April 19  Are HK's students radicalized?

Most definitions of "radicalization" include the idea of extremism and violence, as in the case of people who join IS. The UK Home Office's definition is “the process by which people come to support terrorism and violent extremism and, in some cases, then join terrorist groups".

In Hong Kong some people are now speaking about the radicalization of HK's university students. But "radicalization" goes too far. It implies that the students are "the bad guys".

Today's HK students are not unlike the patriotic students who in 1919 launched the May 4 Movement in protest against the Chinese government's weak response to the unfair treatment of China at the Treaty of Versailles.

Today's HK students have been activated (that's a better word!) by the unfair treatment of HK by Beijing in recent years. Like their May 4 exemplars, today's students have been activated, not radicalized!