There's a recent trend that is worth pondering about: the conservatives are trying to show that there are just as many people in Hong Kong who are satisfied with not having "real general election" (RGE/真普選) in 2017 as people who want it.
If there are equal number of Hong Kong people who “want RGE” vs. those “can live without RGE”, what should be the stance of pro-democratic people who do want it? Real democracy is built upon respecting the many voices in the society. If it turns out as a society only half of us wants freedom and true democracy and other half doesn't care or doesn't want it, should we then accept that our society as a whole is not willing to fight for democracy? Or do we try to convince our other half?
Here's my view: As a society we shouldn't just do a show of hands of who wants what, but rather have a conversation about what we want for our future as a whole. I think this conversation is very much lacking right now. While the two camps (conservative and pro-democratic) keep shouting out what they want but not converging, the people in the middle and those who are not politically-savvy just keep eating peanuts (食花生) and watching, and if recent news is any indication, seem to be even moving towards the conservative view of "pocket the suffrage vote first" (袋左一人一票先), even when the vote is not representative -- this is exactly the position the conservatives want them to be in (lewd puns intended), and it is very bad news.
Simply put, I don't think we discuss with our fellow Hong Kongers enough. The bulk of our efforts are spent on talking to the government, which as we all know is wasted energy. It's only when as a campaign we get to the tipping point of creating a popular censuses about RGE (as in anti-state-education／反國教 before), that we have real room to negotiate with the government.
The digital referendum (電子公投) that Occupy Central (佔中) organized was very significant as it successfully nudged our society to talk about Hong Kong's "true public consensus" (真正民意). However, the conversation cannot end here, and the digital referendum cannot replace talking, reasoning and negotiating among Hong Kong people regarding "true general election".
In response to the heavy firing of conservative campaigns these days, I see a lot of Facebook posts that use sarcasm to poke fun at the people who signed the anti-Occupy-Central forms or showed up in the 817 rally. While I understand the underlying frustration and I am tempted to do that myself, I think this is really a missed opportunity. It's not about "us" versus "them"! It's about Hong Kong's future as a whole!
We need to initiate that conversation, not merely do a show-hand (晒冷). That's because the conservatives can give us a taste of our own medicine and show-hand as well as seen on 817. Meanwhile, the conversation about political reform is getting nowhere, and the middle is about ready to give up.
Instead, we should be talking with people who are in the middle and people who are not politically-informed to build solidarity through reasoning and negotiation. And we need to hear, respect and address their concerns as well. Their opinions and stance are just as important as ours.
I seriously think the pro-democratics should start a campaign called "Hong Kong: the next 10 years".
In the campaign, we should outline what we want for the future as a society, e.g., good education system, upward mobility, affordable housing, freedom of speech and rallying, impartial and independent legal system, economic development outside of real estates and retails, public space conservation, clean environment, etc.
Then, we should compare whether we can archive all these goals with and without "real general election".
What will happen is the middle and the undecided will start considering what is better for them in the future, and subsequently reconsider their position for supporting or not supporting RGE.
I think the pro-democracy camp will never succeed unless the majority of Hong Kong people understand the full implications of having vs. not having RGE, and rationally support what the pro-democratics are fighting for because it will mean a better future for all of us in Hong Kong.
Without this rational, well-considered consensus in society, our fight for RGE will never become a reality.
With anti-occupy-central, what the conservatives are saying is that you pro-democratic people don't have the majority. Your view doesn't represent our society.
We need to convince fellow Hong Kongers that RGE is better for their and their kids' future. That's the only way we can get to the tipping point.
After all, that's exactly what the conservatives are doing right now: sway people in the middle to their side with misleading arguments and flawed reasoning. And they are very good at it too. From the news these days, you can see how they skillfully craft Hong Kong's collective conversation and make it sound like their view is the irreversible final decision. Shouldn't we be doing the same but in reverse? Shouldn't we engage fellow Hong Kongers in an ernest and intelligent discussion for a better future? That's why we want RGE in the first place, right? We want RGE because we want a brighter future that we will all have a real say in -- never forget our original intent!
As they say in Mad Men: "If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation." That includes changing the context and framework of the conversation.
I personally think there is a lot of room for the pro-democratics to come up with creative, viral campaigns to change the conversation. I do mean a dialog, not preaching (i.e., assuming we know all the answers). Like posting to society a simple question: Where will your kids be 10 years later without RGE？There is a lot to talk about.
That's the real conversation: not "who supports what right now", but "if we get down this path of not having GRE, what will become of us in the future"? The government has already created enough problems for us in the past 17 years that we can easily reason through and see that without real democracy, things will deteriorate even faster. Without a mean to elect into office a Chief Executive who will look after Hong Kong's long-term interests, in 10 years we will have: a broken education system that brain-washes our kids, no upward mobility, rich getting richer and poor getting poorer, housing so expensive that most of us can only live in coffins, no freedom of speech or rallying whatsoever, a legal system that covers the rich and the powerful instead of protecting the rights of the average person, no Hong Kong economy but only real estates and retails serving the "Greater Kwongtong economy", no public space, polluted and crammed environment full of malls and sky-blocking private high-rises...... This bleak picture is looming so close upon our immediate reality that it practically paints itself. Really, this dialog is much more important than calculating how many people showed up in the rallies!
Don't say everyone should know this. What we pro-democratic (and sometimes arrogant) people assume to be common sense, is not necessarily the consensus in our society. As a society we are still infants. We need to grow up and realize we share a society with people who are much more conservative than us. And we need to develop a habit of discussing things openly - especially with people who don't share our views. Only when we are able to have internal discussions that Hong Kong has the basis and conditions for a true democracy. If we cannot use logic and reasoning to convince the majority of people in our society that true democracy is the better way, we will sadly but most definitely lose to the rich and the powerful who do convince the majority with their misdirecting rhetorics.
In other words, if we can't build consensus with our fellow Hong Kongers, we can't really blame our failure all on the oppressive regime. In a way we fail ourselves.
While the conservatives can abuse all the newspapers and media in Hong Kong to suddenly talk about nothing but Lai Chi Ying's political contributions, why can't we average Hong Kong people use every digital and non-digital channel we can access to talk about "Hong Kong: the next 10 years - what kind of Hong Kong do you want?"
Change the conversation!!