The break up with its student union reminds of changes of University of Hong Kong in 10 years
Translated by Guardians of Hong Kong June 4, 2021
A lot can change in 10 years.
Ten years ago in 2011, I just became a student at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).
Like other students, we looked forward to the university life. We wanted to grow in knowledge and complete “the five things of university life”. To fully utilise the time in university to live another future might well be the hopes of many youngsters at the time.
In the summer of 2011, when a new semester was about to start, the 818 Incident took place. The then Vice-Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Li Ke-qiang, visited HKU to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its establishment. The police claimed that in order to protect Li they set up a “core security zone” in the campus and that triggered what later was known as the 818 Incident. Several from a student organisation planned to approach Li for a protest and they were detained at the backstairs. This triggered debates in the society on whether academic freedom were present or not.
This was also the fuse to the step down of former Vice-Chancellor of HKU, Tsui Lap-chee.
10 years later, although the siege of the Polytechnic University, the siege of the Chinese University and the 818 Incident all seemed to become ancient history, they all showed the long term tension between the people and the totalitarian regime.
10 years ago, if I had to foresee the situation now in Hong Kong or my future, I could not have foretold even 10% of it. Today, students being detained, beaten up and imprisoned are commonplace. Youngsters were either in exile overseas or imprisoned. Parents fled in fear of or joined up to fight the communist education in order to protect their children. The once small corner of “core security zone” now covers to the entire earth. Who could have known? Who could have expected the rapid change over the past 10 years? Who could have foreseen the game between the east and the west at world stage?
The wrong now can only be righted in the future by those who can overcome difficulties to re-capture HKU. The youngsters will reaffirm to the regime their determination to re-capture HKU. They will show once again the spirits of HKU and humanism. They will not kneel before state violence by insisting on seeking truth.
Educators who kneel before totalitarianism are sending out their students to enemies for their own protection.
To be frank, the declaration by HKU today is hardly surprising. The political violence and mental harm under the flag of the state and the self limiting rule of fear are the usual phenomena.
The senior management of HKU who felt the need to split with its student union, cut off the ambiguous legal liability, compromise in order to protect the university or yourselves from political pressure— I hope you only do it out of fear or worry. I hope the choice to kneel before political violence and sacrifice the head and trust of your students is not due to the belief that “patriotism” is more important than the universal values such as the virtue of scholar, academic freedom and the freedom of the speech.
The “education” delivered in the name of “patriotism” will be a bloody mess of wrongful love that kills the spirit to seek truth, knowledge, curiosity and autonomy at its birth. It will become the buns made of human blood and bury the ideal of university being the castle of free mind.
In the next 10 years, we might not see the fallen university strive to become the pride of its students under the leadership of its senior management. But in the coming 10 years, those students who had fled and those who had stayed would continue the HKU motto of "Sapientia et Virtus" outside the campus to give back to every battlefield that requires perseverance.
“With no fear of sacrificing the body, just to stay pure in the world”. Stand firm to see through the emptiness of the regime.
Stay critical when walking through political violence. In the coming future of unknown, may we see through the fabricated peace until all of us return to our designated place to repair the scar of our city. May we all head towards the land of freedom to breathe in free oxygen. In Hong Kong and in HKU.
Author: Alex CHOW Yong-kang
Source: Stand News #May02
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