A group of ethnic minorities have formed a concern group where they reach out to EM residents in HK and discuss important issues such as Education, Racial Equality, Social Harmony and so on.
After the group met with 3 CE candidates (and Regina Ip), they wrote an Open Letter to them and some of them made the video about their expectation to the next CE, hoping that the next CE would act upon every word they have spoken.
Dear Chief Executive Candidates,
We are a group of ethnic minorities from all ages and backgrounds. Hong Kong is our home and we love many things about this energetic and wonderful city. As well as our pride in being Hong Kongers, we all have one other thing in common – we remain marginalised and frustrated by the lack of opportunities for ethnic minorities and the ubiquity of discrimination and inequality.
In the past few months, we have come together and met with all of you who will have a chance to govern Hong Kong and we have also read your manifestos. In thanking you for your time and patience in speaking with us, we would like to share our thoughts on your policy plans for the next five years.
The first candidate we met was Judge Woo. We appreciate his sincerity and his willingness to learn, considering his lack of exposure to ethnic minorities' struggles and issues. In his manifesto, Judge Woo questioned the benefit of using Putonghua as a medium of instruction in Chinese lessons (PMIC). This concern is particularly relevant to ethnic minority students as school may be the only place where they have the chance to learn Cantonese. PMIC hinders students' Cantonese and Chinese-learning and, in the long term, affects their ability to integrate which, in turn, limits their options in higher education as well as employment.
Next we met with John Tsang who highlighted his experience as an ethnic minority in the United States and how he worked on the English as Second Language curriculum that helped ethnic minorities to integrate into American society.
Carrie Lam was the last candidate we met. She told us the government has set up many well-intentioned policies but the success or otherwise of these was dependent on whether the people who implemented them were passionate about making changes and compassionate towards the community. We are highly concerned that a top civil servant leaves policy delivery to individual person’s level of inspiration. If she becomes our Chief Executive, how she can manage the government on a larger scale?
Regarding the Race Discrimination Ordinance (RDO), we are grateful for Judge Woo and Mr Tsang’s recommendations on amendment of this legislation. We would like to further praise Judge Woo for advocating a bill to be put forward to rectify flaws in the law as this is overdue.
Mr Tsang and Judge Woo have both shown they have listened to our views on a Chinese as Second Language curriculum. Mr Tsang stated in his manifesto the curriculum and teaching materials should be developed by the government. Judge Woo goes one step further by proposing to set up a benchmark test so the school could have a better understanding of each student’s Chinese progress.
Mr Tsang suggested Chinese as a Second Language should be included in Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Exam but we question if this would replicate pre-existing exams such as the GCSE, which is next to useless. We would like to know what will be the benchmark for this exam and we do not wish to see another Chinese exam similar to GCSE or GCE which presets a lower level of Chinese capability for ethnic minority students.
Regarding both the RDO and CSL curriculum, Ms Lam, a seasoned government official, intends to conduct reviews of both – except a review of the RDO has already been done and a review on the current CSL policy is already in motion. We expected more genuine efforts from a highly experienced civil servant.
We have noticed that certain candidates have connections to elite groups in the ethnic minority community but we are sincerely concerned about whether the marginalised and voiceless grassroots is being properly represented.
As well, certain candidates have mentioned they will take time to examine and review, yet these issues have been raised time and time again. How many more years do we have to wait?
To conclude, none of the candidates has bothered to address some of the more pressing issues such as segregation in schools and society. We continue to raise these matters because such problems have existed for decades and generations continue to suffer. While fully committed to living and working in – and serving – Asia's World City, in many respects we remain isolated and segregated. We hope we can obtain a positive and meaningful response from our potential future leader and maintain ongoing dialogue with the elected Chief Executive.
Yours respectfully,
A group of ethnic minority local residents who concern about the future of HK
Abbas Arif
Kamaljit
Jeffery Andrews
Arianne Baldesimo
Ahmed Dasthagir
Sadia Bi Bi
Syed M
Ansah Malik
