Triumph of good over evil

By Lance Yau It was a warm and bright September morning. The new academic term had started, and students fresh from the summer holidays were still trying to get back into the swing of things on the third day of school. Life in the vibrant city of New York was fast-paced as usual, not unlike in Hong Kong. I ambled to P.S. 129, my local primary school. This was 10 years ago. In a sudden shattering of the peace, New York City was attacked, and New Yorkers were stunned. The United States was targeted, and Americans were woken up to a new and radically different global landscape. Yet I do not remember the September 11, 2001, attacks in this way. I do not see that fateful day as a crucial point in our recent history. I only recall sitting in my classroom of second-graders at the start of the day, listening as the principal made an announcement that I did not comprehend fully, understanding only that school would end earlier that day. Words such as "attacked" and "terrorist act" flew over my head. I saw the shock register on the face of my teacher, Ms Williams, as fellow teachers came over to check if they had heard the principal correctly. The rest of the class was dead silent. As school ended early, I went to a childminder's home. With no homework to do, I eagerly switched on the television, expecting my daily dose of afternoon cartoons. However, instead of SpongeBob SquarePants, a news programme was on air. I began to take in the ominous images: footage of the World Trade Centre collapsing, repeated over and over again without any accompanying sound or commentary. One moment, there were two steel towers, wounded but standing. The next moment, only one remained. It was like a sick trick, as if a magician had grabbed one of the towers and stuffed it into a top hat. At the bottom of the screen, the same sentence moved from right to left: "World Trade Centre attacked and destroyed." It was one of the worst acts of malice in the immediate memory of the world. For me, there was only numbness. At six years old, one could barely comprehend the death of a close one, let alone understand the deaths of almost 3,000 lives, taken in an act of terrorism. Devoted religious men killing themselves in order to take more lives? It was incomprehensible. What struck me most in the days that followed was not the terrorism, but the outpouring of care and aid from the rest of the world. And within the country, Americans actually put aside their differences, from ideology to politics (something rarely seen today), to help. Young as I was, I concluded that if al-Qaeda had wanted to instil terror in the hearts of New Yorkers, they had failed utterly. The human capacity to do good could be just as powerful as the capacity to do evil. It was a lesson I grew up with, ingrained in my mind since then. Ten years on, New York City lives on bravely. Out of the ashes of Ground Zero, a taller, grander tower called One World Trade Centre will be completed in three years, a reminder of the now seemingly distant memories. Although I have moved to Hong Kong to pursue my studies and am no longer the small second-grader watching the turn of events in numb awe, that monumental Tuesday morning remains etched in my mind.

Unity is the message

A worldwide youth summit in Zurich opens with speeches empowering the young to take action By Susan Ramsay Crown Prince Haakon of Norway captured the hearts and minds of young people from all over the world at the One Young World Summit in Zurich, Switzerland last Thursday. Earlier in the day, Haakon had visited schools in the city, but everyone was waiting for him to say something about the recent tragedy in his own country, in which 69 people at a political camp were killed by a lone gunman. Most of them were youngsters. " One month, 10 days and three hours ago, a bomb exploded in Oslo right outside the government buildings, blowing out windows miles around," he said at the summit's opening night. "Two hours later, shooting started at an island north of Oslo where youth were gathered, like here, to discuss the issues they see as the most pressing of our time. [A total of] 77 people were killed, and even more injured by the terrorist acts. As Norway is slowly returning to normality, we are struggling to make sense of the atrocities." "The most important lesson to learn is about ourselves," Haakon (right) told the packed hall at the Kongresshaus. "We cannot undo what has been done, but we can choose what way it will affect us. We can choose to defy brutality with friendship. We can choose to stand by our values. Our challenge is to reach for the light, to reach for the inner best part of us and nurture it. "The philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah says: 'It is crucial to remember always that we are not simply black or white or yellow or brown ... Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Confucian, but we are also brothers and sisters; parents and children; liberals, conservatives and leftists; teachers and lawyers and automakers and gardeners ...' "Now is the time to emphasise what unites us - because we have more in common than what separates us." The prince's words were followed by music from the Zurich children's choir, Chinese singer Shang Wenjie and a blistering speech from activist-singer Bob Geldof. The Irishman is known for raising money for African countries in crisis. He talked about how the Earth is being sucked dry of resources and how much the poor are suffering. He told the audience: "You have to get us out of this mess, because we have failed." Undoubtedly the favourite speaker was South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said young people had achieved amazing things in the past and God was counting on them to make a difference now.

A war of words
A British historian challenges the view of the 170-year-old Opium War as being a big humiliation for China Every student either here or on the mainland has heard in school about the Opium War in 1839. Yet that does not mean that nothing new can be said on the subject. Julia Lovell has plenty to say that is new. She is a historian and teaches modern Chinese history at Birkbeck College, University of London. In her new book, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China, she revisits the landmark event in Chinese history. "In the 170 years since it was fought, the Opium War has been transformed from a mere 'frontier quarrel' into the tragic beginning of China's modern history and a key prop for communist one-party rule," Lovell says. The author grew up in a well-read family with a fondness for languages. She began to study Putonghua and Chinese history as a student in Cambridge. A few months after the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, Lovell went to study in Nanjing, where the treaty concluding the Opium War was signed in 1842. There she watched a film that portrayed the war as a tragic humiliation of the country. "At the Museum of the Nanjing Treaty, a caption beneath an exhibit read: 'Great Britain extended its aggressors' claws and outrageously launched a war against Chinese'. I was struck by how open the wound of the Opium War seemed to be." She began studying the period "to find out whether the war really was the heroic struggle against foreign invaders that appears in Chinese history books, films and museums", she says. She drew upon both Western and Chinese materials for an even-handed picture and concluded that both Chinese and British sources misread the situation. "The accounts seem to want us to believe that our political leaders at the time knew exactly what they were doing and were well-informed of the situations," she notes. However, that was not true. The two sides couldn't express themselves clearly in each other's languages and the period's slow means of communication meant it would take Britain up to six months to report back to London and get feedback. "Imagine how awfully frustrated and illinformed people were," she says. Lovell believes sheer chance played a big role in sparking war. What fascinated her during her stay in Nanjing was the way that the historical event became politicised. "War-time 'humiliation' was used to remind today's generation of their country's victimisation and an [alleged] ongoing Western conspiracy against China." To see what young people really thought, she visited classes and talked to students. Many did not care much about the subject. Others attributed China's loss to its weakness. In Beijing she met an angry young person who railed against Britain's role in the war. "Yet soon ... he began to ask my advice on his application to study in England," she says. "The world is changing and we're opening up more and more to other cultures. I think pragmatism as much as patriotism has been a key force in shaping today's China and Hong Kong." Yet the Opium War can still serve as a lesson for us. "All nations tell their stories of the past to shore up their identity and selfesteem, but I think it's important for us to explore the historical realities behind our national myths."