ENG-1996 — Page 31

HONG KONG HISTORY

but a mature, well-balanced society. A society that has argued cogently and successfully for a steadily increasing say in the way that it is governed. A community that has developed institutions and procedures through which matters of public interest can be debated and settled openly, through which tensions and difficulties can be detected early and addressed, not repressed. A society in which law is respected because it is developed in harmony with changes in society, through a process that is understood and accepted by the community, and because it is upheld impartially. A city that is tolerant of different ideas, so is able to respond smoothly and promptly to changing conditions. A place that by safeguarding the liberties of every one of its citizens can be invigorated by each in return.

Hong Kong remains a community with many problems. We face distortions and disparities in housing, discrimination against the handicapped and new immigrants, demands to improve primary and secondary education. Doubtless when those matters have been addressed, others will have emerged to be debated and resolved. But there can be no doubt that Hong Kong has the ability, the ideas, the resources, the tested mechanisms of public administration, to deal competently with whatever conditions arise locally. The real difficulties for Hong Kong will only come from local laws and institutions being warped to suit external pressures and demands, and so becoming less sensitive to local needs and conditions. It is my hope, it must be the hope of anyone who cares for Hong Kong, that no such threat attains reality.

Hong Kong, for all its imperfections, is a window on the future, for China, for the region. It is an island of stability and social progress, a model for anyone seeking to build a peaceful, prosperous and successful community. It would be a tragedy for far more than Hong Kong if anyone who has a hand in shaping Hong Kong's history today is blinded to that by remembrance of things past. Looking back at history can be an uncomfortable experience at the best of times, but the dangers come not from forgetting but from making history a tool of ideology, from attempts to rectify a past that is already fixed, rather than to respond open-heartedly to what the present has to offer, to welcome reconciliation and the building of new things.

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