Politics and English language
The gifted Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” Echoing Wittgenstein’s adage, the eminent British writer George Orwell in his essay “Politics and the English Language” highlighted the relationship between political prejudice and the debasement of language, arguing that our English prose had become “ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts were foolish...” and, above all, that vague words and sentences had been exploited as a dangerous vehicle for political extremism.
Through their English writings, some anti-establishment intellectuals in Hong Kong have inadvertently given some validity to Orwell’s notion. A case in point is the poorly worded petition to the White House penned by the eccentric columnist-cumacademic Horace Chin Wan-kan (Chen Yun).
Chin is dubbed by the mass media as the architect of Hong Kong’s pro-independence ideology. Ostensibly sympathetic to the school teacher Alpais Lam Wai-sze under savage fire for her profanities in public, he petitioned the Obama Administration through its online platform on Aug 16 to be concerned about Lam’s “plight”. To analyze his English prose style, I quote Chin’s petition in full:
“Ms Alpais Lam Wai-sze, a primary school teacher in Hong Kong, is being politically persecuted after shouting obscenity in an argument over police to allow freedom of expression on public space on July 14. Harassment of Lam followed. Huge banners were left at her school calling for her dismissal. On August 11, the chief executive of Hong Kong Government, urged the Education Bureau to file a report on Ms Lam’s case. The Regional Crime Squad of the police received order to investigate into Lam’s case. Ms Lam was facing tremendous pressure now and we wish the international community can help.”
This petition is indeed short. Yet, on closer examination, one would discover that each of these sentences unfortunately has grammatical mistakes of its own. For example, Chin misused the prepositions such as “over (police)”, “on (public space)”, “in (internet)” and “into (Lam’s case)”. Nor was he sensitive to the plural of “obscenity”. More lamentable is his imprudence in leaving out the article “an” before the word “order”.
Apart from the avoidable grammatical faults, two interrelated styles permeate Chin’s petition in the form of the passive: vague and inaccurate. Orwell in his essay perceptively said: “Never use the passive where you can use the active”. This is because the passive voice easily leads to vagueness and inaccuracy. Still, Chin seems to have relished the passive in writing.
The first telling example is the sentence, “Ms Alpais Lam Wai-sze ... is being politically persecuted”. In coming across this sentence, the reader will certainly wonder who exactly is politically persecuting Lam and how a report commissioned by the Chief Executive (CE) on her case can victimize Lam. Of course Chin’s ambiguous sentences have obliquely pointed an accusing finger at the Leung Chun-ying administration. Nothing, however, is further from the truth than this accusation. As my commentary last week noted, Leung’s call for the report from the Education Bureau is a sensible alternative strategy to settle the dispute given the growing angst among parents.
The second example of the passive is the sentence, “Huge banners were left at her school calling for her dismissal”. This statement likewise confounded the reader. Who left the banners at Lam’s school? Is it the government, or Lam’s opponents? This statement, however, is even further from the truth. The truth is that nobody left any banners at her school. It was Lam’s opponents who exercised the right of freedom of speech to hang some anti-Lam banners over the railings in front of her school.
More vague is the sentence, “The Regional Crime Squad of the police received order to investigate into Lam’s case.” Who gave the order to the police to launch an investigation into the case? The CE? Nothing, nevertheless, is more misleading than this nebulous sentence. The truth is that the CE never entrusted the police with probing the case. It was a member of the public who filed a complaint against Lam to the police. By law, the police had no choice but to follow up on the complaint.
Why is Chin’s English prose so ugly, inaccurate and vague? I would argue that his self-interest as well as anti-establishment ideology may have clouded his English prose style. According to Orwell’s theory, “the great enemy of clear language is insincerity.” If “there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aim”, he or she will instinctively turn to vague words. There is indeed a gap between Chin’s real and declared aim in his online petition.
Did Chin really believe that if “a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response” as the online platform suggests? I really doubt it. It is common knowledge that the online platform - We the people: your voice in our government - launched by the White House is intended for American citizens. The White House has made it clear on its website that the online platform sets out to give “all Americans a way to engage their government on the issues that matter to them.”
It is clear that Chin’s unseemly attempt to post a petition about a Hong Kong local issue on the White House website is merely a publicity stunt, reasserting his political eccentricity in Hong Kong. It is more clear that the inaccurate and ambiguous words and sentences written by Chin, as Orwell suggested, aim to “makes lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind” in line with his outlandish political ideology, at once antiestablishment and pro-independence.
Dr Chin, if you really desire to be an American lackey to materialize your pro-independence dream, my suggestions are: first, improve your English; second, deliver a hard copy of your petition to your US president by mail.