Class boycott? Just get on with studying
Given the political agitations that student activists have been involved in recently, many people would not hesitate to call it political interference
Let’s play a little game of moral equivalence. Suppose the council or the administration of the University of Hong Kong decides to overhaul or abolish the student union and other student-oriented groups. What would you call that?
Given the political agitations that student activists have been involved in recently, many people would not hesitate to call it political interference.
Now, let’s turn that around.
Some HKU students have occupied the council, possibly illegally; chased and shouted down council members; voted in a fake referendum against the council’s decisions and personnel, and fought and are still fighting against the appointment of Arthur Li Kwok-cheung as the new council chairman. Some are staging a boycott of classes. Is that not interference in something they really have no business in?
Sure, I used to boycott classes too when I was an undergraduate, usually from partying too hard the night before. But I didn’t try to convince others to join me.
Even if you think the students are committed to the cause of democracy and improved governance, they are still making a mistake – what philosophers call a category mistake.