Stereotyping
phuxuan700 at gmail.com phuxuan700 at gmail.com
Sun May 27 11:19:05 PDT 2007
Dear List, First, I would like to thank you all for your criticism and support, on-list and off-list, in the past week. Your support keeps me going; your criticism lets me know more about the list and whether or not I am on track. I need them both. If I may, I would like to emphasize that my main point in the thread "an interesting presentation on Hochiminh" is ***not*** about "good" Ho vs. "bad" Ho or about Ho's personal life. Duiker, Quinn-Judge, and many others have done a very good job on that aspect. In my humble opinion, Ho's life can be likened to a half-full glass case: Ho's supporters may focus more on the half-full portion; Ho's opponents more on the half-empty portion. I have no problem with either approach. Only when seeing people attempt to pass a half-full glass as a full one, I want to speak up. Plain and simple, this is deception; this is an act of con artists. Each year, state-controlled news media in Vietnam generates hundreds, if not more, of articles about Ho, containing nothing but praise after praise. The coverage frequency is significantly increased in May, Ho's "birth month". It is not unusual to read articles describing how some people cry when they visit Ho-related exhibits or places. I have no doubt about the article accuracy since I experienced a similar incident first hand. The original poster of the thread "an interesting presentation on Hochiminh" said, "As Vietnamese people, we love and respect Hochiminh …", and the presentation mentioned in her post has the title "Ho Chi Minh: a National Hero- world culturist and an excellent educator of our time and Vietnamese nation (By Ass. Prof. Dr. Dang Quoc Bao)". Once again, I have no doubt about the OP's love and respect for Ho since it is not my first time to hear such feelings expressed. My reply, no matter how clumsily constructed, was a reaction to the presentation. It was by no means a revelation of Ho's life! If that was not how it was received, I am the one to be blamed! While I believe that Hanoi has conducted a massive, decades old deception on Ho, I hope those interested would look at the provided sources and make their own decision. These sources, despite of the limitation, are from VCP top-ranking officials to respected academics. By contrasting Ho's words and deeds against Hanoi's version, anyone in doubt can get closer to the truth. (i. e. to know why, for almost 60 years, Hanoi has tried to hide the fact that Tran Dan Tien was Ho's pen name.) Unfortunately, despite of numerous exchanges on the subject, we still see comments like the following: "I maintain that Mr. Thai's statements about Ho Chi Minh were simplistic and of little relevance. They may fit on some Orange County viet kieu site, but were below the level of debate that I want to partake in. … ... there is a lot of activism coming out of some elements of a community that comes here with (understandably) bitter memories and quite some of whom have not yet gotten over the outcome of the war... " Is it right to assume that as soon as a Vietnamese is critical of Hanoi, s/he belongs to Orange County viet kieu site; s/he is on the losing side ? Could that be the case for Vo Van Kiet, Tran Do, Bui Tin, etc. then ? Needless to say, I truly appreciate the discussion on why such stereotyping exists in an academic environment, 30-plus years after the war end, and how we should approach it. Calvin Thai
Balazs Szalontai aoverl at yahoo.co.uk
Sun May 27 11:59:45 PDT 2007
OFF I just wonder why Vietnamese, both at home and abroad, are so reluctant to criticize HCM from the left. Criticism from the right is acceptable, even encouraged, in certain circles, but I haven't heard of a single Vietnamese author criticizing Ho from a Trotskyist or Maoist or Stalinist or Enverist or Jucheist perspective. This is just partly a joke. Articles and documents based on the aforesaid viewpoints are abound on the Internet. It is not particularly difficult to find publications that either seek to defend the late Iosif Vissarionovich against the vile accusations of revisionists or posthumously crucify him in the name of the Fourth International. Yet Ho Chi Minh seems to have been largely spared by all these warring leftist factions -which is a remarkable achievement by any standards. (I must admit I don't read Khmer, and thus I have no idea what the surviving remnants of the Khmer Rouge might think and say about him -they may constitute an exception, though not necessarily so.) Best, Balazs Szalontai
Paul Sager paul.sager at nyu.edu
Sun May 27 12:13:47 PDT 2007
A critique of Ho and the VCP from the left was authored by the late Ngo Van in his Viet nam 1945-2000: Le joueur de flute et l'Oncle Ho [Vietnam 1945-2000: the flute player and Uncle Ho] (Paris, 2005).
Hue-Tam Ho Tai hhtai at fas.harvard.edu
Sun May 27 12:37:08 PDT 2007
In evaluating Ho's life, it is worth remembering that Ho was not the all-powerful figure that Stalin or Mao were, and that it is important to distinguish the decisions, both good and bad, taken by the leadership collectively from his own preferences and contributions to the decision-making process. Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Balazs Szalontai aoverl at yahoo.co.uk
Sun May 27 13:10:32 PDT 2007
Hue-Tam Ho Tai wrote: "In evaluating Ho's life, it is worth remembering that Ho was not the all-powerful figure that Stalin or Mao were, and that it is important to distinguish the decisions, both good and bad, taken by the leadership collectively from his own preferences and contributions to the decision-making process." This is why it is so difficult to find out which particular measure was initiated by HCM and which not. In this respect, I completely agree with Mr. Thai, since the consistent official glorification of Ho resulted in a split image of the party leadership. Whenever the leadership took some "good" measure, Ho was (and is) credited for it. Whenever something went wrong, someone else (Truong Chinh, Le Duan, Le Duc Tho, and so on) was blamed for it. To be sure, the latter leaders were probably really more intolerant and inflexible than Ho (some Hungarian documents also suggest so), but this issue needs a lot of further research. Best, Balazs Szalontai
Balazs Szalontai aoverl at yahoo.co.uk
Sun May 27 12:48:39 PDT 2007
Thanks a lot! May you tell us something about the main points of Ngo Van's criticism?
Paul Sager paul.sager at nyu.edu
Mon May 28 13:37:06 PDT 2007
No, sorry, I haven't read it. But Ngo Van had been a trotskyist in Cochinchina from the late 20s until he escaped assassination by fleeing to France in 1945, where he later moved from trotskyism to anti-leninist or libertarian communism. Since he maintained that political orientation until his death in 2005, the book I mentioned is certainly a critique of the Vietnamese regime and HCM from the left.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai hhtai at fas.harvard.edu
Mon May 28 14:09:31 PDT 2007
Balasz: If you google Ngo van Xuyet, you will find a lot of information about him and about his books. Hue-Tam