Hong
Kong: China's most patriotic city By Kent Ewing
HONG KONG - Let's face
it, nearly 14 years after the British handed back
this colony to Chinese rule, this city of 7.1
million people has yet to take the motherland in a
warm, loving embrace. There have been lots of firm
handshakes sealing economic deals, but hugs of
genuine affection have been few, and fond kisses -
indeed, even perfunctory pecks on the cheek - even
fewer. So far, Hong Kong's reunification with the
mainland has been an economically successful but
distinctly cold-blooded affair.
But now,
no doubt on orders from their political masters in
Beijing, Hong Kong's leaders have announced plans
to boost the population's love of country by
making "national education" (read: "political
indoctrination") a compulsory subject in primary and
secondary schools as early as
next year.
While no one is expecting Mao
Zedong's Little Red Book to become required
reading for Hong Kong students, propaganda passed
off as national history is a worry. And jingoism
passed off as patriotism is also a fear.
Hong Kong has been a Special
Administrative Region (SAR) of China since July 1,
1997, and what makes the city "special" are the
high-degree autonomy and the freedoms - of
religion, of expression and of assembly - that are
enshrined in its mini-constitution, called the
Basic Law.
Topics banned on the mainland -
the brutal June 4, 1989, crackdown on a
student-led pro-democracy movement, for example,
or the government's more recent detentions of
scores of human-rights activists - are freely
discussed here, in the media and in the classroom.
Groups outlawed by Beijing - for instance
the Falungong spiritual movement and The Hong Kong
Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic
Movements in China - speak and move about freely
here.
Thus, guardians of Hong Kong's
special status in China become alarmed whenever
there is talk of boosting national pride,
especially through educational instruction, in
this stubbornly independent-minded city. And a
high official in the central government's liaison
office in Hong Kong only exacerbated the growing
feeling of apprehension when he described the
implementation of national education here as
"necessary brainwashing".
Writing on his
blog, Hao Tiechuan, the director of the Publicity,
Culture and Sports Department of the Liaison
Office of the Central People's Government in the
Hong Kong SAR, said: "Regarding the moral and
national education in Hong Kong primary and
secondary schools, some people say it amounts to
'brainwashing'. But if we look at such systems in
Western countries like the United States and
France, we will find this kind of 'necessary
brainwashing' is an international convention."
Hao added: "Some people say there is a
need to help primary and secondary school pupils
develop critical thinking. However, the usual
practice in the international community is to
nurture critical thinking in universities, not in
primary and secondary schools. Some people say
moral and national education should not follow the
central government's line. But would that still be
called national education?"
The good news
is that both pro-democracy and pro-Beijing
politicians in the city blasted Hao for the
ineptitude of his remarks. Thankfully, no one
located anywhere on Hong Kong's variegated
political spectrum supports brainwashing. Before,
during and after the handover, bald-faced
propaganda has fallen on deaf ears in Hong Kong.
It is remarkable that, 14 years after China
resumed sovereignty over the city, its chief
representative for culture here should show so
little understanding of that fact.
Here's
a shocking announcement for Hao and for his fellow
Communist Party bureaucrats in Beijing: Hong Kong
does not need any instruction from the north on
national education as it already is - by any
honest standard - the most patriotic city in
China. The problem for those bureaucrats, however,
is that the Hong Kong brand of patriotism embraces
criticism and dissent when national leadership
goes awry.
No Chinese city was prouder
than Hong Kong after Beijing's triumph on the
world stage as host of the spectacular 2008 Summer
Olympic Games. No Chinese city applauded with
greater fervor when Colonel Zhai Zhigang became
China's first astronaut to walk in space. And no
Chinese city was more pleased with the watershed
announcement last year that the nation's economy
had overtaken Japan to become the second largest
in the world.
Chinese leaders love Hong
Kong when the city shows its patriotism in pride
and praise over the country's many achievements.
But they don't like it when people take to the
streets or the blogosphere to register their
concerns when things go wrong, although the latter
is just as much a form of loyalty as the former.
In particular, China's human-rights record is an
embarrassment to many people in Hong Kong - where,
again, the rights of the individual are
strenuously protected in the Basic Law.
Protests against the government - both local
and national - are a weekly occurrence in the
city, and dissent an accepted cultural and
political norm. That explains why - while the
mainland's army of cyber censors is doing its
level best to delete every Internet posting about
detained artist and government critic Ai Weiwei,
arrested April 3 at Beijing Capital International
Airport as he was about to board a flight to Hong
Kong - in this city there are street
demonstrations demanding his release. One clever
demonstrator even managed to project a giant image
of Ai onto a wall of the People's Liberation Army
barracks here.
And next month, on June 4,
the world will once again see the starkest show of
difference between life in Hong Kong and life on
the mainland as thousands of people gather in the
city's Victoria Park for the annual candlelight
vigil marking the 22nd anniversary of the
crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in
Tiananmen Square; meanwhile, in the square itself,
Beijing police will make sure not a peep of
protest or commemoration is seen or heard.
Hong Kong has also become the landing
place for books by Chinese authors banned on the
mainland, among them the secret memoirs of Zhao
Ziyang, deposed as Communist Party general
secretary and placed under house arrest for his
support of the Tiananmen demonstrators.
Zhao died in 2005; his book, Prisoner
of the State: The Secret Journal of Chinese
Premier Zhao Ziyang, based on audiotapes he
managed to record while under house arrest, was
published in 2009 by Simon & Schuster. A
Chinese-language version of the book, published by
New Century Press, was released in Hong Kong just
days before the 20th anniversary of the June 4
crackdown. It is still selling well in the city's
bookstores, especially to mainland tourists. (See
China
and catharsis in the words of Zhao, Asia Times
Online, May 22, 2009)
This year two books
banned on the mainland - an unflattering portrait
of the current premier, China's Best Actor: Wen
Jiabao, and a memoir written by Gao Yaojie,
China's best known advocate for those suffering
from HIV and AIDS - have been shortlisted for the
Hong Kong Book Prize, an award sponsored by the
city's government but decided by an independent
panel of judges.
It is cultural
differences like this that make people very
nervous about calls for a national education
campaign in Hong Kong schools. In 2007, the 10th
anniversary of the handover, President Hu Jintao
exhorted Hong Kong's younger generation to learn
more about the motherland and, taking the cue a
few months later, Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald
Tsang Yam-kuen stressed the importance of national
education in his annual policy address.
Since then, although national education
has not yet become a compulsory course, a number
of the city's schools have taken it up. Flag
raising and singing the national anthem have
become part of the daily routine at many Hong Kong
schools, as have lessons in Chinese history,
geography and culture. That's fine - even healthy
- most educators agree.
Just keep
political propaganda out of the classroom.
Kent Ewing is a Hong Kong-based
teacher and writer. He can be reached at
kewing@netvigator.com.
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