Moreover, getting rid of religious schools would be against articles 136 and 137 of our Basic Law:
LETTER TO SCMP:
Will Chan praises the education he received at Catholic Schools in Hong Kong; in the next breath he calls for their abolition! (Post-colonial Hong Kong should rethink religious schools. 3 October).
A puzzling non-sequitur.
Except as a call for "post colonial" reckoning.
But what Chan calls a "post colonial city" I call an "international city". In Hong Kong I as a gweilo can make a life, and feel a sense of belonging, as I have done since 1976.
Like Chan, I too am an atheist. Yet I love the fact that Hong Kong has its churches, its mosques and its temples. I’m happy that we have schools of all stripes from secular government schools to international and religious schools. I don't want them banned, least of all for vacuous concerns over alleged “colonialism".
Moreover, getting rid of religious schools would be against articles 136 and 137 of our Basic Law:
Community organizations and individuals may, in accordance with law, run educational undertakings of various kinds in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.(Art 136)
Educational institutions of all kinds may retain their autonomy and enjoy academic freedom. (Art 137)
Has Chan considered that if we do away with Catholic schools, for consistency we would also have to do away with Islamic schools? And Buddhist and Jewish schools? Good luck with that.
Chan claims we should get rid of Catholic schools because they propagate "western values". Has he forgotten that Christianity began in the Levant of West Asia, and spread both east and west from there. Christianity is now as eastern as it is western. There are nearly 400 million Christians in Asia.
Chan says we should replace these schools with "patriotism". But patriotism to what? To the rich history and culture of Chinese civilisation? Or to its current government, which is by its own definition “Marxist-Leninist” a western ideology?
Chan's letter is a farrago of nonsense.
I do hope the government will ignore it. The last thing we need is for Hong Kong to become "just another Chinese city" based on the weak gruel of “post-colonial" theory.
Pf, etc...
ADDED: LONG LIVE the One Country Two Systems of Deng Xiaoping!
