Passing on the truths and memories to the next generation is a moral responsibility. On the other hand, teaching the young generation partial truths or distorted version of historical events is wrong and unethical. No matter how bitter and shameful it is, governments should be bold and courageous to allow children to know the truths, especially those relating to historical events. In doing so, authorities put themselves on a higher moral and ethical ground. Such efforts add to the credibility of governments and as a result, gain the trust of not only the people of their own, but the global community. 

Parents often relate their childhood experience to their children. I often tell my children about my childhood, which is vastly different from theirs. Telling what you have lived or witnessed is passing on historical memories and the truths associated with them. But those are personal memories. Then, there are collective memories, which are experiences of a larger community of people at a given time. Such memories shape the ethos of a society and become part of history. The massive protests and gatherings by the people of Hong Kong in May and June 1989 are an important part of their collective memories. That was the first time about a million Hong Kong people had taken to the streets and marched peacefully. I told my children and other youths who were born after 1989 about those experiences—how powerful those moments were, how peaceful those gatherings were and how symbolic they were of Hong Kong people’s love for and care about their fellow countrymen in the motherland. I am sure those of you who experienced that have also told the youths and children your personal experience.  

Narrating one’s stories and experiences create intellectual curiosity among the youths. It is now not 1989 when people did not have the internet or even mobile phones. Information is at your fingertips. Nowadays, adults also learn from children—at the dining table I have learned much from my children about historical events I am completely unfamiliar with. But we are not spoon-fed passively. We debate and argue with each other to make sure what we say makes sense as well as being a truthful account of history. We challenge one another by asking questions like, “where did you learn that from?”, “who authored that information?” to make sure the truths in the memories are intact and credible.  That is the spirit of Hong Kong we all, including the international community, identify with. Any effort to take that away or modify that could practically kill Hong Kong. 

Saburo Ienaga was one of the most respected Japanese historians. He was not popular among the government and ruling politicians in Japan, but well-liked by the progressive in the country and the international community.  He fought in his entire life to tell the truth—pointing out the distorted historical events Japan was teaching its children, especially those wartime atrocities such as the Nanjing Massacre and the “comfort women” mainly from China and South Korea forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. Ienaga wrote the history accurately in his textbook entitled New Japanese History. But the Japanese Ministry of Education heavily censored it, removing references to the war crimes committed by Japan in neighboring Asian countries, including horrible atrocities done in China. The censored textbooks gave a distorted view of the history, often glorifying the acts of Japanese army during World War II. Ienaga fought back with multiple lawsuits over decades against the censorship on his book imposed by the Japanese Government. Ienaga wanted to hold fast to the truth and make sure a truthful account of the past was passed on to the next generation in Japan. Although he could not succeed in achieving much during his lifetime, he died honorably, leaving behind a legacy of telling the truth about the history of his own country. 

During many visits to the Gwangju Memorial Cemetery in South Korea where the fallen heroes (once labelled criminals, rioters, or traitors by the South Korean government) were put to rest, I saw moving scenes year after year. Teachers brough their young students, some even as small as 5 years old, to the cemetery in Mays to pay respect to the victims of Gwangju Massacre. First, they brought the children to the Memorial Hall by the cemetery where the story of the Uprising was told in words, pictures and short films. At the Memorial Hall, they told the children what happened and answered their questions to make sure they understood thoroughly the historical truth they were learning. More importantly, teachers told the children that the horrible acts were committed by the troops of their own country, not any foreign powers. After that, they accompanied the children to the adjacent cemetery where they spent time collectively bowing and honoring those buried there.  

We saw similar scenes for many years at Victoria Park in Causeway Bay. We saw year after year parents bring their children to the candlelight vigil. I saw my friend’s children at the vigil holding an umbrella and a candle with a paper cone around it in those rainy evenings. One of them, now in her twenties, told me that she saw many adults cry in one of those evenings! The June 4 commemorations at Victoria Park over the past 30 years have also been a collective experience of passing on the truth and memory from one generation to another. We all know why we commemorate events like that. Through remembering historical events, no matter how tragic or shameful they are, we collectively try to affirm our commitment to not letting such events repeat anywhere in the world. By remembering, we try to prevent the history from repeating.  However, the June 4 evening was quite different this year. The Hong Kong Police Force which used to assist in crowd management at Victoria Park over the past 30 years were on the streets trying to stop people from gathering, as the authorities had banned the event beforehand. Many accounts of the police action were given and shared through social media. The world was watching these scenes in disbelief. A foreigner who used to take part in the vigil when she was in Hong Kong told me she could never imagine that Hong Kong would change so much within such a short period of time.

When the authorities in South Korean banned public commemorations of the Gwangju Massacre, people found their ways to memorialize it. For citizens, commemoration is not a political event, but a human act of solidarity and care. Human solidarity and care have no boundaries. In other words, it is humans who care about each other, although they may not be related to one another, or they are people living in different countries. Afterall, it is that love and care that makes us human. And through commemorations, we pass our memories to the next generation so the children would remember their parents cared about the lives, dignity, freedoms and democracy not of just their own, but also of others. 

(Yan Kei, advocate for criminal justice reforms)

港蘋國際-

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Passing on the truth and memory｜Yan Kei

Under the new political normal of the administrative bulldozer, the government’s process of pushing policies is increasingly crude. The officials simply put forth the imperious attitude of “whatever I say is the policy”. Once uttered, a policy is finalized and will be implemented as soon as possible. There is no public consultation, and even the directly affected industries and professionals are kept in the dark until the very last moment. There is no room for discussion, negotiation, or coordination. 

It was not that long ago when the introduction of overseas doctors was a “masterpiece” of one order, and the Medical Council was not given the right to speak up. Next, the Institute of Certified Public Accountants lost its regulatory powers including issuing practicing certificates and investigating misconduct, which have now been taken over by government-appointed organizations. Even the higher-ups in the Institute had no idea until the official announcement that landed like a shock bomb, but power was already taken away, and it was too late to whine or complain to the media. 

The latest “gem” is the amendments to the guidelines for censors under the Film Censorship Ordinance. The framework requires film censors to note whether the films contain contents that endanger national security, such as violent acts of arson and riots that disrupt public order, and whether the contents weaken the public’s law-abiding awareness…If the inspector believes a film contains these situations, it could be banned. Not only that, but even documentaries are subject to censorship. If the inspector finds the content to be biased, contains unverified, false, or misleading narratives, the documentaries could follow the same fate of being banned. 

For the film industry, including producers, distributors and cinemas, the new guidelines will drastically alter the ecology and rules of the game of the film industry. It is essentially no different from introducing the mainland’s film censorship practice into Hong Kong. From here on, investors do not have a clear understanding of what movies to produce, film, buy, and air. Millions and even tens of millions of investments might go kaput thanks to inspectors. The direct impact is likely to be huge, and there could be even more catastrophic damages to the ecology of the entire market. 

It is precisely that nothing was even hinted prior, for a policy so major, and nobody in the film industry, be it the boss, director, producer, or distributor, none had been asked for comments or to be offered an opportunity for opinions. Not only that, but when the government announced the “new policy”, there was not even a press conference or an official stand-up to explain. It was simply a press release by the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, the agency in charge, through the Information Services Department. There was no clarification on the meaning, impact, including how the National Security Law red line is being drawn, etc. The film industry, as described by several commentators, has been thrown into the dangerous “red sea” that started as a “red line”. 

Whether it was during the British Hong Kong era, or after the Handover, the practice of consulting the industry and the public before any new policies was an approach proven effective. Not only does it alleviate the concerns, but it helps with the acceptance of new measures, and reduces the issues of potential loopholes and implementation. After all, those on the frontline dealing with the policy are the people in the industry and those carrying out the measures, not the high-ranking officials and Administrative Officers whose doors are “always open” in the office. In fact, many details and difficulties in implementation cannot be anticipated by those in the air-conditioned meeting room. The opinions of those in the industry and frontline employees must be taken seriously to reduce errors and to make the implementation process smoother. 

Sadly, the SAR government has totally given up on the compulsory practice of consultation in its recent policy changes. Not only are the public denied participation and discussion to express their views, but even industries’ opinions are disregarded and ignored. Immediate implementation is the new thing. Such crude practice has undermined procedural justice (denying those affected to have an opportunity to express their opinions), deviated from the effective public administrative norms that have been around for decades, dug a trap with the new measures to confuse film inspectors and the film industry which could lead to improper implementation (too excessive or lenient), all of which could undermine the effects of the new policy and even bring serious harm to society. 

It is obvious that the Hong Kong National Security Law is still a new thing. The courts have not yet developed precedents, and society still has not grasped the provisions of the law. Experienced barristers have no idea how to deal with the law and are still learning and discussing, let alone film inspectors. Under these circumstances, film inspectors are expected to determine by themselves whether the contents of the films violate the National Security Law, whether there are behaviors that are damaging to the public order, and whether violence has been promoted to weaken the public’s law-abiding awareness. To avoid being turned into the targets themselves for “letting slide” films or documentaries that endanger national security, film inspectors are likely to adopt a stricter approach to films that might be exaggerating certain dramatic or artistic effects of conflicts for being detrimental to law-abiding awareness or even endangering national security. Take Hong Kong film Cold War (2012) for example, it depicted internal conflicts among high-ranking police offices, as well as former police management using retired police officers to launch a terrorist attack to seize power. Under the new guidelines, these contents may be regarded as scraping the red line, and could cause the fil to be banned. 

It is difficult to evaluate whether the new film guideline by the government would put an end to the Cold War series, but the concern and impact caused to the film industry and cultural creation are already spreading like wild fire. More importantly, such practice of “effective immediately” non-consultation for policy implementation is veering Hong Kong further and further away from the so-called good governance. 

This article is translated from Chinese by Apple Daily.

Click <a href="https://hk.appledaily.com/local/20210614/SC3JQJCXMJFJHL2RCTK7Z2CGZE/" target="_blank">here</a> for Chinese version

Editorial: ‘Effective immediately’ pushes Hong Kong movies to a cliff｜Apple Daily Hong Kong

Let me begin by saluting the courage of Chow Hang-tung. Her arrest has brightened the name of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China. For three days in a row, Chow’s face was on BBC.com together with the emptiness in Victoria Park and the omnipresent candlelight or flashlight emitted by mobile phones outside it, a loud reminder to the world of what is going on in our city. A face matters because there is a real story of flesh and blood behind it. On the 4th of June last year, Hong Kong created its own “2064”. This year has marked a new milestone. Call it “the June Fourth of Hong Kong” or “6432”, it is another chapter in history. All this has been the result of the SAR government’s excessive acts of suppression taken out of fear.

On 5th June, Chow was released. The next day, she lit a candle at a vigil to mourn for Li Wangyang, a Chinese activist who “would rather lose his head than turn back” for the 1989 pro-democracy movement. The government wants to ban vigils, but how is that possible? 

I still remember how the news of Li Wangyang’s “passive suicide” shocked Hong Kong. Numerous groups staged protests, marching from Victoria Park through Queen’s Road to the central government’s liaison office at Sheung Wan. Standing in the street, I saw junior secondary school students who were so small in stature holding aloft the flags of “Scholarism” walk past. That year was my last year in the Legislative Council. The picture on the last page of the concluding annual report showed me standing in the legislative chamber and making a speech with no one on the bench behind me except for an enlarged black-and-white photo of Li Wangyang with the words “give me back Li Wangyang”. There had been a memorial ceremony for him on the street that day. Everyone had brought a white chrysanthemum and placed it in front of his memorial tablet. Everyone supposed to be sitting behind me had gone, with only me staying in the legislative chamber. When compiling the annual report, I put this image on the last page so that voters in my Legal functional constituency would always remember it. 

Why do we fight for democracy and the rule of law? It is to prevent people from dying unjust deaths as Li Wangyang did. Lamentably, after nine years, we seem to be even further away from having democracy. 

It has just been reported that Lady Hale, former President of the UK Supreme Court and a non-permanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong, is not seeking reappointment on the Hong Kong court after the end of her term in July. Her words were “I don’t wish to be reappointed”. She did not say whether the other Britain judges should stay or go, although she did say that there are “all sorts of question marks up in the air” concerning the National Security Law. What I think is the worthiest of our thought is that she said, “At the moment Hong Kong has an independent judiciary”, and “you can have the rule of law even though sometimes the substantive content is not what you would want it to be”. However, she also said that “there is no necessary correlation unless you add to your description of the rule of law… the protection of fundamental human rights.” She added, “If you don’t have the protection of fundamental human rights well then maybe your adherence to the rule of law is diminished.” 

What she has said could not be clearer. If the rule of law does not protect human rights, it might not affect adherence to the rule of law concerning commercial matters. This might be exactly the objective that the government wants to achieve, and some non-permanent judges might accept this. After all, is it not true that the economy and trade are very important too? If that is the case, we will not care too much about whether non-permanent judges from overseas will stay or go. But if you ask me, I have always argued that this is a naïve view. If the rule of law does not protect fundamental human rights, the ultimate result will be the absence of the rule of law for economic and trade matters.

Several days before the 4th of June this year, someone gifted me a dainty “Never Forget June Fourth” lightbulb. On the night of the 4th of June, I twisted it on and placed it on a street-facing windowsill so that every passerby would see it when they raised their heads. Small as it was, it stayed on for the entire night. The lightbulb is tiny but quietly inexhaustible, just like every one of us. 

Do not go on a fast just because others are doing this, please. You are already too thin. 

(Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee is a barrister, writer and columnist in Hong Kong. She was a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1995-1997; 1998-2012.)

Click <a href="https://hk.appledaily.com/columnist/20210613/Y5FW4NKELFDEDOKKR6RKAMIQBE/" target="_blank">here </a>for Chinese version

June on fire｜Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee

Different nations around the world are currently competing in a Covid-19 vaccine race. The higher the vaccination rate, the faster a country can achieve herd immunity and the earlier its economy can get back on track. A higher jab rate can even lead to a stronger stock market. So far this year, stock markets in Europe have been the best performers, whereas the stock markets of Japan, the Philippines and Malaysia, which have a low vaccination rate, have all been marked by their relatively poor performance.

Vaccination highlights the global disparity between the rich and the poor. So far European countries, the US and China have recorded the highest amounts of jabs administered, while the vaccination rate of many African countries is almost zero as they are still waiting for imported vaccines to arrive.

According to Our World In Data, a total of 2.255 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in the world to date, 12.3 percent of the world population has had at least one dose, and 6.2 percent has had two jabs or is completely vaccinated. Among the 2.255 billion doses, China accounts for 845 million, the US 305 million, India 240 million, Brazil 76 million, the UK 70 million, Germany 59 million, France 43 million and Italy 41 million. Together, 1.68 billion doses have been administered in these eight countries, representing 75 percent of the world total. While China has publicized the total number of doses administered at home, no other data is available. Vaccines available in the mainland come with two doses. So far, less than 30 percent of the population has had two doses.

According to the Hong Kong government, a total of 2.84 million doses of vaccines have been administered, among which 1.67 million were first doses, representing about 22 percent of the local population, and 15 percent of the population has had a second dose. Recently, Professor Lam Tai-hing, a lecturer of the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health, said Hong Kong had almost the lowest vaccination rate in the world at about 20 percent and that Hongkongers should feel ashamed.

Excluding Europe and the US, Hong Kong’s vaccination rate actually ranks among the top developed countries or regions. Its full vaccination rate is much higher compared with Japan and South Korea, which have a rate of around five percent. It is also better than Canada and Brazil, which have a rate of about 10 percent. If Hongkongers should be ashamed of a vaccination rate of 20 percent, I would like to ask Professor Lam whether the majority of countries and regions in the world, which have yet to attain 10 percent, should also feel utterly ashamed.

It took less than a year for all the Covid-19 vaccines to be approved. They are exceptional products launched at an exceptional time. It is reasonable for people to have doubts. When dispensing their advice, stock market experts like to emphasize that “stock prices can go up and down”. It is a disclaimer. The same goes to doctors who say the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines is greater than its risk.

The high jab rate in the US and the UK is partly attributable to the fact that the two countries were the first to acquire the vaccines. But what is more important is people’s initiative to get vaccinated. The Hong Kong government blames the low vaccination on the people. It politicizes the vaccination issue although it keeps talking about being scientific. It talks the talks but does not walk the walk. As with Hong Kong, other countries have also reported cases where individuals died after being inoculated, and different vaccines were involved in those cases. Whether the deaths had to do with the vaccination or not, the authorities should explain with data rather than change existing rules to divert attention.

Click <a href="https://hk.appledaily.com/finance/20210613/2TMXMRCZNJHFNJ2I7ACGX4VAJU/" target="_blank">here</a> for Chinese version

The global vaccine race｜Stock Wing

Amid a profusion of appeals for the “lying-down(tang ping) lifestyle”, campus upheavals that had not been seen for ages reemerged in Nanjing. The students protested against universities’ independent colleges merged with vocational universities to make tens of thousands of undergraduate students downgraded. After the students’ protest, the education departments of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Northeast China took in turn to announce withdrawal of the amalgamation of colleges.      

The Ministry of Education proclaimed on June 4(Ministry of Education and June 4 again, which is cut from the same cloth as the incident in that very year) that it planned to turn the independent colleges affiliated to 13 universities into vocational-technical universities, among which 5 independent colleges in Jiangsu would bear the brunt of it. In China, the score cut-off for admission to university undergraduate programs is about 100 points higher than to “vocational-technical colleges”, and the undergraduate students affected would be downgraded to students of vocational-technical colleges de facto after the coalescence. In light of the fact that the recognition for the degrees obtained by, salary starting points and social statuses of the former are substantially different from the latter and quite a large number of job vacancies are only open to university graduates, some students filed a petition to the education department of Jiangsu as soon as the solution was forced through. But they were dragged away by riot police.          

Meanwhile, several thousand students at the Xinglin College of Nantong University, Zhijiang College of Zhejiang University of Technology and Zhongbei College of Nanjing Normal University also carried banners to protest against it in campuses, and the students of “Zhongbei College” and their families held in custody for 30 hours the vice-president of the university who came to “expound on” the plan. The authorities dispatched armored vehicles and several hundred police officers to besiege the campus, and fierce confrontations between both sides took place. Some of the students said they were menaced by counsellors who said if they did not give in, they should worry that they would in the end encounter what happened to that bunch of students decades ago (they referred to the June 4 incident). Do students of nowadays know what happened to the students in the June 4 incident? Why did they not intimidate the students by saying that if they did not give in, they would suffer from what happened to Hong Kong’s young people?            

In fact, in recent years, quite a number of protests had something to do with education. That the Ministry of Education ordered schools in Inner Mongolia by force to replace Mongolian with Chinese language as a medium of instruction gave rise to a large-scale protest staged by students, parents and teachers, which even drew worldwide attention; Beijing Youwin Education that had around a thousand branch schools in China went out of business all of a sudden, and several hundred parents lodged a protest at the headquarters demanding a refund of fee for instruction; cases of child abuse in a great number of RYB kindergartens in Jilin and Beijing where kids were jabbed by teachers with needles were reported, which caused parents to surround the schools, requesting an inquiry into the truth.     

Every society carries injustice. In view of the fact that the privileged bully around, bigwigs predominate all lines of businesses and even the entire society, and the Chinese people are already accustomed to lying down (tang ping), why did they come forward for various education issues? Nowadays in China, the offspring of average plebeians can hardly succeed in earning a decent living, and the only way to climb up the social ladder is via education. It is perfect if one can gain admission to one of the top state or province universities (top public universities) after getting through the National College Entrance Examination. It is not bad at all if one can enter one of the profit-making universities. Only by obtaining a university degree is one eligible for applying for a government vacancy or finding a decent job in a major city. The National College Entrance Examination and university education have then become a glimpse of hope of tens of millions of families who aspire to break away from poverty so that their next generation can enjoy city life. That is also the reason why a lot of people have been putting up with the injustice in silence. As any reform by the Ministry of Education could deprive them of the hope, how would students and their parents resign themselves to death?      

Click <a href="https://hk.appledaily.com/china/20210614/DB7JDDBGXNC7JAKZAOWA3IDECY/" target="_blank">here </a>for Chinese version

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