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.