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Full text: DBS at 145
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My congratulatory message to celebrate the 145th anniversary of the founding of the Diocesan Boys’ School, during a rather difficult time.
“Inasmuch as we in HK have tolerated an essentially unjust society and benefited from it, we must share in the guilt of any crime and violence that come out of it.”
“In one sense no democratic society can survive unless all of its members are prepared when necessary to make trouble for those in authority – and by this I mean all of us who have any authority at all. We have to be kept on our toes.”
Full Text
November, 2014
I like to talk, at great lengths, about matters I know well, or not.
But during these difficult times when we are a family divided, the father divided against the son, and the son against the father, and brother turned against brother, I cannot but look back and echo a voice of calm for guidance and proper bearing.
After the 1967 leftist riots when HK society was even more divided than today, Jimmy Lowcock, even as he condemned the violence, kept his usual equanimity.
In his Headmaster’s Report for Speech Day, he departed from the printed text and added the following observation:
“Inasmuch as we in HK have tolerated an essentially unjust society and benefitted from it, we must share in the guilt of any crime and violence that come out of it.”
He then returned to the text and gave the following prescription:
“In one sense no democratic society can survive unless all of its members are prepared when necessary to make trouble for those in authority – and by this I mean all of us who have any authority at all. We have to be kept on our toes.”
That became the impetus for a series of reforms at school; it was as natural as if it were part of our genes.
145 years ago, DBS was founded to heal the wounds of an essentially unjust society. We are all beneficiaries of that largesse; it behooves us to continue that tradition, to serve and to lead this family of ours.
HK today is no longer essentially unjust, and we have been spared the worst. But there are serious inequities. We, the haves and have-nots, the enfranchised and disenfranchised, all deserve better. We need to work out a new narrative for our common future. After all, we are family.
Hanson Y Huang ‘68
Senior Prefect
Boarders’ Senior Prefect
Arthur House Captain
Attachment: SJ Lowcock, Headmaster’s Speech, Speech Day, 1967
transcribed by Dan Tam at: https://medium.com/@dantam/thoughts-on-1967-riots-headmaster-lowcock-65e7ba16e930
Hanson Y Huang 黃賢 