wong Yuk Man says,
Tsang Yok-Sing is like a widow who has guarded her virtue all her life, only to
throw all respectability away at the last moment by being seduced by some bloke!*
* To clarify, this is a chinese traditional cultural reference. Widows were revered in Chinese Culture for keeping their virtue - they can still remarry and be considered virtuous, but were scorned if they allowed themselves to be seduced and cheated by some Fabio who wandered into the village. In ancient China, it was better for a woman to be a prostitute who turned away from her profession and became respectful by marrying than a widow who ran off with Fabio.
Beijing
looked like they won the battle… but in fact, they lost. They can't win fair and square, so they had to resort to dirty, underhanded
tactics and brute force to win – and it was exposed to the world.
Before the handover of the former British
colony to China, Beijing promised that for fifty years, it would be “One country, two systems” – and that all of the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong
residents will be preserved.
It’s
all, of course, a big fat lie. First
they halt democratic reform – then they attack the right of peaceful
assembly. Now they are messing with the rights of councilors to free debate in the Legislative council. Next in line of fire is all freedom of
speech.
Here on our blog, we always tell
it how it is. Very soon in Hong Kong,
you won’t be able to. The white terror begins.
