Can youth community service, voluntary or not, help social cohesion? How Hong Kong and its ‘me’ generation could benefit in absence of military service
- Getting involved with things like poverty alleviation or small community projects could enhance social cohesion among Hong Kong youth, academic says
- Initiative could start on a voluntary basis and become compulsory later, but scepticism exists over forcing any sort of participation
The idea of conscription in Hong Kong was first proposed 50 years ago, and there have been suggestions recently that some kind of community service could offer a solution to the city’s current social unrest and division.
He proposed that all Hong Kong-born men aged 18 years should be conscripted for 18 months – not into the regular British Army but for paid, part-time work in uniformed volunteer services such as the St John Ambulance charitable organisation and the auxiliary Royal Hong Kong Regiment.
“Young people are too much of the ‘me’ generation and are super-individualistic, which we need to correct,” says Lau Siu-kai, emeritus professor of sociology at Chinese University of Hong Kong and vice-president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies.
Lau, who was head of the government’s think tank, the former Central Policy Unit, for a decade from 2002, believes there is value in some form of regimented service for instilling in young people a sense of discipline, patriotism and social responsibility.
