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Starting Where the Students Are

By Hong Kong SCM

A Brief History

To share about the mission of the Student Christian Movement in Hong Kong (SCM-HK), we need to bring back some memories of its history. The SCM in Hong Kong traces its roots to the SCM in China, which was already part of the growing Chinese student movement. A significant role of the Chinese student movement was well displayed during the May Fourth Movement in 1919. At that time, some 5,000 students in Beijing held a huge demonstration against the verdict of the Versailles Peace Conference. This conference was to grant Japan rights over Shan Dong (1), among many other secret agreements with the Western Countries controlling various parts of China.

The May Fourth Movement was therefore an explosion of public anger, an outburst of nationalism, which spread to other major cities and was joined by other students, shopkeepers, industrial workers and employees in commercial establishments

1 Shan Dong being the birthplace of Confucius and Mencius is regarded by the Chinese as the Holy land of China.

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all over the country. It even led to a concerted boycott of Japanese goods and products. Happily, that movement, now considered by some historians as the first genuine mass movement modem Chinese history, ended with the Chinese delegation to e conference not attending the signing ceremony. (Interestingly ' course, the Chinese students in Paris organized an around-the-clock vigil to see that none of the delegation left their quarters for the signing ceremony.)

It was around this period that the first Student Christian Movement in China was formally established with Christian students banding themselves together under the umbrella of the World Student Christian Federation. Since then the China SCM id the WSCF had been working hand in hand. In 1922, the China SCM hosted the 11th General Assembly of the WSCF in Beijing. However, around the 1920s, there was also a growing anti-Christian, coalition in China, which saw Christianity as the inning dog of imperialism.

The rise of the social gospel beginning in 1917 certainly had a tremendous influence on the SCM as well as the Christians who wished to help build a more reliable society in China. The debate between fundamentalism and liberalism concerning the gospel, however, remains an issue today.

After 1949, the SCM faced turbulence as the communists were lining political power in China. Because student Christians ere among the people who made great efforts to uphold justice id transformation of the Chinese society, they were among those belled as "anti-government" and "anti-communism." They were also among those who were persecuted. This situation brought rout a dilemma among the student Christians who used to be active members of the Movement: to put aside what they strongly believed in, and insist on the liberal style of Christian faith, which would also mean turning their back to the three-self-patriotic

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movement² churches (the only government-approved churches in China). Those who did not give up were naturally forced to go underground and they continued to receive constant surveillance and had no freedom to express. This situation slowly led to the demise of the SCM as well as other groups of intellectuals clamoring for change.

Having been a British Colony since 1841, Hong Kong is well known for her booming economic development. The people who were troubled by the unstable political environment in China all considered Hong Kong as the place to go, it being a "politically free territory." This resulted in a massive migration of people from China to Hong Kong, people who wanted to start a new life with freedom to maintain the lifestyle they felt very comfortable in. But the spirit of the May Fourth Movement somehow remained. This spirit was also brought to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong SCM, A New Generation

With thousands of college-age students coming to Hong Kong in search of a place to continue their education, refugee colleges had to be set up and student work initiated to meet these students' needs. This student work initiated by the YMCA led to the establishment of the Student Christian Centre, which carried out various social services such as alleviating the lack of suitable living space, good food and medical care and interest groups. The SCC was a cooperative effort of many denominations supported by ecumenical partners including the World Student Christian Federation.

2 The three- self-patriotic movement was a Christian movement led by nationalist Christians towards indignization through self-propagation, self-administration and self-reliance.

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Within the SCC, various student groups were also developing to meet some felt-needs of the students. One of these was the Student Christian Movement, which by the end of 1956 had united seven different colleges. While being supported by the SCC, e SCM was the Protestant Churches' expression of concern for the students in helping them develop a meaningful philosophy of 'e’ during their academic career and relate them to the realities of their environment.

The capitalistic nature of Hong Kong became a subject of criticism as it has provided our people with no other alternative it a lifestyle without a sense of national emotion, strong social values and spirit of community. Instead, the spirit of individualism and materialism has been the dominant feature of Hong Kong culture.

As the Chinese people in Hong Kong were brainwashed under the British colonial rule, university students in the 1960s and 1970s .me to their senses and launched various campaigns in order to protect the rights of the local Chinese people. The 1970s saw the rise of student activism all over the world.

On the other hand, young Christians began to question the mode of living led by local churches as they believe that a true Christian faith does not only consist of merely being a member of the congregation. One should act out their faith and be the advocate of love and peace in all places. The influx of more popular theologies espoused by cause-oriented Christian groups has also enabled the Christian students to learn more about faith even outside their churches. It was in this context that the present day 3M-HK had its revival.

Then the 1980s saw a reorganization of the SCM-HK through the forts of a group of enthusiastic members at the time. They saw e return of Hong Kong from British colonization to China’s

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sovereignty in the coming years (up to 1997 when Hong Kong would be returned to China) and therefore, acted as God's prophets in order to relieve the stress felt by the people in Hong Kong.

Obstacles

As mentioned above, Hong Kong is well known for her being a "politically free" and highly industrialized or well-developed city. The people born in this atmosphere naturally show no interest on anything other than economic development and capital accumulation. It has also been the strategy of the British Government not to provide social values for our people so that we can concentrate on being a "money-making machine." Therefore, our Movement in H.K. has been facing problems of "ignorance" which can be decoded as political apathy, lacking the sense of identity to the community, and lacking adequate training to organize.

Strategy

Since the young students will become the agents of transformation of our society in the near future, it is essential for them to receive sufficient self-development of good quality. SCM-HK realizes that our education system has been very poor in the area of human development. Students are only exposed to high technology or business-oriented studies. If this trend continues, our society will gradually lose its sense of humanity and just be chained by the reins of industrialization.

Therefore, re-education of our students is a major strategy of our Movement. This process should not just be directed to the general education but also to theological education so that young Christian students can have constant reflection on their role in the society. This re-education then aims at the transformation of our students first before they can help bring about the transformation of our society.

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Actualization

In order to put our strategy in operation, we have come up with e following plans of action:

To identify the difficulties of the students today. Using the basic principle generated from social work theory, it is significant "start where the client (student) is." It means that every problem has specific roots. In order to transform the inadequacy our students, our SCMers will reach out to them in the campus and spend time listening to their needs and hopes deep within them, towards themselves and the society. As a result, the aim of s student ministry is not to impose our ideas on them, but to facilitate the process of and assist the students in identifying what they want and how to reach a just society in the future.

To enjoy the freedom to be informed and to express. Our world truly full of knowledge of different kinds and is changing in a very fast pace. It is impossible for students to learn everything it is necessary for them to know how to select which to learn. Because students in Hong Kong lack opportunities of getting are from the humanities, SCMers can fill in this gap by providing appropriate training opportunities, at the same time striving for an integrated educational system with all other students in H.K.

To ensure that student empowerment is led by the students themselves. In Hong Kong, even though the student movement is existing, the major task of social transformation is still dominated d manipulated by members from political bodies. There is no doubt that some politicians do have true affections for Hong Kong, but for the good and development of our students as leaders, the students should themselves make known their concerns and exert their influence on the Government policies.

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The rise of representative government in Hong Kong in the 1980's gave our people the first taste of democracy. But after more than a decade of operation, we also see the side effects of the system, in which people are becoming too dependent on their "representatives." Gradually, they are losing the ability to express their will directly to the Government. Therefore, our empowerment programs for the students aim to encourage them to be the primary organizers of our society.

To stress on being the witness to Jesus. When Jesus came to earth two thousand years ago, he was meant to be our Messiah. Jesus accomplished this mission not by manipulating people to be his servants or to simply follow his instructions. Rather he spent his life reaching out to the poor and serving the least among the people. Jesus continues to remind us of his deeds and to remember to reflect our faith constantly SCM-HK wishes to be today's witnesses of Jesus by preparing to launch regular gatherings for faith reflection and the development of theologies. I hope that these will help our student movement and the Christian students visualize their mission.

To build and to plant. SCM-HK has a very short history, just a few decades. Although the membership is small in number, there is a significant quality about it so that the Movement has now embraced a larger Christian community, that of the senior friends. The 1995 Exco members have started making links with all the SCMers who have participated in the past and encouraged their participation wherever and whenever possible. One program that has already been started is the "Senior Friends Network." This includes the holding of regular gatherings to facilitate the process of movement building such as through theological studies and issues sharing. In fact, some of our senior friends are giving more support in the fund raising for our movement

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also. With two full-time secretaries plus the three-year project proposals to achieve the above-mentioned plans, from 1995 to 1998, we certainly will need more financial resources. The students and the senior friends are working hand in hand to nurture the student Christian movement as we share the same earns and hope for our society, that one day, it will become the new heaven on earth.

Conclusions

There are many varieties of strategies and methodologies for the Student Christian Movement all over the world. Those that we have listed above are only some of our ideas at present. They could change, be altered and revised, or replaced with new ones spending on the needs of our students and the call of the time. We are writing all this to share with other movements as we also hope to learn of what they are doing in their different national movements. It is our appreciation that the WSCF continues to carry out its role of coordinating among our movements so that we can grow continuously together.