The following report was produced by CNN. And though the video appears to be distorted somewhat, the pictures seen still speak a million words:

CNN: Living in a Cage in Hong Kong

Hong Kong, a place where its GDP ranks twenty-eighth in the world, where its federal reserve ranks seventh in the world (in terms of amount; had this been measured in terms of per capita wealth, I have a feeling that it would be even higher), also has a Gini Coefficient that ranks FIRST in the world (for those of you who don’t know, the Gini Coefficient measures the discrepancy between the rich and the poor). In a place where the rich gets a lot richer, and the poor gets a lot poorer, the government is doing next to nothing in helping them. On the contrary, the government’s policies are slanted towards the rich and the big corporations (sounds familiar, right, British Columbians?).

If this report was seen in another democratic society, can you imagine the backlash the government will receive? Can you imagine the shame that the government will be put into? And, as a result of the public humiliation the government suffers, it will most likely be doing something immediately to address the problem; otherwise, that government will be going down in flames in the next election. However, because Hong Kong is not a democratic region, with a crippled, non-elected government, government officials do not seem to have the need to address these problems. If you re-watch the clip again and see the way the government responses to CNN’s questions about the “cage houses,” how can you not be angry or even infuriated?

Some pro-government personnel would blast the critics, saying that we are complaining and criticizing all day just to disturb the society’s harmony, and to negatively affect the rule of the government. Only people who support a dictatorship mandate would say such words. The truth is: the culprit in destroying the society’s harmony is the government, who allows the discrepancy between the rich and the poor to go completely out-of-hand with no policies to help those who cannot help themselves. The truth is: the one responsible for crippling the effectiveness of the government is the government itself, who uses policy makers and officials who have no regard to the poor and the needy.

Hong Kong, a place I used to call my home. How did we EVER get to this stage?