Upheaval

The Siege of PolyU poses an existential threat to the university.  Firstly, there are the obvious physical damages to the campus caused by the fires, destructions of classrooms and furniture, teargas, and more.  The challenges to clean up, to repair, to rebuild.  The costs in terms of money, time, attention.  

Secondly, there is significant damage to the reputation of and confidence in the management.  Many pro-establishment politicians are complaining that the university did a poor job educating the students, protecting the campus and the students.  They are cutting off funding to the university, not only to upgrade and expand, but even to repair the campus.  Many want to punish the university in some way.  Some even say that the universities should be closed and students sent to the Mainland for education. 

Thirdly, many students, present and potential, have lost their faith in the university.  Most foreign students have returned home, some probably not to come back.  Many are predicting the number of applications, both local and offshore, will drop significantly in the coming years.  What good is a university without good students?

Fourthly, there is the self-doubt and soul searching. If the number of our own students participating in the confrontation and siege is really small, then how did we allow the siege to happen?  Is it something in our management, operation, culture and values that led to the siege and conflagration?  Whatever the numbers, our university is in the middle of the conflagration, and we suffered a lot from it, whether it is our own making, or due lately to external factors.  What does that say about our values?  Are we truly behaving honourably, worthy of an institute of higher education, making a positive contribution to the development of the community, turning out responsible citizens?

The way that we respond to the existential crisis tells us who we are, and whether we are worthy of survival and even prosperity.  The soul searching starts now.  I am also looking for inspirations from resources such as Jared Diamond’s “Upheaval”.  In Upheaval, Diamond identifies “selective changes” that individuals and nations make in response to crises.  For example, when Japan was threatened by American gunboats in 1853, it embarked on a rigorous modernisation which transformed Japan into a powerful country able to defeat Russia.  

What selective changes is PolyU going to make in response to the siege of PolyU?  Other than strengthening campus security?  

As a matter of fact, what selective changes is Hong Kong going to make in response to the conflagration in the past half year?  Other than giving the police the power to beat people up with impunity?