The re-cultural copies of China’s Cultural Revolution: Hong Kong educated intellectuals as Ghosts?
Key takeaways
- We must be very careful when we are to analogise the Anti-ELAB movement as the Cultural Revolution 2.0
- The cultural controls with the use of Ghosts are dissimilar in the post-Anti-ELAB era and The Cultural Revolution
- Cultural manipulations in the post-Anti-ELAB era is purely top-down rather a combination of a top-down and bottom-up approach that was utilised in The Cultural Revolution
Ghosts often exist in Cinema as moviesque images. Apart from these images, how do you identify whether Ghosts have political implications? For a long time the People’s Republic of China has termed Ghosts as people who are against the political regime.
The term Ghost was created during the post-Anti ELAB movement by the Hong Kong government. Historically, the people known as Ghosts existed during China’s Cultural Revolution. Educated people were more often known as ghosts.
Scholar LaiKwan Pang has provided a fundamental definition of “Ghosts in China”- The original meaning of Ghosts in China stems from Buddhism. China has an extensive historical religious background in which Ghosts are known as symbols of bad luck. This ideology was deeply rooted in China’s demos¹ before and during the Cultural Revolution. This was not only experienced from Buddhism, but also practised in the diverse and popular religions of China. Mao adopted the meaning of Ghosts to create the object (educated intellectuals) of hate during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. When the obedient demos conformed to the commands of Mao, the educated intellectuals were to be represented as Ghosts. 50 years later today, discourses about educated intellectuals being represented as Ghosts are swirling around public discussion. It has quickly been metaphorized as the representation of China’s Cultural Revolutions in present-day Hong Kong. Yet, is it really?
Since 2020, the Hong Kong government has been re-constructing the education system as cultural controls to manipulate ideological development in its regional context. In Hong Kong, the manipulations towards freedom are uncompromising and strict. Not only the scholars, but also Hong Kong citizens are emphasizing that Hong Kong is experiencing the Chinese Cultural Revolution 2.0, which is defined as another form of socio-cultural control in Hong Kong. While it exhibits similar traits as the Chinese Cultural Revolution in Mao’ socialism, I do realise that misconceptions exist when comparing the two, especially when both top-down and bottom-up cultural control structures were manipulated in The Cultural Revolution.
Thus, I would like to make use of the Art of Cloning by Laikwan Pang to clarify Hong Kong’s recent situations on education systems in contrast to the popular narrative of The Cultural Revolution 2.0.
The contemporary Hong Kong education system is not another copy of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, it is way more than the cultural controls executed between the years of 1966 and 1976.
When the society is keen to find out the sameness between Hong Kong and China 1966–1976, it is crucial that the discrepancies should also be a major part to be discussed. In present-day Hong Kong, the cultural controls on education systems are competing with time, the speed of controlling intellectuals is rapid, the stringent top-down system as a way of manipulations on cultural controls is different from China’s Cultural Revolution.
The cultural manipulations during the Cultural Revolution on cultural intellectuals are mentioned in Pang’s The Art of Cloning. Naturally, it reminds me that the Hong Kong educated intellectuals after 2019 are precisely the objects to be manipulated by the Hong Kong government. There is no direct linkage between the mode of cultural manipulations during Chinese Cultural Revolution and the current mode on Hong Kong education systems. It is careless for the public to analogise the two periods and draw the conclusion without digesting the context of the recent Hong Kong and the Chinese Cultural Revolution. In the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the demos were mutually empowered by Mao, and therefore facilitated the use of power in manipulating the others from bottom to top. The social mobility of power kept changing within a circulatory system. Oppositely, recent Hong Kong demos are not mutually empowered but are being manipulated within a top-down system — but how?
Incidents of top-down cultural manipulations in Hong Kong’s education system:
- 2020 — Secondary school teachers’ professional qualifications have been revoked due to their participation in the Anti-ELAB movement, teaching or support for the social movement in Hong Kong.
- 2020 — Withdrawing Liberal Studies with the replacement of Moral and Civic Education.
- 2020 — Mandatory declaration of allegiance as entry requirement for teachers.
- 2021 — The legitimacy of individuality and authority of several Hong Kong Student Unions from reputational universities, including The University of Hong Kong and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, have been renounced by their university administrative committees.
- 2021 — Cancellation of RTHK Talk Shows about History, Philosophy, Literature, Social Science and Physical Science.
- 2021 — The Hong Kong government cut ties with the Hong Kong’s Professional Teachers’ Union(PTU). The Hong Kong Education Bureau warned the teachers should revoke the membership from PTU. PTU has been labelled as a “Tumour” and the members as “poisonous teachers”.
Cultural intellectuals in the period of the Cultural Revolution were criticized and denounced, as well as manipulated by Mao and the demos. Intellectuals were represented as Ghosts, but how were the Ghosts participating in the development of The Cultural Revolution? In Pang’s research, the intellectuals were useful and useless — a way to treat the intellectuals as “negating negativity” in the sense of positive manipulation. Laid-offs of intellectuals in the education sector, particularly in universities, have recently been a usual practice against those who are politically active and dissenting. Current cultural controls on educated intellectuals, the intellectuals are merely “useless” Ghosts within the boundaries of Hong Kong education system.
The intention of reshaping educated intellectuals into completely useless objects signifies the dire message that the entire education system must be reconstructed, censored by governmental parties, Hong Kong Education Bureau and universities’ very own self-censorship.
Until recently, several Hong Kong universities have performed self-censorship. Courses about the Hong Kong National Security Law have been made compulsory in the coming semester. Under this light, the loss of freedom and autonomy of academics in the future is predictable.
If you are keen to claim that Hong Kong is experiencing another Cultural Revolution, I would emphasize once again, the cultural controls over the educated intellectuals are remotely similar between the two different periods. Hong Kong is no longer a place as re-cultural copies of The Cultural Revolution, but an unalike and vigorously manipulated education system — a system of educated intellectuals as Ghosts.
¹ Demos is defined “… as a plurality of cohabitants, in contrast to a populism that dichotomizes friends and foes while homogenizing each”. Please see Pang’s The Appearing Demos: Hong Kong During and After the Umbrella Movement for more detailed explanations of the open concept.
