Hong Kong's youth betrayed by education

Despite the lull in violence on the streets, the Hong Kong police have seized large amounts of dangerous weapons and materials from young rioters and from schools. These include, among other things, improvised explosive devices, modified air rifles, and toxic and corrosive chemicals.

On Friday, a 13-year-old girl who burned a national flag on Sept 21 was ordered to undergo group counseling and put on probation for a year by a Hong Kong court. And on the same day, the police detained five young people, who are suspected of being involved in the death of a 70-year-old street sweeper last month, who died after being hit on the head by a brick.

Statistics show nearly half of the 6,000 or so people detained over the past six months for violence and illegal assemblies are students, and almost 1,000 of them are under 16 years old. Why are so many young people in the special administrative region willing to commit violent acts?

The thousands of bail applications the court has received from detainees have been filled with all sorts of naive reasons why they should be released－ranging from preparing for exams to sticking to personal travel plans, demonstrating that they simply do not realize the seriousness of their deeds, and have no comprehension of the legal consequences.

Their lack of awareness about the law and what constitutes civil behavior is in sharp contrast with the profound knowledge they profess to have of democracy, freedom and human rights. This should shame their teachers. Instead, many teachers have condoned and encouraged the violence.

Before 1997, there were only five so-called patriotic middle schools in Hong Kong, which stressed teaching Chinese culture, language and history. They did not receive government funding and their graduates were not allowed to work for the government.

The situation has not changed much today. Education aimed at promoting national pride is still portrayed as brainwashing, while well-compiled textbooks have fostered a latent anti-Beijing bias that has been unleashed and exploited by the instigators and orchestrators of the violence.

No wonder many compare the city's current education system to a government-funded assembly line churning out generations of angry anti-Beijing youths, for whom critical thinking is synonymous with China-bashing. No wonder many teachers in the city－who are products of the assembly line themselves－feel assured about and boldly endorse their campuses being turned into arsenals and training camps for the rioters.

That more than 30 teachers have been investigated on suspicion of violating professional ethics by the Hong Kong Education Bureau over the past six months represents only a tip of an iceberg.

But one thing all these shapers of young minds have in common is that they will never tell their students that the prerequisite for freedom of expression is critical thinking not assertions of their indoctrination.