Thousands of people marched in Hong Kong on Sunday in protest against the Chinese government’s plan to introduce what been branded by many as compulsory patriotism lessons.
The New York Times reports (£):
The new curriculum is similar to the so-called patriotic education taught in mainland China. The materials, including a handbook titled “The China Model,” describe the Communist Party as “progressive, selfless and united” and criticize multiparty systems, even though Hong Kong has multiple political parties.
Critics liken the curriculum to brainwashing and say that it glosses over major events like the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square crackdown. It will be introduced in some elementary schools in September and be mandatory for all public schools by 2016.
It’s not just critics who have likened the curriculum to brainwashing, however. The Financial Times has an astonishing quote (£) from the chairman of the “China Civic Education Promotion Association”, Jiang Yudui:
If there are problems with the brain, then it needs to be washed, just like dialysis for kidney patients.
The organisers estimated turnout at 90,000 (although authorities pegged it at 32,000), and it is just the latest in a series of increasingly well-attended protests against what are seen as attempts by mainland China to bring the special administrative region, which was transferred to Beijing in 1997 with the promise that it would retain with the promise it would its own legal system, money, borders, and, of course Olympic team, under its wing. The tone has not always been civil, as the FT adds:
Earlier this year, a group of Hong Kong citizens waged a campaign against mainland visitors – whose number reached 28m last year, or four times the city’s population – which included taking out incendiary full-page newspaper advertisements describing them as “locusts”.
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