- The city’s tertiary institutions must protect their mainland students and staff from political violence and anti-China bigotry
Hong Kong's universities have become places of bigotry, violence and mass hysteria. There must be many civilised and intelligent students, but they are in hiding. All we read about these days are students trashing their own campuses and offices, illegally detaining and threatening their academic elders until they cave to their demands and now, beating up their mainland peers and kicking them home.
But, who among our distinguished scholars and literati are speaking up? Most are either too scared or secretly happy to see what's going on as part of a struggle against China. Sadly, the impurity of means diminishes the noblest of goals.
Dozens of mainland students have fled the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology or are planning to out of fear for their safety.
Mainland Chinese students flee Hong Kong fearing they will be attacked next
This comes after one of them was beaten up by a student mob, apparently in the presence of university president Professor Wei Shyy. The office of a mainland professor has also been trashed, along with a Starbucks shop, a Bank of China branch and a Maxim's canteen on campus. Mainland academics and students from other local universities also fear for their safety; more of them are planning to take refuge back home.
It would be nice to know what Professor Shyy and other university heads plan on doing to protect their own students from the mainland, seeing how ready he was to concede to the demand of student radicals to implicate the police in the death of fellow student Chow Tsz-lok. Evidence that has emerged shows his death, though a tragedy, was likely a freak accident. This will not stop the student mob and their supporters from screaming police murder. Ironically, the cravenness and cowardice of Professor Shyy didn't stop campus radicals from vandalising his official residence.
I hate to point out the obvious. Targeting mainland students and professors does not help protect academic freedom and autonomy " quite the opposite. Silencing other people who disagree with you is not about protecting freedom of speech, but stifling it.
However, for many of the most radical local students, who seem to lack tolerance and common sense, academic freedom, autonomy and free speech are just pretty words to justify their ignoble impulses and dangerous irresponsibility.
They won't stop until society stops condoning and glorifying their violent actions and irrational demands. Sadly, large swathes of local society are caught up in the same mass delusion.
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