PASSTIMES
17
AN INTRODUCTION TO HONG KONG’S JOURNEY FROM LIBERAL STUDIES TO MORAL AND NATIONAL EDUCATION
MODERN CHINA – THE ONLY MODULE LEFT?
“The change might appear sudden and out of nowhere, but this is barely close to the truth.”
Introduction – The 729 Protest “NO BRAINWASHING!” “NO BRAINWASHING!” “SAY NO TO CHINESE PROPAGANDA!” “SAY NO TO CHINESE PROPAGANDA!” …… The crowd chanted again and again, with their voices heard in every corner of Hong Kong Island. It was 3pm on Sunday, 29th July 2012¹, over 90 thousand protesters marched from Victoria Park to the Central Government Offices, all with the same, one demand: the government’s immediate withdrawal of the moral and national education proposal. ‘Moral and national education’, what even is it? How is it ‘brainwashing’? What does it have to do with liberal studies? (Heck, what does it have to do with me?) This is not a history lesson, it will all make sense soon, but bear with me for a second here as we travel back to 2012 together, that time when freedom and democracy were still words of meaning. The Proposal Moral and National Education (MNE) was a school curriculum proposed by the Education Bureau of Hong Kong in 2012. According to the revised MNE Curriculum Guide published in June 2012, the subject aims to help students develop moral qualities, a positive and optimistic attitude, self-
recognition, ability to judge in a caring and reasonable manner, and recognition of identity; with additional guidance for students to practice these in their daily lives, making it a habit with positive impact on our society. The subject also claims to enhance students’ commitments and contributions to analyze and judge personal, family, social, national and global issues². Boring background information aside, MNE does sound like a meaningful subject, surely no one can disagree with such a phenomenal proposal, right? Still not convinced? Under the “national issues” section, it was even explicitly mentioned that with the help of MNE, students would learn to “think critically and independently”, the exact opposite of the so-called “brainwashing”! The Controversy Of course, the 729 protest did not happen without a reason, and it definitely didn’t take long for people to find out the government’s true intentions behind this seemingly glamorous proposal. Soon after the proposal, the National Education Services Centre published the “China Model National Conditions Teaching Manual”, a government funded guide for teachers teaching MNE’s “national issues” aspect, the coincidentally same
chapter as mentioned above. Surprising many at that time, it was found to be severely biased towards the Communist Party of China. For example, the CCP was crowned an “advanced, selfless and united ruling group” (進步、無私與團結), while denouncing Democratic and Republican Parties of the US as “fierce inter-party rivalry, making the people suffer” (政黨 惡斗，人民當災)³. Furthermore, incidents such as the June 4th Tiananmen Massacre, the Cultural Revolution, human rights issues in Mainland China were all nowhere to be seen in the manual. After the Protest And so be it, thousands of students, parents, teachers, even doctors and artists all took the streets on 29th July 2012, demanding the government to withdraw the MNE Proposal at once. The proposal, following more mass protests, some with over 100 thousand participants, was eventually withdrawn. The citizens of Hong Kong have won the battle…… or have they? In 2017, Kevin Yeung Yunhung, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Education, ‘clarified’ to the public that MNE “has not been scrapped completely”, and that teaching on the topic was continuing in the form of different subjects and activities in schools⁴. For example, the inclusion of a new
