□ Wu Rui Thrush
"It is forbidden to have a third child", "few children, less burden", "birth control measures must be taken for 42 days and 2 children for 30 days", "every effort is made to stabilize the low fertility level", "let the overborn family go bankrupt"... A recent investigation by reporters found that similar outdated propaganda slogans still exist quite widely on the walls or propaganda boards of residential houses in Hebei, Gansu, Hainan and other places. Some residents lamented, "Family planning propaganda still seems to be stuck in the last century, and every time I pass by and see it, it feels like I have crossed over." (Health Times, March 1)
For a long time in the past, the mainland's family planning slogan was the main form and carrier of the government's publicity on national fertility. Familiar propaganda slogans such as "family planning, everyone's responsibility", "fewer children and good children, happy life", "only one good birth" are not only down-to-earth, leave a deep impression on people, but also play a certain publicity effect.
At the same time, there are also many family planning slogans in rural areas with untidy fonts, overall unaesthetic appearance, and stiff wording, and even family planning slogans with suspicion of violence and illogical explanation, such as, "If you drink medicine without taking the bottle, hang yourself and give a rope", "It is better to shed blood into a river, not to give birth to one more", "It is better to add ten graves than to add a person" and other pole port slogans.
In fact, in response to the problems of "indifference, toughness and extreme" in family planning slogans across the country, as early as 2007, the General Office of the former National Population and Family Planning Commission issued the Notice on Carrying out Clean-up and Standardizing the Updating of Population and Family Planning Propaganda Slogans, cleaning up bans or fines of indifferent and blunt family planning propaganda slogans throughout the country. In 2011, it also changed the outdoor family planning propaganda slogan nationwide.
What is unexpected is that today, some anachronistic propaganda slogans that clearly conflict with the current family planning policy exist in large numbers in the vast villages of individual provinces. What is even more puzzling is that some houses have slogans on the walls of "let the super-born households go bankrupt", a simple and crude intimidation slogan containing indifference and coercion, which can easily arouse the disgust of the masses and undermine the credibility of the government.
The current situation is that although the mainland has implemented the two-child policy nationwide since January 1, 2016, and fully liberalized the three-child policy by June 2021, mainland residents' willingness to have children is still not strong, resulting in the first negative population growth in nearly 61 years last year, which will not only accelerate the pace of deep aging in the mainland, but also pose a severe challenge to the healthy development of the mainland's population structure. In this context, the family planning propaganda of "stabilizing the low fertility level" has become very out of place, and local government departments must formulate a timetable and road map to quickly clean up in the shortest possible time.
While cleaning up outdated family planning slogans, we may wish to pool our wisdom, give full play to the wisdom and talents of grassroots cadres and ordinary people, and update some family planning propaganda slogans in the new era, such as "the greater the hope of life, the longer the happiness", "the greatest legacy left to children is brothers and sisters", "two children are happier than one child, three children are happier than two children" and other family planning propaganda slogans, which can not only reflect keeping pace with the times, but also help create a good atmosphere in the whole society that "encouraging fertility and giving birth is beneficial to society".