Creation: Historical Materialism Group of the Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association
Around 2 p.m. on October 30th, at Dongcheng Elementary School in Tianshu New District, Dezhou City, a second-grade student was subjected to corporal punishment by Chinese language and mathematics teachers.
The Chinese teacher had just mopped the floor, leaving footprints that the student tried to wipe with the back of his foot, but instead the shoes got dirtier. This gave the old reactionary an excuse to exert his tyranny. In the cold autumn and winter season in the north, he barbarically demanded that the seven-and-a-half-year-old child take off his shoes. When the child refused, he viciously kicked him, then ordered two classmates to take off the child’s shoes and throw them directly into the trash can behind the classroom, also indoctrinating other students with his cold and selfish bourgeois worldview, isolating this innocent child.
After enduring a cold lesson, the child picked up his shoes from the trash can and put them on himself after class. The math teacher, like the Chinese teacher, was also a beast in fine dress. He hated that the “lower-class” student dared to violate the rules of the bourgeois school. Before the teacher allowed it, he “took back” his shoes without permission. Shoes originally belonged to the student, and teachers have no right to confiscate them. In a capitalist society that always advocates “private property is sacred and inviolable,” in reality, it only protects the private rights of oppressors, not those of the oppressed. Teachers can arbitrarily infringe on students’ private rights. The math teacher suddenly grabbed the child, dragged him to the podium, repeatedly grabbing his clothes to make him stand properly, seemingly staring at his shoes, and viciously slapped him over 20 times in front of the entire class. After class, this absurd farce was not over. The math and Chinese teachers took the child to the corridor for a 16-minute and 53-second beating and humiliation.
Only among the working people does true kinship exist. The child’s mother, who usually respects her child more, learned of her son’s suffering and fought against the school and the police. On November 2nd, she reported to the police, and along with several other parents from the parent committee and the vice principal, checked the surveillance footage and recorded video evidence.
The child’s mother questioned a vice principal of the school: “The teachers educate the children, and you educate the teachers. How do you usually educate the teachers?” The school leader responded, “We also educate teachers, there are training sessions, this is an individual case.” Capitalist education constantly maintains the hierarchy of capitalism, cultivating teachers who uphold bourgeois ideals, using brainwashing, even reactionary insults and violence to enslave students. Recent reports of teachers brutally punishing students further prove that such violence is not just “individual cases.” The school principal was even more arrogant, threatening her: “If you make trouble again, will your child still attend this school?” (Her eldest son also studies at this school). He also falsely claimed that the involved teachers were “contract workers,” and only issued a dismissive resignation, using the absurd reason that “these two teachers are contract workers” to distance the teachers and the school. The school and the reactionary teachers are naturally colluding, and the police repeatedly delayed filing the case at the mother’s request. According to the child’s mother, these teachers are “well-connected,” while her and her husband’s only status is that of ordinary workers, i.e., the working class. In this capitalist society, where “those who do good suffer shorter lives, while those who do evil enjoy wealth and longevity,” the police, as the violence apparatus of the exploiting class, serve the bourgeoisie and only cause the working people to suffer injustice.
A seven-year-old child, innocent and blameless, endured the shame and oppression from the teachers simply because he is a “student,” and because his parents are not part of the exploiting class that drinks human blood and eats human flesh. Under the protest of the working people, on November 11th, the police were finally forced to file a case, promising to hold these two teachers accountable (previously, no action had been taken). The numerous injustices of capitalism are overwhelming. To enable children to interact with teachers on equal footing in school, and to allow the working people to obtain and defend their rights, it is not enough to speak out in social incidents; the fundamental solution is to completely overthrow this capitalist system that belittles laborers and discriminates against and oppresses students.