TNAG-0003-FCO40-39-Commission-of-Enquiry-into-the-Kowloon-disturbances-addition-1968 — Page 162

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PART VI CONCLUSIONS

memories can go back as long as twenty or twenty-five years without some traumatic break.

Between 1954 and 1964 the Government resettlement programme had rehoused more than seven hundred thousand citizens in densely compressed multi-storey "new towns", each with a population ranging up to 80,000 and in a few resettlement cottage areas; this figure represents some 20% of the whole population. Many thousands of families have been rehoused in this way but have little feeling of neighbour- liness towards those next door and very little leisure in which to develop a sense of community. Such conditions present formidable difficulties in any attempt to encourage the new citizens to play a part themselves in the development of a coherent society.'

536. Qualified and trained staff and finance are clearly the major hurdles to be overcome in this field before very much progress can be made. We endorse the need for the extension of the present community centres in which a wide range of activities can be conducted and public participation in the affairs of the locality encouraged.

(C) The Special Problems of Youth

537. The prominence in the disturbances of youths between the ages of 15-25, evokes a number of explanations, some reflecting conditions common to many countries and others peculiar to Hong Kong.

538. Of the former the most likely appear to be:

(i) mature people are more likely to need a cause to induce them to riot than more adventurous and less responsible youth, which is attracted by any exhilarating, exciting or unusual way of spending spare time; added to this, demonstrating is strenuous, and if it leads to flouting authority and to violence, it provides that spice of danger so much more attractive to boys than to girls, at the same time explaining the almost total absence of the latter in the crowds after the eruption of violence;

(ii) young people are generally recognized as having a lower threshold of

control over their dissatisfactions; and

(iii) in many countries there is an atmosphere of teenage unrest, so it is not unlikely that young people in Hong Kong should be affected in a similar way by films, newspapers and magazines, and should derive satisfaction. and encouragement from imitating what has become world news else- where.

539. Amongst reasons peculiar to Hong Kong, the following appear to be the most likely.

(i) As 50% of the population is under the age of 21 young people form a

very significant proportion of the total population.

(ii) The leadership of the demonstration was youthful from the start of the hunger strike and the original demonstrator himself laid emphasis on