ENG-1993 — Page 32

A RARE ALCHEMY

In Hong Kong, we need to balance the public good with the private need, the will of the majority with the protection of the minority. And, happily, there are more and more champions emerging in our midst to defend the latter against the former. One has only to scan the reader's correspondence in a typical newspaper to see how much more freely nowadays the voice of individual reason makes itself heard in columns where once sheer indifference, or absence of opinion, marked the comfortable complacency of the silent majority.

If there is still an area in our society where an element of exclusion persists, where the distinction of 'us' from 'them' survives, it is in the attitude of the public towards its public service.

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And here, we have been in danger of forgetting our commonalty of interest. Because it has been fashionable elsewhere to regard civil servants as some kind of pampered, wholly separate species, the trend has been transplanted to Hong Kong, ignoring the reality that civil servants are first and foremost fellow citizens, with the same concerns and aspirations as anyone else. And, by definition, imbued with the identical qualities that make Hong Kong citizens so special.

Of these qualities, I would count ingenuity as especially beneficial to the new adminis- trative style. A quality upon which, as I have already remarked, heavy demands were placed when Hong Kong was inundated with refugees from China in the mid-century. And, again, much later, when we were confronted with a massive influx of illegal immigrants from Vietnam, who were arriving, from the late seventies to the end of the following decade, at the rate of hundreds if not thousands a day, to strain our overburdened resources.

Our ability to cope, to take the strain, to vault every hurdle placed in our path, has sometimes seemed as much a liability as an asset. And no more so than in the case of the Vietnamese boat people. At first, there was an international response to the problem, but when compassion fatigue set in, and the numbers failed to diminish, it became steadily easier to regard Hong Kong's ability to cope as evidence that this too was no more than just another straw on the back of an imperishable camel.

Much the same perception, time and again throughout history, has dogged our endeavours for fair treatment, whether in the form of requests for special recognition of our status as a developing country or in trade negotiations. Our record of achievement despite the obstacles has led others to believe we lead some kind of charmed existence, as though we were the economic equivalent of that renowned escape artist Houdini, capable of extricating ourselves from any predicament, however chained, manacled and encumbered.

A very dear friend of mine, born here and totally, irrevocably committed to this little but towering territory, told me how much she hates to hear the word challenge go hand in hand with Hong Kong, as though the two were synonymous. "It merely encourages others", she argued, “to inflict impossible demands on us because they think we thrive on them”.

She was right of course. But also wrong. Because, although they do not invite challenge, although they would do anything to avert yet another of its obstacles, the people of Hong Kong do thrive on adversity. Ask him why, and your typical citizen would shrug. He can't help it. It's in his nature.

This is why I regard myself as fortunate for having been privileged to share the Hong Kong experience. And why I shall forever carry with me the memory, not so much of a place as of a very special people.

URBAN COUNCE PUDEC LIVRAND

REFERENCE LIBRARY

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