Lam Le Trinh
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM OUR VIETNAMESE YOUTH ?
For the past two decades, it is
traditional on April 30th of every year for the American media, the Hanoi government and the
Vietnamese diaspora to commemorate the end of the Vietnam war, each in its own
way. In spite of assurances to the
contrary by Washington, the United States is still suffering from the "Vietnam
syndrome". The communists in Hanoi are haunted by the
perceived threat of "peaceful evolution". And the Vietnamese immigrant community is
struggling to form a unified bloc.
How long will the United States, the Hanoi government and the Vietnamese diaspora
carry their respective baggage? Which
way is Vietnam
heading? What is our legacy to our
children? To be able to pass the torch,
something must be created. Is the new
Vietnamese generation, in Vietnam
and abroad, ready to take over?
So many questions which remain
unanswered today.
Two facts are clear:
First of all, who would have
thought, 27 years ago, when the Northern troops invaded South Vietnam, that the all-powerful Soviet Union
would collapse in 1989, taking down with it its Eastern European
satellites? No-one could have predicted
either how quickly the people would become disenchanted with Marxism,
while Ho Chi Minh's doctrine finds
itself powerless to get the country of its impasse? Ho and the party shamelessly exploited the
love of the Vietnamese for their country and put patriotism at the service of
international Communism. This was the
most scandalous abuse of trust in the heroic history of our unhappy
nation. And today, Vietnam is in an impasse, at all
levels, political, ideological, cultural, economic and social.
The second important fact is that
the old men of the Politburo, die-hard champions of the "development of
socialism at all costs" as well as the
nationalists hardliners who want "to get rid of Marxism to the last
man" are inevitably on their way out.
In Vietnam
and abroad, there is a dangerous generation gap which needs to be bridged. Two generations of Vietnamese have seen the
day since the end of the war, two generations who do not feel hatred or
resentment and are as indifferent to
building up Marxism as they are to its destruction. Many of these youths ask themselves "Who
am I? Where do I come from? Who can help
me? Who should I believe?"… in their painful yet exciting search for identity.
These two facts highlight the problem of transition between generations. It is the rebirth of Vietnam that is
at stake. The differences of views and opinions
between young and old need to be addressed.
The young generation (forty and younger, and three-quarters of the
population) is responsible for the
reconstruction of our country. These new
young leaders have to make a choice between good and bad, progress and
stagnation. They are free to judge and
act. They must choose wisely: final objectives, direction, means, modes of
action, speed of implementation. In Vietnam, the
struggle between communists and nationalists which has gone on for over half a
century, has become a fierce confrontation between democratic and totalitarian
forces. Final objectives have to take
into consideration national sovereignty, multipartism, respect for human rights
and social justice. In other words, the
authoritarianism of a single party and class struggle, which are so important
to Hanoi, are
quite unacceptable.
With the technological know-how
it has acquired, the new Vietnamese generation in the diaspora represents a
national resource of great value. The
problem is how to win over the hearts and minds of these young people who have
no ideological links with the past and who are looking to the future. They must look objectively at the experience
and deeds of the older generation from both sides of the divide, weigh them and
draw from them the necessary lessons.
And they have to do this in order to solve the diversions and contradictions, not the feeling of hatred, that
exist between the two sides after thirty five years of ideological war and
foreign intervention.
It is time for the two sides to
put an end to the mutual recriminations and propaganda war. On the other hand, preaching democracy is not
all. It has to be practiced first by those who call themselves the
supporters of democracy before it can be developed in our country.
During this transitional period,
the new generation needs the unconditional support of its elders. Realistic, open and honest debate about what
went wrong in the past must take place.
To go back to the source is the best way towards progress. This way, we will discover the life force of
our country and we will be able to start again.
It is counter-productive to try and excite emotions and force the issue
when we can accomplish so much more through reason. We must trust our youth and respect their
competence and common sense and the experience of democracy that they have
acquired through living and growing up in free countries.
Towards the end of 1994, during a literary symposium in Paris, writer
Duong Thu Huong had remarked that "The Vietnamese people has vast experience of fighting foreign invaders but no experience of
fighting domestic invaders". History has indeed demonstrated time and
again that Vietnam,
a tiny nation, has successfully repelled foreign invaders. Contrary to Duong Thu Huong's statement, it
has also known many civil wars, under the Le, the Trinh, the Tay Son and more
recently between the Communist North and Nationalist South. The Gianh and Ben Hai rivers have often been
dividing lines in our country. All the
invasions Vietnam
has known, either foreign or domestic, have tried to rob the people of its
right to self-determination and to impose on it a slave mentality. The right to self-determination is the
supreme right of a people, not the
absolute right of those who seize power.
The domestic invasions in Vietnam were
aimed at occupying territory and dominating its inhabitants. Ho Chi Minh and his party set up the worst
kind of dictatorship because their goal was to put the Vietnamese people under
communist control and to morally destroy it through materialist atheism. For seven decades, Ho and his disciples tried
to create, through brainwashing and propaganda,
the "new Vietnamese man", a
rootless follower of Marxist-Leninism, an enemy of religion, a propagandist
for the social class struggle. Before
1985, the Communists ruled the country with the slogan "Long live the
proletariat, death to the capitalists!".
With the advent of Ñoåi Môùi in 1985, they created a new
social class - the "red" capitalists - who went on ruling the
impoverished nation. Those who had once
called themselves the "servants of the people" now formed a mafia of
arrogant, corrupted bourgeois, more cruel than the former colonialists.
****
Our main preoccupation should not
be "When is the Vietnamese Marxist government going to
collapse?" (that will happen soon
enough!) but rather: "Are we ready
to replace that regime with better institutions? If so, which ones? What have we done so far to prepare
ourselves?"
Our other concern is that the
supporters of democratization in Vietnam
do not seem to agree on the urgent necessity to play an active part in the
behind-the-scenes talks that are presently being held between Hanoi
and the world powers (the United
States first among them).
Most Vietnamese dream only of
this: have enough to eat, to be
protected from the abuses of the rulers, to be free to honor one's ancestors
and to move around, to own a patch of rice-field and to be free to elect one's
representatives. Those who can make this
dream come true will have the unconditional support of the Vietnamese people
and thus gain legitimacy.
Instead of relying on foreign
aid, why not try to help ourselves? The
Vietnamese is hard working, has courage to spare and is modest in his wants. The country has ample resources if they can be
managed wisely. Why not wake up and
strengthen the conscience of the people?
Once unified and energized, it can be an irresistible force. History has shown that any alliance with a
foreign power - however formidable - ends up in failure if it does not have
popular support. Democracy is viable
only if it takes root among the people.
Democracy cannot be imported.
Political regimes and ideologies are ephemeral. The people alone remains, indestructible.
This is our last chance. If Vietnam meets with another failure,
it will fall farther back into poverty and under-development. If this happens, it will take our young
generation much much more time to catch up and look civilized nations in the
eyes. History will not forgive. All Vietnamese will carry the blame,
whichever side of the divide they are on, whatever age they are.
Lam Le Trinh
(Read others articles
in Vietnamese, French and English by the author at
http:www.centralsation.net/lamletrinh)
Tiểu
sử Luật Sư Lâm Lễ Trinh
Cử nhân và Cao học Luật khoa
(ĐạI hoc Luật khoa Hà Nôi). Tiến sĩ Luật khoa và Tiến sĩ Giáo dục Hoa kỳ.
Chánh Nhất Tòa Thượng thẩm Saigon,trước khi tham gia Chính Phủ Ngô Đình Diệm với
chức vụ Bộ trưởng NộI vụ (1955-1959). Đai sứ VNCH tạI Trung Đông và Ý Đai lợI
(1960- 1964).
Luật sư Tòa Thưởng thẩm
Saigon, Giáo sư Học viện Quốc gia Hành chính, và trường Chính trị, Kinh Doanh
Đà Lạt (1965-1975).
Định cư tại Californie
năm 1975.
Chủ nhiệm/chủ bút Tạp chí song
ngữ Anh, Pháp Human Rights / Droits de l’Homme từ năm 1998. .Tác giả nhiều bài
bình luận đăng trên báo chí Hoa kỳ, Canada và Âu châu. Đã xuất bản bốn
tác phẩm:VỀ NGUỒN, Sinh lộ cho Quê Hương (2006),THỨC TỈNH, Quốc gia và Cộng sản
(2007), VIETNAM, A PAINFUL TRANSITION (2007) và VIETNAM, TÉMOIGNAGES (2008).
Cố vấn Hệ thống Việt Nam
TV/Truyền thanh Hải ngoại, Washington
DC.
Điều hợp chương trình phỏng
vấn truyền hình « Mạn đàm với Lịch sử »
Cử nhân và Cao học Luật khoa
(ĐạI hoc Luật khoa Hà Nôi). Tiến sĩ Luật khoa và Tiến sĩ Giáo dục Hoa kỳ.
Chánh Nhất Tòa Thượng thẩm Saigon,trước khi tham gia Chính Phủ Ngô Đình Diệm với
chức vụ Bộ trưởng NộI vụ (1955-1959). Đai sứ VNCH tạI Trung Đông và Ý Đai lợI
(1960- 1964).
Luật sư Tòa Thưởng thẩm
Saigon, Giáo sư Học viện Quốc gia Hành chính, và trường Chính trị, Kinh Doanh
Đà Lạt (1965-1975).
Định cư tại Californie
năm 1975.
Chủ nhiệm/chủ bút Tạp chí song
ngữ Anh, Pháp Human Rights / Droits de l’Homme từ năm 1998. .Tác giả nhiều bài
bình luận đăng trên báo chí Hoa kỳ, Canada và Âu châu. Đã xuất bản bốn
tác phẩm:VỀ NGUỒN, Sinh lộ cho Quê Hương (2006),THỨC TỈNH, Quốc gia và Cộng sản
(2007), VIETNAM, A PAINFUL TRANSITION (2007) và VIETNAM, TÉMOIGNAGES (2008).
Cố vấn Hệ thống Việt Nam
TV/Truyền thanh Hải ngoại, Washington
DC.
Điều hợp chương trình phỏng
vấn truyền hình « Mạn đàm với Lịch sử »
