Puppet with a bowtie

Pin It

I normally keep my rantings on politics to my Chinese blog, which is mostly about all the crap that goes on in Taiwan. But what transpired this past Thursday infuriated me so much that I had to vent my anger here.

During a session in Legco, our bowtie-wearing puppet tried to downplay the events on June 4, 1989, saying that - I'm paraphrasing here since he spoke in Cantonese - it happened years ago, the country's economy has seen great progress, and that the HK people would evaluate the country's development objectively.

WTF?! Hello?! What does economic progress in the last 20 years have anything to do with the government suppressing peaceful demonstrations by students, resulting in the deaths of hundreds (perhaps thousands)? Are we now making a direct link between the two, saying that by stopping the demonstrations with the killing of students, the country's economy was able to grow at a fast pace?  And are we now advocating the practice of sacrificing the few for the good of the many, even if it involves killing people? How would Bowtie like it if HE were on the receiving end of this judgement?

Then he has to gall to add that his opinion represents that of the general population in Hong Kong. Dude, just because you were elected by a small group of privileged people (some of whom themselves were not really elected by the general public) with the blessing of Beijing - don't let that fool you into believing for one minute that you are actually a democratically-elected leader. You're a puppet, and the puppet masters live in Beijing. I had hoped that despite being a puppet - it's in the job description, after all - that Bowtie would be an improvement over his predecessor. I no longer harbor any illusions to that extent.

The Tiananmen Massacre happened, 20 years ago. I watched it on TV from halfway around the world. I remember. The government decided that they liked staying in power, and killing a bunch of students (and hoodlums) was no big deal. They were dead wrong, and I and thousand like me will make sure that people around the world do not forget what happened.