On Wed., Feb. 18 the Walter Stiern Library at California State University, Bakersfield screened the documentary “Lessons in Dissent.”

British Director, Matthew Torne, also made an appearance and held an open panel for anyone who had questions regarding the movie after it was shown.  The documentary titled “Lessons in Dissent” follows the story of both Joshua Wong and Ma Jai during their struggle to become effective activists in the very busy city of Hong Kong.

Both Wong and Jai represent two of the many individuals in Hong Kong who are pushing for a much more Democratic Hong Kong. Both of the young boys decide to drop out of school and dedicate their lives to stopping Cy Leung, Chief Executive of Hong Kong, and National Education from being implemented in local schools. They both feel that they would rather give themselves to social activism than school because in the end it is what is more important to them.

During the documentary, we learn that Wong is the convener and founder of what he calls Scholarism. Although he is only 15 years old at the time, he manages to gain around three hundred thousand followers who agree with him on his views regarding the implementation of National Education.

Wong believes that with the implementation of National Education, students in school will lose their independent and critical thinking skills. He also mentions that the fact that only three percent of teachers agreeing with the curriculum of National Education should be yet another reason why it should not be implemented in schools.  He also believes that National Education was created by Communists to brainwash youth.

“I want independent thinking, not brainwashing,” a phrase that Wong and many of his followers chant throughout the streets of Hong Kong during the course of the documentary. This is done while their activist threat to “Occupy Central” in the business district of Hong Kong is in full swing. These protests are done annually every July 1 in order to fight the governments proposed “Moral and National Education.”

Although Wong believes the government is trying to brainwash youth, Director of the National Education Services Centre, Wong Chi Man has a different view. According to an article from CNN at the time of the documentary titled “National Education raises furor in Hong Kong” Chi Man said “It’s impossible to be brainwashed…Hong Kong people still have access to a lot of information. All education is, to some extent, designed to brainwash. I think the word ‘brainwash’ is too negative.”

By the end of the documentary, it is decided that schools will have to decide on their own, whether they would like to implement National Education or not.

Director Matthew Thorne states during the open panel on Wed. that he made the documentary as opposed to writing a book because he knew that people needed to actually see the movement in Hong Kong. He mentions that he did not want to write a book and have it just sit on a shelf and have nobody pick it up and read it. “I knew if I wrote a PH.D it would just sit on the library shelves. Nobody reads the books, they sit there gathering dust. This is kind of like my PH.D on the screen,” says Thorne with a chuckle during the open panel.