Sirs,
Why is it generally accepted that Taiwanese
students can be compelled by school or university authorities to perform
menial tasks such as cleaning classrooms, libraries and stairwells?
Students do not perform these tasks voluntarily, or receive payment for
having performed them. Rather, they are compelled to perform them on
threat of punishment by school authorities.
Why are these tasks not performed by paid staff, such as migrant workers from South East Asia?
Against
the claim that having students clean their school promotes a sense of
responsibility, it should be flatly stated that this can only be true if
the tasks are undertaken voluntarily - for it is a travesty to ascribe
the adjective of "responsible", with its positive civic connotations, to
a student forced into sweeping a stairwell: in such cases the student
has only responded to her wish to avoid punishment, rather than to the
school's need for clean stairwells. The only accurate adjective for such
students is "obedient".
And the only accurate word for this practice is "slavery". It may be relatively petty in
scope, but it is slavery nonetheless.
Rather than "authority", it is obedience that ought to be questioned.
Yours freely,
Michael Fagan.
(Sent: Thursday 7th February 2013. Unpublished).
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