Hanoi and APEC

Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:54:13 -0500

From: "Karen Turner" <TURNER@holycross.edu>

To: vsg@u.washington.edu

Subject: [Vsg] Hanoi and APEC

Just a few words from Hanoi, where I have watched the preparations for

APEC for almost 2 months now. There is deep concern on the part of the

hotel managers etc that they will not be able to protect their guests

in case of an emergency--fire drills etc were conducted in the h otel I

was in until I had to move to a humbler spot because my room was needed for

APEC. I actually felt sorry for the hotel personnel--what would the

reaction be if a dignitary was injured here--esp a U.S. citizen? Then I

went past the Daewoo and saw the cops and the black suited guys with

semi automatic rifles,and I heard that the school buses are not running

this week, that some are closed, that vendors cannot come in to the

city and so on. My sympathy for the officials evaporated when I saw a woman

with her shoulder pole roughly pushed off a street and then fined by

the cops. It seems these women, like the homeless kids, are simply viewed

as a nuisance. I invited some of my Vietnamese friends to have lunch at

Hoa Sua, the restaurant that trains poor children for jobs in the service

industry. The reaction was mixed. Some felt it was a great thing to

help and wanted to go and others wanted nothing to do with this segment of

the society. I know that we from the US are in part responsible for

some of the poverty and dislocation, but I am bothered by the lack of

sympathy here right now, esp for the street kids. Whatever the cause of

their poverty, why do they have to be treated so roughly? Some of my

friends here think it worth it to put up with the hassles because APEC

and WTO will make everyone richer. Then there are the foreign reporters

on the prowl for a sensational story--some have very aggressively

requested that I link them up with my veteran friends here. I hear very

critical views of the implications of these milestones for Vietnam and

am grateful to Jonathan for his comments. As for the rules etc. The

other day I was up near the Metropol, which is heavily guarded, and a

young boy dressed like a student approached me very politely-he had the

costume right, the shirt just so and the belt just so etc. He told me

he was working for the Red Cross to help disabled people make toothpicks

out of bamboo. He looked familiar and I reallized he was the guy who

helped me cross the street a few times, in a different outfit, and with

the understanding that I had already bought all the books and postcards

I needed. He was kind to me on these occasions and polite in his new

guise. He had figured it out--how to be respectable, whose interactions

with foreigners can be accepted and whose are not welcomed. Students do

often approach me to practice English etc. and no one is outraged by

that. And now he had circumvented the system by adopting a new role. So

should we condemn him? Is he not acting like a proper entepreneur? Is

he harming anyone? This is complicated. Karen Turner

Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 19:46:16 +0700

From: "jon mcintyre" <jon.mcintyre@gmail.com>

To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Hanoi and APEC

It would be interesting for someone to interview some of the policemen about their perspective on the whole thing. I can't image they're too happy with their new-found responsibility. Maybe their sense that if something goes wrong on their watch they'll be in major trouble is encouraging particularly strong handed measures on their part. Of course, this is a separate issue from the issues involving the detention center. I think maybe some of the discussion could be clarified if we try to look at the issue of mistreatment at detention centers as somewhat separate (since the report suggests that it existed before and will probably exist after APEC) from the "cleaning up" of the streets for cosmetic and security reasons. I agree with Karen, it's complicated.

One last comment. It seems to me that in presenting a good face for APEC, there is something of a disservice being done to the assembled planners of market economics and politics. One major issue they will have to deal with are the negative results of the participation of developing nations in the free market system. I assume, hopefully rightly, maybe naively, that the assembled dignitaries and policy makers are interested in working towards maximizing the benefits of trade and open economic policies for all sectors of the population, both to increase stability in member nations and because it's the morally right thing to do. Maybe if these embodied examples of the pitfalls associated with market development (increased and often chaotic urban-rural migration is one obvious example) were allowed to remain in the public eye during this important time, the APEC participants would have that much more awareness of the need to include social responsibility and parity in their cost-benefit analysis and policy decisions. Just a thought. It's interesting that this particular issue has generated such diverse opinions among the VSG members...

Markus Taussig <markustaussig@mac.com>

date Nov 14, 2006 7:58 AM

subject Re: [Vsg] Hanoi and APEC

I think there's a bit more space to fill out on the spectrum of

perspectives on this issue. My own experiences with street kids in

Vietnam are primarily from the early 1990s. There were substantially

more kids and handicapped people on Vietnam's city streets in those

days, though that was primarily in HCMC. The every day interactions

with these people was easily the most formative early impression for

me as a young person having his first exposure to a developing country.

As I see it, there were both push and pull effects. In this VSG

discussion there's been more reference (or inference) to the pull (to

the cities and to engaging in begging and sale of postcards and such)

created by reform and trade. The push, in turn, at that time at

least, came from the total breakdown of the protectionist system.

It's worth remembering, as well, that while Vietnam's communist

system aimed to provide social services to all, there's not a lot of

reason to believe that it actually succeeded in doing so in any

particular area any better than is currently the case. The big issue

today, some might argue, is how the Vietnamese government can secure

more funds into its budget. I wonder... have any international

groups worked with the government on upgrading conditions at the

childrens' centers? In HCMC, one of Vietnam's rare real domestic

NGOs (which is focused on helping street kids), was indeed actively

engaging these centers well over a decade ago.

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