Hong Kong: ‘World City’ or Racist?
Cyril Pereira | November 09, 2011
Pepito
Mamaril, a 60-year-old Filipino, flew into Hong Kong on Nov. 2 to
attend the wake
of his sister-in-law. For an already emotionally
fraught visit, what happened next was both traumatic and unnecessary.
Mamaril
was detained in an Immigration Department cell for hours and deported
the
same evening to Manila, thus doubly distressing him by treating him
as a criminal. Hong Kong Immigration is not obliged to give reasons for
its decisions.
Racial discrimination on the streets is one
thing. Having that infect official discharge of
duty by the uniformed
services raises serious questions about where Hong Kong is
heading as a
society. Hong Kong has always prided itself on strict observance of the
letter and spirit of the law.
If a Hong Kong man was refused
entry into Manila to attend the funeral of his close
relative, one can
imagine the outraged calls to the Hong Kong government and the
Chinese
Embassy to remonstrate with the Philippine authorities for insensitive
high-handedness.
The farce was further compounded by an
immigration officer who spoke on the phone to Mamaril’s older brother,
the husband of the deceased, a Hong Kong permanent resident,
in
Cantonese, to which the hapless man at the other end could not respond.
Was the officer incapable of seeking clarification in English?
If not, what is he doing in a public service whose role is to process
international visitors?
To top it all off, the final official
justification was a declaration of classic bureaucratanese: “The
deportation order has already been made. This is just a one-off. If
your uncle wants
to come back, he can always come back to Hong Kong.”
Ethnic
minorities constitute 5 percent of Hong Kong’s seven million residents,
95 percent
of whom are ethnic Chinese. The minority 5 percent comprise
Europeans, South and Southeast Asians and about 250,000 domestic
helpers (largely Filipinos and Indonesians).
Hong Kong has
never been known for crass and overt racism. If at all, it is subtle.
It takes
the form of some landlords denying people of color housing,
some taxi drivers refusing to take such passengers and refusal to
employ non-Chinese in white-collar jobs or in underpaying them. It
shows at restaurants where a family sits to lunch excluding the
domestic helper who has to manage unruly children but is not invited to
share the
communal meal.
Hong Kong’s police and immigration
officers are by and large respected for their courtesy,
helpfulness and
adherence to process. You never have to bribe them to merely do their
jobs, which is endemic in Indonesia, the Philippines and all of the
South Asian countries.
It is therefore all the more worrying that this high standard of professional conduct by the uniformed services may be eroding.
Recently
there has been public anxiety about the prospect of “Right of Abode”
being extended to domestic helpers who were previously excluded from
such benefits despite meeting the seven-year residency requirement.
Domestic helpers are also excluded from Hong Kong’s minimum wage law.
Crafty
politicians jumped on a public anxious about economic contraction and
high
inflation to scare-monger shamelessly. There is no faster way to
project political
credentials than by frightening locals about the
threat of job losses and school and
hospital facilities being swamped
by an immigrant horde waiting at the gates.
The government
provided no leadership in clarifying the administrative tools already
available to control permanent residency on several criteria. It
allowed disinformation to reach hysterical levels and for opportunistic
politicians to fuel paranoia.
It suited the government and
pro-Beijing compatriots that the Civic Party and Democrats sympathetic
to the legal challenge were politically disadvantaged before the
District
Council elections held on Sunday.
Regina Ip, who
peddled the seriously flawed Article 23 Security Bill, made a dramatic
visit
to Beijing to lobby for a ruling on the Right of Abode question,
which was raised by
domestic helper Evangeline Vallejos, who sought a
review after having lived continuously
in Hong Kong for 25 years.
Vallejos
was granted leave to apply for right of abode by Hong Kong’s Court of
First
Instance, which held that the Immigration Ordinance that excludes
domestic helpers is illegal as it contradicts Hong Kong’s
mini-constitution.
The government expressed disappointment and is appealing.
The
Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong said
that if 125,
000 eligible domestic helpers were granted Right of Abode,
unemployment would soar from
3.5 percent to 7 percent — and if spouses
were allowed in, it would rocket to 10 percent.
Hong Kong is
obliged by China’s ratification of the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination to introduce specific
legislation to curtail racial discrimination. The UN Committee on
Economic, Social and Political Rights has criticized Hong Kong’s lack
of legislation prohibiting racial discrimination in the private sector
as a breach of its obligations.
After a decade of laggardly
discussion in the Legislative Council, the government finally
introduced a Race Discriminatory Ordinance in July 2008, which came
into effect in 2009. It excludes new immigrants from the mainland and
exempts the administration itself from
the provisions of its own law
designed to criminalize race discrimination.
The government
maintains that as mainland immigrants are Han Chinese, the same as
Hong
Kong residents, they technically cannot suffer race discrimination.
That can only be classed as “social” discrimination which is outside
the definition of the new law.
The most virulent
discrimination visited on any group by Hong Kong society is on
mainland
immigrants in housing, schools, hospitals, employment and through
exclusion
from social interaction.
By excluding new mainland
immigrants from anti-discrimination protection, the Hong
Kong
government allows the continuation of such uncivil treatment. It
defeats the intent
of the law. It makes a mockery of calls for
“patriotic” education by sycophantic politicians. And the logic for the
administration exempting itself from the law is to prevent “frivolous
claims” for compensation from minorities seeking to “make money” by
suing the
government for alleged discrimination.
All of which
sums up the lackadaisical attitude of the administration about ethnic
and
social discrimination in Asia’s “World City.”
Asia Sentinel
Cyril Pereira is a former director of operations at the South China Morning Post.
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/hong-kong-world-city-or-racist/477156
