I would disagree about the time-line. People cannot wait that long. What needs to be done has to happen quickly, harnessing all this unleashed energy.

Now is the time – easy for me to say as I am in Hong Kong…

The powers must revert to the locality, the street, the block, the district, the region; only then can a country be stabilised.

What are called today ‘ the minorities’ – whether culturally ethnic or religious – have to be granted their own space to be what they are, and in parallel, brought into the larger system of government so they can be without those old discriminations.

In one sense yes it is the time for independence, for autonomy of peoples from larger and overwhelming forces but on the other hand, the root cause of that need for separation from the wider fold has to be recognised and if it is a selfishness – because ‘we have the oil’ for example, or ‘we have the fertile lands’, then that is a disqualifier.

Justice will be served by being just, not by revenge or actions based on, ‘now it’s our turn’.

We must surpass the too evident tribalisms.

We must stop the powerful State imposing its strictures on lesser peoples then allowing capital rich companies to plunder the land and seas.

However, a cohesive group’s need for its traditional values and lands have to be respected.

With this forethought in mind there remains to be stated that which our International Humanist Party has continuously espoused, the need for:

the decentralization of political power down to the base of society, extending guarantees of respect for minorities and making effective the principle of equal rights and opportunities for all.

Universal access to free, high quality Education and Healthcare at all levels is the priority for the Party.

To uphold the principle of choice as the concrete political expression of liberty and, thus, it struggles against all forms of authoritarianism and economic, organizational and ideological monopolies.

We consider that all coherent policies must have two basic conditions:

1. Permanent renovation of juridical and political institutions, based on the idea of the new replacing the old, and

2. Transparency in the political procedures employed.

Related to the latter, which would be quite an innovation, would be a Law of Political Accountability, making politicians actually carry out their election proposals or they would lose their post!

With these words we continue to wish everyone a Happy Revolution!

Tony Henderson,
Chairman, Humanist Association of Hong Kong.