This is a Long article, yet I think it's worth to read. it's not only talks about the problems which Hong Kong is facing. it's also may give you some hints to figure out the cultural and social challenges which Europe is facing. you may surprise that the problems of Hong Kong and Europe are so similar. Liberals, leftards, and the damage of European culture and civilization. PS. Doctor Chan Wan, who are a Hong Konger, achieved his Phd at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany. He is the one of the keen person to support the "nation building movement" of Hong Kong. Please see his facebook https://www.facebook.com/HKTruthWanchin?pnref=story Thanks for reading. as follow: The Vulnerability of Pluralism and the upholding of Orthodox Chinese Culture* --- State of the Hong Kong Address for Nation-building of Hong Kong By Wan Chin, March 13, 2015 at 11:03am Upholding cultural pluralism in a place without a mainstream culture or looking down upon its own mainstream culture, such as Hong Kong means emptying out the home ground. What Hong Kong will get is not pluralism but invasion and forcible occupation by some extra-territorial, hegemonic cultures, which, alas, will neither take root on this piece of land nor protect it. The pro-American democratic parties and the Leftards were supposed proponents of universal values and multiculturalism. However, we have not seen such universal values and pluralism being honestly practiced here in Hong Kong. For example, universal values and pluralism would have staunchly protected vulnerable cultures. In Hong Kong, using the mother tongue Cantonese to teach Chinese has become vulnerable under the official policy of teaching Chinese in Putonghua. The reason why the pro-American democratic parties in Hong Kong have not come out in force to defend the local language is simply because Cantonese is not of the American culture! As for forces of local communists and Communist China in Hong Kong, they will certainly not protect Cantonese and traditional Chinese characters. After all, on the Chinese Mainland, they also aim at destroying mainstream Orthodox Chinese culture in order to strengthen their rule. Despite all the fanfare promulgations, Pluralism or Multiculturalism failed to take shape here. Instead, cultural invasion and forced occupation of home ground has already taken place. This necessitates thorough understanding of and thus the need to revisit of the processes of nation-building in modern times. The honour of inheritance from a strong culture and the commitment to a shared destiny by all members was fundamental tenets to the establishment of modern nations which must be reflected in all the constitutions. We have transited from traditional allegiances (such as by blood, loyalty to nobilities, trans-racial religious beliefs or the Churches) to become free nations formed based on constitutional agreements. During these early nation-building processes, not only were traditional bonds such as by race, defined nobilities, churches not being destroyed, but they got even preserved by the new social contracts . (For example, in the process, religion and politics were segregated, constitutional monarchs remained, and the powers of nobilities were confined to the upper houses of parliaments etc.) At these times, promulgating cultural pluralism was apt and complimented the spirit for the founding of those new republics. When the mainstream cultures were still firmly set in place with the traditional bonds well-preserved and embedded, these societies as whole could still stand up to the challenges posed by multiculturalism. The same, however, could not be said after the World Wars. Since the declaration and the implementation of the United Nations Human Rights Laws, activism for equal rights for minorities in different individual countries have significantly altered the scene. Minorities often end up getting extra protections afforded them through these equal rights laws and they lose the motivation to assimilate and comply with the mainstream societies of their adopted countries. Instead, their traditional links with their original birth places and religious alliances got to be fortified. They might even maintain close associations with trans-national religious organisations and even with governments of their original home countries. This has become a phenomenon especially with ethnic groups of Islamic origin. Hong Kong has many new immigrants, free visitors and investment migrants from China that have maintained close political links with their original communist government. Whilst the situation in Hong Kong and that of other societies, such as the U.S. or U.K. are not identical or even comparable, we have undeniably witnessed the adverse impact of blind adherence to pluralism which have posed immense threat to both national security and room for survival of the locals. In Hong Kong, we must understand why blind adherence to so-called pluralism can be a serious problem. Hong Kong is a small and compact, catering for wide divergence can easily askew the society politically and economically, affecting its survival and security. Therefore, a preeminent culture needs to be based for stability and long-term survival of Hong Kong. The upholding of Orthodox Chinese as our mainstream culture in Hong Kong (which also reflects the population mix of the past 170 years of history) is just and fair. The Orthodox Chinese Culture comes with a long tradition of inheritance and within which there were pluralism in terms of traditions, territorial and racial aspects. For example, the traditional body of the Orthodox Chinese Culture has many variants. The Chow, the Han and the Sung Dynasties each had distinct traditions, territorial and combinations of ethnical assimilations. (The Chu of the two lakes2, the Ng Yue of the Kiangsu-Chekiang areas and the Pak Yue of Canton were all dissimilar). With the stimulation from reformatory drives in India, Persia and even contemporary Western countries such as USA and UK, the resurgence of Orthodox Chinese culture becomes real. Here in Hong Kong, it has been vibrantly and interactively practised with pluralistic popular ethics and customs being lived out by many communities. The kind of assimilation achieved here is one where everyone has a say, everyone can live out in their own cultural and racial environments (for example Cantonese, Fukienese and Hakka communities all coexisted) and does not have any overt exclusion of each other and devoid of any fascist sentiments. Likewise, the minorities of foreign extractions such as the Parsis etc. , the Indians and Pakistani, Euro-Asian communities have all lived side by side in peace with the local ethnic Chinese population in HK, each practicing their own faiths and customs. The concept of multi-culturalism has its origins from European ideals of egalitarianism (spirit of the French Republic) and the idea of individuals freedom to enter into contracts (French thinker Rousseau's "Social Contract Theory"). Unfortunately, the enactment of the affirmative Human Rights Laws has unintentionally complicated some situations with erroneous equality rulings which undesirably impacted many societies. We, therefore, have to revisit the original spirit of the ideologies in order to recapture their essence to deal with issues of the minorities as against the invasion of communities. It must be recognized that in many occasions, it was these new arrivals that were NOT prepared to enter into the social contracts! How can a republic talk about accommodation when these new arrival of communities are ones reluctant to accept the social contract of the mainstream host community? What we are doing in Hong Kong is to return to the original founding spirit of the ideology and reconstruct true universal values! This is the leading trend of cultural and philosophical reflections by leaders of the world. This posting of mine is far from being comparable to the thinking of Voltaires and Rousseaus but I must say the intention is there to follow their spirits as closely as possible. Footnote: * As opposed to naming pseudo Chinese-Soviet culture as Chinese, the term Orthodox Chinese Culture (pronounced in Cantonese as Wah Ha) is used to differentiate between such enforced foreign culture disguised to be Chinese from the traditional hand-down cultural values since ancient times. (The word Chinese has been mistakenly use in the world and conveniently usurped by the current Chinese Communist Party which had in fact grazed out most central elements of Chinese culture and implanted it with Soviet values and destruction of the original writing scripts and languages.) 1. Leftards refers to people who purportedly embrace universal values and leftist ideals of social equality but in practice fail to adhere to the ideals. 2. Two Lakes refers to Tung Ting Lake in Central China where two kingdoms had been founded previously
