On the extradition bill, Carrie Lam is failing to show the wisdom and determination she revealed as a student protester

It took courage for protesters, including Lam, to motivate the colonial government to action in the late 1970s. Where is Lam’s resolve now that Beijing appears to be calling the shots and forcing the unpopular extradition bill on the public?

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Though the proposed extradition bill has triggered Hong Kong’s largest protests in years, Chief Executive Carrie Lam says it will proceed without amendment. Photo: Sam Tsang

Viswa Nathan is a former editor in chief of the now-defunct broadsheet morning daily, the Hong Kong Standard.

Published: 9:00am, 22 May 2019Updated: 9:00am, 22 May 2019

It’s unthinkable. Just over four decades ago, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, Hong Kong’s current chief executive, stood up calling for a responsive government. She was then a student at Hong Kong University, and she marched with fellow HKU students to Government House to present a petition pleading with then-governor Murray MacLehose to consider the concerns of students and teachers at the Precious Blood Golden Jubilee Secondary School, who were protesting against a cover-up of their headmistress, a nun, siphoning school funds into her Catholic mission.

MacLehose, like Lam today, stood unyielding even after the Central Court magistrate, Paul Corfe, found the headmistress guilty of “a gross betrayal of trust”. That was the colonial way of governing. The administration was answerable only to the Crown, not to the taxpayers and other residents of Hong Kong.

But the Precious Blood students, a new Hong Kong generation that gave birth to the mother of all student protests in our society, were equally adamant. They didn’t yield until they brought MacLehose to heel and he ordered an independent inquiry by then-HKU vice chancellor Rayson Huang. The findings of that inquiry brought shame to the government and MacLehose.