Shortcomings in our education system foster bellicose resistance

David Wong calls for improved teaching on status of the nation as well as China's 5,000-year history

The National People's Congress Standing Committee recently passed the National Anthem Law. The new law standardizes etiquette for the national anthem, March of the Volunteers, and requires promotion of it among the public and in primary and secondary schools. When the national anthem is played in public events, the audience is required to stand up straight and remain solemn. It bans use of the national anthem in commercial advertisements or at private memorial services. The new national law is expected to be included in Annex III of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and adopted in the SAR via local legislation. Local legislation is required because the legal system on the Chinese mainland is different from that of Hong Kong. But there should be no legal obstacle; there are precedents with the laws on the national flag and national emblem.

The problem with Hong Kong nowadays is that the opposition camp tends to politicize anything whenever possible. The song, March of the Volunteers, commemorates our harsh struggle against Japanese invasion and is a constant reminder for all of us of the hardship our elder generations endured. The opposition could come up with no excuse of any kind to object to the law. They again turned to their favorite guise - freedom of expression. But let's face the reality: As the director of the national law office of the NPCSC, Wu Zeng, reportedly said, it is a basic requirement for every citizen to respect, understand and be able to sing the national anthem.

Equally untenable is the argument that legislating on etiquette of the national anthem would dent creativity as people can no longer alter the song. Yet it is hard to figure out who would need to mess up the national anthem to unleash his/her creativity. No one other than those politically motivated hotheads would enjoy making fun of the national anthem.

People who have a fair mind have no difficulty in understanding why Hong Kong needs to legislate on the national anthem. Some members of Hong Kong society have embraced radicalism. They could resort to any maneuver just to achieve their political or personal aims. It is possible that sometime in the future the national anthem would fall victim to the evil maneuvers of those extremists. Such concern is not exaggeration given the recent irrational actions taken by some radical youths. For example, some local soccer fans booed the national anthem when it was played before a match between the Hong Kong team and the national team. And more recently, posters and banners promoting "Hong Kong independence" were displayed on university campuses.

In the past months, separatist utterances were more frequently spotted in the media. It should be noted that other than a few attention-seeking young people, such radical ideas have no resonance in society. I understand that some disgruntled youth are venting their anger by way of talking about "Hong Kong independence". Not many people take those radical utterances seriously but the government and our community cannot afford to ignore them. The emergence of such radical utterances can be partly attributed to insufficiency in national education in our school curriculums. When I was studying in a Canadian high school, the national anthem was played every morning before classes began and everyone was required to stand solemnly and face the Canadian national flag in the classroom. Similar arrangements are commonplace in many other Western countries. It is shocking that this simple ritual is not compulsory in our local schools.

The core of the problem is that our education system and its curriculums have been highly politicized, as evidenced in the ardent opposition to the national education program proposed in 2012. It seems there is strong opposition both within and outside the education sector that prevents young people from having a comprehensive understanding of our country. Chinese history is not a compulsory subject in Hong Kong, which is something unheard of in most countries. Whenever the idea of making Chinese history a compulsory subject in school was floated, the opposition camp without fail deliberately shifted the focus to political events and issues that happened in recent history or claimed that our 5,000 years of history is too long and burdensome for students to learn. Any student tour of the mainland would be smeared as a brainwashing trip. Students are encouraged to see themselves as "global citizens" rather than Chinese nationals. The teaching of Putonghua in schools has been framed as an attempt to eradicate Cantonese, even though many people are actually so keen to learn it that they are willing to pay extra fees for private tutoring. It is also claimed that the Basic Law is "too boring or technical" for students to study. There are simply too many such examples, so fixing those loopholes in our education system is something we cannot afford to delay further.

(HK Edition 09/15/2017 page12)