Some days ago, an opinion article published in the Wall Street Journal Asia, entitled “Macau’s Rotten Borough”, revealed how certain generalisations are, unfortunately, becoming common.
It argued that there is no freedom of expression in Macau because editors censor themselves under the pressure of a system of official subsidies.
The writer postulated that as a result, public opinion in Macau has little or no voice and, therefore, it could not work against the fact that universal suffrage remains far from being adopted as the electoral system of choice.
“The vote [in Macau] is rigged in favor of Beijing, like the rotten boroughs system of Great Britain in the 1800s. The 24 China-appointed members tend to vote in line with the wishes of their mainland bosses. The 16 legislators this year don’t include either of Macau’s two pro-democracy legislators, who are boycotting the vote, saying they don’t want to legitimise an undemocratic system. That leaves the 254 special-sector appointees, many of whom have business or family ties to Beijing. Macau’s 559,846 people have no direct say,’’ the article said.
It went on: “It’s hard to know what Macau’s citizens think of all this, given that they have almost no public space in which to voice their opinions. Macau’s press self-censors, in part because a hefty portion of its advertising money comes from the government. The local blogosphere is lighting up with protest, but the territory’s anti-defamation law, Article 23, which passed earlier this year, appears to be intimidating many to keep their protests confined to the relative anonymity of cyberspace,” concluded the WSJA article’s author.
In an interview just weeks before these words were written, a candidate in upcoming September’s elections to our mini-parliament said approximately the same thing about our press and government subsidies.
Apart from being incorrect, these declarations are unfair. It is true that there’s a system in place that provides subsidies to Chinese and Portuguese language newspapers, which are more than five years old, and it’s also true that some newspapers are strongly biased. This is especially true of the main Chinese language newspaper, Ou Mun Iat Pou, which even managed to grab a very valuable piece of land on which to build its future headquarters.
Still, a large portion of the remaining press enjoys no such support or favourable treatment. On the contrary, since the time of the Portuguese administration, the government, through its Social Communication Bureau, has had an insensate discrimination policy towards the media.
It is equally silly to believe that, just because a newspaper receives a subsidy that was created during the Portuguese administration – even if the current administration has significantly increased it – that forces self-censorship. For example, Hoje Macau newspaper takes a strongly critical stance towards many government policies and top officials.
Self-censorship exists all over the world, from New York to Singapore, from Sydney to Baghdad. It’s up to journalists to build a strong moral and ethical position, to resist the temptation of self-censorship when investigating issues that may collide with powerful interests, either political, economic or social.
Macau is not that different from other places, like many European countries where, as we know, government subsidies also exist.
If certain newspapers don’t feel shackled by those subsidies, does this mean they instantly become very critical? Consider some magazines that receive no subsidy at all – like those belonging to the group that publishes Macau Business – that feel no added pressure to be extra critical towards the powers that be, just because they enjoy no such financial support.
We criticize when we feel it is right to do so and surely none of our readers can think that we exercise any form of self-censorship. Still, there is always space in our magazines for compliments when they are deserved.
To take just a few titles from the whole Macau press, or to think that Macau’s public opinion is less daring than that of Hong Kong’s reduces 500 years of history to an irritatingly simplistic fallacy.

Macau style

The day will come, my friends, when a system is in place, which prevents Macau’s bureaucrats from making decisions without thinking, a system that will force them to plan in detail and to properly study solutions, instead of simply justifying the wrong attitudes.
Let’s be clear: the way Macau’s driving schools teach is terrifyingly bad. They drive on the right, cut corners and, I dare to say it, it seems they couldn’t care less. Those responsible for such matters simply close their eyes and litter the city with speed traps. It’s like saying that these Macau drivers will never amount to anything, so at least let’s make sure they drive like snails and maybe, just maybe, no-one will get hurt.
Even worse than traffic, is the manpower problem. Has anyone ever heard of a plan to identify the kind of human resources the territory has to offer and the needs of the market? No? Me neither. And we likely never will.
Our bureaucrats keep protecting jobs for local residents, without realising what’s at stake. The issue is to provide jobs for local residents without fatally wounding businesses that require manpower that is locally unavailable for a number of reasons.
What can we say about the apparent blindness of the Department of Public Works? An intervention is only due when hillsides are in serious risk of collapse? Macau covers an area of less than 30 square kilometres and nobody from that department noticed that illegal digging was going on? That dozens of illegal houses are being built in Coloane, apparently without any authorisation? It had better be without authorisation, because otherwise, it goes way beyond a case of mere blindness. What can we say about this free-for-all attitude, with the corresponding lack of investigation and action?
We thought that the recent cases – those already investigated and those still inside the filing cabinets – were a clear sign that it’s time to think and act, instead of whistling and looking the other way. But apparently, some things will only change when it’s too late.

by: Paulo A. Azevedo