English translation of Chinese original:

http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/news/art/20140826/18845178

The rationale of Occupy Central is the pursuit of justice

Li Fei, chairman of the Basic Law Committee, expressed by far the strongest views amongst Beijing officials on Hong Kong's constitutional reform after having met with delegates from various sectors. He said, "A simple logic underlying certain viewpoints in Hong Kong is that people who confront the central authorities should be allowed to run for Chief Executive through universal suffrage. This is not possible under the Basic Law. They threatened to use civil disobedience acts such as Occupy Central if their requests for so-called 'genuine universal suffrage' and 'international standards' are not met." He questioned, "What the heck is the rationale behind that?"

The weak logic underlying Li Fei's statement is that people whom the central authorities do not trust should be excluded from Chief Executive elections. People in Hong Kong who are asking for universal suffrage have never meant to confront the central authorities. Nor do we ask that people from any particular parties be allowed to run for election or get elected. What we want is simply a fair and just electoral system so that the Chief Executive thus elected will have the necessary legitimacy to resolve deep-rooted conflicts and bring about better governance in Hong Kong.

In order to achieve its purpose, Beijing has imposed a lot of constraints on the Basic Law stipulations. Although civil nomination is a part of the Chief Executive electoral method selected by participants in the civil referendum, Beijing simply gave the final verdict that civil nomination is in violation of the Basic Law without ever offering any convincing legal justifications. Even if civil nomination is rejected, the electoral system still needs to conform to the international standard of universal suffrage of providing voters with a genuine choice. The room for maneuver between civil nomination and international standards, though very narrow, does exist. The stance of OCLP has been that Occupy Central, an act of civil disobedience, will happen only if the proposal does not conform to international standards. But now Beijing is trying to force the people of Hong Kong into settling for a Chief Executive electoral system that includes pre-screening of candidates and saying that if it is vetoed, the electoral reform failure will be the fault of the pan-democrats.

In response to Li Fei's question, "What the heck is [Occupy Central’s] rationale?", my answer is: It is the pursuit of justice. In return, I would like to ask him: What the heck is the rationale behind accusing people who pursue equal political rights of being rioters? Maybe Li Fei's response will be: Might is right. Li Fei also strongly criticized Occupy Central for "organizing large-scale illegal activity, paralyzing Hong Kong's international financial centre, and hurting Hong Kong's prosperity and stability." He said, "If we yield to the threat of radical and illegal activities, we will only invite more and bigger illegal activities. Never again will there be days of peace in Hong Kong or in China." He added that Beijing is determined to deal with any disasters in a decisive manner and make a historic choice.

What I can say is that Li Fei has completely misunderstood the nature of Occupy Central. By way of analogy, suppose there is a fire in a building in the middle of the night. While everybody is asleep, someone has noticed the fire and tries to wake up the occupants by ringing the alarm. The watchman on duty, instead of trying to put out the fire, blames that person for causing panic and chaos, making it difficult for people to sleep. As the fire keeps on burning, the watchman goes on to mobilize the occupants to stand against the person who rings the alarm, and is determined to stop him from making any more noise.

Even if the alarm is stopped and the people can go back to sleeping and dreaming again, the fire is still burning. Some may say this is just a false alarm as there is no fire in the first place. Everything is fine except the alarm.

The real problem is not the alarm but the fire. It is still burning even if there is no alarm. The alarm sounds because of the fire, which is the root cause of the problem. The person who rings the alarm is very loud indeed, but he is not trying to create a disturbance. He is actually trying to warn the occupants rather than fleeing himself. What is absurd is that determination, courage and decisiveness are not used to put out the fire but against the one who notices the fire and rings the alarm. I cannot help but ask: What the heck is the rationale behind that?

If there is nobody who is willing to sacrifice himself to keep watch on society and the country, leaving only yes-men around our leaders, how can there be days of peace in our society and our country? Can there be any hope? Perhaps but can only be false harmony built on sand. I have very high expectations of Beijing officials and believe they can do better than this.

Benny Tai

Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong