The feted, or maybe fated, Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis quotes Thucydides in the title of his 2016 book ‘And the Weak Suffer What They Must’. The title is tailor made to Macau. Almost everywhere you look there is quiet suffering by the masses, the disempow-ered, the poor, the weak and the voiceless. Health services? Don’t get sick. Probably quicker to fl y to Sin-gapore or Bangkok for treatment.Social services? Don’t grow old. As the UK television’s wise-cracking dodgy car salesman put it: ‘A friend in need is a pest’.Education? If you want a schooling system that breeds me-diocrity, conformity and stifl es creativity for the masses then Macau’s got it all.Owning your own home? Dream on.Internationalization? OK if you mean immigrant workers earn-ing a pittance or big bosses earning a fortune; ‘rien ne va plus’ pour presque toutes les autres personnes.Environment? If seeing everywhere being dug up fl oats your boat, then Macau’s your paradise. Fresh air? Where? Wait while I cough.Open spaces? Disappearing so fast that a racing greyhound would give up, howling in defeat.Infrastructure development? World speed record (snail class): Light Rail Transit marathon: preliminary site investigations started in 2008 and the 9.3 kilometre Taipa section due to open in 2019, i.e. about 85 metres a year. Macau city system? Place your bets. Career development prospects? Sorry; don’t know what you mean. Quality of life? Wretched. Or rather, passable if you’re rich, but if you’re one of the proles, forget it.Think about complaining? Complain your head off; nobody cares or takes any notice. Legislators all by election? Stop joking.Having your voice heard? Get an echo chamber or enjoy se-pulchral silence.Varoufakis has a wonderful turn of phrase in his book: ‘the most vengeful of gods grant us our sincerest wishes’. He was dis-cussing Europe, its crisis and implications for America’s economy. How true it came in June when the UK voted to leave the EU. Now it seems as though it could happen again in the upcoming American elections in November, whoever wins. How about Macau? Since the handover, Macau’s government has delivered us its sincerest wishes: (a) more gaming; (b) closer relations with main-land China; (c) more tourists; (d) more construction; and (e) more entertainment attractions. But look how these have rebounded vengefully and have been deformed into, respectively: (a) casi-nos ad nauseam; (b) curtailed democracy, increased surveillance and decisions made behind closed doors; (c) crowds everywhere; GETTING WHAT WE WANT(d) ‘jobs for the boys’, a phony Eiffel tower, a kitsch Venice and mon-strous environmental degradation; and (e) gambling addiction, do-mestic violence, human traffi cking and loan-sharking. As the Eng-lish folk song ‘Tom Bowling’ puts it: ‘mirth is turn’d to melancholy’.Too many times we see the power elite in Macau going into a huddle and coming up with some decision which is very nice for them but of little benefi t to the others. In a moment of impiety I could say that what is happening in Macau is not the ‘deliver us from evil’ of the Christian prayer; remove the ‘from’ and there you have it. Macau is the triumph of putatively good intention over actu-ality. OK, it has some nice eating places if you have the money. Getting a job is not that diffi cult provided you are prepared to take almost anything. Hotel resorts have created more jobs and let a few rich investors make more loot. More people have a car; big deal. You can shop till you drop; wow.Aspiration has an uncanny knack of turning sour in Macau. I predict that it will be at least another 15 years before we have the Light Rail Transit system fully operational, at least 10 years before we have an up-and-running full-range hospital in Cotai, and at least 30 years before we have decent social services or schools. Where do my fi gures come from? Out of the air, i.e. the same as the experts. Are they any less accurate than the earnestly deliv-ered predictions which we are continually being fed by supposed experts and planners in Macau? Varoufakis’s quotation from Thucydides was incomplete: the full quotation is ‘ the strong do as they can and the weak suf fe r what they must.’ That’s Macau, folks. What else can its citizens do but surrender? The most vengeful of gods seem to have granted us, or rather the rich and powerful, their sincerest wishes for Macau.
—
