New School for Democracy received no responses, despite having hosted four or five sessions a year since 2012 at different universities around the city
GARY CHEUNG AND JOYCE NG
UPDATED : Monday, 13 June, 2016, 8:00am
Andrew To attributed the unions’ lukewarm response to the rise of localism on campuses at the city’s universities. Photo: Bruce Yan
Student unions across Hong Kong have snubbed an offer from a school that promotes China’s democratic development to hold seminars on campuses to discuss the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Andrew To Kwan-hang, president of the New School for Democracy, said the school had “held four or five sessions in different universities every year” since 2012, and that each session drew nearly 30 students.
“We received no response from any student unions of local universities after we proposed talks on June 4 in May,” he added.
To, who was secretary general of the Federation of Students in 1989, attributed the unions’ lukewarm response to the rise of localism on campuses at the city’s universities.
Representatives of student unions from 11 tertiary institutions boycotted the annual candlelight vigil held in Victoria Park on June 4 to commemorate those killed in the crackdown .
Instead, they organised a forum on the same day to discuss the incident’s significance, but there was no session to mourn those killed.
Founded in 2011, the Hong Kong-based New School for Democracy is a platform which promotes democratic development in Chinese communities, including the mainland, through academic exchanges .
Wang Dan, one of the student leaders in the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Beijing and who now lives in Taiwan, and Democratic Party lawmaker Albert Ho Chun-yan are among the directors of the school.
Ernie Chow Shue-fung, president of Chinese University’s student union, said he was not interested in the seminar. Chow held a seminar on June 4 on his campus.
He disagreed with the patriotism emphasised by the organisers of the candlelight vigil, which shared the same vision as the New School for Democracy.
Franco Wong Chak-hang, student union chief of Polytechnic University, said he was not aware of the offer and added it was “not practical to organise a seminar because not many students were on campus at that time”.
Political commentator and radio host Poon Siu-to, who has held sharing sessions at secondary schools since 2010, said he had also noticed a growing disinterest in mainland politics among pupils in the last two years.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1973782/student-unions-hong-kong-snub-offer-host-seminars-about-june
