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Vietnam: a View of Human Nature

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Vietnam: a View of Human Nature VIETNAM: A VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE TOM HAYDEN Most visitors to North Vietnam return A REVOLUTION WHICH CLAIMS deeply impressed with the society they have ONLY TO SPEAK FOR ITSELF seen. The Vietnamese revolutionaries seem epic in their achievements, legendary already Stories - hundreds of them - of Vietnam­ in their moral stature. “ Our struggle has a ese heroism, portray the Vietnamese as such sacred significance in the revolutionary extraordinary people that a problem of cred­ world” , an official Hanoi spokesman said in ibility arises. American travellers returning winter 1973. They invoke an optimistic phil­ from Hanoi find the Vietnamese hard to ex­ osophy about human possibilities which plain even to their friends, and perhaps even­ many Westerners would label impossibly tually to themselves. Some listeners begin to romantic. think that the traveller from Hanoi is so em­ otionally moved by the Vietnamese (or the US-spawned destruction they have viewed) to no longer have balance of mind. There­ An abridged version of an article by a United fore, the traveller’s opinions often are dis­ States anti-war activist, first printed by the missed or taken lightly by others with anti­ Indochina Peace Campaign, California. war views. 27 Credibility is a historic problem with re­ nations, the future of revolutionary move­ gard to the stance American radicals have ments, guerrilla warfare, the role of “ small taken towards revolution abroad. Political nations” in the world of Great Powers. It radicals have over-identified sometimes with will help answer how powerful the “ spirit the direction of another country, whether of the people” can be in the face of unpar­ the Soviet Union in the 1930s or China in alleled technological power. the 1960s, in such a way that their word and integrity are no longer credible. They All these issues are universal in scope are not only discredited as a result, but hav­ and will be defined by this revolution ing over-identified with another country’s which claims only to speak for itself. revolution, they become disillusioned when the star of that country is tarnished by int­ HOW DO VIETNAMESE VIEW ernal conflict or contradictory turns of AMERICA? policy. In some periods this has led to even more depression on the left than that caused The Vietnamese view of human nature by the policies of the American government, and the revolutionary process determined and thousands of people have burned out as what they think of American society. Many radicals in the process. Americans are struck by the seeming simp­ licity, even naivete, in what the Vietnamese One must approach the question of Viet­ say about America. Again and again the nam carefully not to repeat these patterns Vietnamese make a distinction between the of the past. “ American people” and the American gov­ ernment. They do not consider the Americ­ It becomes difficult to entertain the idea an people their enemy, but rather the bear­ that the Vietnamese are exemplary because ers of a progressive tradition of democracy one doesn’t want to imply that their instit­ and national independence which the Am­ utions should be imported to the United erican government is violating.. States, nor should one’s future, personally or politically, be tied to what may happen After all, they understand Americans in another country. But fortunately, Vietnam well enough to fight them, they are ac­ is one country that makes few claims to have quainted with racism of both the American the answer to anyone’s problems but their and French varieties, they have encountered own. They do not issue Red Books, nor pub­ Americans of all classes on the battlefield lish a Little Lenin Library in every language, killing Vietnamese, they have experienced nor do they encourage the growth of polit­ betrayals on the part of their allies in the ical parties following their line in other coun­ West. Their views come from experience. tries. So when they say something about the American people and American government, In fact, although the Vietnamese have their it would be short-sighted to conclude that theories and theoreticians, much of their work they are wrong on so fundamental a ques­ remains in the Vietnamese language. Their tion. leadership never puts forward the notion that they have the “ correct line” for other count­ But what do they mean? This is a myst­ ries. This may be because, while fighting a ery that must and will be unravelled, per­ war requiring international support, the Viet­ haps not for many years. Already, however, namese do not want to antagonise their var­ theories are appearing. For instance, it is ious allies. But it is more than a forced mod­ becoming fashionable and, I think, mislead­ esty; it is conscious and deep. ing, to believe that the answer to the myst­ ery lies essentially in Vietnamese culture. The revolution of these “ common peo­ In this view, the 4000 year tradition of ple” (as they style themselves) is the most Vietnam has produced a unique set of values important at present in the world, and prob­ which sustain the Vietnamese resistance to­ ably will affect much of our history in this day. The collective labor in building the century. It will affect the future of small dykes, the constant struggles against foreign 28 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW MARCH-APRIL 1975. invaders, the Confucian tradition of seeking change, but one perfectly designed to ratify order under legitimate authority (“ the man­ the status quo. date of heaven” ) are described as the factors which make Vietnam "special” . These histor­ UNIVERSAL THEMES IN VIETNAMESE ical roots are vital to understand, but they CULTURE can permit a too convenient explanation for the American failure in Vietnam which goes It is also true that they did not have to like this: since the Vietnamese are unique, go entirely outside these cultural traditions it has been impossible for any American to find a basis for revolution. There were strategies to work there. This can mean that progressive aspects of Buddhism and Confuc­ American strategies will work elsewhere, ianism which served to justify resistance. that the Vietnam war experience is not likely But this is possible in any culture, including to be duplicated and that there is little of ours. The progressive themes the Vietnamese universal portent to learn from Vietnam. found in their tradition were universal. The Confucian scholar and Buddhist monk had to reconcile fidelity to the state versus fidel­ A STREAM OF REACTIONARY ity to the nation, charity in the hereafter TRADITION with oppression in the present. Out of these contradictions grew desires to change society As an antidote to this thinking, it should for the better. In Confucian doctrine, for be pointed out that the Vietnamese have example, was an idea of human nature that had to struggle against a reactionary stream proved to be a liberating tool, one that should of culture and tradition. They are not simply not be foreign to people in any country. It inheritors of a revolutionary way of life. For was the idea that the great majority of people example, we should note that Buddhism and are potentially good, the question of their Confucianism contain extremely conservat­ self-improvement depending only on the lev­ ive tendencies, lest we accept the notions el of education they receive about the world that Buddhist monks always have immolated as it really is. They are surrounded by forces themselves in protest or that Ho Chi Minh that keep information from them. At the was simply a latter-day Confucian elder. root is a concept of virtue which appears in Vietnamese writing down through the cent­ Buddhism rested historically on the idea, uries. People can become virtuous by desir­ not unfamiliar to Americans, that suffering ing to be so, by learning to be so, by sacrif­ and oppression in the present will be over­ icing to be so. You shall know the truth, and come in the hereafter. Buddhism projects the the truth shall make you free. transcendence of misery, If you are poor, you Vietnamese of many political backgrounds have always been that way and you should have shared this view down through the twen­ accept Buddha’s grace, pass on into another tieth century. In the 1920s for instance, a text­ life and be re-incarnated, for in a later time book on Confucian doctrine by a scholar who you may be more fortunate. That fatalism would later be Vietnamese prime minister of the Buddhist philosophy was convenient under the occupying Japanese, included this to many an emperor, just as similar religious opinion: attitudes prop up authoritarian rule today. “ The overwhelming majority of people The same was true of Confucian teach­ become good or bad according to the ing: the Vietnamese revolutionaries were education and customs they acquire. confronted with a doctrine which, as it was These average people, all of them, can transmitted, fixed people in their places. The be educated. This applies to every sort Confucian code, which became state doct­ of person, in every position of society, rine during the feudal period, included the from every race and every country. principles that a man’s first duty was to the Everyone can be educated to be good. emperor, a woman's to her husband, a The aim of Confucianism is to educate child’s to the family. This was hardly a phil­ people so they become human and osophy designed to promote unrest or devoted.” 29 When Ho was in prison in the 1940s, he “ Buddhism taught us charity, and comm­ paralleled this doctrine in many of the poems unism has given us a vehicle for bringing sent to his comrades in Vietnam.
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