Religious blacklist

Minh Tran <mtran@csulb.edu>

date Nov 14, 2006 9:06 AM

subject [Vsg] Religious blacklist

VSGer,

Does anyone have any comment or experience on the

current issue of religious tolerance in Vietnam? I am

interested in the issue.

Minh H Tran

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/11/13/vietnam.religion.reut/index.html

Tai VanTa <taivanta@yahoo.com>

date Nov 14, 2006 1:05 PM

subject Re: [Vsg] Religious blacklist

Dear Minh Tran,

I venture to say a few words about this issue of

religious tolerance in Vietnam that you are interested

in.

1) Researchers should make a distinction between the

government policy and popular acceptance of religious

freedom and coexistence among different religions.

Fist about government policy.In this subtopic,even

though there are uniform international law and

commitment (the international covenants and the 2005

US/Vietnam Religious Freedom Agreement),constitutional

law and statutory law principles governing all

religions (such as Decree Law of the National Assembly

Standing Committee no. 21 of June 18,2004),and eve

though academically there is a revival of the study of

religion in Vietnam (please go to the website of the

Institute of Religious Studies--within the Vietnam

Academy of Social Science-- and also its

journal),researchers should study seemingly different

policies and practices of the government toward the

major religions of Roman Catholic Chruch,Protestant

churches,Cao Dai, Hoa Hao and the Buddhist Church or

churches--because there are always differences between

the ideal norms and the different actual practices

that have been caused by different political/national

security considerations, depending which religious

entities the government is facing (which differential

considerations ,the officials, especially the public

security people, will not mention in their work but

are always lurking in their mind). SO researchers

should not attempt to overgeneralize the more

difficult attitude and policy toward a particular

religious group as a general statement applicable to

every religion.

The Cao Dai and Hoa Hao are indigeneous Vietnamese

religions were suppressed by the VietMinh during the

first Indochina war period and had waged armed

struggle against the VietMinh and were anti-Communist,

and actively supported by the Americans during the

Vietnam War. Therefore, the current government of

Vietnam is always concerned about national security

when dealing with these religions, especially with

their support of the overseas Cao Dai and Hoa Hao

followers.

The Protestant churches (especially the Chistian

Missionary Alliance) has raised suspicions of

supporting FULRO and separatist groups in the

highlands of South Vietnam and on the other hand, the

highlanders lost their land because they sold land to

the lowlanders and moved further into the high

mountains and now regretted it. This is a

politica/economic conflict rather than a religious

suppression issue. Local cadre might have overdone it

too.

As for the Roman Catholic Church, both in North

Vietnam and later in South Vietnam in unified Vietnam

after 1975, the upper echelon of the clergy--the

Bishops in the Bishop Council--have been traditionnly

practising the accomodating "silent church" policy to

survive in the communist regime (Even the formerly

tough Archbishop Nguyen Van Binh of the Saigon

Archdiocese was trying to make compromise deals with

the regime and was considered as weak by some lower

priests)(The Cardinal Trinh V. Can in the North before

and Carninal Pham in the South today are skillful

diplomats) . The struggle of some Catholic priests and

people in some localities have arisen mainly because

of property confiscation dispute. Only recently did we

see some Catholic priests in Hue area and elsewhere

declare for democracy reform. But on the whole, even

though politically, the regime would not agree to the

visit by the Pope, for fear of Eastern European

phenomenon,especially given the regime's historical

suspicion of the Church's political design on the

country ( the activities of the Church during previous

centuries had been described by the regime as actions

of colonialist supporters),we see that the Catholics

are free to exercise their religion in churches and on

the streets (remember the crowds surrounding the

weeping statue of the Virgin Mary at the Church in

downtown Saigon?).

While the regime might have considered the Roman

Catholic CHurch as well taken care of (diplomatically,

and financially) by Rome and the overseas Vietnamese

Catholic Churches of the emigres, the regime has

silently supported more the Vietnam Buddhist

Church--which the regime has promoted as the legacy of

Vietnamese history and civilization. Professor Charles

Keys, having studied religions in Vietnam for 5 years,

confirmed in a talk at Harvard that the Buddhist

Chruch was actively supported by the regime.

Travellers who compare the Buddhist churches in China

and Vietnam (such as a Vietnamese Buddhist nun and

this writer and many other observers) have witnessed

the differences between the two countries: while the

Buddhist temples in China have been well maintained by

the state as money-making tourist sites, but few

monks/nuns in there, the Buddhist temples in Vietnam,

less splendid and looking poorer, are filled up active

monks/nuns (granted that some of them may be secret

police) and doing very good work of translating and

printing buddhist scriptures. Some of my friends who

are experts on Vietnamese buddhism, who were 12 years

in re-education camp (no friend of the Communist

regime) have to admit that indeed Buddism in Vietnam

is going through a revial now. Former Prime Minister

Vo Van Kiet not only welcomed the delegates to July

2006 International Conference on Buddhism in the New

era in the Buddhist Research Institute but also came

to open a new site for the future campus of the

Institute (pleae go to the website of

www.thuvienhoasen.org).

The mini-crisis of the claim of the patriarch Huyen

Quang and his deputy Monk Quang Do of the former

Unified Buddhist Church (GHPHVNTH) (of South Vietnam)

for official recognition by the current of that

Church's legal stutus (dating back to the 1967 statute

of that Church, granted by the military regime of

Nguyen Van Thieu_Nguyen Cao Ky at that time)has been

given the government a difficult problem to solve,

because (a) all the other high-echelon monks of that

Church in South Vietnam (such as Don Hau, Tri Thu, Tri

Quang etc..)have been consulted extensively during the

process of unification of the Buddhist Churches from

North and South Vietnam , and they have sit down,no

doubt with the encouragement of the regime,but free to

work among themseves, to draft a new statute of the

new unified Vietnam Buddhist Church in 1981.(b) the

government cannot now nullify that process of the

unification of the Buddhist churches to satisfy Monk

Huyen Quang (who, anyway,I heard, might not be

interested anymore in the assertion of the revial of

the GHVNTH and already accepted the new situation and

told the Prime Minister that he just wanted to go back

to his Nguyen Thieu Temple to translate the scriptures

during the remaining years of his life) and Monk Quang

Do (who, I heard, had a family member killed by the

Communists before and who was encouraged by some

overseas Vietnamese Buddhist to struggle on). In my

discussion of the history of this Buddhist Church

unification issue in the website

www.chuaqocteonline.net , I adduced a thorough report

by a member of the government religous committee, who

was a devout Buddhist disciple of Monk Tri Thu,and who

reported that even the Beria of Vietnam, Police

minister Tran Quoc Hoan, during the 1970's and

`1080's, expressed great respect for the Southern

Vietnamese monks who had put Vietnam's Buddism on the

international map with the struggle against the Ngo

Dinh Diem regime in 1963, and specifically instructed

that man to consult the venerable Tri Quang for ideas

about unification; then I discussed the substantive

provisions of the 2004 Decree Law and stated that

there is a chance for the monks to sit down together

as "brothers" to unify the Church, if one can use the

legal expertise to help them claim that the government

should stay away from religious activities, including

unification, by interpreting this new law in the

fundamental spirit of separation of church and state.

Please go to that website to listen to my ideas (in

Vietnamese).

During th visit of Thich Nhat Hanh to Vietnam, many

lower echelon monks in Vietnam have expressed their

wish to have the big shot monks sit down together to

eradicate the issue of unification--which , I think,

if not amicably settled, will be very difficult among

the monks themselves: which Church , Vietnam Buddhist

Church or Unifified Buddhist Church (GHPGVNTN) (1967

statute), will control the local temples? which monks

belong to which church? The monks in the new Vietnam

Buddhist Church of the 1981 statute can ask the monks

of the 1967 statute: was your Patriarch re-elected in

a nationwide electioneering process according to the

19678 statute, since 1975 or 1980? All these

legal/political questions, the monks cannot solve, if

they want to struggle on without amicble settlement

between "brothers".

2. Differently from the government that often has

idoelogical/political/national security considerations

to suspect religions and religious activities (even to

the extent that it tries to discount the great

majority of the Vietnamese people, who are adherents

to many religions, on the ground that people who do

not regularly go to churches or temples are counted as

no-believers, in order to decrease the popular

strength of the religions), The Vietnamese people

wants and accepts freedom of religions for all

religions. Even after the overthrow of the Ngo Dinh

Diem regime who promoted Catholicism, suppressed Cao

Dai and Hoa Hao and Buddhist Church (1963 crisis),

there is serious conflict between the Catholic Church

and the Buddhist and other churches. Relatives in the

same family can follow different religions (my family

is traditionally Buddhist, but my parents had no

objection to three of my brothers who adopt

Catholicism).

Even the government officials believe in religion.

The first Harvard student from Vietnam in 1988 had his

incense burned on his radio and I asked :"are you

still believing?" He said "yes". Many government

offices in Vietnam now have altars in a small rooms.

Many officials went to temples and churches and

contributes money to their construction and work. The

government tolerates many practices of religions and

beliefs in festivities, as Professor Hy Van Luong, the

anthropologist, has written about. The late Prime

Minister Pham Van Dong became a Buddhist disciple (quy

y) in his finl days. I HEARD(correct me if I am wrong)

General Vo Nguyen Giap has been practising meditation.

When Nhat Hanh went to Vietnam, and talked at the

various government and party organizations, many

officials come and listen to him

3) Compare this situation in Vietnam with the

situation in China (already broached above). The

Chinese situation has been described in the 2005

International Religious Freedom Report. But here, I

just want to mention that State Council decrees 144

and 145 and Paty Policy document 19 and 6 show that

the Chinese Communist Party want to control religions

much more than the Vietnamese Party and is fearful of

foeign elements much more than the Vietnamese.

The Vietnamese have tolerated foreign missionaries to

a greater exent than the CHinese and the Japanese

during the 16th to 19th centuries history of

missionary work, until the short suppression (of a few

decades ) of the priests and Catholic followers in

late 19th century after the Vietnamese emperors caught

letters from priests to the French colonialist

military officers praying them to attack Vietnam in

order to give them a better environment to spread the

gospel. Please see the details in my book THE

VIETNAMESE TRADITION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (Berkely,1988).

I hurry to send this out without correction, because

my computer is jumping the words I am typing and I am

afraid of a crash that would lose everything I writes.

So excuse me for the mistakes in this hurried email.

Tai Van Ta

Diem Ngoc Nguyen <ndnguyen@unc.edu>

date Nov 14, 2006 4:07 PM

subject Re: [Vsg] Religious blacklist

The argument reminds a lot of events in history. However, I think the

U.S. Department of State drops Vietnam out of the blacklist for its

effort and improvement in presence, not for what happened in the past.

In the past, Vietnam was in the blacklist.

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