It's time to bridge the political divide in Hong Kong
Stop wearing yellow or blue ribbons and drop those ribbon pictures from your personal blogs and Facebook pages.
Stop wearing yellow or blue ribbons and drop those ribbon pictures from your personal blogs and Facebook pages. That is the advice from University of Hong Kong psychology professor Harry Hui Chi-chiu for taking a personal first step towards bridging ever widening divisions within our society.
And here's my own advice: start "refriending" people you have "unfriended" in Facebook, those who wear a different coloured ribbon than yours but whose company, skills and views you might otherwise enjoy or respect.
It's well known that when people who share similar beliefs come together, they end up reinforcing each other's views. And since they only meet and make friends with like-minded people, they easily come to conclude they represent the majority view. In fact, findings in a field of psychology called heuristics and biases conclude such "echo-chamber" effects lead to extreme views by confirming and hardening each other's beliefs.
It's no surprise then that student leaders from Scholarism and the Federation of Students think they speak on behalf of the Hong Kong people and keep claiming their opinion is the majority view. If most people around you share the same view, then that's the only view you see.
Funny that: most people from my own much older social circles don't share the students' views. In fact, many dislike, oppose and even despise them! Well-meaning scholars, journalists and officials may try to mediate by presenting impartial or unbiased views. But that's useless with people with fixed or firm convictions. Experts in heuristics and biases have long studied the phenomenon of confirmation bias, which is that we tend to accept views and evidence that support our stance and discard those that don't.
We will remain divided for a long time. But one way out is to have people you trust, leaders whose views and standing you have faith in, to speak out for the legitimacy of the other side.
They are people like Executive Councillor Bernard Charnwut Chan and maverick pan-democrat Ronny Tong Ka-wah. They may sit firmly in their respective political camps but both are able to articulate the views of the other side. We need more people like them.
