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)
