DOUBTFUL RENOVATION
Van Nguyen
The “People’s Democracy came to a close. Degradation persisted
in every aspect of the social, economic, and political life of the Vietnamese
people. It denotes the burning failures resulting from the monopoly of power of
the conceited of the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam. The situation of national education with a
health care system ranked among the sectors of success is much more adverse. Le
Thanh Khoi remarks that, beginning from 1980, the school registration figures
fall considerably and little is known about the weaknesses. Class repetition,
poor quality of teaching, and female participation (30% only) are among the
problems of concern. At the higher levels, ideological education actively
recommended. A question is raised: "How
to show the genuinely of socialist idealism when the real society is organized
by the culprits of corruption." Other problems
converge on the study of Pham Thi Hoai on the winding evolution of female
condition which she examines in all facets --formation, job, and access to
levels of control, conditions of work, marital services and divorce. After a
savoring note excerpted from the passage of the relatively traditional vision,
she misses conclusion. Taking into
consideration all the historical parameters that interfere in shaping the
present, the author ascertains that this may result from the timidity of
actions of the leaders of the Union of women. "Let's hope,” she concludes, "they will go farther."
The whole phenomenon, so rich and new,
raises several questions that remain unanswered. It is a surprise to public
opinion that keen observers such as Marcel Autret and Nguyen Duc Nhuan do not
formulate any reserve vis-a-vis the policy of displacement such as the solution
to demographic explosion. Timidity? The will of not to cause damage to the
dialogue with the Vietnamese authorities?
None of the authors approaches the political aspect of the problems,
regardless of the fact that it is a fundamental one. All show that, nowadays,
the system of the unique party leads to an impasse. Wouldn't it be good to seek
to institutional formulas to guarantee the expression of diversity of opinions?
If not, all renovation of the spirit of critics remains illusory. If this type
of the question remains a taboo in Vietnam, Three would be more of this type
among the Vietnamese of the diaspora.
Certain texts
might be gained, and so many things had evolved between 1984 and 1986. And this
evolution had been carried out. A
dispatch from the AFP of October 12, 1987 signaled that the
"renovators," nowadays, agreed to disengage themselves from the
cumbersome tutelage of the clan chief Le Duc Tho that set obstacle to an open-door
policy towards the West. The total absence of access to this information on the
future policy in the Parisian press was Imminent. Without “openness”, Vietnam
could fall in the nothingness in the eyes of the French public.”
Mistakes and errors appear to be redundant. They were
found out even in the ideological context and policy for renovation with
precepts modeled on “glasnost and perestroika” in the later years of the 1980’s.
It was extensively popularized but gained little success. The sense about the floral
goal and grandiose programs for renovation meant little significance and vague
importance to the masses. Common cadres and state officials without emoluments
might also feel what irony empty speeches on renovation were about. What would it mean by “renovation” in a
country where "principles of socialism" are the sole compass illuminating
the path to a classless society in every aspect? It is difficult to figure out
what such a society would be. Hopefuls with reason for optimism expected a
return to a “Worsen democracy style.”
Nguyen Van Tran, a
long-standing Communist of the South, in his memoirs “Viet cho Me va Quoc Hoi”
(To Mom and the National Assembly), depicted the somber picture of the regime
following the ten-year period of People’s Democracy. Vietnam was hampered with
numerous impediments to renovation. The mechanism of leadership “engenders a cumbersome
machinery of administration. Reduction of the staff would immerse civil
servants in unemployment. The Party leadership hierarchy .is even more riddled
with good-for-nothing organs. We have, for instance, a Front, which only serves
instrumentally for an apparent democracy. We also support satellite organs that
are deceitfully attributed to as the organs of the Front. Other impediments lie
on the path to renovation. The political subordination to the Soviet Union and dependence
on the COMECON for mutual economic aids are central. Still, renovation is
conditional on other noxious factors that were ruining the ailing economy, including
the failures to incorporate regional economic operations into the national
economy systems, inflation, and the overpopulation.”
The independent journalist Nguyen Ngoc Lan confided in
his friends that he was born on July 14, the day the French people destroyed
the Bastille bastion. He said, complaining: “I have lived through many periods
of history: the French colonialism, the August Revolution in 1945 and the
Government of the Democratic Republic Vietnam, the Bao Dai Government backed up
by the French, the Nguyen Van Thieu Government supported by the Americans, and
now the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. I have witnessed the
change of course of history. All this has made me think so constantly about the
term 'independence.” Someone says we
enjoy independence now. I say independence should be for the whole people. It
should be for the absolute majority. Only independence as such is meaningful.
Under the French domination, there was full independence for 10,000 French
colonialists just like the one for the French in France while our 20 million
Vietnamese fellow countrymen were slaves. Now, there might be, perhaps,
independence for approximately 10% of the two million members of the Vietnamese
Communist Party, but, how about more than 70 million Vietnamese fellow
countrymen. That's painful! (Do Trung Hieu, 1995: 59).”
Intolerance persisted. Nguyen Ho, an
outstanding veteran communist of the south, pointed out that the Communist
party has persistently followed a policy of discrimination against whatever organization
deemed to be hostile to communism. By believing in such Marxist concepts as
materialism is antagonistic spiritualism and atheism to theism, for instance, the Vietnamese Communists have executed policies
of oppression, repression, and even murderous terrorism against the religions,
namely, Cao Dai, Hoa Hao Buddhism, Evangelical Christianity, and Buddhism. Religious
followers are “reactionaries” and “henchmen if the imperialists.” With the
armed forces they had at hand, the Communist opened weeping operations to
destroy the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao Buddhists. They launched waves of attack and
executed series of mass killing of dignitaries and followers of these religions
during the first years of the Resistance War against the French (1945-1959).
The targets for elimination of the Cao Dai
were the mainly areas in the Eastern region of South Vietnam including the
provinces of Tay Ninh, Gia Dinh, Thu Dau Mot, Bien Hoa, and Ba Ria. As regards
the Hoa Hao Buddhists, the targets were the areas in the Western region including
the provinces of Long Xuyen, Chau Doc, Rach Gia, Bac Lieu, and Can Tho. Throughout
the nine years of resistance against the French invaders (1945-1954) and the
twenty years of the country’s parturition, the Catholics and Evangelicals in
the North were the objects of fierce repression of socialism. At the time the
Geneva Agreements were signed (July 1954) regulating the partition of the
country, two million Catholics and Evangelicals instantly immigrated in waves
to the South to escape the “Communist Peril. “The twenty years (1955-1975)
were, to the dignitaries and followers of these religions who stayed in the
North, a grievous endurance. They were treated as if they had been in a large
prison. (Nguyen Ho, 1993: 39).
There was no green light at the end of the tunnel. Repressions,
oppression, and persecution ever continued following the Communist takeover of
South Vietnam. The year 1984, in particular, involved a mass arrest of "counter- revolutionaries."
It was reported that there 2,000 people were convicted on various charges
following a treason trial with five defendants sentenced to death that ended on
December 18, 1984. A big trial of about 80 Buddhists from a temple near Ho Chi
Minh City convicted on charges of suspected "counterrevolutionaries" was reported. Series of
trials were planned in the months that followed with charges ranging from "counterrevolutionary"
activity to opposition to the Hanoi government. Overall, the Court would try
some 2,000 people in Saigon before April 30, 1984, the 10th anniversary of its
fall to the Communists (Charles-Antoine de Nectar, AFP, December19, 1984).
Internal
conflict posed a serious problem. After the reunification of the country in
July 1976, the politics of “Northernization
of the South” was carried out unremittingly to the detriment of the
leaders of the former National Front for the Liberation of South
Vietnam. The seizure of power of Hanoi extended to the district level in the
South. Ranking cadres of the former Front
promoted to key positions in the Party and the State were rare. Thus, for
example, of the 13 members of the politburo, one Southerner (Vo Van Kiet) was
present at the Sixth Party Congress (December, 1986), and only three members
from the South emerged after the Seventh Party Congress: Vo Van Kiet and his
two protégés, Phan Van Khai, vice prime minister, and Vo Tran Tri, first
secretary of the Party at Ho Chi Minh City. The other members of the politburo
were from Central and North Vietnam.
Facing both political and economic problems in
perspective, the Party, on the one hand, soothed dissidence among the student
ranges by apportioning them with larger food rations. At the same time, it
loosened economic restrictions, relaxing to some extent small private
businesses and preparing the laws and regulations for foreign investment and
international transactions. On the other
hand, the administration launched campaigns of repression against political
plurality negating all forms of opposition inside the Party and among the
masses. To this end, the Central Executive Committee of the Vietnamese
Communist Party held its conference in Saigon in September 1989 and decided to
take harsh measures against possible dissidence and opposition. The daily Nhan Dan (The People) ran a long
article warning the masses and public opinion against what it called "the freedom in the manner of
capitalism," the phrase which was alluded to the demands of
political reforms in Poland. Of particular concern, it called for the
protection of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the role of leadership of
the Vietnamese Communist Party.