In China, Teachers Are Forced to Declare Atheists

It’s long been Chinese government’s policy that NO one is allowed to preach religious message to youth under 18 years old, while students are taught of Communist ideology, atheist beliefs and hatred of the West on a daily basis. Now the regime has stepped up this effort to a new height – forcing teachers to declare atheists and promise to teach students about atheist/Communist/nationalist ideologies only!

Below is a snapshot of an official form, issued by government to all schools in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province and force teachers to sign and declare to be an atheist. Keep reading for original Chinese text and my translation.

（original text in Chinese）

为了进一步坚定理想信念，振兴民族的希望，振兴教育的希望，解决好世界观、人生观、价值观这个“总开关”问题。我是人民教师，本人结合实际，郑重做出如下承诺：

1.    我坚持正确的政治方向，崇尚科学，宣传无神论，反对有神论和封建迷信。

2.    我坚决不信教，不参与宗教有关的任何活动，不在任何场所宣扬和传播宗教。

3.    牢固树立马克思主义宗教观，加强无神论教育学习，不信教。

4.    模范遵守法律法规，不参与任何“法轮功”等邪教组织；

5.    积极倡导社会主义新文明新风尚，不宣扬封建迷信，不搞封建迷信活动；我绝不向学生传播任何宗教知识。

6.    我如有违反以上条款，甘愿接受处罚。

（承诺人签名）

            年       月       日

My Translation

To further reaffirm the ideology and belief of Communism, contribute to revival of Chinese nationalism and upgrade productivity of education, as the People’s teacher, I must first of all set correctly my “Master Switch”, which are views of the world, life and values. For that purpose and considering actual personal conditions of mine (Eric's note: this document is a generic one composed by Chinese Communist governments, so such claim of personal conditions is a sheer lie, but as telling lie is a necessary way of life in that society, people often express such lies unconsciously), I have hereby made the following promises:

1.    I firmly uphold the correct political views, advocate science, promote atheism, and oppose all forms of theisms and feudal (medieval) superstitions.

2.    I will never believe in Christianity, refuse to participate in any religious activities, and never promote religions in any circumstances.

3.    I firmly establish Marxist views on religion, step up learning and educating on atheism and refuse to believe in any religion like Christianity.

4.    I obey law and order, and will not join evil cults like Fa Lun Gong.

5.    I will advocate new form of civilization and social habits of socialism (note: the concept of socialism in Communist countries like China is actually referred to as Communism in the West), do not promote feudal superstitions, do not participate in any feudalistic superstitious activities. I will never promote (teach) any religious knowledge to my students.

6.   I am willing to receive punishment if I break any of the above promises.

（Signature of the Promise Keeper）

            

                 Year    Month                Date

Further Notes by Eric Zhang:

1.   Wenzhou is a city that has probably the HIGHEST percentage of Christian population in China, and where the government tore down thousands of crosses off church buildings a couple of years ago. Keeping that in mind, you can easily understand the above mentioned action is a continued persecution of Christians by the Communist government.

2. The document has been very poorly written, with lots of unnecessary repetitive expressions, grammatical errors and logical fallacies, which is not uncommon in China, as this type of documents are usually developed by Chinese Communist cadres, who are always superior to administrative and managerial personnel in any state-owned organizations in China. In my translation, I try to reflect the real meaning, rather than literal meaning of the document. 

3.    The expression “do not believe in religion”, in most cases in China, particularly means “do not believe Christianity”, and therefore sometimes I chose to translate the expression this way here in this document, because I've the following evidence:

1)     the document especially mentioned “do not join Fa Lun Gun” (a local Chinese religion designated by Chinese government as “cult”) in parallel with “do not believe in religion”, which proves that in here, “religion” means a particular form of religion, not a general term.

2)    In this documents there’s no mentioning of Islam or Buddhism, because it's very unlikely for non-believers in China to be converted into Muslims, and Buddhism is not feared and targeted by Chinese government. 

3) Christianity is considered always by Chinese governments the most dangerous religion because Christians are more likely to be pro-Western civilization and pro-democracy.

4.   Languages, expressions and ideas in this document may sound strange to readers in the West, but they are being used by Chinese government and ordinary people on daily basis. Americans should get a sense what kind of country China is, and reconsider relationship with it – do you really want to get along with and open your market to a country governed by such evil government?

If you don’t like what’s happening in China, and you want to protect America and help Chinese people from the harm of the evil, call your congressman immediately and urge him/her take action to support President Trump’s strategy of stopping China’s trade war on US and stealing of American technologies, and ultimately, choke this evil empire to death!