Anhui teacher mobbed by eight students for scolding boy (video)
The video is trending in Chinese social media: an fight lasting almost two minutes in a high school classroom. Respect for teachers, one time pillar of traditional culture, seems to have vanished altogether.
Beijing (AsiaNews) - The video of a fight between eight pupils and a teacher has gone viral among online groups and Chinese social networks. The incident occurred yesterday at a secondary school in Bozhou, Anhui Province: the headmaster confirmed the incident to a local journalist and the Ministries of Public Security and Education have opened an investigation.
In the video – click here - a teacher approaches a pupil to take up the exam that has just finished. The boy refuses to hand it over and the teacher is the first to lay his hands on the boy, but without too much violence. The reaction is immediate: the student revolts and pushes the teacher into a corner, he is soon joined by a group of comrades who begin kicking and slapping the teacher. He succeeds in repelling them three times, only to be subjected to a harsher reaction each time.
Although the video seems to end for the best, without any serious consequence, the Chinese commentators point the finger on the "real victim" of the incident: respect for teachers. According to the teachings of Confucius, the basis of traditional Chinese culture, this figure is critical, unable to do any wrong and deserving of the greatest possible respect.
With the seizure of power by Mao Zedong, who by his own admission had a smoldering resentment of teachers after being denied an academic career in his youth, this respect was abolished. In the years of the Cultural Revolution, moreover, children were encouraged to "re-educate" their teachers and to denounce them as reactionary.
Although the article accompanying the video points out that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Revolution, launched in 1967, many experts note that among the Red Guards and the Bozhou youth there are several differences. The main one is that the communist groups of the last century were still led by Mao and strove to create a "new society", while contemporary ones rebel against authority not for an ideal but almost out of boredom.
.png)
