Hong Kong: Brainwashing Education

Hong Kong: Brainwashing Education

Oiwan Lam
May 12, 2011

The Hong Kong Education Bureau is planning to make patriotic education compulsory for primary and secondary school children.

The objective of the Moral and National Education Curriculum is to build “national harmony, identity and unity among individuals”, help the students to “develop a sense of belonging to the motherland”, “support national sports teams” and “appreciate Chinese culture”. The plan, however, has sparked fears in the society of political brainwashing.

“Brain-washing is a common practice”

As if to self-fulfill the prophecy, the Director of Publicity, Culture and Sports Department at the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong, Hao Tie-chuan, wrote in the Sina micro-blog on May 8, 2011, that “brain-washing” is a common practice in western education systems (Note: today I found the message deleted, here is a copy [zh]):

“”“”

Some people say that the moral and national education in primary and secondary school in Hong Kong is “brain-washing”, if you take a look at the education systems in western countries like the United States and France, such “brain-washing” is a necessity and international norm. Some say it is necessary to develop critical thinking among primary and secondary school children, but the common practice in international society is to cultivate critical consciousness in university education, not primary and secondary school level; some say that moral and national education should not [teach school children] to obey the central government, but would that still serve the propose of national education?

Responses to Hao's “brain-washing” theory

Hao's comment has widely been reported in mainstream media, Facebook and other social media platforms from May 9-11 2011 and many netizens visited Hao's micro-blog to leave comments, only to find out that most of the critical comments had been deleted. Many netizens pointed out that they had been blocked from commenting in Hao's micro-blog, including myself. Below is a screen capture of my failure to comment on Hao's “brainwashing remark” on May 11 2011:

Nevertheless, I managed to save some of the comments through Sina search (the more critical ones have been blocked from search by Sina administrator):

[zh]/ D

Shi Xiaowen: In the United Kingdom, their education teaches the citizens to love the country, while at the same time developing critical thinking. People love their country but would not defend everything that the country does. When people start receiving “brain-washing” in primary school, their brain would be damaged by the time they enter university. Even Jesus cannot perform miracles to cultivate critical thinking among the damaged brains. The task of national education is not to teach people to obey central government, Mr. Hao should not expose his damaged brain for furthering his career.

Johnson [zh]

Johnson : This is typical ignorant talk. If you are a knowledgeable person, you are more guilty. Western societies have both citizen and national education. The so-called national education is to develop a sense of identification with a country's history and constitution, which restricts the power of the people elected to government. Conscience is part of human nature and citizen education is to teach us how to perform in a society.

[zh] …

Musician Stanley: Hao Tie-chuan from the Propaganda Department of the Joint Liaison Office recently said in his micro-blog that the purpose of moral and national education in Hong Kong is to brainwash the students and manufacture citizens who obey the Chinese Communist Party. “If moral and national education do not [teach school children] to obey central government, would that still serve the propose of national education?” - a Hong Kong Legislator said that such talk is fearful… haha, I find this propaganda director too candid, too cute!

CLPRO [zh]

CLPRO: Do you have a conscience!!!! Do you want to make people crazy? People should love their country from their heart, do you need to do this? The reason why French people love their country is because of their values: freedom, equality and fraternity. The reason why Americans love their country is because of their love for freedom and diversity. The reason why Chinese people don't love their country is because of the corrupted political system, failure in education and bureaucracy. Wake up! A really powerful country does not need national education to make people proud of the country.
How to brain-wash the kids?

So much for Hao's Freudian slip, what exactly would the curriculum be that is implemented in Hong Kong? Sam Ng has studied the consultation document and explained the brain-washing process [zh]:

In the pedagogy of “Cheering for our national team”, students were asked to recollect the scene when the Chinese Olympic team receive an award on the stage with the national anthem as background music. The teacher would ask the students to talk about their feelings. A note in the pedagogy says: “If the teachers notice that students do not have strong feelings about the nation, do not criticize them, accept their performance, but ask them to reflect upon their reaction.” How to reflect? Repent in front of a wall like a Buddhist monk? or write a penitent report?

Another example is the pedagogy of “I learn how to sing the national anthem”. After listening and singing out loud the national anthem, the teacher should ask the student: “Please stand up, speak out loud two of the nation's guiding spirits.” then: “Please speak out loud: “I feel happy that I am Chinese”. The curriculum keeps demanding students to speak out loud.

Kursk from inmediahk.net also points out [zh] that the devil is in the detail and invites the readers to take a close look at the curriculum. For example, although students do not need to take an examination, they have to go through a series of evaluations:

The curriculum puts forward an evaluation scheme: parents have to evaluate their kids and students have to evaluate each other. The evaluation form is an indexed scale.

As Kursk rightly spells out, it is impossible to evaluate a person's feeling and emotion, thus the side effect of such evaluation may be mutual policing among school kids:

Mutual evaluation may bring forth another problem: mutual monitoring among students. This may be a bit far-fetched. However, in mainland China, it is quite common that students report each other on their [political] misconduct. If there are options in the evaluation form like “understand and support the country”, “protect the national territories' sovereignty”, the mutual evaluation would become mutual policing.

A battle with the state educator

It is inevitable that the Chinese government would impose “brain-washing” mechanisms in the Hong Kong education system and mainstream media. At inmediahk.net, Tommyjonk urges citizens to be prepared for the ideological battle [zh] by quoting local intellectual Ma Kokming's talk about the role of organic intellectuals:

(The State as Educator)(organic intellectual)

Gramcis believes that the state machine in a capitalist country plays the role of “The State as Educator”. To launch the socialist revolution, we have to resist the capitalist dominating ideology. The mission falls to the hands of organic intellectuals. Gramcis' organic intellectuals are not academics hiding inside ivory towers, but people who engage in conversations with social movements.

In the education sector, we have quite a number of progressive organic intellectuals. If the central government and SAR government make the moral and national education compulsory in schools, we have to network with all the progressive forces to fight the battle against the state machinery!!!

ENDS

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