VIETNAMESE
INTELLECTUALS IN CRISIS
LÂM
LỂ TRINH
In
an article widely circulated among the Vietnamese diaspora, dissident
scientist Hà Sỹ Phu writes that “The
(Vietnamese) people are currently facing a human crisis on a global
scale. Society is in a state of upheaval because there has been a
complete reversal of the system of values. Atheism has given rise to
a frightening emptiness. From the points of view of culture,
ideology and human dignity.”
It
has to be said however that Marxism is only a contributing factor to
a decline that started long before the advent of socialism.
Vietnamese society, in which the intellectual class used to play an
important role, has been adversely affected by a number of factors:
1) Chinese
domination, which Viet Nam endured for more than a thousand years,
created a class of apathetic, reactionary intellectuals deeply
attached to China’s formalistic culture. The Chinese concept of
the universe, of the human condition and of morality is limited and
non-scientific. This conservatism is slowing down our country’s
development.
2) The French
managed for a hundred years to bind to them, in the words of Huỳnh
Thùc Kháng in the preface of his book Biography
of Phan Tây Hồ “a class of
intellectuals pro-Western to the tip of their tongue, half
traditional, half modern, full of themselves, opposed to one another,
unable to come together.” The
influence of French culture dimmed after 1954, but nevertheless
continued to be felt until 1975.
3) The U.S.
was present in Viet Nam for almost two decades, yet American culture
and civilization did not make a great impact because of the
differences in temperament and traditions between the two countries.
But during the 60’s and 70’s, a whole range of Western ideologies
and tendencies found their way into South Viet Nam: the
existentialism
of Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty;
the theory of the absurd
of Albert Camus; the structuralism
of Roland Barthes and Claude Levi-Strauss; the personalism
of Emmanuel Mounier… These ideologies were seized upon by a
generation of students and intellectuals who flaunted them like the
latest fashion. The disenchanted protagonists of the novels written
by members of the literary group Sáng
Tạo led empty aimless lives,
whiling away their time in nightclubs and whorehouses. The war, with
its miseries and uncertainties, reinforced the ephemeral character of
life and gave rise to a class of people whose only objective was to
party and have fun. The Communists took this opportunity to
infiltrate the ranks of journalists, writers, musicians and artists
in the South and to foster anti-militarism and defeatism. South
Viet Nam’s successive military governments were unable to
neutralize this campaign of demoralization. The presence of American
troops and their allies was accompanied by a mushrooming of
nightclubs, ideal breeding ground for prostitution and smuggling.
South Vietnamese society at the eve of the fall of South Viet Nam was
in an advance state of physical and moral decay.
4)
Mao Tse Tung had said, “Intellectuals
who do not convert to Marxist-Leninism
are nothing more than excrement”.
The bourgeois spirit was purged by the Vietnamese communists by
means of several bloody campaigns: the 1946-1954 drive to expunge
French cultural influence, seen as romantic and retrograde; the
Chinese-style 1954-1956 Agrarian Reform; the 1956-1960 campaign
against reactionary intellectuals and artists; the 1986-1989 purge
under the guise of a cultural glasnost called the “blooming
of one hundred flowers”.
In 1975, Viet Nam was reunited and turned into an immense gulag
littered with re-education camps where human rights were openly
trampled. Authoritarianism killed artistic inspiration and
creativity. Hồ Chí Minh’s policy of “national
eradication”
for the establishment of a new Marxist man sacrificed three
generations of Vietnamese on the altar of the Third International.
Today, Viet Nam is plagued by the twin scourges of the political
ideology inherited from Marxist China and the Soviet Union and the
corrupt dictatorship of the Vietnamese Communist Party.
In
spite of the limitations and hardship they have to endure, Vietnamese
intellectuals have contributed a great deal to the national cause.
The worst experience was the exodus of some 3 million Vietnamese
following the fall of South Viet Nam in 1975. Most of them landed in
the United States, a terra
incognita, a bewildering
multiracial, multicultural world. These Vietnamese intellectuals in
the United States are currently undergoing a crisis. They were
mentally and professionally unprepared and completely disoriented
when they arrived. In search of a new identity, they had doubts
about themselves and about the host society. The political changes
in Viet Nam played havoc with their traditional spiritual and moral
values. In most cases, the civilization of the host country was
based on technology and science, brutally realistic and highly
competitive. In this foreign land, individual freedom was prized
above family solidarity, and material success was the criteria by
which one was judged.
In
the East, culture is what gives strength. In the U.S., strength
creates culture, a culture of strength. In an article published in
Foreign Affairs,
Harvard professor Samuel Huntington speaks of the
clash of civilizations. The Vietnamese
intellectual is a grain of sand in this storm. He knows it. That is
why in Vietnamese literature in exile, there is a note of pessimism,
or even worse, of despair. Many call it “a
culture of despair”.
In
his quest to pull Viet Nam out of the Marxist impasse, the Vietnamese
intellectual – if he wants to be worthy of that name – must not
despair even though the road ahead is full of obstacles. The
Vietnamese diaspora does possess substantial financial resources and
more importantly, ample gray matter in the form of the 300,000 well
qualified and well trained youth who grew up in a democratic
environment. If these resources are used appropriately, and if we can
work in cooperation with our brothers and sisters inside the country,
then there’s a good chance that we will win.
It
is of the utmost importance to teach the new generation pride in
their inheritance and the desire to serve the community if we are to
pull Viet Nam out of its stagnation. Our youth have an important
part to play. Vietnam has to be jumpstarted. People have to come
together and work hand in hand. Everyone has to commit to the
survival of Viet Nam and agree to talk less, listen more, act more,
and follow more instead of always jockeying for leadership positions.
Hồ
Chí Minh did say one thing that made sense: “When
you have the people with you, you
have everything.” But how does one
keep the trust of the people? That is the key question. Regimes,
political parties, governments, ideologies, they shall all pass. The
people alone remain.
Our
ancestors gave us some shining examples, which we must emulate.
When Phan Khôi heatedly argued with Tràn Trọng Kim about
Confucianism, when Ngô Đức Kế criticized Phạm Quỳnh‘s
political ideas, when Phan Chu Trinh and Phan Bội Châu disagreed,
they all did so with great restraint and mutual respect. For these
intellectuals, our country was the main objective, the Vietnamese
people were the essence.
Unity
of hearts and minds will put an end to the “waiting
syndrome” (the old waiting for the
young to act and vice versa, the diaspora waiting for people inside
the country to act and vice versa) and to “popular
allergy”
to the formation of an effective front for the democratization of
Viet Nam.
Thủy Hoa
Trang
