香港獨立媒體 - Comments for "香港式不合作運動芻議"

Nope...

if everyone can join, then there's no different from the original LegCo with expanded membership. Since we have a difference in the idea, I will refer to mine as the "Forum" (so that I won't hijack your HKCC term.)

The point for the "Forum" is this: it allows clear separation of public policy discussion from the discussion of constitutional reform. As you probably aware, the continuum of political spectrum exists in both the "pro-democratic" camp and the "loyalist" camp. By establishing the Forum for the pro-democratic camp, we can systematically manage the differences in political ideology within the camp. This can also give HK people an opportunity go through the democratic exercise and demonstrate to the other 40% of the population the merit of the system. (I was referring to the usual 60-40 split between the two camp during election.)

I don't think we necessarily need to use moral superiority here... and I doubt pragmatic HK people put too much weight in moral superiority anyway. The only 'rule' for joining the Forum is their support for universal suffrage. Actually, I shouldn't say no to your question... if DAB actually supports universal suffrage, they can join too :-).

「總辭」是最後皇牌。能不用自然更好。

@mt, 您說的的確有可能發生。但建制派要考慮的是，如果真的這樣做的話，有可能激起更多人支持民主。

另外，我強調「總辭」是最後皇牌。能不用自然更好，但必須要有真會用的可能，才有震攝力（有點像核打擊後的核還擊）。

＠Ken Ho, Thanks for your inventive suggestions. However, I still think the qualification of membership to "Hong Kong Citizens' Council" must include

1. the person was popularly elected into LegCo in a recent election
2. the person has joined the general resignation from LegCo in protest of the no-progress of democracy development.

You suggestion has the risk of "water down" the sacrifice that is need to make Hong Kong Citizens' Council morally superior. Also, operationally there is a difficulty -- in your model, how do we handle those failed candidates who do not really support democracy (e.g. DAB's candidates)? If they want to join HKCC, can they?

Thanks!

Hong Kong Citizens' Council

想了許久。。。也許「香港人議會」的英文名應該叫做 Hong Kong Citizens' Council－－我不太喜歡把它叫做 Hong Kong People's Council

「人民」－詞，已被極權主義騎劫了，成為極權專政的代名詞，可惜可惜。。。

Let's innovate

Good try! (I'm in a hurry now, can't comment much. Also, shall need some time to digest this idea. Anyway, good try.)

How about this...

Instead of having elected member only, this shadow council could also include those who are in the election but didn't win a seat. The seat distribution and composition of this council would be according to the result of the official election. In essence, when a voter cast a ballot for the pro-democratic camp, they are using it to 1) support pro-democratic legislator AND 2) reflect their political ideology/values by affecting the composition of the shadow council. For example, say the pro-democratic camp has 3 tickets and each with 3 candidates. And let further assume that the shadow council for this particular district has a total of 6 positions. After the official the three tickets have the following ballot count:
Ticket A - 1000
Ticket B - 666
Ticket C - 333
and only Ticket A and B gathered sufficient ballots to win a seat in the LegCo. So with this scenario, the pro democratic camp will have 2 legislators in LegCo. In the shadow council, the positions would be distributed according to this election result, which means all 3 candidates in Ticket A will be in the shadow council, then 2 candidate from Ticket B and 1 candidate from Ticket C. That means the shadow council will have 2 elected member and 4 non-elected member with the elected member reflecting the wishes of the decision made in the shadow council.

I totally understand where you come from on the concept of "withdrawal" but I think this idea of shadow council can work with the current system as well. This way, the shadow council can remain democratic without needing the resources to run their own election. The LegCo representation will also maintain even if there is a shift of political ideology in the public. Let say Ticket A in the above example represent political left while Ticket C represent political right. There will still be 2 LegCo member if the public support more right leaning policies (as long as they still believe in democratic HK of course).

Obviously there's still quite a bit of problem. For one thing, the non-elected members still have to be paid some how if they are going to spend all of their time on the shadow council. And the elected member may get very busy to serve at both council (but then again, time spent on the shadow council can be use as a prep for LegCo.)

I am not picky on the name... I just used the word "Forum" as the english translation because I don't want to have confusion with the official LegCo.

正中下懷？

『到下一屆立法會選舉，泛民議員依樣參選』

怕的是到時的參選程序已經被留下的立法會議員改到天番地覆，甚至可能以後加入立法會也再不用參選？！

要有魅力型領袖

Ken,

I agree with most of what you said, especially the need of a charismatic leader -- someone like Obama (actually I would say more like Martin Luther King, Jr or Mahatma Gandhi)

However, there is one clarification. In my proposal, the members of the "Hong Kong Council" (*) have to be popularly elected in an election first (and then later resigned from their seat). In other words, they have the endorsement by the electors, they just choose to resign and fight in another arena.

換言之，泛民是以相對公平的香港選舉制度，來接受選民的授權；但以總辭，來拒絕合作於不公平的、被「分組投票」和「功能組別」兩大金剛箍廢了武功的立法會議；也拒絕合作於小圈子式的市長（特首）選舉。此為之香港式的不合作運動！

Thanks!

(* I do not seem to like a name like "Hong Kong People's Council" -- I guess the name "People" has been tainted with communist and totalitarian ideas that it does not convey its original meaning any more ...)

香港人議會

Interesting concept... a few thoughts.

1) Good thing about the Forum:
- It's definitely a great idea to have a Forum to actually discuss merits of policies (as oppose to drawing the dividing line between pro-democracy and loyalist). It can serve as a way for the pro-democratic camp to unite without unification. Decision on policies can be debated and decided democratically at the Forum and reflected in the voting at the official LegCo (even though it doesn't matter.) This can also help alleviate some of the pointless power struggle in certain political party by redirecting those energy to the debate of actual differences in political ideology. The Forum can also be used as a training ground for new political leaders.

- In addition to public policies, I think this forum should have a even wider scope. This forum should also discusses and examines constitutional issues to include higher ideals, and purposes. For example, in the United States Declaration of Independence, there is this line:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

And in the Canadian Constitution, there is this line regarding the role of parliament:

"...to make Laws for the Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada, in relation to all Matters..."

Certainly both statement can be applied quite universally (they are nothing special by themselves). The point is that, these values and purposes are deemed so important that they are singled-out and inscribed in the key document of those nations. I am sure there's a set of values that most people of Hong Kong hold true to, they are just not written in stone for all to reference and used as a guide. I don't think the Basic Law (the closest thing we have to a constitution) contain anything like that (correct me if I am wrong.)

High ideal doesn't feed hunger, I know, but it is something that needs to be established for everything else to make sense. Without a purpose, a constitution is merely a elaborate way to redistribute power "practically" (and often very cynically) which, much like most practical things, are short-sighted as they must fit the reality of the time. Without overarching and enduring high ideals/values/purposes, a constitution will crack under the pressure of accumulating contradictions that are generated over time as reality evolve. With a purpose, discussions on subjects like constitutional reform will actually be meaningful (i.e. how does the form of the legislature _serve the purpose_ of the government and the society) as oppose to a trivial selection of options from menu A, B or C (i.e. bicameral vs unicameral, proportional vs. mixed member proportional vs. first-past-the-post.)

2) Problems with the Forum... money will be the least of the problem
- It will need the support of all of the pro-democratic legislators, which could be a problem as existing legislator would worry about open policy discussion that may come back to haunt them during the official election.
- It will need support from media to report on the debate and discussion...
- It will need a lot of volunteers to support all the activities and all of this with the understanding that this exercise won't matter in the immediate/practical sense. You'll need another Obama :-).
- the chinese government/loyalist could misinterpret or smear this into a form of secession and call it an act of treason even when it's not.