Don’t get overawed (Lee Yee)

On the day that the National Security Law was passed by the National People’s Congress, I got a message of a friend from afar: “Are you secure?” I answered without even giving it a thought: ”No one is secure in a secure country.”

When maximal authority of a country is realized, individual rights are so minimal that no one is secure. Even in China where the plebs would answer with a big NO, are people in power secure? Was Liu Shaoqi, the late Chairman of the People’s Republic of China persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution, secure? In the past 70 years, have most of the people in power of different levels been secure in view of the miseries they have encountered? Was and is Jiang Zemin, the former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party(CCP), secure? Is Xi Jinping secure?

The befalling of the National Security Law is likened to “the second handover of Hong Kong”. An online article points out “the difference between the first and second handover” is that “the people who resent the CCP in 2020 is countless times more than those in 1997, and in terms of reputation, conduct and calibre, the people who espouse the second handover in 2020 are not even comparable to those who espouse the first handover in 1997”. Another says that “Hong Kongers belonging to no country before handover used to live in peace and work with contentment”, and asks “where their homes are when they belong to a nation”? In China, even the movers and shakers evacuate their relatives by fair means or foul from their country to a strange place they call home in the West.

The Articles of the Hong Kong version of National Security Law was not announced until it took effect, so that Carrie Lam was unable to utter a word about the details of it on the day of implementation of the Law. Legislation as such is preposterous. The full text of it is awash with equivocal meanings of unfinished wordings, which is so jaw-dropping that even a layman would ask: What kind of legal document is that? Zhao Sile, a journalist from China, said online: “The Law is typically from China because the laws of China have always been ambiguous and ill-defined”. She continued, “How are they enforced? Arbitrary and flexible provisions are made by different administrative departments which then inflate in power unceasingly.”

Regarding the abovementioned, it is almost pointless to delve into every Article of it for clarifying under what circumstances does one offend and not offend the Law, and where the grey areas are. Take those dubbed the “four ringleaders of Hong Kong independence” and “gang of four that jeopardizes Hong Kong” by Chinese media as an example. While they are known to be opposed to Hong Kong independence and even anti-localist, and did not advocate the protest last year, China deems them to be guilty of all of the above by dismissing the actuality. Subsequently, some budding political groups disbanded in no time. However, if the CCP decides to recriminate, on no account can they escape. That being said, it is possible that China will sit on the issue of Hong Kong independence provisionally in an attempt to dilute the sanctions against it from overseas. With the arbitrariness and flexibility of laws of China and its enforcement, no one is secure, nor one is doomed to committing a crime. Falling into a trap is simply akin to running into a car accident.

Looking at the National Security Law, Hong Kongers, who are accustomed to living under the rule of law, will naturally get frightened and anxiety-ridden, and try to wash their hands of sensitive issues. They think they will stay secure by stopping short of slogans with content of “secession of state” or disbanding a political group. In reality, if the CCP wants to get you in trouble, it does not have to leverage the National Security Law. Manipulated by the CCP, the SAR government can do and will do whatever stipulated by the National Security Law. Is the Law retroactive? Wasn’t the disqualification sentence for Leung Chunghang and Yau Waiching, former Legislative Council members, retroactive? And the judge that brought in the verdict based on retroactivity was Andrew Cheung Kuinung, the next Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal to-be. Does it make sense to contemplate upon the situation differently before and after the enactment of the National Security Law?

Now that the CCP can do whatever it wants. Is the enactment of the National Security Law an unnecessary move? As Chinese officials said, the Law, like a sword dangling above Hong Kongers, is to get them overawed and frightened.

Scared? Surely. Yet, one should have been scared much earlier on. If one had been scared, one would have arranged for fleeing from Hong Kong. Those who choose to stay should not let fear take control of them.

I have always remembered what British writer Salman Rushdie wrote after September 11 attacks in 2001: “Amid the conflict between liberty and security, we should always opt to stand with liberty without remorse even though we make a wrong choice. How do we beat terrorism? Don’t get overawed and don’t let fear take control of you even though you are scared.”

The late U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” If we let fear take control of us, we give up liberty.