'If not even 100,000 people turn up, I can say frankly that I think the campaign has failed," noted Mr Chan Kin-man, co-organizer of the "Occupy Central" movement.

Chan also said that the movement's "leaders" would apologize if fewer than 100,000 people vote in a "referendum" on June 22.

As the target is embarrassingly low, everyone knows Chan's statement was nothing but a cheap way to attract more voters. Appearing with Chan on the same occasion, radical lawmaker Sin Chung-kai said that reaching 230,000 would be "challenging". But he added that achieving 100,000 votes in three days would not be hard.

Chinese University political scientist Ma Ngok agreed. He cited the movement's first "referendum" on New Year's Day, which in one day attracted 62,000 voters online and at a polling station in Victoria Park. The June 22 vote will last three days. Their remarks seem to be a polite way of asking Chan Kin-man not to fool people.

If Chan and his friends cannot even mobilize 100,000 people to vote for some lofty but empty principles, then much more pressing problems will be at stake. As the opposition camp breaks up into even smaller groups, with disenfranchised moderates and radicals no longer subject to the control of any alliances, things can only get uglier.

Judging from what happened recently within the dissident camp, it would not be unfair to characterize Chan and other movement organizers as "bookworms". They are strong on ideas, but weak on action - not that they have very original ideas (in fact, that they base their views on books or journal articles is exactly what second-rate academics do), but they fail when it comes to implementing these ideas.

Chan is a very confused person. He has invested too much in the concept of "democracy" so that he sees it everywhere he looks. He has forgotten that life is also governed by other principles and logic, and in some contexts, democracy may be of little value. Democracy as an ideal and as a practical form of government is two different things. But there really is nothing to apologize about - even if few people support his campaign. A low voter turnout does not mean he erred in his beliefs or actions.

The whole point may seem trivial and totally hypothetical as the 100,000 target is very low. More importantly, it is indicative of the twisted logic that some dissidents now hold. They tend to forget that voting is nothing but a procedure for making collective decisions, where each option may be equally valid. When some of them view majority as morality and minority as immorality, the idea of democracy collapses.

The "Occupy Central" movement has become a joke because it has forgotten the very reason for its existence. It wants universal suffrage in 2017 to be fair and transparent or "genuine democracy". Fair enough; these are the same goals shared by local and central governments. However, the movement went crazy when it tried to impose unrealistically high standards of democracy, internally. In the process, people expect it to behave like a government, which is obviously impossible. The leaders explicitly reject the claim that they are representatives of the people; nevertheless the average participant finds this logic hard to follow.

Initially, social and political movements usually claim themselves to be representative of the people (or a certain social group). Then, as events unfold, they try to prove this claim. But I don't remember sexual minorities ever running a poll among themselves before launching their campaigns.

At the end of the day, representativeness and representation are not the same thing. The ties between these two concepts and the act of voting are more problematic than one imagines.

Behind the empty rhetoric of "international standards" is the inability to articulate our true demands in our own words. If the dissidents cannot face this issue, they will weaken themselves further and will never make an impact.

The author is a veteran current affairs commentator.

(HK Edition 06/04/2014 page9)