Legacies of Colonialism with Regard to the Treatment of Ethnic Minority Groups in Vietnam
From: Lonán Ó Briain
Date: Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 6:15 PM
Dear All,
My research focuses on Hmong music in Vietnam. During the past year I went through a progression of readings from colonial French accounts of “les montagnards” to more recent accounts by Vietnamese scholars of the Hmong and I began to notice some remarkable similarities. I am currently conducting fieldwork for this research and it seems that the current prevailing attitude among the Kinh majority towards the Hmong, and probably many other ethnic minority groups, could be described as (neo)colonial at best.
I am wondering if there have been any publications discussing a possible link between French colonialism in Vietnam and current attitudes towards the ethnic minority groups here. I would also be interested to hear any other thoughts or insights on this.
Many thanks in advance for any help!
Lonan O Briain
PhD Candidate in Ethnomusicology
University of Sheffield
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From: Tai VanTa
Date: Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 7:26 PM
Mr. Lonan O Briain,
As you call for some thought or insight, I would like to say that I do not think it is logically sound to trace any current prevailing attitude of Vietnamese lowlanders (nguoi Kinh) toward the ethnic minorities (nguoi Thuong or Dan Toc Thieu So), including the Hmong, to the French colonialists, because the present ordinary Vietnamese do not talk to the dead French colonialists or read French writings on the "montagnards" in French books or in Bulletin de L'Ecole Francaise D'Extreme-Orient.
The typical condescending attitude of the more advanded population toward the more "backward" minorities peoples in a same nation is universal. But in the Vietnamese history and culture, this attitude is somewhat tempered by the various benevolent government policies, including during the imperial days,which you may call "affirmative action", to uplift these minorities. My book "The Vietnamese Tradititon of Hhuman Rights" has a short section on that for the imperial period, mentioning many policies of the emperors trying to uplift and support the minorities (even calling them the "con do cua trieu dinh" (the red-skinned infants of the imperial court"), inpplying they needed care like babies. The people themselves generally did not discriminate agaisnt the minorities,because there were laws discouraging the mandarins from marrying the ehtnic minorities , for fear that they would be more attached to the outer regions' tribes than the imperial court, and
therefore amenable to rebellion with the tribal leaders. Le Loi, who became The Founding Emperor of the Le Dynasty (1410-1788)was a person of Muong (the Hmong in Vietnam) descent but he was able to summon all the Vietnamese's nationalism to fight a 10-year war of national liberation agaisnt the Ming invaders.Vietnamese do not have the term "hua wai ren" (hoa ngoai nhan) of the Chinese to relegate the minorities to the rank of "peoples beyond the cultural pale". Mr. Nong Duc Manh, the current General Secretary of Vhe Communist Party of Vietnam is a man of the Northen highland and his last name is Nong,the family name of minority Nung or Nong in Northern Vietnam.
I would say that the ordinary Vietnamese do not have the (neo)colonial attitude toward the minorities, on the basis of ethnic or racial consideration. But the condescending attitude of the lowlanders, if any,toward the minorities is mainly a result of CLASS consciousness, and by class, I mean levels of education or wealth, and social standing or behavior. For example, a well-educated Vietnamese in the US, of lowlander abstraction, would be ready and willing to marry an attractive, educated and well-dressed Hmong lady he finds among the successful and educated Hmong minority in the US, but he would not consider marriage with a backward,uneducated,ill-dressed Hmong woman he finds on the plateau in Vietnam. To extrapolate a little bit, the more I ponder on facts about racial/ethnic minority status, even in the US, the more I think that the white domninant(neocolonial, if you will) racist attitude in the US has decreased to a great extent now, probably
nearly extinct,compared to 50 or 45 years ago during the Civil Rights struggle ( when, as a "yellow" student from Vietnam, I saw on some entrances to some restaurants the words "White only"-- but I budged in anyway] , because the current higher level of wealth, education and social standing of the minorities have eradicated racial discrimination to a great extent, to the degree that we have a half white, half black president.
IN SHORT, RACE or ETHNICITY DOES NOT MATTER, CLASS DOES--that's my rough conclusion for attitude toward minorities in Vietnam and in US. There is no such thing as neocolonial attitude toward minorities among Vietnamese in Vietnam, because the Vietnamese ordinary people do not have the sense of white people with a mission civilisatrice (civilizing mission) as the French colonialists had in Vietnam when they assigned to themselves that superior role in Vietnam before.
Tai Van Ta
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From: Robert Schuessler
Date: Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 8:37 PM
Dear Tai Van Ta,
I can't comment on the question of ethnic attitudes in Vietnam, but I think you overreach on the analogy with the US and that does NOT contribute to your argument. Of course, racial attitudes in the US are much better than 50 years ago, especially as far as laws and official discrimination go. And we do see more intermarriage of the races, which was actually outlawed in many States, and in such cases congruence of CLASS does make it more probably.
But RACE does still matter in the US, not only CLASS. We did elect a President of black ancestry, but many people's fears and suspicions kept his victory from being much, much larger at a time when his opponent's party was extremely unpopular. And many of the attacks on him such as doubts about his true American citizenship are accepted by a significant minority of people because they play to their racial prejudices.
There are numerous credible anecdotes, from black friends and prominent citizens such as Colin Powell, that the simple fact of being black in America leads to frequent incidents that are demeaning and insulting. Racial profiling is the most common of these. Blacks are frequently stopped by police for the simple act of driving their car through a white community. This is mockingly referred to as the crime of DWB (driving while black) - a take off on the the term DWI (driving while intoxicated). Wealthy, well dressed blacks are often treated with suspicion when they enter high quality stores because of fears of shoplifting or disbelief that they are serious customers (really! this is true). And the famous case of the Harvard professor, William Henry Gates, who was arrested on suspicion of burglary while entering his own house. Now, there were aspects of this last case that may cloud some people's sympathy for the professor, but I think it is clear that the incident would have been very different if the professor had been white.
Sorry to go on so long. I don't want to distract from the original question, but the statement "IN SHORT, RACE or ETHNICITY DOES NOT MATTER, CLASS DOES" is simply not true in the US. By basing your answer about Viet Nam on this false assertion about the US, you weaken you argument. If Viet Nam suffers racial or ethnic attitudes comparable to the improved ones in the US, the question about their origin is still valid.
Bob Schuessler
Orangehelpers
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From: David Brown
Date: Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 8:39 PM
A thoughtful and persuasive essay, though I think Anh Ta must be wrong on one point. The Muong and the HMong are very different folks. The stock from which Le Loi sprung is very closely related to the Kinh, concentrated in Hoa Binh Province, and VN's largest ethnic group. Cheers, David
David Brown, Editor
VietnamNet Bridge
Hanoi
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From: Tai VanTa <taivanta@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 9:52 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Robert Shuessler,
I completely agree with your description of the blacks' situation in the US and I indeed have saved many newspapers clippings and other materials on racial discrimination (in many areas: housing,public accommodations, racial profiling, attitudes etc..) against not only blacks but also against Asian-American in the US. In the prpevious email, I may have painted the picture in the US more rosy than I should and I write this reply to your email to make adjustment to may prior statement. Thank you for your help.
Tai Van Ta
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From: Robert Schuessler
Date: Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 10:27 PM
Anh Ta,
I hope I didn't seem too strident. Of course, your response had much more relevant, scholarly information than I could provide regarding Vietnam and I appreciated those aspects a great deal. Thanks for accepting my comments so generously.
Bob
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From: Pam McElwee
Date: Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 11:41 AM
Dear VSG list:
I'm afraid I must strongly disagree with the recent postings about ethnic minority attitudes in Vietnam. If current-day folks in VN don't read French colonial writings on the minority question, they certainly do not read the Imperial Dynasty rulings on minorities either. What they do read are media reports on minorities, which often take paternalistic, ethnocentric and sometimes downright racist/discriminatory conceptions of progress and development. We have quite strong evidence that ethnic relations, not just class, remain unequal and need to be tackled in Vietnam.
Strong evidence for this comes from a recently completed multi-year research project I did for the World Bank on "Ethnicity and Development in Vietnam" (I provide URL links to the project reports below). Several people on the VSG list were part of the large research team and they can add their thoughts as well on this topic. But one of our key findings is that there are widespread misconceptions and stereotypes about ethnicity, and that these have become internalized for many minorities, leading to negative welfare and development outcomes. There is no question that many government interventions in minority areas to this day are often premised on the idea that minorities need to be more like Kinh in order to have economic benefits. Our project report asked the question: "Does stereotyping minorities in such a manner result in measurable forms of discrimination that may have welfare impacts?" We also looked at the application of civil rights laws, affirmative action policies, and the effects of unofficial/unintended discrimination. We concluded that "popular perceptions regarding minority communities can have impacts on their self-esteem resulting in their decreased participation (due to lack of self-confidence), but also less inclination for others to listen to them because they are perceived to be “less educated” or have “lower intellectual levels.”" We have strong evidence to back up our claims about these discriminatory attitudes, through quantiative surveys and qualitative work with several thousand people over the course of the project. In terms of what we heard in focus groups with minorities, "When we asked minorities what they thought Kinh people thought of them, we inevitably heard negative comments in every single focus group. Minorities related untrue things that were said about them, hurtful or embarrassing comments that were made, or stereotypes that they saw of minorities that shamed them." We give specific examples in the report. We also did a large quantitative survey, and found very striking results, like the fact sixty percent of Kinh respondents thought Tay were "uneducated," while only 10 percent of non-Tay minorities said the Tay were uneducated.
We also provide some analysis of what the context of stereotyping means in terms of outcomes for development. As the report notes,
"Another reason why stereotypes may take hold is because they provide a convenient “scapegoat” for problems in policies. For example, any time minorities do not follow the government policies directed at them, it is usually chalked up to the “ignorance” of the minorities, rather than being a statement about the inappropriateness of government policies. As an example, we heard from the Ministry of Culture representative in Ha Giang who told a story that was supposed to demonstrate to the CSA team how difficult the minorities could be. Each ministry and department in the province was supposed to “adopt” an ethnic minority village, which they were to help “develop” with investments and assistance raised through charity. Her department adopted a Hmong village, and raised some money to buy bundles of elephant grass seedlings to give to the village to plant to be used to feed to livestock. (The department itself decided this is what would help this Hmong village, not what the village had requested itself, as there was no PRA or consultation before the fundraising). The department representative dropped off lots of bundles of these grasses which they had purchased for the villagers to plant in their fields, and told them that this charity was courtesy of the Ministry of Culture to help them develop. When the department representatives came back several months later, they found the Hmong had not separated the bundles and planted the seedlings individually dispersed throughout their uplands fields, as they were supposed to, but had merely dropped each bundle of 100 seedlings in one single hole. The department representative told this story as an example of how “stupid” the minorities could be and how they had to be directed to do everything by the government as they could not be trusted to do so themselves. Yet an alternative explanation suggests itself here. If the Hmong community did not see the value of the grass, and had played no role in requesting it, why should they spend precious labor dividing the bundles and planting each seedling individually on their extremely limited production land? Dropping the bundles in a single hole was an ingenious way to actually look like they did something with the plants that they did not in fact want or need. This is a good example of how top-down decisions are made about what minorities should want and need, and then when these policies fail, the minorities themselves are blamed, rather than the blame being placed on the all too often top-down, non-participatory nature of government policy." (p 239)
We also looked at many things besides discrimination, including migration policy, land policy, education policy and other topics, to try to get a full picture of the situation facing ethnic minorities. The report went through a very long process of vetting and discussion within Vietnam, and involved the participation of many people in and outside of government. I think it has sparked some very interesting discussions that needed to take place to fully understand what role ethnic relations plays in the development process. The report was just launched this past June, so these discussions are ongoing.
The executive summary report is at
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2009/08/18/000333038_20090818003933/Rendered/PDF/499760ESW0Whit1C10VietnamSummary1LR.pdf
The full report (300 pages) is at:
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2009/08/18/000333038_20090818004449/Rendered/PDF/499760ESW0Whit1BLIC10vietnam1CSA1LR.pdf
I would welcome off-list comments and feedback on the report if anyone has them.
Pam McElwee
Dr. Pamela McElwee
Assistant Professor
School of Politics and Global Studies &
School of Sustainability
Arizona State University
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From: Elledge, Myles F.
Date: Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 1:34 PM
I agree with Pam in disagreeing about the recent posting about ethnic minorities and attitudes toward them.
Many challenges exist with regard to media coverage, textbooks, policies and programming about minority populations, past and present.
I have been involved in a number of studies and programs on these issues, particularly focused on constraints to access of services in health and education. Here are a couple of links to a sample of some of this work.
http://www.adb.org/Documents/Studies/Health_Education_GMS/default.asp
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2009/02/25/000334955_20090225083138/Rendered/PDF/IPP3360P0917471sessment0Report03Dec.pdf
-Myles
Myles F. Elledge
International Development Group
RTI International
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From: Dinh Lu Giang
Date: Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 11:10 PM
Dear VSGers,
I have been working on Khmer - Vietnamese bilingualism for about ten years and except for some years I was abroad for working, I did many field trips to different areas in Khmer communities to pursue my research.
I think that the above postings in this very interesting topic become divergent and this is understandable as you may have seen the reality differently or you have different motivations in participating in this discussion. The question we all always put when doing research on ethnicity is if an issue is ethnic or non-ethnic in nature. I want to quote Pam's remark:
just to argue that we should not take it as part of the conclusion of "strong evidence" of unequal ethnic relations in Vietnam. Supposed that the survey is large enough, but the result may be influenced by many other factors than just attitude: the way you ask the question, the word you use for "uneducated": is it "vô học", "thất học", "trình độ học vấn thấp", "ít giáo dục", "lạc hậu"?, the respondents (both Tay and Kinh) you chose to to answer the question: where do they live? city, Tay neighborhood, abroad?
I did not mean that I doubt the result of the above mentioned survey, but to conclude on a subtle question like unequal ethnic relations in Vietnam, we must look much closer than that. Recently I did a field trip in different locations in Khmer communities in Mekong Delta, and a part of my research is the language ideology (very close to this very discussion on attitude towards ethnic groups). I reached some remote places where if it rains half an hour, you can't do anything else but stay in the same house. I met not only Khmer people but King people (as poor as all other Khmers) living in the regions and I don't see any difference between them, except the languages they use. In mixed families (Kinh and Khmer intermarriage), most their children are declared Khmer as thành phần dân tộc (ethnic) in the commune's registration book. Why? Some people explained me that as a Khmer, those children will receive more support from the government, they have more opportunities to enter Trường dân tộc nội trú (School for ethnic children), to receive funds from different programs helping poor people etc.
I am not a politician nor an anthropologist, but what I found is exactly what Ta Van Tai has asserted ""IN SHORT, RACE or ETHNICITY DOES NOT MATTER, CLASS DOES". That may disappoint some people, but I think that can be explained from the historical point of view: Vietnam has been many centuries an multi-ethnic nation and both Vietnamese language and culture are both hybrid: mixing of different elements from different cultures, as geographically Vietnam is located in an intersection. CITY vs. MOUNTAIN and COUNTRYSIDE: yes, HIGH CLASS vs. LOW CLASS, yes, KINH vs. OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS, no, I don't think so.
When two Kinhs fight each other in the street, than many people say: oh, it's personal conflict, but when a Kinh and a Khmer fight each other, some of us will want to say, it's ethnic conflict. It's ridiculous!
--
Dinh Lu Giang,
PhD student on Viet - Khmer bilingualism and bilingual education
Dept. of Vietnamese Studies,
University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University - HCMC - Vietnam
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From: Oscar Salemink
Date: Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 4:19 AM
Dear Pam & list,
I think that Lonan O Briain's original posting inquired "if there have been any publications discussing a possible link between French colonialism in Vietnam and current attitudes towards the ethnic minority groups here." Asking that question cannot be wrong in and of itself, and perhaps the answer should not be an "either or" one.
Regarding Lonan's original question, of course Pam is right that very few Vietnamese care to read French colonial or imperial Vietnamese "ethnographic" texts. But that does not mean that current "misconceptions and stereotypes" as found by this World Bank team do not have a discursive history. The categories of state classification - and ethnic classification is a state project in Vietnam - do not come out of the blue, nor are they 'value-free' or neutral. If we look at much of the critical scholarship on colonial and postcolonial situations (say, since Edward Said, Bernard Cohn, Robert Inden, Timothy Mitchell, the whole Subaltern Studies group, etc.) then there is a tendency to detect a continuity between colonial and postcolonial categories, which include the values and value judgments implied in those. For Vietnam, the WB report cites (but does not list in a bibliography) Mark Bradley, Patricia Pelley, Charles Keyes and my work, among others, which points at such discursive continuities without assuming that discursive strategies and the contexts in which they make sense remain the same.
On the issue of ethnic stereotyping, the WB report cites the 1998 report by Le Trong Cuc, Terry Rambo and Neil Jamieson which draws up a list of ethnic prejudices. An earlier (1980) Minority Rights Report by Jacques Dournes (whose work is currently being translated into Vietnamese) traced the similarities of ethnic stereotypes and concomitant ethnic policies between French colonial times, the South Vietnamese and American period in the South, and the post-1975 Communist regime. If one reads that, then it is clear that there is a genealogy of current (mis)conceptions and stereotypes about ethnic minorities in the highlands, which militates against the idea that such ethnic stereotyping is an exclusively Kinh affair. In my view, it isn't. I think much of the post-Doi Moi international development effort in Vietnam has been guided by perhaps more politely phrased but quite similar notions of "ethnic backwardness" which then justify the uplifting of such groups in ways that may not always be helpful or effective. This goes for much of the bilateral support, for (International) NGOs, and certainly for the big development banks. I find it ironic, but perhaps also hopeful, that this report was funded and published by the World Bank. We will have to see what they will do with it; if the analogy with the Bank's earlier "work" on gender equality holds any currency then I am not so optimistic, for I tend to be deeply suspicious if an institution which has been responsible for much of the feminization of poverty worldwide, suddenly preaches "gender equality".
Perhaps it is useful to place such stereotyping practices in a larger framework. In "Seeing like a State", Jim Scott argued that modern states simply have to categorize, classifify and territorialize according to simplified criteria ("state simplifications" with reference to richer, more nuanced vernacular categories) in order to develop policies in the first place. And if any country wants to develop its population, it must define what "developed" and "underdeveloped" means, and who qualifies for such labeling. And of course there is this whole measuring industry which provides the indicators for such knowledge - in fact many of us on this list are in that business; and many of the categories are carried over from the policies and scholarship in previous historical periods. But there is also evidence that some sterotypes are shifting. In his highly relevant 2006 Gothenburg dissertation (not cited in the WN report), Bent Jorgensen argues that poverty in Vietnam's northern highlands is increasingly - and simultaneously - individualized, that is attributed to individual "character faults" of poor people, and culturalized, that is that these "character faults" are related to cultural or ethnic stereotypes; a process which he links to a changing political economy of poverty in Vietnam (I would call that neoliberalization). In a 2008 JVS article I also pointed at the connection between changing perceptions of ethnic minorities and "the scaling down of the developmental state". My dual point here is (1) that ethnic stereotypes do have a historical genealogy and thus are not an exclusively Kinh phenomenon; and (2) that they serve a purpose -- in changing political economic circumstance -- in what one might call (with a wink to Jim Scott) the "moral economy of development".
Finally the question that Prof. Tai Van Ta brought in, is it class or race? Does ethnicity really matter? Again, I would say it's not "either or". The seminal work by Ann Stoler and many others have brought out that historically and now ethnic classification and class differentiation intersect, and that class and ethnic boundaries often merge. Then the question would not be either or, but "how": How do ethnic boundaries become class boundaries as well? How are ethnic boundaries hardened by class differentiation and - indeed - the cultural politics of stereotyping.
Sorry for this long rant, it is definitely not meant to detract from the invaluable insights offered in the WB report; I just wanted to say something about this never-ending story of stereotyping.
Oscar Salemink
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From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Date: Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 5:42 AM
Dear all:
Ethnic stereotyping exists; it is unclear to me when and where this stereotyping originated. I would differentiate among different stereotypes: those pertaining to Chams, Khmers and Chinese and those pertaining to upland communities. When I was growing up in the South, it was not uncommon for the latter to be referred to as "moi" or "savages" instead of the officially preferred "dong bao thuong." Iwent to school with a girl who was half-French half Meo. She was mocked by French and Vietnamese alike who claimed, without any evidence, that her mother walked about bare-breasted. Khmers were sometimes called "tho" which literally means "soil" and should be the equivalent of "native American" but was invariably pejorative. I believe that nowadays "dong bao dan toc" (short for "dong bao dan toc thieu so") generally refers to upland minorities in everyday parlance.
Those who attended the panel I organized many years ago about Vietnamese history from the margins will recall Keith Taylor's paper on how the "Muong" became "muong" in short how an adaptive cultural strategy became an ethnic label under the French. I am not entirely convinced that the Muong were "muong-ed" only during the French colonial period. Vietnamese rulers were always ambivalent as to whether those we call minorities were part of the realm or autonomous though subordinate populations who must pay tribute to them just as Vietnamese, though independent of China, must pay tribute to the Chinese rulers. The Nguyen decision to treat trade with the upland minorities as foreign trade rather than as domestic trade and thus subject to custom duties played a role in unleashing the Tay Son uprising.
Besides the colonial and pre-colonial legacy, one needs to take into account Soviet views on nationalities and evolution and their influences on Chinese and Vietnamese ethnic classification and policies. The concept of linear evolution still dominates Vietnamese ethnology. Yuri Zletskine's (sp?) work on the Soviet Union shows that minorities were not passive recipients of labels but actively sought minority designations in order to benefit from some policies. At the same time, the title of his book, An Artic Mirror, suggests the importance of evolutionary ideology in Soviet thinking about ethnicity. A book that is going to be published by the University of California Press (in the series that Jeff Wasserstrom, Karen Wigen and I co-edit--shameless plug and call for manuscripts!) by Tom Mullaney of Stanford deals with ethnic classification in the PRC. It shows that the scholars (all Han, if I remember correctly) charged with classifying minorities sought to implement state policy but brought to the task their own ideas and observations. I think it will be highly relevant to our discussions.
Finally, since Oscar mentioned Jim Scott, Jim has a new book, The Art of Not Being Governed, which draws partly on Vietnam materials. VSGers will have seen the post by Caroline Grillot advertising a conference in Chiang Mai in November 2010 that is inspired by the book.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
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From: Tai VanTa
Date: Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 11:21 AM
Memo :Rejoinder on the subject of “Vietnamese treatment of Ethnic minorities”—after reading Pamela McElwee’s and Myles Elledge ‘s postings and writings of other members of the Vietnamese Studies Group,
>From Tai Van Ta
I welcome and respect the findings of the 300-page World Bank Report that Pamela McElwee mentions and provides a link for opening, which, however, I did not succeed in opening , like other members. I would like to reply to Pam McElwee’s “strong” disagreement with my posting and Myles Elledge who “agrees with Pam in disagreeing”. I will try to be, at the same time complete in my reply, but as concise as possible, to save your time
Basically, I think we are NOT IN DISAGREEMENT, if you read closely my initial posting.
At the same time, at appropriate places, I will refer to the subsequent postings of Dinh Lu Giang, Oscar Salemink and Hue Tam.
And I thank all of you for helping me clarify the issue by shedding more light on it.
I will discuss in two paragraphs : the social fact of the Vietnamese lowlanders’ attitude toward the ethnic minorities and the social policy of the governments toward them.
1. ON THE SOCIAL FACT OF THE VIETNAMESE LOWLANDER (NGUOI KINH)’S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE ETHNIC MINORITIES .
First of all, I do not expect the folks in today Vietnam to read the imperial rulings, as Pamela implies, when I discuss the long traditional period government policy. I did not say that the traditional benevolent treatment of ethnic minorities by the emperors is bequeathed to the current generation ,by the present day people’s reading those imperial rulings. What I mean is that imperial period government policy has endured for centuries, for such a long time, that the present day ordinary Vietnamese people are imbued with that tradition without reading the Chinese or nom character texts of the old days, in the same manner as they practice Confucian tenets nowadays without reading Confucius or Mencius.
On the main issue of the prejudices of the Vietnamese lowlanders against the ethnic minorities, you would see, upon reading closely my initial posting, that WE AGREE and AGREE with the findings of the World Bank Report. I wrote that the CONDESCENDING attitude of the dominant ethnic group in a nation toward the minority ethnic groups is UNIVERSAL. You mentioned the popular conception among Vietnamese that the minority groups are less educated , of lower intellectual level, especially the Tay; and the Hmong are considered by the Vietnamese as stupid. You also said the Vietnamese made negative comments on the ethnic minorities. On this phenomenon of ethnic stereotyping and prejudice, we all agree, including Salemink and Hue Tam too (who gave the example of a half-French, half-highlander young female student being mocked at in school).
I only made my distinction a little more explicit between the social “DISEASE” of condescending attitude and the “VIRUS” or CAUSATION producing this “disease”: CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS of the Vietnamese lowlanders who consider themselves more wealthy, more educated (even of higher intellectual level—as you said), of better social standing… than the ethnic minorities; and this class consciousness is something that matters, more than the color of the skin or the ethnic abstraction, I suppose. Remember I already adjust my statement, for the US context, by agreeing with Bob Schuessler that race matters more in the US, but probably matters less so, but still matters, in the Vietnamese consciousness. Oscar Salemink’s posting , citing World Bank report, the 1998 Report by Le Trong Cuc, Rambo and Jamieson and the 1980 study of Jacques Doumes, traces the cultural history or root cause of the bias against minorities and he agrees that class
matters, more than race or ethnicity.
In this aspect, I agree with Salamink that we should not examine race/ethnicity or class considerations as an “either..or..”choice, but they occur at the same time. My only emphasis is Class consideration is the root cause, more important than race/ethnicity, in the Vietnamese lowlanders’ superior attitude toward ethnic minorities in Vietnam, because the Vietnamese society has a milder case of racial/ethnic tension than, say, the United States.
Education and other constituent elements of the class standing of a person matter a lot for the ethnic minorities in Vietnam, so that they can carve out a place for them in the mainstream Vietnamese society. This is illustrated by Writer Duong Thuan, who presented his research on the Tay people in Vietnam (whose family name includes Nong), at the University of Massachusetts Rockefeller Fellow Program on Vietnam (anh Nguyen Ba Chung can testify to this report), informed us that many educated Tay played a prominent role in the history of Vietnam (such as General Duong Thu Minh in the Ly Dynasty, General Hoang Cao Kinh and 3 other generals in the Tran Dynasty; there were between 40 to 50 generals and high officials of Tay descent during the Vietnam War , the highest being Mr. Nong Duc Manh, General Secretary of The Communist Party of Vietnam. Mr. Manh and Mr. Thuan came from the same home town, so the latter asked Mr. Manh: “Are you the son of Uncle
Ho?” (he looks like Ho Chi Minh). Mr. Manh answered:” I also heard that people say so”. Mr. Manh had answered the Australian ambassador in the same ambiguous way “Everybody in Vietnam is the son/daughter of Uncle Ho”. Ho Chi Minh has another son by Nong Thi Xuan , a Tay woman who died in an accident and thereafter the son was raised by Ho Chi Minh’s secretary in secrecy for a long time and the son is now a successful businessman Ha Noi and calls Mr. Manh “Brother Manh”. Thus the social standing of an ethnic minority person in Vietnam depends on his/her education and other achievements to raise his/her class standing. His/her race or ethnic background does not matter so much. On this point, Dinh Lu Giang’s posting mentions the poor Vietnamese lowlanders and Khmer in the Mekong Delta, in their dealing with each other, show no difference.—the only difference is the Khmer would have a chance to have more government benefits as a
minority group D.L. Giang points out the socio-cultural amalgamation among different ethnic groups in Vietnamese society throughout history to trace the genesis of this relatively harmonious relationship between various ethnic groups in Vietnam.
Looking at the racial or ethnic prejudice from the historical or evolutionary perspective, Salamink seems to want to assert a kind of historical genealogy of ethnic minority treatment since the traditional period, through the French period, and South Vietnamese regime prior to 1975, to the current unified Vietnam regime, as subsequent periods learn from preceding periods. I would rather use another term for such continuity: the pattern of the majority ethnic group in a nation looking down on the minority groups is UNIVERSAL, not a learned experience or legacy bequeathed from one period to another, but psychological trait more deeply ingrained in human nature or psychology : the universal class or social stratification consciousness, expressed also as the in-group/out-group dichotomy pointed out by social psychologists—the in-group always considering themselves as better than the out-group.
2. SOCIAL POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT.
In my first posting, I have not discussed the policy of the current regime or of the regime in South Vietnam prior to 1975 or the French colonial policy and only pointed out the benevolent uplifting policy of the emperors in traditional Vietnam toward the ethnic minorities (which I find equivalent to the modern affirmative action). This long imperial policy, prolonging through centuries, has tempered or restrained the haughty attitude of the Vietnamese lowlanders and has become part of the Vietnamese national culture and so, the people of the present day do not need to read imperial edicts of yore to have that tempered or restrained habit in their attitude. Thus Pamela’s statement about present day Vietnamese do not read dynastic rulings is just self-evident and does not vitiate my analytical scheme of distinguishing between the people’s attitude or popular culture and the government policy (On the other hand, the French colonial legacy in terms of
research on, and treatment of, the ethnic minorities in their short rule would not have impact on the ordinary Vietnamese’s attitude ).
Now a few words about the social policy of the government toward the ethnic minorities in South Vietnam prior to 1975 and in present day Vietnam. Both regimes have Ethnic Minorities Council . The South Vietnamese regime had a Ministry of Ethnic minorities and reserved a number of seats in the National Institute of Administration, where high level bureaucrats were trained, for the ethnic minorities . Still, there were frictions between the highlanders (montagnards) and the lowlanders, and I remember that when I visited ,in his Da Lat City home, my former University of Virginia class mate Charles Twining, US Agency for International Development official specializing in some montagnard tribes such as Keho and Radhe, I was warned by him that I better not said I am lowlander Vietnamese as his montagnard maid-servants would not like me if knowing that. (Charles Twining later became Vietnam desk officer, Indochina Director in the State Department and then
ambassador to Cambodia and Cameroon). I understand that the current Vietnamese regime had trouble restraining the lowlanders from pushing highlanders in the Central Vietnam Plateau away from their land toward higher up in the mountains , thus causing great discontent among the highlanders(which is more serious than just condescending attitude); moreover, the government has national security concern (justified or not?) with the highlanders, some of whom have in the past engaged in splittist movements such as FULRO or DEGAS. So, I am not seeing a completely rosy picture, as Pamela McElwee and Myles Ellidge have misunderstood me, really a guy who lives long enough not to be a little cynical in social analysis ..
Tai Van Ta
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From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Date: Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 12:33 PM
A short reply to anh Tai:
There is definitely a connection between class and ethnicity, but it is by no means clear whether it is causation or something else, and whether labeling does not lead to certain policies that affect economic status. But there is also ethnic prejudice that is entirely separate from class considerations and is expressed by contempt rather than through condescension. The French did not invent the word "Moi."
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
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From: Calvin Thai
Date: Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 1:00 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Since "moi" or "moi ro" existed prior to Rhodes' "Dictionarium Annnamiticum Lusitanum, et Latinum" (1651), I am wondering when the term "man di moi ro" first appeared. Could it be hundreds of years earlier ?
Calvin Thai
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From: Ngô Thanh Nhàn
Date: 2009/9/12
Dear Calvin Thai,
I am not certain about the following information. I used to
read Chinese stories when I was young (like Thuyet duong, ...).
There seems to be a system of naming people around China:
Nam man, Dong di, Tay dich, Bac nhung/phien. I remember
reading somewhere that Mac Tu was sometimes called Mac
dich (moi den).
Moi is written in Nom as moi+man. Nhung was translated
into Vietnamese as ro (sometimes uses the ideogram di+tro/ro).
In Vietnamese, moi goes also with toi moi (servant). Joseph
Morrone (circa 1819) has ro moi (Lat. inurbanus), and in
Lat. "Ro moi, vel 'man di', vide 'man', genus boum agreste."
Cheers,
Nhan
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From: Calvin Thai
Date: Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 5:45 AM
Dear Nhan,
I also grew up with "La Thong tao Bac, Thuyet Duong Dien nghia", etc. ;-)
While Rhodes listed "moi ro" but not "man di", according to Huynh Tinh Cua, "man di" and "moi ro" have the same meaning.
I am not sure why "moi ro" seems to be much more common in usage.
By the way, did you say "mac dich" or "mắt dịch" as in "đồ mắt dịch" ? Could "mac dich" and "mat dich" be related then ?
Best regards,
Calvin Thai
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From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Date: Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 6:12 AM
Man, Yi, Hu, and Yue (Viet) are all terms used by Han Chinese to refer to different groups of "barbarians." for the etymology of Yue, see Keith Taylor, The Birth of Vietnam, p. 42. Prior to Han conquest, the ancient Vietnamese were known as Lac, one of the many groups belonging to the wider category of southern barbarians (Yue).
Vietnamese will be familiar with the popular saying which lamented the marriage of Princess Huyen Tran to a Cham king in 1307. While that marriage brought the prefectures of O and Ri (occupying the area from Quang Tri to Quang Nam) into the Dai Viet territory, many Vietnamese gave vent to their xenophobia:
Tiec thay cay que giua rung
De cho thang Man thang Muong no leo.
roughly translated as:
How sad that the cinnamon tree in the forest
should be climbed on by Man or Muong.
The insertion of "thang" before Man and Muong shows contempt for Chams, notwithstanding the fact that Champa in the 14th century was as powerful as Dai Viet.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
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From: Ngô Thanh Nhàn
Date: 2009/9/13
Dear Calvin,
I meant Mặc Tử, sometimes called Mặc địch.
And since we use accents: bắc nhung, tây địch,
đông di, nam man.
From chữ Nôm, rợ and mọi are Vietnamese proper.
It seems like "mọi" is related to "tôi mọi" (servant).
Sướng mà làm mọi làm tôi ai thèm (a translation
of La Fontaine).
In Tự điển chữ Nôm Việt by Prof. Dr.Sci Nguyễn Quang Hồng:
-- in Truyền kỳ mạn lục (1774):
"Gửi mình chưng ở chốn rợ man"
-- in Thiên Nam Ngữ lục Ngoại kỷ (?):
"Định rằng: thằng rợ Giao châu"...
-- in Chỉ nam ngọc âm giải nghĩa (1671):
"Man mạch: rợ mọi man di"
But Prof. Hồng does not have mọi used in tôi mọi.
Cheers,
Nhàn