ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 LEGAL RESEARCH ON RELATIONS BETWEEN THE STATE AND RELIGIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF ’S ACCULTURATION

Son Nam Nguyen1

Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Received: May 2020 Revised and Accepted: August 2020

ABSTRACT: Acculturation in any society frequently accompanies changes in social relations and adjustments to these relations. The movement of religion, state, and law in the acculturation of traditional Vietnamese culture with European culture contains valuable historical lessons for modern Vietnamese society. The paper focuses on a critical aspect of acculturation – the relations between the feudal state and religions. The legal research on these relations links up with the subsequent tasks: Clarifying the sociocultural context of relations between the state and religions, summarizing the policies and laws on religions of the Nguyen Dynasty, and evaluating these relations to make reasonable solutions. In the process of working on the research, logical methods and private– scientific methods, especially comparative legal and historical method, were used. Three political, social, and cultural factors at this stage were complicated and challenged the Nguyen Dynasty’s behaviors, which can be divided into three groups: “Support” for , “Tension” for Catholicism, and “Neutrality” for other religions. Henceforth, it has been necessary to observe the principles of tolerance in Vietnamese culture, put religious problems in personal affairs, and eliminate interference with wrong political ambitions when resolving religious issues. Moreover, the increase in responsibility of religious organizations spreading the faith and the resolution of conflicts between Oriental and Western cultures demonstrated their magnitude. KEYWORDS: religion, state, relation, acculturation, law, Vietnam

I. INTRODUCTION

In his well–known book of civilization [1], Huntington suggested six idioms of the clash of civilizations. He mentioned in his hypothesis the element of religion as the most significant feature of each civilization. He consistently made statements about Western and non–Western civilizations associated with religious identity, of course, from a Western scholar’s perspective. These arguments provide a link and a multidimensional perspective between society – culture – religion. As a result, Huntington’s views support valuable references for studies on religion – state – law in a unique context of acculturation. The study of Huynh [2] showed a detailed view of the acculturation in Vietnam when integrating culture over time. He summarized three main cultural problems: the formation of Vietnamese indigenous culture, the cultural contacts between Vietnamese and regional culture (Indian and Chinese cultures), and the cultural contacts between Vietnamese and international culture (the cultures of French, American, Western, socialist countries, and progressive humanity). Vietnam has a long–standing culture undergoing periods of formation, acculturation, and development. The stage from the 7th century BC to the first century BC witnessed the creation of the indigenous Vietnamese culture – the heyday of the . From the first century BC until the 10th century, the early acculturation of Vietnamese culture with Chinese and Indian cultures was taking place. Chinese feudal dynasties succeeded in invading and colonizing Vietnam. Consequently, this aggression matched up with cultural assimilation. Dong Son culture has been challenged by . In the first century AD, Confucianism and followed the Chinese colonists into Vietnamese territory while from India peacefully entered Vietnam. From the 5th century to the 10th century, Chinese Buddhism spread to Vietnam. From the 10th to the 16th century, under the condition of independence, Dong Son culture surviving ten centuries of dominance grew to form the Dai Viet culture. From the 16th to the 18th century, Vietnamese society entered a period of chaos and division. At the end of this period, the territory of Vietnam expanded to the South. Therefore, the Dai Viet culture (in ) merged with the Funan culture (in ), the culture (in ), to form the Dai Nam culture – the traditional Vietnamese culture. This research is located in the context of the cultural contact between Vietnamese traditional and Western culture. Entering the 19th century, the Nguyen Feudal Dynasty replaced the Tay Son Dynasty to step into the stage of peace and development. Under these conditions, elements of culture, especially religion, both endogenous and exogenous, had significant progress. Given the religious diversity in society, the legislation of the Feudal Dynasty faced unprecedented demands in history. The author observed and described the changes in

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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 law and society, analyzed them in a sociocultural approach, and drew valuable conclusions for establishing harmonious relations between the state and religions in Vietnam. II. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

2.1. Noteworthy Sociocultural Context of Vietnam’s Acculturation

Vietnamese society in the context of Vietnam’s acculturation was under the rule of the Nguyen Dynasty. The Nguyen Dynasty is the last feudal dynasty of Vietnam, lasting 143 years from the beginning of the nineteenth century (1802) with the coming to the throne of King Gia Long to the middle of the twentieth century with the abdication of King Bao Dai (1945). The peculiarity of the sociocultural context in this stage lies on three factors: The intersection between feudalism and democracy in Vietnam. Vietnamese society gradually went from stability at the beginning to complexity at the end of the period. The feudal regime ended its historical role in the face of the struggle for democracy and for building a more civilized, modern society. At the same time, the community witnessed the development of revolutionary doctrines and movements in order to find a revolutionary path for the whole nation. The invasion of the French colonialists in Vietnam. In 1802, Nguyen Anh ascended the throne, put an end to the civil war and opened the period of independence and autonomy for Vietnam. However, in 1862, France occupied three provinces in the and one province in the Southwest of Vietnam. In 1884, the Nguyen Dynasty officially recognized the right of French rule in Vietnam. From then, Vietnamese society entered a semi–feudal colonial period. The contact, exchange, and clash between Vietnamese traditional and Western culture. Nguyen Dynasty’s culture is Dai Nam culture – a multi–ethnic, multi–nuanced culture, a conglomerate of traditional Vietnamese culture. In words of Huynh [2], the period of 80–year French colonialism (1862 – 1975) was a “confrontation” between Oriental and Western culture in Vietnam while the time of 1982 – 1945 was the French colonial culture period. The three social, political, and cultural factors at this stage interacted together in the same point – the conduct of the Nguyen Dynasty on religious affairs. This sociocultural context linked to the relationship between the three matters of state – religion – law and proved the importance of adequately solving relations of two entities state and religion.

2.2. Summary of Policies and Laws on Religious Issues of the Nguyen Dynasty

Regulations of the Nguyen Dynasty on religious matters, including three groups: Confucianism Under the Nguyen Dynasty, Confucianism is the religion containing doctrines as the underlay of political thought and social management. Therefore, the Nguyen Dynasty’s policy was of sturdy support for Confucianism. Historically, Confucianism was introduced from to Vietnam from the Northern colonial period and gradually became the political ideology of Vietnamese feudal dynasties. The Nguyen Dynasty remained to promote Confucianism in order to restore central rule. Confucian theories flourished in the field of education with the edicts of the King. Under the Nguyen Dynasty, the categories of Confucian doctrine interpreted profoundly aimed to establish a typical Confucian society. However, parallel to the invasion of the French colonialists, Confucianism gradually lost its historical role, despite the efforts of the Nguyen Dynasty. Catholicism The Nguyen Dynasty has 13 kings, the second King (King Minh Mang) and the fourth King (King Tu Duc) issued specific policies of “forbidden religion”. Researcher Ngo Quoc Dong [3] systematically revamped documents related to the religious ban of these kings. In particular, the following remarkable documents mentioned: - During the reign of King Minh Mang, the Dynasty issued edicts on banning Western heresy (1836), on arresting Christian leaders (1839). Earlier, many edits expressed the Dynasty’s concern over the Christian issue, namely Edict on gathering missioners to Hue City “for helping the Dynasty in translation” (1825), and Instruction for the Criminal Ministry on the issue of Christianity and the settlement of Christianity (1833). The Dynasty also expressed their intervention and orientation towards the Christian matter of the masses through Edict on counseling to believers (1840), and Instruction for the Criminal Ministry on the Christians’ issues of renouncing religion and asking to continue confessing the faith (1840). Besides, the Dynasty’s state agencies were instructed in their conduct with Christianity throughout Edict on internal agencies on Catholicism (1834), and Edict on security officials concerning the issue of Catholicism (1841). - During the reign of King Tu Duc, directions of the Dynasty continued to focus on three subjects: Christianity, followers, and government agencies. For Christianity, the King issued, in turn, edicts on the issue of forbidden religion (1851), on the prohibition of the Christian faith (1854), on the prohibition of mandarins to follow Christian religion (1860), and on the issue of forbidden religion (1860). There were two notable texts for

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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 followers: Edict on coping with believers in Gia Dinh (1859), Regulations on the treatment of the people following the Christian religion in 1860. For Dynasty’s state agencies, Edict on attitudes of the bureaucrats to believers was issued in 1858. In 1862, French colonialists occupied three provinces in the Southeast and one province in the Southwest of Vietnam. King Tu Duc and Representatives of the French Empire signed the Treaty of Saigon on June 5, 1862, with the content of ceding the three Eastern provinces of to France and accepting the preaching of Christian throughout the country. Twelve years later, the Nguyen Dynasty continued to sign the 1874 Treaty ceding six southern provinces to France, openly admitted the freedom of spread Christianity, and officially stopped the ban. During the French domination, Catholicism flourished, the number of believers has grown up from approximately 650,000 in 1890 to 900,000 in 1910 and reached nearly 1,600,000 by 1939 [4]. Before the Nguyen Dynasty came to power, Catholicism had developed for nearly three centuries (from the 16th century to 1802). The Catholic reception of Vietnamese feudal dynasties was different from previous exogenous religions. Accordingly, in the 17th century, the Trinh – Nguyen Dynasties repeatedly instituted prohibitions for the propaganda of Catholicism the religion and expelled the clergy [5]. However, there were times when Catholicism received support from Lord Trinh and Lord Nguyen in both Dang Ngoai () and Dang Trong (South Vietnam) because the lords realized the benefits in terms of force. Even the first king of the Nguyen Dynasty – King Gia Long was grateful to the missionaries and some French for helping him to come to the throne after the war against Tay Son. King Gia Long rewarded and used the number of Frenchmen becoming advisers or government officials and allowed them to preach on a national scale freely. However, because of the espionage activities of Christian missionaries and the danger of the Christian Church abetting the conspiracy of the French colonialists’ invasion, the Nguyen Dynasty set out the policies and laws towards Christianity from the level of “vigilance, caution” to the level of “prohibition, punishment”. The content of the first legal documents focused on controlling Christian clergymen’s influence and advising people not to follow Catholicism. After that, there were more and more legal documents regulating strictly to the Christian clergymen and believers. In fact, the policies on Christian clergymen were more rigid (arrest, punishment) than the flexible ones for Christian believers (manipulation, advice). The other religions Before the Nguyen Dynasty came to power, the phenomena of “The triple religion” [6] (a combination of the three religions Confucianism – Buddhism – Taoism and Vietnamese folk beliefs into a unified form of faith) occupied the popularity in traditional Vietnamese society. Confucianism played a leading role and was the idea of ruling the country while Buddhism and Taoism still had essential positions in people’s spiritual life. Many Nguyen Dynasty’s kings granted land and facilities to worship the gods, Buddha, fairies, and saints in the village. Ancestor worship has always been encouraged and promoted by the Nguyen Dynasty. Under the French colonial rule, there were the births of endogenous religions as Caodaism (1926), Hoa Hao Buddhism (1938), and the introduction of Protestantism (1911) in Vietnam. However, the French colonial government imposed a policy of maximum restraint on the evangelization of American missionaries arriving in Vietnam [7]. For Cao Dai religion and Hoa Hao Buddhism, the French colonists used a policy of manipulation because they were worried about the cooperation between the religious forces and other countries scrambling for influence in Indochina.

2.3. Reviews on Legal Regulations of Relations between the State and Religions

Research on relations between the state and religions under the Nguyen Dynasty in the sociocultural approach demonstrates the following remarkable resolutions of legal regulations: The characteristic of tolerance in Vietnamese legal culture. Tolerance culture, state, and religion have a sustainable relationship. These three issues became more and more deeply dependent on each other, owing to the appearance of typical religious diversity in Vietnamese society. Religious diversity manifests through the elements of monotheism, polytheism, doctrine, and spiritual practice. Therefore, the legislation regulating relations in the field of religion should consider this diversity. On the one hand, to ensure social order in terms of religious diversity, it is not necessary to follow the model of a mainstream religion because the process of forming a dominant religion may cause religious conflicts. The solution to solving this problem is to put the tolerance factor into the law of state. On the other hand, tolerance culture is inherently associated with Vietnamese national traditions. Before the day of acculturation with Western culture, Dai Nam culture or traditional culture of Vietnam brought a characteristic of tolerance. Cultural tolerance has been concretized into religious tolerance. Thanks to religious tolerance, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism still co–existed peacefully for centuries despite their differences. Despite the rotation of Buddhism and Confucianism in taking the leading role in society, they did not eliminate each other. When the cultural integration was taking place to form Dai Nam culture, religions besides “The triple religion”, such as Islam and Hinduism, have remained and developed.

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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 Under the Nguyen Dynasty, the society following Confucian ideology had a substantial clash to Western culture with its representative – Christian. There were fierce conflicts between the state and the , which led to unfortunate consequences for society, including the French colonialists’ invasion in Vietnam. According to Nguyen’s analysis [8], one of the reasons for the French colonialists’ attack is to protect Christian clergymen and believers. “Forbidden religion” has been not suitable for Vietnamese tolerance culture. Whereas, some of the kings of the Nguyen Dynasty showed tolerance for religious confessions. For instance, King Gia Long warned of ethnic factors when dealing with religious issues [9]. He asserted that as citizens, Christians should not be banned regardless of their attitudes to ancestor worship. The responsibility of religious organizations. Malcolm D. Evans [10] analyzed the principle of “Fostering Pluralism and Tolerance” and pointed out the difficulties for the state to ensure human rights enjoyment. These difficulties come from the relationships of atheists–theists and theists–theists (different religions). Malcolm D. Evans concluded that most religious doctrines of any religion are usually inclined to reject other religions’ rationality. Thus, tolerance should be maintained in legal culture and integrated into religious organizations’ behaviours. Otherwise, unfortunate conflicts will occur and complicate the process of adjusting religious relations. To conclude, we can see the say of the Court in the Otto–Preminger–Institut case [10] with the main content is that criticism may appear even in the case of a person practicing one’s freedom of religion. Resultantly, the recommended behavior is that they have to tolerate and accept different levels of criticism, including rejection and a spread of opposite–beliefs to the faith they are confessing. Return to the period of acculturation between traditional Vietnamese and Western culture, the role and responsibility of a religious mission primarily belong to religious organizations and missionaries. According to the research of Nguyen [11], the development of Catholicism in Vietnam faced three vital problems: (1) Catholicism with Vietnamese culture, (2) Catholicism with religions and faiths in the traditional Vietnamese threshold, (3) Catholicism with the Vietnamese nation. However, during this historical period, Catholic representatives probably did not behave properly. Before the early religions entered Vietnam, there appeared two critical belief phenomena in ’s society. One of them was the belief related to community cohesion – ancestor worship. Ancient Viet residents were conscious of sharing the same origin and the common ancestor – King Hung. Strengthened by the concept of the soul in the ancient Viet people and the influential “village culture”, patriotism, tolerance, and gratitude, Viet residents have incessantly practiced ancestor worship. Attacks by Western missionaries to the worship ancestor were intolerant to traditional Vietnamese culture. According to Nguyen [8], in Vietnamese religious life, ancestor worship is of the top care. Yet the Western missionaries sharply criticized ancestor worship and forced Vietnamese Christians to get rid of this belief. Nguyen [8] cited examples of how Christian clergymen compelled their followers to throw the ancestor altars and the Buddha statues outside houses. Undoubtedly, the conflicts between traditional religion and Catholicism have many causes, but one of them was Western religious organizations’ behaviour. The correlation between religious and political matters. The French colonialism element became a significant historical factor of the “forbidden religion” policies under the Nguyen Dynasty. Immediately after coming to the throne, thanks to the Christian clergymen’s help, King Gia Long saw the potential danger of the Christian clergymen’s political involvement. Espionage activities of a few missionaries from the Paris Foreign Missions Society were the reason of arrest and punishment for Christian clergymen and believers. According to researcher Ngo [3], the Nguyen Dynasty’s policies were relatively rational from a political perspective. The Nguyen Dynasty’s policy in religious issues related to the consolidation of the new central feudal regime. This consolidation faced with the “union” of missionaries and colonialism in the process of colonial exploration. Standing before the prospect of becoming an invaded goal, the Dynasty Nguyen applied many measures, including religious policies. Therefore, this “forbidden religion” policy was located in a complex political and historical interaction between the Nguyen Dynasty and the invading forces. One of the policy’s targets is to prevent the threat of an aggressive war. Historically, the Vietnamese feudal society also appeared self–contradiction. Confucianism could not solve the three major problems of society at that time: orthodox religion – heresy, innovation – intact, fighting – peace. Therefore, the community could not develop when rejecting Christianity. Confucianism and Christianity have too many differences to occur in the phenomenon “the triple religion” as Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. In fact, the French colonialists invaded Vietnam and accompanied by the “cultural domination”. As a result, the acculturation in the form of “enforced” arose social opposition. The Nguyen Dynasty basing on “Confucianism” called “Catholicism” as a heresy. The clash of cultures occurred when the acculturation process breaks the fundamental rules. The history of Vietnamese culture has witnessed cultural integration, both spatially and temporally. Over thousands of years, traditional Vietnamese culture formed – Dai Nam culture. After that, Dai Nam culture continued to be influenced by Western culture to shape modern Vietnamese culture. This process has been dramatic and impressive. Not being lost or denied, the traditional culture of Vietnam can only acculturate for development. The acculturation in Vietnam showed that whether penetrated Vietnam by persuasion or coercion, the culture of an aggressor can only exist, when it follows the Vietnamese culture’s

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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 internal development rule, which is “vietnamized” and bears its own national identity [12]. The serious clash of culture took place because the real subject of the culture – the Vietnamese – did not get the voice and the right to self–determination. Policies and laws did not take into account the rights of the entire Vietnamese people. The evidence is the transformation of contemporary culture is happening in modern Vietnamese society; however, the religions still live in harmony because of the law rooted in the will of Vietnamese people. Therefore, only the valid owner of culture can resolve the conflict between Oriental and Western culture, between “Confucianism” and “Catholicism”, all other interventions are just temporary solutions. Oriental cultural factors in Vietnamese law. Unable to go beyond the sociocultural context, the Nguyen Dynasty’s behaviours were deeply rooted in the conception of religion in the Oriental nations. Among the comments on this issue is the notion of “the king stands over religions” [13]. Therefore, the feudal state’s legal adjustments to religious matters in Vietnam seemed to be subjective. The understandable reason is the spirit of “the rule of law” has not been introduced into Vietnamese society in this period. As a result, the Vietnam’s acculturation witnessed conflicts in solving the problem of Catholicism. The acculturation has taken the responsibility to expand the Vietnamese people’s conception of law and religion. The spirit of human rights was proactively absorbed by later democratic states and opened the “equality” path of religions before the law. In a parallel direction, the Oriental cultural element cannot be lost after the acculturation. This means that non– Western societies like Vietnam cannot become entirely Western societies. For example, the existence of an only religion or a state religion is unlikely to occur in Vietnamese society. Vietnam should maintain religious diversity without any state religion. Wherefore, religions in Vietnam must accept each other and be guaranteed by law to coexist peacefully and equally. In a broader sense, Vietnamese law on the field of religious freedom should contain rational strands rooted in Oriental culture regardless of the ongoing international integration process. In a relative analysis [14], the author highlighted three significant cultural characteristics for the formation of regulations governing religious relations in Vietnamese society, including culture of tolerance, indigenous and patriotic culture. Oriental culture, in particular Southeast Asian culture, is the foundation for receiving progressive values from civilizations outside the territory. After many acculturations, Vietnamese cultural characteristics have been created on a crossroads of Western and Oriental cultures. In the aspect of culture and civilization, the Vietnam law should be based on Southeast Asian culture as a definition of Vietnam in cultural exchange. However, according to Dao [15], although Western and Oriental values are precious additions, they cannot be installed mechanically or replaced Vietnamese values to establish regulations in Vietnam legal system.

III. CONCLUSION

The relations between the state and religions under the Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam can be structured into three groups: Confucianism, Catholicism, and other religions. This division came for various reasons, both objective and subjective, regulated by the specific sociocultural context. From a sociocultural perspective, dealing with religious matters should be based on Vietnamese culture’s characteristic of tolerance. Religious organizations’ responsibility to propagate religion is fundamental, especially in communication with the traditional culture of Vietnam. Only the valid owner of culture can resolve the conflict between Oriental and Western cultures, between “Confucianism” and “Catholicism”.

Acknowledgments

We would like to be grateful to Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (Program 5/100) for the sponsorship of this research.

IV. REFERENCES

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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 [6]. V. N. Hoang, “Religious Diversity and the Right to Freedom of Religion in Vietnam Today”, Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, vol. 4, (2015), pp. 213–222. [7]. X. H. Nguyen, Author, “On the History of Relations between States and the Protestant Church in Vietnam – State and Church”, Religious Publishing House, Hanoi, (2003). [8]. D. H. Nguyen, “Religious Life in the History of the Nation”, Proceedings of the International Conference on “Beginning of a Conversation: Religion and the Rule of Law in ”, Hanoi, Vietnam, (2006) September 6–11. [9]. B. Do, “Politics of the Nguyen dynasty in relation to Christianity”, Journal of Historical Research, vol. 1, (2010), pp. 45–52. [10]. D. E. Malcolm, “The freedom of religion or belief and the freedom of expression”, Religion and Human Rights, vol. 4, (2009), pp. 197–235. [11]. H. D. Nguyen, “Our State and Catholic”, Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 5, (2002), pp. 25–31. [12]. V. G. Tran and B. D. Tran, Authors, “Vietnamese History”, Youth Publishing House, Hochiminh city, (2001). [13]. N. V. Dang, “Regarding the policy of religious freedom in Vietnam (part 1)”, Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 4, (2000), pp. 4–9. [14]. S. N. Nguyen, “Operating the right to freedom of belief and religion in Vietnam’s legislation”, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Education and Social Sciences, Dubai, UAE, (2020) January 20–22. [15]. T. U. Dao, “Vietnam: Basic Information for Legal Research - A Case Study of Vietnam”, Doing Legal Research in Asian Countries China, India, Malaysia, Philippines, , Vietnam, vol. 23, (2003), pp. 195–228.

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