Han Han blogs about Yuan Tengfei :"Those spring onions which never get clean"

This is my corrected version of Han Han's recent blog post in which he comments on the fear of ideological discipline and the duty of teachers to their students.

Recently, Fujian released ten regulations on higher education. Of these, people focused mostly on the second regulation, which stipulated that: if in the course of teaching, educators spread erroneous statements in violation of the Party line, principles, policies, basic theory, or national laws and regulations, thereby adversely impacting students’ establishment of correct ideology and political beliefs, a “one-vote veto” will be carried out, and the offender will be dismissed.

What was comforting to me was that is that when I saw the regulations, I first thought they were implementing a policy of “executed with one shot,” but in fact it’s only “one vote veto” --much more advanced than in Mao Zedong’s time. As for what type of person can cast this one vote, I really don’t care. I only care that these principles, policies, and basic theories are really difficult to grasp. Those in power require ideological unity from all of us, but often they themselves are incapable of ideological unity. When I was young, I vaguely recall that my high school textbook talked about the separation of powers, and that my political textbook and politics teachers all said that separation of powers is a good thing. But recently, I keep seeing essays and statements from officials saying that the separation of powers is wrong. You know that I only have a high school diploma; my politics courses stopped at high school. I just feel very perplexed. I am worried what will happen to those teachers and textbook editors who spread those erroneous ideas. They are always reading the documents the leaders gave them; if they make a mistake, they will be disciplined by the authorities, simply because they were reading last night's documents- when their leaders woke up this morning, they changed their ideas.

I read somewhere pithy description of what this feels like …a man gets in a car, signals to turn right, but actually turns left, and then unexpectedly does a U-turn. If you are unlucky you can get killed by such a driver.

News reporters who search for the truth; history teachers who narrate history; authors and scholars who write a little truth; movie directors who film reality; some cases are treated as ideological errors; serious cases are treated as crime. But as soon this happens, people start speculating: was so-and-so taken for questioning by the police, or were they censored or arrested? In the end, even though often nothing really bad happened to the person- at most the "criminal evidence" has been deleted - people still feel worried about themselves. They feel that maybe that person was let off because he was too well known, so the government was hesitant to take action - whereas in my case would the government have those kind of concerns? What kind of deeply rooted image is this? How do things come to such a pass?

In any age, brains are washed just like vegetables, and there are always a few onions that just won’t come clean. Before, people wanted to cut the dirty heads off these onions to make them clean, but as times changed, people only expect those few dirty onions to mind their own business without spreading their dirty ideas. If they do try to tell other onions, they will immediately be pulped.

Many people believe that the document was sent out by the Fujian Education Bureau because there have recently been a few history teachers and university professors with pretty big mouths. Of course, I also saw today’s news. It is said that history teacher Yuan Tengfei is being disciplined, the same day Tianshangrenjian nightclub was being closed. But I believe it’s not due to these [political] reasons. When the Sensitive Department has not given orders, the government doesn’t respond so rapidly, nor do departments coordinate this well. It is just a coincidence, a routine regulation of the Department of Education. Every sector has regulations like this, it’s just expressed differently. It’s like all lotteries have the same rules, but it's up to the lottery organizer to decide how to explain them. But I don’t want to probe into who or what has the power to pass judgment on whether another person’s thoughts are correct or incorrect. This type of topic is meaningless, because it is obvious who has this power. Of course, powerful people have the power. Anything that benefits their interests and power is, of course, correct; anything that doesn’t benefits their interests or power is, of course, wrong. As long as you master this rule, you don’t have to worry about what is a right or wrong judgment.

To the majority of history, language, and political science teachers: what sort of future role do you see yourself playing in the teaching of history, language, and politics? How do you think you will be appraised? Perhaps you are a vegetable in spite of yourself, but each one of your students is your seed. Try to be a real teacher; teach your students common sense and reflection, independence and justice. That way, when you are old, you will be able to tell your children that once, when you were in this profession, your heart felt pride, and was not full of shame.