It is the review in the 25th anniversary.
The memorial ceremony has been conducted in the past the 25
years. The participants and the hosts remain persistent because of their
conscience. The conscience of Hong Kong aligns to social justice and democracy.
Any ceremony is a symbolic action to present its own position but it is not the
only way to fulfil its own goals. Some said that it was insane to do the same
thing in order to get some new outcomes.
One of slogans is to develop a democratic China. What should
be done according to this goal? Is it possible by simply presenting this slogan
for 25 years? There are only two ways. It is either the political reform or
revolution. If we take a look in the world history, England took 500 years to
develop the England Bill of Rights after setting up the first constitution in
the world. Germany took not more than 60 years to make the first constitution.
Japan had almost completed its modernization to the western level within 20
years. However, the implementation of constitution of mainland China has not
yet completed since 1906. It is 108 years!
What is the reason for it? Democracy is not the local idea
in Chinese culture and Japanese culture. It is about its learning ability and
openness. Japanese get used to learn something new. They learnt the Chinese
culture in Tang Dynasty. They learnt the western culture 200 years ago. They
learnt medicine from Dutch. They learnt military from Germany. However, the
Chinese became more conservative after Sung Dynasty. There were many
foreigners, foreign food, foreign clothes and foreign entertainment imported in
Tang Dynasty. There were many great improvements on publishing, paper-making,
stencils, and firework in Sung Dynasty. Unfortunately, Chinese became salves
during Mongolian occupation. Their creativity is restricted to the dramas. The
evolution in society, politics, philosophy, science, education and navigation
was basically stopped since Ming Dynasty. Most of the documents about ancient
wisdom and knowledge were lost. It is a big contrast in the Christian Europe
where the church helped to transfer certain knowledge. Even though someone
claimed that Chinese were open when Buddhism were imported, the fact is that
Buddhism were localized and distorted in order to help promotion and to avoid
conflict with the traditional Chinese values – the family system. The imported
localized ideas were used to strengthen its own core values. It means that
improvement or evolution did not happen. When you studied Da-chiu, the
traditional worship ceremony in village for requesting removal of epidemic, you
will find that Taoist, Buddhist and other extra rituals are put together. All
the rituals become utilities. The consistency and rationality is simply
ignored.
Regarding to the learning ability, there are two different
aspects. The first one is like vocational training. We learn the existing
practical knowledge for craftsmanship. The second is like researching. We
create the new knowledge by doing experiments and critical thinking. Chinese
did take a long period of time for try-and-error to polish the craftsmanship.
But it was a wrong practice for the knowledge development especially when it
deals with the complicated problems like philosophy and social structure. Most
of the time the emperors rule the society by applying the infant stage of
certain philosophical hypothesis like The Five Natural Elements and the
theories in Yijing. The contradiction between phenomena and hypothesis was
almost ignored. The subjects were regarded as bad when deploying policies based
on the hypothesis. However, they did not realize the theories should be refined
or even revamped. It is very common that the official reports were falsified to
hide mistakes made by the official or to fulfil the hypothesis. You may find that
the accuracy of historical population statistics in mainland China was far
below the accuracy in Japan. This kind of practice still exists in mainland
China. Most of complaints in the society were suppressed in order to produce
the illusion of harmony.
The reason of low learning ability may be due to the
emphasis on insight or epiphany rather than step-wise learning and thinking
process. The sense on the environment and nature was highlighted. The reasoning
in philosophy was limited. It did not help further development. The ratio of
Chinese philosophers to the total population is far below than the ratio in
Germany, France and Britain. Such big gap can be found in the ratio of Nobel
laureates. This can be reflected on the cultural inertia. The cultural inertia
is determined by the complexity of culture and the openness of the people.
Democracy is neither just a process nor the political
system. It is a life style. It is a cultural adoption. The people must believe
in the principles behind the system. It is not a practice for the utilitarian.
It requires the fundamental change in the mindset. History tells us that it is
hopeless in mainland China. There is no other power greater than the government
when the government manipulates the people’s mind. Therefore the democracy in
Hong Kong should not depend on the democracy in mainland China.
Another slogan of the memorial ceremony is to ask the
government to make a proper judgement on the June 4 movement. This movement
aimed at fighting against corruption and democratization. The corruption groups
become more rich and powerful after 1989. These groups become the main pillars
of the society. All the social good and the power of advancement is greatly
reduced in this environment. The social ethics is lost. The spiritual support
is lost. The sense of belonging is lost. There are no rights and wrongs. There
are only power and money. The absolutism is applied to this society again and
again. The history is just repeated. It is simply naïve to request for proper judgement
in the western style because this style cannot be applied without other
strategic moves.
What should we do instead of just shouting the slogan? The
first step is to identify ourselves. We are Hongkongers who speak the
traditional Chinese and English. We believe in certain traditional family
values and humanities. We believe in certain inter-personal protocol. We
believe in rationality, social justice and rule by law. We believe in
democracy. We are more Chinese than the China mainlanders. We are more western
than the China mainlanders. However the social development and evolution has
almost stopped since 1997. As mentioned before, the disadvantages and defeats
in the traditional Chinese culture are the roots of the problem. Redevelopment
of Hwa-ha culture - the traditional Chinese culture is required in order to
maintain our own authority. The philosophical system of Sino-British can be
developed to lay the foundation of further modernization. Then the
naturalization process can be implemented in order to fight back the
money-oriented propaganda. It also helps define some principles for the
policy-making in order to recognize the importance of local economy and to
invite more talents outside China. All these can strengthen Hong Kong as the
new center of Hwa-ha culture. This strategic move in cultural and societal
development would create a good position for Hong Kong.
