Democracy is worth fighting for, if only politicians knew how
But their childish antics in Legco do not inspire confidence in their ability to govern
Hell, as the place of eternal torment and punishment, repeats itself endlessly. If there is something hellish about the chamber of the Legislative Council building, it is because what takes place there day after day - the filibustering, the name-calling, the swearing, the pelting, the glass-breaking and the use of the silliest of delaying tactics - begs the question: is there no end to this?
If this is political theatre, it is time to bring down the curtain. The pan-democrats and radicals act like children determined to give everyone hell because they cannot get their favourite toy. This would be just childish if it didn't affect the lives of so many people and jeopardise the future of the city.
When lawmakers fail so miserably to do their jobs and make such an embarrassing spectacle of themselves in front of the entire city, what results is not just a stack of bills and funding requests. Public confidence in the government's ability to do its job erodes.
Citizens begin to lose faith in their political representatives, as well as the belief that their own actions have a positive effect on political outcomes. As this happens, some may vent their frustrations by taking to the street.
Most people, however, simply withdraw from taking part in the now thoroughly discredited political process.
This is the worst possible way I can think of to prepare Hongkongers for democracy, a goal that the pan-democrats and radicals seem intent on achieving, apparently at all costs.
Democracy is not just about choosing the government through free and fair elections. It is also about the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life. How can we encourage people to take part in politics if we make the process obnoxious and hopelessly inefficient?
In the words of Winston Churchill, "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time". Yet, watching our democracy-mad lawmakers screw up, one is reminded of how inefficient the system can be in the wrong hands.
After all, democracy is not a way of governing, just a way of determining who shall govern. That is exactly why, as George Bernard Shaw famously said, it is a "device that ensures we shall be governed by no better than we deserve".
This is not to say we should prefer authoritarianism. In the 1930s, travellers to Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia and Mussolini's Italy often returned mesmerised by the sense of common purpose they saw and lamented the comparative weakness and indecisiveness of their own democracies. How wrong they were.
An autocracy can build high-speed railway lines seemingly overnight, while it may take a democracy a decade to decide that the project is necessary. But no other form of government provides a better guarantee of the freedom and dignity of its citizens than a liberal democracy whose reason for being is the protection of individual rights.
So there is nothing wrong with fighting for democracy. If only our politicians knew how.
