In Hong Kong media yesterday morning (Monday 1 Sept, 2014) Headline Daily reported in its columns, under the title, “NPC sets framework for chief executive election”, that deputy secretary-general Li Fei of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee urged Hong Kong people to discuss the chief executive electoral reform rationally. He said the reform would bring democratic development, stability and prosperity to Hong Kong while safeguarding state sovereignty, security and protection in terms of the system on the mainland.
No one I meet seems to believe him. Not only that, there is rampant negativity abroad about this issue and other political-social phenomena current in Hong Kong. When I offer an alternative view, granted from a non-Chinese I am ‘shot down’… Either I am not meeting the right people, reading the more balanced press or I am just a know-nothing who has been living in the territory since 1980.
Surely it is well understood that these are the mechanisms of the Chinese Communist Party which rules over today’s China. The same Party that gave Hong Kong a new lease of life after all the like-negativity around 1997 which caused many to flee Hong Kong – only to dribble back again on seeing the normalcy.
Mao proposed a New Democracy. The Chinese Communists know where they are headed and have a blueprint for the future and it is defined in the New Democracy.
Yes, it is in such machine-like arrogance that the danger lies, quite like religious fanaticism, that cannot see beyond its own nose. Nationalist fundamentalism, is a regressed form of
the same tendency. The countermeasure can be taken in its simple form from China’s past, in the reasonable humanism of practical Chinese thought. But the structure of the concept has to be thought through and the methodology systematized.
Humanism and the spirit of reasonableness are linked with their sense of humour and also a sense of proportion – ruling out fanaticism of any kind. The word democracy can also be brought out of the cupboard here too.
So far, only the democratic form has been promulgated, the spirit has been entirely lacking. Yet, China has the spirit of democracy – this is why Mao spoke of the New Democracy.
Ancient Chinese democracy was formed around village self-government with laissez-faire controls from the Central Government. It foundered on mis-education, a class based society, corruption and by the imposition of centralised taxation and control – in effect, by mismanagement.
Things are a great deal further forward today. Also, the possibilities of communications are available, if still managed by monopolies for profit and control – in a word – power. Many external things have changed for the good, the problem lies with the attitudes, the behaviour.
The promise of humanism is precisely in the Humanization of Man. Humanize Man and the entirety of associated trappings are humanized. It is the next step to take the New Democracy to Communism and the only way it will work.
Also, it is the message to the capitalist countries, where to Humanize Capitalism renders the word capitalism back into lower case and it is normalized. A capital based economy no: a capital pooled economy, yes. Redefined, capitalism is useful. Communism, which places the value of the community – en masse – as the first priority, and labels it The State, has to be modified so the human being is given central value; that is humanism.
In practise this means a co-operative system of economy and of politics. It also means that the human being is recognised whatever the race, creed or colour.
The New Democracy sees a One Earth system, just like the old Chinese Universe but the educated Chinese see beyond their nationalistic tendencies and include the whole of mankind in this One Earth. It has always been said that Communism has to be a universal system to work, and that holds true.
This may not necessarily mean ‘the universe’ ie., the whole planet, it can be ‘their universe’, their part of the planet, but that would mean a permanent situation of tension between the different worlds, just as we have today, more ideally without the ragged edges but there is an answer that overcomes those limitations.
People outside of the Communist brotherhood thought this meant an exclusivity, as did many fellow travellers who never gave active consideration to Communism and how it would work. The answer lay in the notion of a world society envisaged with a common denominator: Man – but Man as human being.
Man, defined in universalistic humanism as a socio-historical phenomenon, simply, a product of his or her social and historical conditions, determines the rate of change depending in great degree on the intention.
Then Man becomes sufficiently independent of nature and stands apart and cannot be linked with that unthinking violence seen in the affairs of the jungle, or the desert, where survival is paramount and Madam Fate plays a major role. That was the Dark Ages, with settlement, leading to the Feudal Ages.
The methodology of humanism is active non-violence which works to displace from power every form of violence; whether physical, economic, racial, ideological, religious or cultural.
In the machine-like mentality Man is ‘naturally’ violent but the humanist doctrine opposes this, saying that with the intention of non-violence then Man is not violent.
The inhumane systems of all countries, whether capitalist or communist, and everything in between, are the direct cause of people’s stress. The pressures and forms of violence openly or discreetly practised resulting in people’s general violence. It is the violence of the systems that are the problem – the root of the problem – the reaction of people is symptomatic only and points at that root.
Give anyone the possibility of contentment and a proper education with future and there is no violence!
The New Democracy was not intended as the final solution, but to lead to peaceful co-existence among all people. To achieve this there has to be a new mentality and only today is the means available; the technology, the communications, the sufficient number of educated, the surpluses, the awareness and the rising power of the young in spirit – that is usually coincident with the young of age.
In ancient China, in Confucianism, there was the idea of Rule in Virtue, where mankind was taken to be originally pure and non-violent and where the problem was seen to be the environment and the system as agents that sullied. In Buddhism also, the Buddha Mind is originally pure, like a mirror. The effort involved in self-realisation is – once cleaned – to keep the mirror free of dust. Bear in mind that the Buddha is Man not god.
The Chinese Communist propaganda machine, that made the entire Communist experiment work, now has to be placed at the service of humanizing. Whereas it has been used for the external work of good personal hygiene, birth control and the like in its everyday applications, it also deals with qualification of the entire population of China in regard to the doctrine of communism, the works of Marx-Leninism, the works and thought of Mao Tse-tung and now Deng. Also, very importantly, to inspire communists with the fire and brimstone of Communist idealism. Well, a reorientation has to be given.
The Beijing government is not going to allow the mess apparent in so many economically developed and supposed democratic countries to appear in Hong Kong to spoil what has been achieved under its relatively light rule thus far.
There is a hysteria prevalent among those taken in by this stolen concept “Occupy Central” so immediately demanding and not conducive to reaching any far-sighted and practical solution. The pan-democrats have been charmed by their own rhetoric and bids to outdo each other. Me thinks there is too much gullibility among them and not enough gumption.
