The June 4 democracy movement and crackdown in 1989 in Beijing are memories that cannot be neglected and should continue to be passed down in the future despite the political pressure overshadowing Hong Kong, a longtime teacher has said.

Cheung Yui-fai, executive member of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union, explains the significance of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident in the Liberal Studies subject he teaches to secondary school students.

“People’s recognition of their identity as Hongkongers is part of the syllabus in Liberal Studies. The June 4 incident is definitely a collective memory of Hong Kong people; for example, the annual large-scale commemorative event on June 4 has helped to construct this identity,” Cheung said.

He argued further: “Liberal Studies also discusses the reform and opening up of China. So, what happened in 1989 was in fact the first bottleneck encountered in the reform drive. In order to understand Hong Kong and China on an academic level, it is impossible to ignore or evade teaching about the June 4 incident.”

The history was recorded in two booklets that Cheung showed to Apple Daily. Contained within were news clippings about the 1989 Beijing student movement before and after the crackdown, interviews and essays provided by student leaders and commentaries run in the official People’s Daily.

The booklets were printed in 1989 on the initiative of a group of senior teachers at the school where he was teaching. “The teachers at the time were very dedicated and wanted to remember this incident,” he said.

Cheung, by now a secondary schoolteacher of 29 years, took up the baton and passed on to his students the knowledge about the democracy movement. His school would hold a “June 4 week” whenever the anniversary came round and invite guests to share their insights.

Some students would also be inspired to create billboards to tell their schoolmates about this part of history, he said.

Hong Kong had free flow of information in the past, so students would already have some idea of the June 4 incident through the images of armed forces, tanks and bloodshed shown online and in the media, Cheung said.

However, only classroom teaching could provide a systematic way of giving the young a deep understanding of the whole issue, he said.

“Students will get to understand more about the incident and the great concern that young people back then in Beijing had for their country, their willingness to make so many sacrifices for the country’s future and hopes for better national development. The understanding may strengthen the students’ sense of identification with the Chinese people and make them realize that China is not all bad — there were young people in China years ago who were so ambitious and full of ideals.”

Last year, Cheung’s school suspended classes and canceled the commemorative June 4 week because of the outbreak of COVID-19. It would not hold the event either this year, given the pressure of politics, Cheung said. The school wanted to avoid provoking attacks from the pro-Beijing camp or opening up any opportunities for outsiders to create unnecessary trouble for its teachers and students.

Hong Kong teachers have been under great pressure since educational authorities revoked the professional licenses of a few of them. The Education Bureau had acted after receiving anonymous tip-offs about those teachers expressing criticism of the government related to months-long protests in 2019.

The unattributed complaints affected trust and current affairs discussions between teachers and students, Cheung said. He acknowledged that his school would find it hard to follow the old format of organizing activities to mourn June 4 victims.

Recently, the bureau also revamped the Liberal Studies subject, giving a positive spin on China in the content. Cheung believed that it would be difficult to hold open discussions on history in schools.

All was not lost, he said, as information was still available online. “It’s simple: would you try to believe the information from the authorities and pro-government media, or the videos and reports recorded by Hong Kong media at the time?” Cheung said.

“People who went through the incident are still around and can recount their firsthand experience. This kind of information is far more convincing.”

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