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Up With Democracy
Since the Hong Kong government first trundled the democratic bandwagon into the Hong Kong arena in 1981, the government propaganda machine and top civil servants from the Governor downwards, have been trying to whip up public enthusiasm for democratic politics. Everyone is being urged to register as a voter, to choose their candidate with care, and to get out and vote for him on polling day.
Down With Democracy
If I personally find it difficult to believe in the sincerity of this sudden and unexpected official enthusiasm for democratic politics it is because throughout the 29 years I was an official myself, from 1951 to 1980 "democracy" was a dirty word. Officials were convinced that the introduction of democratic politics into Hong Kong would be the quickest and surest way to ruin Hong Kong's economy and create social and political instability.
In all those years civil servants who favoured democratic reform (there were a few, usually from former British colonies in Africa), were regarded as disloyal or even dangerous. Pressure groups advocating political reform or grass-roots democracy were carefully monitored by the Government and the Special Branch of the Hong Kong Police and where possible their activities were discretely obstructed or frustrated, sometimes by the use of highly questionable tactics. This deliberate and active discouragement of the growth of the democratic processes by the Government continued right up to 1980 to my certain knowledge.
Hong Kong's Democratic Circus
Throughout my official career the Urban Council, Hong Kong's one little semi-democratic sideshow was tolerated by the Government, but only because it could not be abolished without a gigantic row. At top levels in the Government officials and unofficials, Chinese and expatriates, regarded the elected members of the Urban Council as Hong Kong's lunatic fringe, and the Council's Annual Conventional Debate as a dangerous intrusion into affairs on which Members had no right to speak.
Two Governors, Sir Mark Young and Sir David Trench, tried to introduce an element of democracy into the Hong Kong system of government. Mark's proposals were blocked and eventually killed stone dead by Unofficial members of the Legislative Council. Sir David's were quickly stifled to death by suspicious civil servants.
Public Consent
This sustained official and unofficial opposition to democratic politics in Hong Kong may strike some people as shocking. But I have not the least doubt that it had the whole-hearted consent of the entire business community, all of the professional classes and most of the general public. The reason was that it was generally believed that Hong Kong's spectacular economic progress after World War II would simply not have been possible if democratic politics had been allowed to develop.