XN000022-1996-11-02+03 — Page 10

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I doubt whether many of them worried much about the subjects which seem to cause so much controversy these days freedom of speech, the rule of law, accountable government. Life was a bit more basic. It tends to be the case everywhere that economic and social development creates its own political agenda. Look elsewhere in Asia. And I suppose that 1997 contributes to this process, too.

Most of the people in that photo must still be alive. Not all of them, of course, will be in Hong Kong. Some will have emigrated. But I should think the majority are still here. And still worrying about welfare issues.

But those issues will have changed a bit. How to afford to buy a flat here on the sort of income which would make it pretty straightforward in a lot of other places? How to get granny into a specially built flat of her own or even a care and attention home? How to get retrained to move from a factory job to an office one? How to brush up your English or Mandarin? How to help your student children pay their way through college? Can you manage a holiday in Malaysia this year, or a trip to visit relatives in the States?

Naturally, there are still some basic needs which have to be met.

But as absolute standards have risen for nearly everyone, the social agenda has become more complicated and more sophisticated. That doesn't mean that solving our social problems has suddenly become cheaper. In the debate that's going on elsewhere about Hong Kong's future needs, I'm struck by the fact that no one seems to think we're a welfare state which can strip down its social programmes. We seem to have put all that nonsense behind us.

The people in the photo are likely overall to have rather different concerns and worries than they had all those years ago. That's because of what I mentioned earlier - the politics of progress, and it's also because of 1997, or rather some of the things that are said about 1997.

Is that a groundless assertion? Is that importing politics into areas where politics was never previously thought about, never discussed. That's sometimes the charge. "Forget about that freedom stuff. No one is interested." Not true. The big survey that was carried out by one of our universities this summer suggested that fewer than 1 in 10 of those questioned worried about the effect on their standard of living in 1997. But almost 6 in 10 worried about the effect that 1997 would have on their political freedoms and their civil liberties, and about the prevalence of corruption in Hong Kong. Another poll this week showed a similar order of priorities.

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