What has happened recently?

My friends, you must be fed up with the current absurd affairs taking place in our campus. University of Hong Kong, proud of its one century’s history, is experiencing one of the most ridiculous moments because of its leading student organization.

Student union central committee, an unpopular student association even though it is regarded as the official student organization for the best university in Hong Kong. A few weeks ago, a rather neutral thinking freshman somehow managed to be elected as the president for this organization. His personal comments nonetheless attracted severe oppositions and personal attacks from not only the campus but also from the general media. It is surprising to see the whole society has stood against this young man. Some notorious guys even attacked by nasty means.

There are some notable representatives for such oppositions and attacks. Several former student presidents all in a sudden jumped out, alleging that their successor is a shame who should quit the presidency immediately. Someone who supported independence of Tibet made herself silly headline again by proposing a motion which is so absurd that it gets enough signatures to get into the process of implementation. If you look at the local newspapers, an overwhelming voice of criticism over this young president is dominating.

It would be a shame for University of Hong Kong, which proudly boasts itself as one of the rare places in China where there is freedom of speech, acceptance of different views, and respect for individual rights.

Why is Hong Kong so concerned about June.4^th incident?

Many of my friends are frustrated by local students’ viewpoints. As a consequence, they simplify the question without thinking to assert that local students are intrinsically stupid. In other words, they are simply “brain damaged”. This is an easy conclusion to draw, but it is rather inconsiderate and biased.

Local students’ viewpoints cannot be understood without mentioning the historical and societal backgrounds. Before 1997, it is regarded as an independent territory that has its unique identity. People tend to think themselves as Hong Kong people, rather than Chinese people or any other. This unique identity has somehow linked to self-esteem, a substitute for national identity. Hong Kong people are proud of their past achievement and regard the identity of “Hong Kong people” to be superior.

With the development of economy, China is emerging as a promising future power in the world. Nevertheless, the old image of China has not faded away with the economic progress. Hong Kong nowadays has less and less to feel superior about, but the incident of June.4^th is still a good weapon holding in Hong Kong people’s hands to show their perceived superiority over Mainland in terms of democracy, freedom of speech, and related modern western ideologies.

This notion has been broadened and linked to the self-esteem of Hong Kong people. They regard themselves as honorable defenders for value of justice, democracy and fairness. This fundamental linkage between the symbolic meaning of June.4^th incident and Hong Kong people’s self-esteem portraits anyone who challenges this link to be a threat to basic moral principles and the very “unique, far, just, honorable, superior than Mainland” Hong Kong identity.

A second level of such bias can be reflected in their impression on mainland students. They tend to assume that mainland students are not persuasive or credible to talk about June.4^th incident because we don’t have the information source. We are assumed to be brain washed by communism party and have no clear mind to make sound judgment. On the other hand, irritated mainland students responded with labeling them “brain damaged”.

It is true that many websites are blocked by great fire wall and no public discussion on June.4^th is allowed. However, free flow of information does not lead to adequate understanding of information. Restricted flow of information does not imply a blind eye towards everything. In fact, modern information technologies have allowed university students download any restricted materials from the internet. Porn movies would not be popular residing in students’ hard drives otherwise.

No matter you agree with their standing or not, it is a fact that many Hong Kong people have taken this standing for long. It is hard for a quick change.

What can we do as a minority?

This week there is going to be a general polling which determines the poor young man’s presidency. As mainland students, a group of minority, it is to our best interest to do whatever that is lawful to prevent stupidity from reoccurring.

You can vote against the motion of impeach. That is to keep the neutral president on his place. However, there is a dilemma. According to the polling rule, this voting cannot be effective unless there are at least 1570 votes. The rule goes on to say that to pass the motion the “for” votes must be more than the “against” votes. This terribly designed rule makes that: (1) 1569 “for” votes will let the careless speaking president stay even if everyone who voted disliked him; (2) given the situation in (1), some supporter in favor of the young man casted a “against” vote, which satisfied both conditions for impeach, making the young man end his short presidency.

Taking this into account, the best strategy is to wait until Friday. With more vote information on hand, there can be a better way to tackle the problem.

Interestingly, four brilliant medical students have made good fun of “snow mountain woman” by proposing her as student union president. Noticing that it is an embarrassing joke to be laughed at, she immediately posted a disclaimer. I would love to see this proposal go into a real motion that needs general polling. In that case, the whole situation goes into another extreme, challenging another side of everyone’s bottom line again. This will establish a strong power of strike back. We can justly declare our departure from student union, refuse to pay membership fee, and act more if necessary.

As a matter of fact, we should be prepared for any result from this stupid general polling. But this general polling mechanism makes it easy for us to express our own viewpoints. As long as you can collect 350 signatures, you can carry out any motion that needs general polling.

Right now the young president has not been responsive enough to all unfair charges against him. Silence is more likely than not to be assumed to be admittance in this political game. However, he shall not be fully blamed for relative naïveness. Ungraceful radio commentators have intrigued him to speak dishonestly. It is a sad fact that he did not take a firm position and defended it, but is rather slippery, seeking for compromises.

All been said, I figure that keeping a neutral person on that position is overall beneficial to us and more practicable. But pushing an unpopular woman on that position will destroy this ridiculous system more fundamentally, but it is rather difficult in the sense that I don’t believe student union has not gone nuts like that.