What Killed Us Last Week!

Last week, HK had a Typhoon 8 so, since we seem to enjoy only one panic a week, that blew away all the regular "panic energy" but something did happen that genuinely required 'threatdown' ... and it didn't happen.

Hong Kong's chief justice resigned due to "unbearable pressure from Beijing". Apparently, Our Northern Brethren have been unofficially Undermining and Overturning within our justice system for some time, and are now demanding a regulatory say in all trials and court rulings. Also, and I don't know if this is connected, a high ranking judge 'fell' from a high-rise building last week.

But that's not all. After the chief justice resigned, Beijing demanded it choose our next Chief Justice ... and added that, in future, China will interpret our Basic Law for us.

The Basic Law is HK's mini constitution that China signed before the Handover. I've read this document and it clearly states that "when the English version and the Chinese version come into dispute, the English version supersedes." This is because Chinese calligraphy is hideously unstable and anything can be made to mean anything, so ... by demanding they interpret they can make our constitution say anything they want, and thus they can do whatever they want.

AND no one has challenged Beijing's say-so ... so there's the end of our independent judiciary and our constitutional 'separation of powers'!

The only comment made to me by a Hong Konger on this was a very sour "I thought those judges had more courage than that. Whatever happened to fighting back?"


You will recall that, when I first arrived in HK, Beijing was being very scary, and then, when HK went all feisty on them, they backed off saying something about 'getting hearts and minds' first. Well, I think they're now thinking they have 'our hearts and minds' and so are starting the attack again.

Or is the entire thing over already?

Sunday, we had our big China 60 Celebration, and, from behind the crowd, I thought I saw something that made me feel sick to my stomach:
I thought it was the HK Police Force marching behind the Chinese flag. When I finally went out onto the road for a clearer shot ...
... it turned out to be another group entirely:

No idea who these guys are!
Should check, shouldn't I?

Oh, and I should mention that, right at the rear of the march, were representatives of China's ethnic minorities. It was good to see them there, considering how the Han always claim to be the only Chinese in China, but I was saddened by how they, the most colourful, were relegated to the back.

But back to the subject to hand:

Sometime ago, German Michael said to me "England has always had so many great queens, all who left the world a legacy of everything around today that's good, but you never hear anything about Queen Anne. What did she do?"

I replied "Nothing, as far as I know. She was a fat lesbian who lay around on a sofa all day, and was forever starting wars - with the Dutch of all people - to get rid of the husbands of the women she wanted to seduce. I think her legacy was just a type of bent-leg chair."

And that's when I realised I knew practically nothing about Queen Anne and decided to actually start reading about her ... and what I discovered was the most amazing, brilliant woman, a politician like no other, who actually thought about Governorship and Rule, and how these should best instigated, and it was SHE who brought about Separation of Powers, Two-Party Rule, and Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Protest, and everything else that's good and decent about Power and Rule, and - in the final analysis - makes it bearable!

Her legacy was so much more than a bent-leg chair. It was a gift to the world like no other: the idea that NO GROUP should be allowed to become too powerful, and that there should be checks and measures in place to ensure that it be kept so.

And the consequence of her reign was the entire Age of Enlightenment, where science and medicine, thought, freedom, literature, in fact EVERYTHING, flourished and our Modern Age was ushered in. Just a fat lesbian indeed!!! How on earth did I ever think that? Queen Anne really doesn't have a good PR agent does she.

Hong Kong, until now, lived within the legacy of Queen Anne ... but I guess that's all over now. Without a first rate FIGHTBACK, it's goodbye to everything good about our Governorship and Rule, our Separation of Powers, our Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Protest, and everything else that's good and decent about Power and Rule.

So that's my choice of Threatdown for last week:

THREATDOWN

The fact China never had a Queen Anne!