Striving for peace and harmony_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Striving for peace and harmony

"We don't take it seriously," I explain. "It's just one newspaper editor's point of view and he thinks it's funny."

My teacher cannot see the humor. "Leaders, teachers and parents should be respected," she says. "But you can still debate an issue without being so rude."

A senior Chinese editor told me he would not dare be critical about the government during his university days in the late 1960s. "You might not be arrested but you'd be heavily criticized," he said. But times are changing, thanks to the world wide web.

"Today you can go online and people will be criticizing former and even current leaders," he says. "This was unheard of five years ago. But in these chat rooms there are people also supporting these leaders too. There is healthy debate."

Another example of recent online debate revolved around a man who burst into a Shanghai police station and stabbed six police officers to death. People were asking: "What drives a man to do this? He must have hated the police so much. What did they do to him?"

The issue of police abusing their authority was discussed at great length.

In the West, debate on a subject like this would be a lot more simplistic. Right-wing media commentators would demand the man be lynched from the nearest tree. The left-wingers would argue his action was a symptom of a failing society.

A raging debate would ensue and under the banner of free speech and the rights of the almighty individual, everybody would be invited to join the melee.