Post-postscript to the "Viet Cong debate"
Post-postscript to the "Viet Cong debate"
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 11:08:56 -0800
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Sender: VSG-owner@u.washington.edu
Colleagues,
In the context of Vietnamese Studies, some of you might find the following article of interest. It is from today's "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" (which, I am told, has nothing to do with "after intelligence" or with post-modernism). I am quite amazed by the Lovefest of sentimental patriotism, awash in Americana signifiers like "heroism" and "courage," surrounding the reporting on ex-POW McCain's campaign for the US presidency, and this is a particularly good example. If it wasn't for the stunning selective memory and the conspicuous silence on US/RVN treatment of POWs... What would Mr. McCain call, for example, those "ordinary" men, from whose helicopters other "gooks" were thrown? Curious minds want to know.
Regards,
Christoph Giebel
Jackson School of International Studies
& Dept. of History
University of Washington, Seattle
Asian Americans hurt by McCain slur
Thursday, February 24, 2000
By JOEL CONNELLY and TRACY JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
Presidential candidate John McCain is not ashamed of using a racially charged term to describe the North Vietnamese prison guards who tortured him in his 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war. But his recent reference to "gooks" stung some in the Seattle area, where
Asian Americans make up about 10 percent of King County's population. Washington is also the first mainland state to elect an Asian American governor.
Some say McCain's use of the term -- even only in specific reference to his brutal captors -- has no place decades later. "When I hear that, it's that final page that hasn't been turned," said Son Michael Pham, 41. "People need to move on and get all of that hatred out of the way." Pham, a board member of the Greater Seattle Vietnam Association, said he was only voicing his own disappointment. Although Pham said he views McCain as a war hero and a worthy presidential candidate, he was stunned the Republican senator from Arizona would use a term so offensive to Asian Americans. "I don't think it serves any purpose at all," he said. Loan Nguyen, who is directing the Southeast Asian Community Partnership for Seattle's Wing Luke Asian Museum, said she understands McCain's resentment of his captors. But that does not excuse using the term now, she said. "He's doing it in America, where it brings back a lot of negative feelings for people who have had a lot of negative experiences in this country," she said. "I think McCain could have chosen better words that could describe his experience."
McCain, campaigning in Washington state yesterday, said he would refrain from using the term again to dampen any controversy generated by his words. But he emphasized the term was exclusively a description of the prison guards who caused the death of some POWs and sought constantly to inflict physical and psychological pain. "I don't view that as a misstep," McCain told reporters as his "Straight Talk Express" bus carried the Republican presidential candidate into Seattle. "It does not apply to any group larger than those who held me prisoner, and tortured and killed the POWs under their control," McCain said in an interview.
He added that a South Vietnamese pilot, being held with the Americans, used the same expression toward his captors. While campaigning in South Carolina last week, McCain told reporters: "I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live." The former Navy flier added that he delivered crucial support when President Clinton, a political opponent, made the decision to restore U.S. diplomatic relations with Hanoi. Still, McCain views his former captors as war criminals who should have been put on trial for their actions.
"I am not ashamed or embarrassed to use that term to describe torturers and murderers," he said. "I will continue to believe that these are the worst people I have met in my life."
After his plane was shot down in October 1967, McCain received no treatment for injuries until captors discovered that he was the son of an admiral. He was held for more than two years in solitary confinement. He suffered repeated beatings, particularly after refusing an offer of early release. Speaking to the Seattle Rotary Club yesterday, McCain related the heroism of a fellow POW named Mike Christian. When prisoners began to be allowed parcels in 1970, Christian contrived to sew an American flag on the inside of his shirt. The POWs made it a point to daily recite the Pledge of Allegiance. But their captors eventually discovered the flag. It was confiscated. Christian was severely beaten. "We cleaned him up as best we could," McCain recalled. As he curled up for the night, a bruised and battered Christian was beginning to sew another flag.
From: Vern Weitzel <weitzel@undp.org.vn>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Post-postscript to the "Viet Cong debate"
This is a difficult one. I remember, during the '60s, being offened when some returning soldiers branded any Asian as a 'gook'. Once I went to viet Nam I understood why they would think this way – because as we know, Vietnamese and American cultures are so different. And young men, faced with this confusion may seek ways to barricade their psyches. These were young men who lacked maturity and I believe it is a terrible thing to put people in such a position.
I can make this point even more broad. The P-I report mentioned Wing Luke who died tragically in an airplane accident in the 1960's when I was in O'dea high school in Seattle. Luke's father had a corner store near our school. Some of my classmates used to make fun of the poor old guy who would drive them out of his shop saying "you steely". But then we made fun of the brothers (our teachers) as well.
I suggest that this boyish prankishness can mutate into something of a monstrosity. Throwing people out of a huey is just one manifestation.
Lyndon Johnson noted at one point that felt concerned that American boys were placed in this difficult situation. I remember some of my comrades in the Army, during the early '70s, in conversation with Vietnamese house-workers and soldiers. They talked as though these people were themselves 'viet-cong'. And, frankly, we barely understood the complexity of conditions for the southern Vietnamese. Who of us could imagine that the little vials of heroin being sold to us by RVN soldiers were not a tactic of the enemy but that these soldiers were forced to sell drugs to make money for the RVN military. This isn't the kind of thing you would read about in 'Stars and Stripes'.
Turning to the question of the torture of POWs, I can't imagine a more difficult situation for anyone. My office is a block away from the remnant of the Maison Centrale, the 'Hanoi Hilton. Today it is a mcuh different place and I recommend that people consider the times then and not how they are today. It was a time of polarising forces, lurid propaganda on both sides. And great misunderstanding. Now we have the opportunity to look back and see human beings where once they were just 'the enemy'.
My wife tells the story of a time when she was 13 years old and US airplanes flew over her whicle she was gathering wood and dropped bombs which exploded loudly. She live in Son Tay, near Ha Noi, and this was the American retalliation for the Gulf of Tonkin Incident - which of course has received recent critical analysis. From that point on she was determined to join the army to fight against this agressor. At that time I agreed with the US rsponse. But now I see how violence only begets more violence. As the war escalated, this became more obvious to ordinary citizens of the US and to many people in the RVN. Sadly, northerners were insulated from this understanding by the massive government propaganda machine - echoes of which are even now a main feature of television viewing in this country.
After living some 20 years in Australia, and making frequent trips to Viet Nam, I wince at the expressions by POWs of American patriotism. But even this I can understand as a serviceable defense mechanism, the time for which is now long past.
If Senator McCain wants to characterise his captors as 'gooks', well, I can't agree with the terminology - too many other meanings - but I uderstand his feelings and his continuing resentment of people who would torture other human beings.
I am equally disappointed that the Vietnamese government refuses to admit that it tortured and killed US prisoners. The evidence for this is overwelming. They should not perpetuate a lie. Some of my Vietnamese fpients who should know better, still believe that there was no torture of US POWs. Given the feelings in the north at the time, the great animosity towars southern 'taitors' and American agressors, I wonder how they could believe this.
Whatever side one is on, I believe that torture is wrong and should not be condoned. And the longer I think about it, the more I am convinced that there must be other ways besides war and violent revolution to solve political problems. Here, I find fault both with the former North Vietnamese and the US and allied Governments. War is anarchy, the rule of law is suspended. Even if it is mytholgised that the NVA were strictly controlled, we know they commited attrocities, just like us.
I am sure that those of you on this list are committed to building bridges between our countries. I think it is wonderful and refreshing. I have great respect for Vietnamese culture and I can see that it was, like American culture, distorted by this terrible war. The social consequences of that war are still a huge problem today.
>From what I gather in the US press, there is a campaign to negativise Sentator McCain. I don't know the parameters of this, but it seems to me that undue attention is paid to what is a small incident. Some other stories I have read suggest that McCain is not racist or anti-Viet.
A few years ago a friend took me for banh thom on Ho Truc Bach. He pointed out a small monument on the side of the road and said that this was where an American pilot was fished out of the lake. He said at the time the lake was ringed with anti-aircraft guns. Though I haven't looked into it further, it is possible that this stone remembers the day McCain was saved by an ordinary Vietnamese man who believed as I do that we were just poor human beings caught terrible times.
In summary, I can both understand McCain's resentment towards his captors and the disappointment of those of you who object to his terminology. For me, terms like 'gook', 'dink', 'noggy', 'munchkin', 'round eye', 'big nose' carry little meaning. Howevre, there are many people who are still fighting the war in their minds. I hope that good people like you can reach out to them with understanding and show them that times have changed and that we can all be brothers and sisters again in a peaceful world.
Cheers all, Vern
--
Vern Weitzel (Mr.), Webmanager
<weitzel@undp.org.vn> or <webmanager@undp.org.vn>
United Nations Development Programme
address: 25-29 Phan Boi Chau; Ha Noi, Viet Nam
tel: +84-4 825-7495 (ext. 135) fax: +84-4 825-9267
http://www.undp.org.vn http://www.un.org.vn
home address: appartment 504 Block A4 Giang Vo
[across Kim Ma Steet from UN Apartments]
tel: +84-4 846-1751
-------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 12:38:51 -0500
From: "Chung Nguyen" <chung.nguyen@umb.edu>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Post-postscript to the "Viet Cong debate"
Let me see how I can get through the minefield of this. The difference between David and Vern on this issue reminds me of a comment made by Nguyen Van Trung, a well-know pre-75 critic in SVN, regarding the characteristics of Vietnamese contemporary literature both inside VN and overseas. In an article called "Van Hoc Hai Ngoai ?" (Vietnamese Overseas Literature ?) in Van Hoc journal (either #105/106 or #109) Nguyen Van Trung observes that both share the same weakness: an absence of a literature that is "supra-political" ("dong van hoc tren chinh tri")(this genre, according to Nguyen Van Trung, did exist in pre-75 SVN).
By "supra-political" Nguyen Van Trung does not means that it rejects politics, or the validity of political objectives and tactics. What it means is that it aspires to understand the human condition beyond the immediate constraints of politics, to get at the sometimes irrational, tragic and irreconcilable realities of human choices in whatever sides. Only through such a lense that one can truly understand both friends and enemies, for even our "enemies" are human beings caught in their own constraints.
Vern's view, I think, could be understood, and accepted, in that light (Although I have some misgivings on his paragraph on "anarchy": if a country is invaded by another, should the people there "turn the other cheek", and wait till the occupants get tired and leave ?).
One however, could hold Vern's view, but still strongly objects to McCain's statement. For I do not want children in this country growing up, admiring the "patriotic", "upright", "straight-shooting" war hero McCain, and therefore finding it okay to repeat what McCain says. After all, how can one blame children modeling themselves after their great war hero - "sympathy-wise"? Then, we can all sympathetically understand, right ?
Nguyen Ba Chung
Joiner Center
From: Chuong Chung <cchung@ccsf.cc.ca.us>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Post-postscript to the "Viet Cong debate"
Dear VSG,
Now this is a new version I got from New York that the term "gook" from Han Quoc got to Viet nam and being adopted to "address" the Vietnamese (regardless of VC or non VC) is from the term CUT (excrement or Shit in Vietnamese) so GIs thought they are so close in pronunciation that they might as well use it to call fellow RVN as well as VC or NVA soldiers.
Unfortunately, many of my fellows Viet in Orange county rally behind the senator and spit out a bunch of epithets to supplement the offensive slur.
So far, the versions explicating the origin of "gook" are very interesting.
Chung Hoang Chuong
On Thu, 24 Feb 2000, John Kleinen wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I might be mistaken but in addition of Hue's remark, I thought that the
> racial term 'gooks' was first used by American soldiers in the
> Filipino-American war of the 1899's who used the term 'goo-goos' [those who
> fled from the battlefield] and 'niggers' [to be killed] which was later
> turned into belittling term 'little brown brothers'. 'Gook' replaced the
> British term 'WOG' (Willy Oriental Gentleman for Indians and Arabs), and it
> was used in combination with 'Chink' until GI's in China were ordered not
> to use it anymore. It was 'replaced' by the term'slopey'(slopey-eyed/slope
> headed]. Hankuk could be, I am not sure.
> Dutch newspapers did not report the incident. We are too busy, maybe, to
> follow Haider's so-called slips of the tongue.
> Take care,
>
> JOHN
From: Christoph Giebel <giebel@u.washington.edu>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Post-postscript to the "Viet Cong debate"
Colleagues,
Let me try to articulate a few things here, among them respond to the suggestion that this discussion does not belong on VSG-list. On a basic level, thinking about how the war in Viet Nam is being remembered and refashioned --in America, in Viet Nam, and elsewhere-- certainly fits under the big umbrella of "Vietnamese Studies." While most contributors in this thread indeed concentrated on the slur, my original posting to VSG actually was not intended to "expose" McCain's insensitivity (and take part in a campaign to "negativise" him?) -- although McCain bothers me quite a bit here. Rather, the continued use of words like, e.g., the derogatory "Viet Cong," "gooks," or "li'nh ngu.y" has significance far beyond the question du-jour of who-insults-whom or "political correctness." It indicates to me the erection of taboo zones --or, linguistic avoidance mechanisms—which in turn tell us quite a bit about the constructions of certain historical narratives.
Thus: "Viet Cong" denies the complexity of the Vietnamese resistance ("they are all commies/VC") and hides often indiscriminate killings ("popped some Charlie"), "taboos" which would threaten such Cold War propaganda constructs of the war being about Communism v. "Free World" and North v. South. "Linh nguy" (or "marionettes" instead of ARVN soldiers) denies very real divisions in Vietnamese society, a "taboo" which would threaten the nationalist-revolutionary paradigm of the Tradition of Heroic Resistance to Foreign Aggression.
What about the article on McCain's "gooks" and what I call the patriotic Lovefest staged in this ex-POW's political campaign? I find it remarkable (and VSG-worthy) for the larger avoidance mechanism (or taboo zone) reflected in its internal argumentative sequence. In the article (below the original), McCain first is called to task for using the anti-Asian/Vietnamese slur "gooks." He "excuses" it by saying that he only meant those nasty Vietnamese who tortured him; "gooks" are those terrible people back there and then. And to boot he adds a tragic tale of a fellow-POW (last name: Christian!) replete with Stars & Stripes, Pledge of Allegiance, suffering and defiance, heroism and courage. Witness the smooth morphing from "victimizer" to "victim"! An article that began with Vietnamese-Americans hurt by McCain's slur remarkably ends drowning in patriotic kitsch -- and this in a supposedly "hopelessly liberal" newspaper!
A taboo briefly threatened by the implication that an American leader might "owe" Vietnamese-Americans an apology was restored by McCain's "gooks-as-torturers," a transgression undone by the patriotic ending. The Lovefest can continue: America-as-Victim in Viet Nam -- daily TV documentary clips of McCain's broken body, of emaciated American POWs, of stern Vietnamese guards -- daily word-mixtures of North Vietnamese/ war criminals/ torture// POW/ heroism/ courage.
Germany's "inability to mourn" lasted at least 25 years, and I vaguely remember the 10-Pfennig "Landserhefte" of the 1960s with tales of German soldiers' heroic comradeship in the face of the barbaric "Ivans." It is 25 years after the end of the war in Viet Nam, and I suspect that Germany's "Ivans" are America's "VC" or "gooks," and Germany's last bunkers in Stalingrad are America's Ha Noi Hilton. These are memory sites where nations can fantasize themselves into victimhood and forget (declare taboo) the "hard" questions.
In McCain's case these might be: What got him to this place in the first place? How many innocent people did he kill with his bombs? Does it bother him as much as he hates his tormentors? How many POWs did Americans torture and kill? Who were these American torturers? Would McCain like to see them prosecuted for war crimes as well? Why were none of them, in fact, tried?
I am ambivalent about Vern's postings. On a personal, individual level, his point that these were all immature, confused young men caught in a terrible situation of anarchy and lawlessness is perhaps moving. But it explains very little. I am all for love and peace, but don't need VSG-list for that. In this forum I am interested in questions similar to those of Christopher Browning's "Ordinary Men" about Germans in WWII. To stay in my earlier example: What made Americans throw "gooks" out of helicopters? Who were they? What about those pilots, co-pilots, board mechanics who willingly made these murders possible? Why the selective amnesia and patriotic avoidance mechanism in 2000? (Similar questions could be asked of "official" Viet Nam today -- just think of the ploughed-under ARVN cemeteries.) Is it just coincidence that every single time I teach my course on the war in Viet Nam, a student comes up to me and relates the story of "a relative" of theirs who returned from Viet Nam in uniform and was spat upon? Or is this tale not the quintessential trope for the patriotic erection of a taboo zone?
Further, Vern's implication that this discussion amounts to "still fighting the war" and "Enough about old times. Let's talk about a better future" reveals a misconception about VSG-list, perhaps, but also is a sort of avoidance mechanism. I did not post this article to VSG-list to continue fighting the war, but as a historian of Viet Nam interested in how the past is selectively remembered and refashioned, and I still think that the article on "gooks" and POWs was splendidly apropos. The war in Viet Nam will never be over, as painful as that may be, for, as history, it has only just begun.
Regards, again,
Christoph Giebel
UWashington
From: smg7@cornell.edu
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Taboos, torture, and tabloids
Regarding Christoph Giebel's post about the limits of discourse about wars that were lost, perhaps the exception proves the rule, but I respectfully wish to point out a Jan. 22, 2000 feature article in the Los Angeles Times focussing on Chuck Mawhinney, popularly ACCLAIMED to be the most adept sniper veteran of the VN war with over 115 confirmed kills to his credit. In brief, the reporter presents Mawhinney ias rather reluctantly caught in the spotlight of noteriety, having been pulled out of career anonymity as an everyday worker for the US Forest Service with just a normal share of post combat bad dreams but few hangups about the past. Today he fetches a good night's pay on the guest speaker rubber chicken banquet circuit (no offense meant to banquet caterers on this list), and was recently keynote speaker at the national snipers conference - bet you haven't joined that one yet. Why did he kill like that? Because in miliatry strategy, he says, one sniper can deny a regiment the security of terrain and so his work saved the lives of so many US soldiers threatened by the enemy. OK- I'm already guilty of unselfconsciously writing "confirmed kills" without remarking on Pentagon body counts and all that, but the point is that like the American Presidency, there really isn't a lot about the war, in my opinion, that hasn't been packaged, repackaged, spun and spinned in terms of sex, violence, lies and video tape! In the present day information typhoon, it all blends together and one is hard pressed to find meaning or even a hypothesis. After all, if war is war and your side has been both winner and loser, what is the difference between soldier Mawhinney in real life and the doomed but empathetic sniper in "Saving Private Ryan?" Of course there's a battle going on to control meanings from the constructed past, but that is what makes history political, always. It's just that like Chuck Mawhinney, candidate McCain is just one more Viet Nam vet with a particular story, caught in the spotlight of his own ambition, but emblematic at best of only a sideshow of US culture and society. To prove the point, not 5 minutes ago I read that Mc Cain has said he will not appear in the cross-party Presidential debates. Can or should we take it all seriously?
Steve Graw
*****************
Steve Graw
Development Sociology & Southeast Asia Program
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-7801
******"What are we if not our memories?********
From: "Stephen O'Harrow" <soh@hawaii.edu>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Post-postscript to the "Viet Cong debate"
Hello,
I wish to support the quasi-totality of what Christoph has had to say on the subject of "Viet Cong," "Goods," "Linh Nguy," etc. His take on this issue is both highly insightful and academically sound.
This is an important issue: important for Viet Nam Studies (the purpose of our group), important for scholarly analysis of society (-ies), important for American public policy. For this reason, this subject would make a highly appropriate theme for a panel at the next AAS (Chicago?), sponsored by the VSG and I would like for us to think about proposing this and I would like to bring up this proposal at the VSG meeting in San Diego.
WE SHOULD NOT BE AFRAID TO TAKE ON THIS ISSUE IN PUBLIC --in fact, much credit would redound to the VSG for going at it in a cool, clear, scholarly fashion. Given that so prominent a public figure (arguably the next President of the United States) was hoist on this canard, now is the time to do it -- the war is long enough over that we can do it without throwing brickbats, and yet it is fresh enoguh to still be an important problem and how we deal with memory is cruical to how we deal with this and similar issues in the future via the elaboration of public policy.
I think in doing a panel with a title "'Viet Cong,' 'Gooks,' and 'Puppet Soldiers': constructing the enemy in Viet Nam" we would have a title that would inspire some really thoughtful takes by some of our most highly qualified colleagues - the audience discussion would be electric. I am willing to do some of the organizing or moderating, if my friends are willing to put up with that, but I do not want to be a principal presenter
-- on the other hand, several of the people who have posted here are indeed, in my opinion, qualified both by training and experience, as well as by integrity and level of concern to do excellent papers in an important public forum such as AAS 2001.
Let's do it.
Aloha,
Steve O'Harrow
Director-CSEAS/UH
Honolulu
From judithh@u.washington.edu Mon Feb 28 12:14:28 2000 -0800
From: Christoph Giebel <giebel@u.washington.edu>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Suffering and racism
Dear Shawn and other colleagues,
To clarify once again: I did NOT say that McCain is one of those "ordinary men" in Browning's sense. I did NOT post the newspaper article to elicit outrage at McCain or take a cheap shot at a torture survivor (I agree with John Ambler: if you are outraged and live in the US, write to your op-ed page or your representative). To me, McCain is NOT even "center stage."
What I DID say is that this article is a great example of memory avoidance about the war in Viet Nam. What's going on? An American leader's slur hurts Vietnamese-Americans and threatens to touch on a taboo subject -- this being: what does "our" use of "gooks" say about "us"? How did American soldiers treat so-labeled Vietnamese civilians and Vietnamese POWs? What made THOSE "ordinary men" (NOT McCain) become perpetrators?
The avoidance maneuvers to the transgression into amnesia-land: (1) McCain, the slur-utterer: by "gooks" I only meant my beastly torturers (i.e.: quick, look away from "gooks," look at ME, the victim and "war hero"). (2) The journalists: an article that began about a slur is given an ending of patriotic kitsch -- restoring America-as-Victim in Viet Nam.
Tortured POWs in the prison cells of the Ha Noi Hilton; uniformed returnees from Viet Nam spat upon. Just like the last German bunkers in Stalingrad, these are tropes of memory avoidance, shielding societies from asking (Browning's) hard questions. (And, Mr. Fforde, empathy with victims of war and violence need not prevent us, as scholars, from asking these questions, but rather demand of us to do so.)
Christoph Giebel
UWashington
Shawn McHale wrote:
>This discussion on McCain's racism and its significance has gone on a long
>time, and (Adam Fforde's comments notwithstanding), I do not think that it is
>idle chatter.
>
> One fact should be center stage: McCain has said that he suffered torture.
>I, for one, see no reason to believe the Vietnamese government over him. We
>should start from the premise that McCain is a survivor of trauma.
>
> Survivors of trauma -- whether of sexual abuse, shell shock, and
>torture --
>often go through similar processes of trying to make sense of their
>experience. But trauma also has a way of invading post-traumatic experience.
>McCain, it seems to me, has incompletely mastered his traumatic past. Should
>we be surprised?
>
> This does not mean that we have to accept McCain's "right" to utter racist
>slurs. But it may help us differentiate between McCain's racism, which
>appears
>to stem in part from a traumatic experience, and that of some ignorant yahoo.
>
> In this context, Christoph Giebel's invocation of Christopher Browning's
>book is only partially apt. That book details the process by which ordinary
>Germans become perpetrators of Hitler's Final Solution. (For a superb SE
>Asian
>parallel, see David Chandler's masterful new book VOICES FROM S-21.) It
>suggests that evil is not far from the hearts of ordinary men. But McCain was
>not a perpetrator in Browning's sense. (Browning does not argue that all war
>is evil.). He is a survivor of prison, and by his own account, of torture.
>
> ****
>
> Some of us -- perhaps many of us -- know persons who have suffered through
>trauma. Speaking for myself, I am loathe to condemn them too harshly: I do
>not
>like it when someone says all men should be castrated, or whatever, but at
>least I know WHY the person is saying that. I guess it all comes back to
>finding the right balance between understanding and censure: doing both is
>necessary, I guess, but difficult.
>
>Shawn McHale
>
>
>
>Shawn McHale
>Assistant Professor of History and International Affairs
>The George Washington University
>e-mail address: mchale@gwu.edu
From: Vern Weitzel <weitzel@undp.org.vn>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Post-postscript to the "Viet Cong debate"
Hi Chung,
Chung Nguyen wrote:
>>
> Surely we all agree a non-violent resolution is better than conflict,
> but the issue here is that no non-violent resolution was possible. The
> point I was trying to make was that, given the fact that we agree on
> looking at the conflicts beyond the constraints of politics, if we
> could "understand" McCain's trauma and reactions at a personal level,
> we certainly could, and should, look at the conflict through the
> Vietnamese's eyes.
I have consitently tried to do this. How can I avoid it living where I do? But these are two different questions. One is dealing with bad manners, rude people and racists who would minimise you and your culture and your civilisation. I suggest that a healthy response is to tell the bozo to piss off, ignore him or make a funny face at him but don't let it get to you. So many people get too angry when confronted with such ignorance. It brings back bad memories, stirs emotions. For self-therapy, I say you shouldn't let this get to you. C'mon, I'm part of this. I know almost as well as you. I also get angry ifI'm not careful.
The other issue is the one we are discussing in this forum. It is why social aberations of this sort develop.
> To them, the majority of the Vietnamese, it was a
...
> eyes, certainly McCain was no better than a criminal.
Unless, apparently, you come from Orange County, San Jose or Cabramatta ;-)
I think this war was 'necessary' only because of the ideologies of the time, and the perceptions drawn upon those ideologies. As the bard sang, "Whoopie, we're all going to die!!!!"
We all know this history, or this particular slant on it, with which I have some sympathy. But life is a little more complicated than that and all Vietnamese people would not totally agree with this view. That war inparticular was a mix of a nationalistic struggle with several elements, cold war politics, the apparent demarcation of spheres of influence (at least ifyou read Neal Sheehan) and a conflict among religions and atheism. It is hardly simple.
Americans who went to war to beat back a Communist assault found themselves dealing with nationalist issues. Catholic kids who read Tom Dooley with with horror, went to save refugees from having bamboo spikes stuck in their fingernails - boy do I remember the nuns telling us about that! These kids grew up and found themselves killing kids who they thought had grenades in their hands. [The Catholic vote is another issue -Madamme Ngo Dinh Nhu was rather convincing then, you know.]
And then there is the whole question of bombing and shelling. This has been shown to be an indiscrimiate killer. Even if one tries hard to effect a 'surgical' mission, collateral damage happens. Mistakes like the 1972 destruction of Kim Lien in Ha Noi, happen. I don't think there were too many 'nut case' pilots wacko infantrymen who enjoyed killing old folk, women and children. [Parenthetically I might add that a 122 mm rocket propped up by a forked stick in the Iron Triange is not at that point a highly accurate weapon - geez, it might miss (Chinese) Cholon. Nor are those fun little bicycle bombs terribly discriminating. I hope that you are not insisting it is your country and so you can exterminate everyone on a street corner if you choose to do so.]
Often, when mistakes occur, they are big mistakes. Allied air forces after World War II suffered from negative publicity becuse of the effect of saturation bombing. And this was after the Blitz, and they were fighting Hitler!!! You may remember more recent incidents- cruise missile kills hundreds in baghdad bomb shelter.
This issue involves the important problem of Total War in the 20th century. Total war, involvinccivilians as well ans military, became commonplace. Recent events show this terrible trend continues.
So imagine a young pilot, trained in attacking military targets (the military are people too but that is annother issue), told that they all thecivilians in the area. I think would give most such pilots a moment's pause, especially since they knew quite well the inordinate power of the explosives they carried.
In fact at the risk of offending you I would go further and suggest that if you imagine US and allied forces were consitently devoid of human feeling and conscience, you are committing the same horrible racist offence you attribute to the senator from Arizona. We're not animals, guy. Most of us (from our point of view) where decent people trying do the right thing.
So how did we get into this situation? And when we discovered that things just didn't quite compute, what do you think that did to us? Those are important scholarly questions.
It is true that Americans were the latest in a series of interlopers who made the same mistakes as earlier foreign powers and put evern more money into making mistakes than the other powers. Naturally, the former RVN is your land and you have every right to defend it - expecially since the 'backward' Cham and Khmer who owned it before you were duly defeated (maifest destiny, eh ;-).
> Whether one loses sleep or not is a matter of one's constitution ! I don't, but certainly it shouldn't be simply ignored.
I'll tell you what, send in a couple gunships and blow up his neighborhood. That'll show him.
Alternately, send in a squad of assasins, zap his household, and, come the revolution, make sure none of his relatives ever gets a job. That'll show them.
Or we can figure he had a bad day and suggest alternativ language like, 'very rude people' or 'persons with a naughty job'.
> >I am disappointed as well that the Senator says he will 'never forgive' his
> >captors. Even given what he undoubtedly went through, it seems he still has
> >a major problem dealing with what was unfortunately a common practice in
> >this unfortunate war. I don't see Pete Peterson doing this sort of thing.
>
> >This does bother me for a presidential candidate.
>
> We are in total agreement here.
It will be interesting if he recovers from this. The posting I sent to the list earlier today suggests he is not a one trick pony, that he has involved himself substantially in normalizing relations..
> Regards,
> Nguyen Ba Chung
> Research Associate
> Joiner Center
I hope that my humor has not offended you. I am merely saying that the issues which make up Viet Nam are not simple, as any Vietnamese person knows.
Cheers from my favorite city,
Vern
From: "D. Hoang" <dieuhien@u.washington.edu>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Post-postscript to the "Viet Cong debate"
Vern, I totally agree with you that we need to see the human being behind the action and the language and the experiences that person has had.
However, I strongly disagree that language should be ignored, or trivialized. Language is the mean humans use to express our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes toward things. After all, it was largely through language that the war fought in VN between 1950s-1975 was lost/won. To put it in the most simplistic terms, the people on the (communist) Vietnamese sides believed the words of their leaders, whereas the South Vietnamese and the Americans, as a whole, did not. When there was no will, there was no way to fight. And the side with more technical know-how, economic and gun power lost.
In the case of the term "gook", my first exposure to it was the documentary "Year of the Pig". A female reporter was talking to a group of GIs playing on the beach of Vung Tau, which was covered with Vietnamese vacationers. The GIs started saying how nice it was to see a woman. The reporter said something like, What do you mean, there's lots of women here? The GI's replied, "Them aren't women. They're gooks!" My interpretation: "gook" is something subhuman. It is not only inferior, unworthy of note, but it is an "it", not a "he" or a "she".
Much like "nigger." The niggers aren't humans, that's why their bodies work differently, somehow tougher, so they can work long hours under the hot sun, under unthinkable conditions, and can still work. In fact, they even enjoyed it, listen to them sing (the blues) while picking cotton. That's why we had Tuskegee, nearly 15 years after the Nuremburg decision to condemn cruel treatments of other human beings in the name of scientific experiments, right here, in the land of law-abiding citizens, the US of A. We didn't break any laws. Them weren't humans.
In short, I think we use dehumanizing terms to depict our enemies, or the "others", so that we can justify actions that we would otherwise call inhumane, barbaric, criminal, unthinkable, uncivilized, ... Guns put us further away from the _____ we shoot, so that we don't have to face the human in it. Bombs reduce those ______ into dots. Now, it's even easier for us not to hesitate to push that button. And when them dots are not even human, they're just _____, then our conscience is clear.
Language, in my opinion, is as sharp, as powerful, as deadly as a sword, a bullet, a bomb. Or it can be very empowering, or healing, as a bridge or a hug. Let us pay very close attention to the words we use and what it implies, for only then can we build real bridges and make real peace.
Peace,
Hien
(By the way, I put 1950s as the start of the Vietnam/American/Civil war because when it all starts depends entirely on from whose perspective do we speak. Many Americans would have said it started in the 1960s.)
From: Nina McPherson <nina@easynet.fr>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Post-postscript to the "Viet Cong debate"
Dear Hien:
Thank you for your simple, eloquent contribution to McCain/language debate. I have followed everyone's explanations and analyses and contexts, but you speak to the heart of the matter: taking responsibility for language. How it humanizes, how it dehumanizes, how it makes war and torture possible. Whether it is McCain using the word gook, or the Vietnamese government using linh nguy, the dehumanization of the enemy is what allows war to happen, as you point out, and to rage on in hearts and minds. Whether McCain cynically chose to use the word gook to score political points (likely, I think), or whether he was not psychologically free to choose NOT to use it because he suffers from real trauma due to real torture is morally, politically, and spiritually equivalent. What is certain is that he lives with both as much denial and in as much bad faith as the regime he alternately courts and condemns. It is no accident that McCain and Hanoi - despite their lip service to normalization - share the same despicable need to construct the eternal enemy. Both McCain's political survival and that of the current regime in Vietnam hang from the same desperate and increasingly tenuous thread: keeping the war alive.
Nina McPherson
From: "Chung Nguyen" <chung.nguyen@umb.edu>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Post-postcript to the "Viet Cong debate"
Hi Vern:
I think the discussion has gotten a bit far afield. We are, I think, focusing on historical representation, not arguments on the war itself. What I was trying to do was simply to point out one missing part: if we can sympathize with McCain's trauma, let's not forget the trauma, the even larger and much more devastating traumas, of the "others" - relatives, families, and compatriots of those dammed "gooks" that still haunt McCain's memory.
If you read my response, notice how I carefully phrase the issues : the "majority of the Vietnamese" , not "all" Vietnamese (I am quite aware of the division and fragmentation of the Vietnamese body politics, esp. in the overseas communities), and "in their eyes" (not mine), in the past, ie., there, at Hanoi "Hilton" where McCain was held and while the bombs were falling. If you think the majority of the Vietnamese at that time supported what McCain was doing, please say so. Then we have a difference of opinion.
Christoph Giebel put it much better than I do - "Witness the smooth morphing from "victimizer" to "victim" ! An article that began with Vietnamese-American hurt by McCain's slur remarkably ends drowning in patriotic kitsch ..."
What was missing was the proportion, the completeness of the drawing. One does not need to lie: a simple omission will do.
How is it that a war that is for the most part considered to be a mistake – a mistake that destroyed a few million human beings and devastated a country - comes to be painted more and more with red, white, and blue, accompanied by the blazing sounds of patriotic songs and the salute of war heroes ? How the refugee issue and the Cambodian occupation have been used as retroactive justifications for the war ?
These are questions that I find interesting.
Regards,
Nguyen Ba Chung
Research Associate
Joiner Center