Letters | If Hong Kong students could talk protests out, there may be no need for petrol bombs

Hong Kong schools are withdrawing from a debating competition at a time when we need more, not less, debate. If we try and look at things from multiple and opposing perspectives, we may learn to be more tolerant

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Students at a protest rally near the Hong Kong Museum of Art, in Tsim Sha Tsui on December 13. Photo: AP

Published: 7:20am, 30 Dec 2019Updated: 7:20am, 30 Dec 2019

I am saddened to learn that several schools have withdrawn from the Hong Kong Secondary Schools Debate Competition (“Hong Kong schools pull out of debate contest after furore over protest-related topics”, December 24).

Debate is a healthy way of communicating ideas on timely topics and, right now, Hong Kong needs more of these platforms for people to discuss and evaluate issues from different standpoints, instead of having them take to the streets with petrol bombs and other lethal weapons.

Debate allows us to look at something from different perspectives; this teaches us to be more open-minded. Right now people in Hong Kong are constantly disagreeing with each other. They believe that only their ideas and demands are relevant and everyone else’s are pointless and have no upside.

If people in Hong Kong try and look at things from multiple and opposing perspectives, they may learn to be more tolerant. We need more tolerance at times like these and a debate is the perfect way to encourage it.

Finally, your article quotes Wong Wai-shing, the vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers (HKFEW), as saying: “Secondary school students are sometimes immature and might not be too familiar with [political issues]. It is therefore not appropriate to ask them to debate about these topics.”

Secondary students ... should be given the right to learn about and discuss the events happening in their own city