Occupy Central plan amounts to tyranny of minority
Lau Nai-keung says subversive Occupy Central plan should be shot down
At several Lunar New Year receptions I attended over the past two weeks, a popular topic of conversation was the Occupy Central campaign proposed by University of Hong Kong law professor Benny Tai Yiu-ting.
Unlike Occupy Wall Street - a "leaderless resistance movement" of the 99 per cent against the "greed and corruption of the one per cent", as it proclaims on its website - Occupy Central is more a campaign than a movement. It is not concerned with social and economic inequality, but with one-man-one-vote elections.
The inspiration for this copycat act is the Arab spring, and nonviolence is a core principle.
Occupy Central hopes to rally at least 10,000 avowed (literally, they have to make solemn vows) supporters of a plan to implement universal suffrage fully in the 2017 chief executive election. Anything short of this unrealistic demand, and protesters will march to occupy key areas of the city until the police can no longer handle the numbers. Then, both the Hong Kong and central governments will be forced to bow to their demands.
The plan seems so ingenious and risk-free that it quickly won the support of all the dissident lawmakers who make it a point to veto any government proposal not to their entire satisfaction.
The planned protest amounts to a tyranny of the minority who want to hijack the will of the majority to force their way. But, with the general support of local and international media, it will command a lot of sympathy overseas.
What about the poor majority in Hong Kong? Any poll at any time will invariably indicate that democracy is low on most people's agenda. They care more about social and economic issues than enjoying unrestricted political rights. And few would buy the idea that universal suffrage is the panacea for all problems.
