The Red Guards of Chinese Cultural Revolution Research Paper

The Red Guards of Chinese Cultural Revolution - Research Paper Example The Red guards believed themselves to be Mao’s army and named themselves thusly; ‘Hong’ meant red or the ideology of Mao which was being protected, ‘Wei’ by ‘bing’ meaning (soldiers) of China. Red guards began with a small group of school children who started with naming themselves ‘Chairman Mao’s Red Guards’, but Mao’s direct support and encouragement for them led the group to be named the ‘Red Guard’. The Red Guard comprised of young people who belonged to families from the ‘five red types’. In 1966, Mao called for a ‘cultural revolution’ against the segmentation that had been created in the society and wanted to rid the society of all evil by eliminating any elements of ‘Capitalist’ or ‘Bourgeois’ ideology. As a result of Mao’s call, two character posters were plastered at the Tsinghua University to oppose the administration at the Universities of Beijing and Tsinghua as intellectual elitists and bourgeois who had diverged from the right path of thought; the poster was signed by ‘chairman Mao’s red guard. Mao endorsed the actions of the group and encouraged their thinking that their thinking was in line with that of Maoism, and as a result of his order the manifesto was to appear in People’s Daily and a nationwide broadcast was sanctioned. The movement gained popularity. In Tiananmen Square Mao addressed a gathering of above eight hundred thousand people while he wore the Red Guard arm band throughout the rally, showing unrelenting support for the guard and their actions (Byers 3). Although the red guards began as a movement of the youth and young students but later on engulfed the working and peasant population (Szczepanski). As the movement progressed the re d guards became known for their destruction, violence and cruelty. The guard destroyed cultural abodes, writings, buildings, religious buildings and much more in the name of destroying the four olds; people were killed and humiliated for their anti-Maoism ideology (Szczepanski). Where for many the red guard is a memory of grief and violence; for many others it is nothing but a group of people who were clad in old army jackets, wore red arm bands and

Differences Between Two Author Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Differences Between Two Author - Essay Example igh school clinics saw around 150 cases of sexually transmitted diseases like condyloma, chlamydia, and the better-known gonorrhea and syphilis† (Quindlen). Although Quindlen supports the practice of free discussion between parents and young people concerning sex and the value of abstinence, many families have unfortunately took the matter for granted. She cites the case of a â€Å"girl who broke her leg jumping out an apartment window because her mother found her birth control pills, seized her by the throat and said, according to the kid, ‘I brought you into the world; I can take you out of it’† (Quindlen). On the other hand, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh took a firm stand against the distribution of condoms in public schools by stressing the values of celibacy. He asserts that parents have a responsibility to protect their children from unsafe sex. Thus, to prove his point, he came up with questions such as â€Å"doesnt it make sense to be honest with kids and tell them the best thing they can do to avoid AIDS or any of the other undesirable consequences is to abstain from sexual intercourse?† (Limbaugh) Limbaugh argues that providing young people with condoms is somehow giving them a free pass that it is perfectly acceptable to have sex at their age – something that he believes is causing the skewed â€Å"moral and ethical directions† (Limbaugh) that American kids have been following. He further argues by questioning the liberals’ assumption that young people will simply have sex regardless of how they’re educated. Sarcastically, he points out that â€Å"kids are going to smoke, too, we cant stop them, so lets provide packs of low-tar cigarettes to the students for their after-sex smoke† (Limbaugh). The fact is that the positions taken by both commentators are rooted in good intentions, but more importantly, in reality. Limbaugh is right to emphasize the role of parents in the sexual education of their children. Parents should be more