The Letters to the Editor section in the SCMP prints so many letters from Pierce Lam that they should just rename it to Pierce’s Daily Rant.  Here’s his latest one, from last week, some stuff I’ve put in bold for emphasis.

The American Chamber of Commerce claims that Hong Kong’s status as a “world class” city depends on its meeting the demand from expatriates for international school places (“AmCham warns of schools ‘crisis’”, December 5).

This assertion is misleading, tendentious and absurd. It misleads with the weasel words “world class”, which refer to various qualities of questionable desirability.

If international school places were a measure of a city’s world-class status, Hong Kong is undoubtedly No1 among world-class cities.

There are much more public resources for a much greater variety of foreign schools with a much larger number of international school places in Hong Kong than the combined offers of New York City and Geneva, where the United Nations’ headquarters are located. But New York and Geneva are world-class cities in their own right, with local institutions that command foreigners’ respect.

In Hong Kong, our universities are world-class, and our pre-college pupils are famous for their outstanding performance in international scholastic assessments. But the city’s expatriates shun local education for their children and show no respect for local institutions. They have no qualms making what is absurd sound serious, alleging that the city’s international standing depends on their presence so it had better invest more public resources to satisfy their children’s need for privileged education in effectively segregated “international” schools.

Ironically, the demand of this community of privileged minorities for unfair advantages is blindly and forcefully promoted by the city’s self-styled democrats, who supposedly should represent the majority’s interest and fight for equality.

As Alex Lo observes, there is neither economic nor moral justification for granting public resources to expat children’s international schools (“No place for apartheid in our schools”, December 3). That’s why the city’s foreign residents have to resort to the silly idea of world-class status, which they claim is what Hong Kong should pursue.

Expatriates who have come for economic reasons should thank the city for the opportunities available here and learn to engage in fair competition with the indigenous majority. They must learn to respect local institutions and not to expect the unrealistic privileges of the bygone colonial era.

Well, there is the concept for many cities, world class or otherwise, that a city and its economy benefits from being able to attract expat workers, especially skilled people who bring with them experience and knowledge that might otherwise not exist (and, in HK’s case, the economic benefit stemming from domestic helpers that allow two income families with children to exist as most of the disappearing middle class couldn’t keep their noses above water if one spouse had to stay home to look after the kids).  Okay, you could argue both sides of the coin on that one I suppose, but clearly most of the world seems to feel that expats are a good thing.  And if that is indeed accepted, then why shouldn’t Hong Kong offer more than Singapore or Tokyo or Dubai or wherever to make Hong Kong a more attractive destination than those other places.  And Buddha knows, Hong Kong can afford it, with billions of dollars just sitting in its reserves just waiting for our politicians to waste it on one lame brained scheme (new government center in Tamar) or another (a bridge between Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai).

Beyond that is Pierce’s clear lack of understanding of democracy.  Yes, in democracy, majority rules.  But democracy also means that the rights of the minorities are respected and upheld.  I don’t even get his bit about “fight for equality” because he seems to be suggesting that the majority in Hong Kong is a minority and needs their rites protected from the minority who are actually a majority, or some such balderdash.  Let’s not bring up all the mainland Chinese moving here  and whatever accommodations they may be seeking – he certainly doesn’t.  Because Pierce hates white people.  He closes, as he almost always does, with a reference to the colonial era.

So my opinion is … a world class city, weaselly or otherwise, shouldn’t tolerate hatemongers like Pierce Lam and the SCMP should not be providing him with an outlet for his bigotry.