End of The World Mania
From: JKirkpatrick
Date: Fri, May 20, 2011 at 4:03 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I hope it's OK to post this, as somewhere along the line I saw a message about millenarian movements in Vietnam. And anyway, it's the weekend :)
Has this millenarian mania due May 21st wherever you are manifested in Vietnam as yet?
Here in the US the fundamentalist Christians, or some of them, are having a field day with painted trucks announcing "The end of the world as we know it", people marching with sandwich board signs, and youth holding "Rapture Parties."
Reminds me of the end of the world study by Leon Festinger and his book,
_When Prophecy Fails_, based on another US end of the world date back in the day.
See this page for some visual imagery:
http://unfaithful-mirror.net/dream/inc/may%2021%20apocalypse-28444.html
Cheers, on the way up,
Joanna K.
Visual Anthropology
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From: Stephen Denney
Date: Fri, May 20, 2011 at 5:07 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To be fair, the "millenarian mania due May 21st" concerns only a very minute portion of fundamentalist Christians. The leader of the movement, Harold Camping, announced a few years ago that all churches are bad, so led his followers out of church affiliation. Unfortunately, he controls a large network of "Family Radio" stations, broadcasting around the world.
It has some relevance to Vietnam, apparently, see:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/vietnam-tries-to-portray-cult-gathering-as-christian-50143/
Steve Denney
library assistant
UC Berkeley
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From: JKirkpatrick
Date: Fri, May 20, 2011 at 6:51 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks for a fuller account of the events.
Some disturbing aspects of the rhetoric about this affair, relying on the linked account, I find to be as follows.
Excerpts (1):
"As a result, church leaders said, lack of foundational biblical knowledge clearly makes them gullible to false teaching...."
"...Moreover, he said, the cult’s appearance was made more likely by the fact that many Hmong Christians still are denied teaching in basic beliefs because of serious religious liberty restrictions."
Comment: cults of the Camping and similar sorts are not improved by having Bibles that followers can read in their language, on their own, because the leaders of such cults warp the texts as they see fit, and the devotees follow willingly. As well, many a fundamentalist cult in the US, let's say, have full access to holy texts but the interpretive literature published by cults, and the preaching, is what convinces them. Cult leaders get away with some truly outlandish interpretations of holy scripture. How about the one a few years ago in many of the monster-size churches and on TV who taught, "Jesus WANTS you to make money. He WANTS you to be rich. Come to Jesus and get your reward." Such messages appealed to and converted lots of people who were not illiterate and able to read a Bible.
My guess would be that the less cultish missions would like everyone to think that all the Hmongs need is Bibles translated into their language, plus literacy education and some theology, and they would stop being fools for cult leaders. This view strikes me as a bit self-serving, and misunderstands why some of these people go for the messianic cults. For any kind of funamentalists, belief is everything-- no matter how cockeyed it might be.
Excerpts (2):
"Earlier in the year the worldwide Harold Camping cult, which is predicting a May 21 end of the world, began recruiting among Hmong Christians. They used material translated into the Hmong language and began to draw some followers, sources said."
"...the Vietnam Good News Mission church heard of the Camping end-of-the-word cult, it published a 14-page booklet in Hmong and Vietnamese carefully refuting the false teaching,......"
Both of these bits illustrate the fact that these fundamentalist organisations, including in the USA, have tons of money with which they propagate their messages. Harold Camping himself is a millionaire. Spreading the Word is incredibly easy for him, whereas I'd wager that the Vietnam Good News Mission has fewer funds available to spread their message, by comparison.
Joanna Kirkpartick
Visual Anthroplogy
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From: Stephen Denney
Date: Fri, May 20, 2011 at 7:14 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I disagree, and believe that the overly restrictive religious policy in Vietnam is counter-productive in the sense of encouraging the growth of such cults and their isolation from protestant church leaders in Vietnam. According to the linked article below,
"At least one of the church organizations with which the Hmong are affiliated appears to have been aware of the situation early. In March, when the Vietnam Good News Mission church heard of the Camping end-of-the-word cult, it published a 14-page booklet in Hmong and Vietnamese carefully refuting the false teaching, church leaders said. But many other Hmong Christians did not have access to it.
"Officials of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam-North, with which most Hmong Protestant Christians are affiliated, were denied permission to visit the area of the gathering in Muong Nhe district at mid-week, church leaders said. Government authorities told them it was not a religious matter, they said...
"..The Muong Nhe district event was best understood, the expert said, as a gathering of an aberrant cult followed by as few as 2 percent of Christian Hmong. Moreover, he said, the cult’s appearance was made more likely by the fact that many Hmong Christians still are denied teaching in basic beliefs because of serious religious liberty restrictions.
"For example, the Hmong are still denied a legally-printed Bible. Only about 20 percent of Hmong pastors are legally allowed to study theology. Christian leaders working with Hmong did their best to counteract the cult, sources said, but the government also hampered these efforts..."
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Fri, May 20, 2011 at 8:34 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I first heard about this news on the lunchtime news broadcast today, 21 May. Lovely sunny day here (now 1.30 pm). Any idea where the end of the world is supposed to start? I presume somewhere in the Middle East as it would seem to be the correct time zone. However, it would not surprise me if this particular god only ever spoke to Americans.
From the point of view of the Vietnamese Communists, I would guess that protestant church leaders (and others for that matter) are considered no less cult-like, no less millenarian, than the others they're bent on trying to discourage. From the point of view of an atheist the bible itself constitutes 'false teaching', so ... six of one half a dozen of the other.
I also disagree with Steve that a restrictive religious policy is the source of the problem. As somebody mentioned in an earlier thread, the scholarly research on these kind of movements (the Hmong, but one could possibly include US cults) points towards grievances over land appropriation, taxation, etc. - which are also related to disintegration of earlier ways of life. Millenarian movements are part of the search for a more proper and just social order.
cheers,
Melanie
--
Melanie Beresford
Associate Dean Research, Associate Professor in Economics
Faculty of Business & Economics
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
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From: <sdenney@library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Fri, May 20, 2011 at 10:02 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I would say that an overly restrictive policy toward religions contributes
to this particular problem, not that it is necessarily the main cause. At
least that is what the article indicated, in that protestant religious
leaders were prevented from communicating their concerns about this
particular movement to the Hmong Christians in this area.
Another case of counter-productive religious policy, although certainly
different in some respects, would be the DRV policy toward the Catholic
church during the 1954-75 period, where the church in the north, being
shielded from the liberalizing changes of Vatican II, and unable to
adequately replace elderly bishops or train many new priests, emerged in
1975 as much more conservative, for the most part, than the church in the
south.
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From: Melanie Beresford <melanie.beresford@mq.edu.au>
Date: Sat, May 21, 2011 at 6:14 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Steve, In what sense is it counterproductive, from an atheist point of view, if the catholic church in one place is more conservative than its counterpart somewhere else? From that perspective, they're both equally idiotic. In what sense does it matter, from the same pov, if some religious leaders are prevented from communicating their views to another bunch of equally superstitious believers?
It is only a problem if you think that one sort of christian is more sensible than another. For Communists this notion is a joke.
cheers,
Melanie
--
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From: Balazs Szalontai
Date: Sat, May 21, 2011 at 6:25 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
It seems to have been at least partly true. Yesterday my office was invaded by a legion of unusually fierce mosquitos, far more vicious individuals than the ones which used to pester me here in Shanghai. Must have been a dress rehearsal. The real event will be accompanied by some more impressive critters, such as pterodactyls.
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From: Balazs Szalontai
Date: Sat, May 21, 2011 at 6:31 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Not fully a joke. More than once, Communist regimes expressed their preference for one church over another. In the USSR and Romania, the Greek Catholic churches were forcibly incorporated into the Greek Orthodox churches, whereas in Bulgaria, the regime emphasized that the Catholic and Protestant churches constituted a more alien and anti-national element than Greek Orthodoxy.
Cheers,
Balazs
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Sat, May 21, 2011 at 6:38 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
That is assuming that Communists--in particular Vietnamese Communists--are atheist. there's plenty of evidence that a great many are not.
>From the earliest times, the state, both in China and Vietnam, decided it could not totally eliminate religions and particular cults of which it did not approve. So it sought to either co-opt them (see Prasenjit Duara on the state cult of Guangong) or control them by declaring certain beliefs and practices orthodox and others heterodox (see Alex Woodside on Buddhism in the 19th century). The Vietnamese state does something similar by giving recognition to the Buddhist sangha that accepts the primacy of the state, and discriminating against the Unified Buddhist Church, which does not.
As for millenarianism in Vietnamese (and Chinese history), it dates back to at least the first century.
In 1928, the Cao Dai sect announced that there was no reason to pay taxes (to the colonial state) since colonial rule--and the end of the world--was nigh. Since so many Tea Party members are also evangelical Christians who believe in the Rapture and are against taxes, I get a feeling of deja lu, all over again.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
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From: Kyle Horst
Date: Sat, May 21, 2011 at 8:08 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Try telling Daniel Ortega and the FSLN that it's a joke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y72VXGa9QeY
"A Year To Become More Christian" -- not bad for a Marxist revolutionary campaign slogan!
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From: <sdenney@library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Sat, May 21, 2011 at 10:54 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Melanie, in what sense is the government's overly restrictive religious
policy counterproductive, you ask. For one thing, in the case of the
Catholic church, the liberalizing changes of Vatican II brought forth a
basis for a church-state dialogue, with some church leaders, such as the
late HCMC Archbishop Nguyen Van Binh, trying to find some common ground
between Christian and Marxist values. In the more recent case we are
discussing, some Hmong Christians living in isolated conditions,following
a cult claiming the world is ending today, or the rapture is to take
place, would obviously provide the basis for political instability, as it
did in the recent confrontation near Dien Bien Phu.
I believe the primary concern of the government of Vietnam toward
religions is that they not serve as the basis for political opposition,
and that explains many of the restrictions and varying degrees of
religious freedom in Vietnam. Religions cannot function legally unless
they are recognized as a bona fide religion by the state. The appointment
of bishops, clergy, opening seminaries, establishment of churches and
temples, and other religious activities, are all subject to government
approval. The government also distinguishes in its official policy between
religion and superstition, which of course is quite an arbitrary
distinction. But in any case, this policy shows the government leaders
care not only about how many people follow religion, but what particular
religion they follow, what their religious practices may be, who their
leaders are, and so forth.
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Sat, May 21, 2011 at 11:29 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Maybe I should use this occasion to publicize my (out of print) book, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam (1983).
Vietnam has faced the end of the world many many times, and "got away" every time.
I am sure that Joanna K recalls the case of the Indians who thought that the end of the world was coming and sat on a hilltop looking straight at the sun. They went blind, but the earth went on spinning.
Neither the Second Coming nor the new era of the Maitreya Buddha is upon us. Very reassuring!
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From: Shawn McHale
Date: Sat, May 21, 2011 at 11:40 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear list,
Re: this post from Melanie Bersford:
Steve, In what sense is it counterproductive, from an atheist point of view, if the catholic church in one place is more conservative than its counterpart somewhere else? From that perspective, they're both equally idiotic. In what sense does it matter, from the same pov, if some religious leaders are prevented from communicating their views to another bunch of equally superstitious believers?
It is only a problem if you think that one sort of christian is more sensible than another. For Communists this notion is a joke.
I disagree. The Vietnamese communist party has gone from a position of exhibiting deep ignorance of religions and religious practice to showing extensive engagement with different religious groups. This should not be terribly surprising. Vietnamese communists, despite their ideological preference for atheism, have also been very practical. During the First Indochina War, for example, Cao Trieu Phat, a splinter Cao Dai leader, allied with the Viet Minh. After 1975, they thought that they could just ignore or suppress religious practice, but from 1990 on, decided that a far better tactic was to learn more about these groups. "Learning more" has led to engagement with a wide range of religious groups, ranging from Protestant evangelicals to Cao Dai and more traditional Vietnamese religions.
One therefore has to distinguish between what the Party and Party members think about particular religious beliefs, and how it deals with communities of religious leaders. The Party has a deep interest in figuring out why religious groups do what they do, for it is interested in preventing a Falun Gong-type of movement from emerging in Vietnam. In the end, the Party wants to find out WHERE religious leaders etc are "sensible." It wants to register churches, for example, because registered churches are easier to monitor than non-registered ones.
Religion as the opiate of the masses? Well . . . We are left with an interesting paradox: a state that is led by a communist party has an institute, the Institute of Religion, that publishes an astonishing array of religious texts -- including Christian ones!
Shawn McHale
George Washington University
--
Shawn McHale
Director
Sigur Center for Asian Studies
Elliott School of International Affairs
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
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From: Balazs Szalontai
Date: Sat, May 21, 2011 at 11:53 AM
To: mchale@gwu.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Agreed. As early as the mid-1950s, the North Vietnamese cadres implementing the regime's religious policies made careful distinctions between ancestor worship (which they considered basically harmless), Buddhism (relatively harmless) and Catholicism (the most troublesome of all).
Best,
Balazs
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From: JKirkpatrick
Date: Sat, May 21, 2011 at 5:33 PM
To: mchale@gwu.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks for the telling us about the Inst. of Religion--what a surprise.
What I fail to understand is why the official Party program is to suppress Thich Nhat Hanh's Buddhist sangha in favor of the official Buddhist "church" on the basis that the former don't acknowledge the supremacy of the state.
What difference does it, or would it, make anyway? Have TNH's followers ever been accused of, or discovered to, revolt against the state _qua state_, as opposed to defending their organisation? My impression is that their view is they have spiritual concerns that surpass the concerns of politics.
As monks there is only one institution they are required to pledge allegiance to, and that is the vinaya.
Can it not be said even if a bit far out, that, by declaring non-acknowledgement of the state as the 'highest authority' instead of the vinaya (even if their practise of it is rather 'irregular', as some say), that TNH's sangha refuses to accept the state as a quasi-deity, or even as an outside-enforced deity?
Just asking--OK? Not trying to stir any pots here-- I mean, the question does arise.
Best, Joanna K.
VA
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Sat, May 21, 2011 at 6:19 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Re: your last paragraph:
I would not go that far. As I've said before the Chinese (and later Vietnamese) state claimed supremacy. Originally, the Son of Heaven, namely the emperor, was the only human being entitled to communicate directly with Heaven; and the only individual who had ancestors (Heaven). He was the only mortal who was supposed to conduct religious rituals. Since he could not be everywhere, his officials became extensions of his person and were authorized to perform rituals locally in his stead. Eventually, they, too obtained the right to ancestors, and even later, so did the hoi polloi. It can be said that ancestor worship is the universal religion in Vietnam (including among Catholics).
According to the same theory, if ordinary mortals took it upon themselves to communicate with beings in the Other World, there would be chaos in both the human and natural worlds, as manifested by strange phenomena and social unrest. Of course, the state was unable to totally eradicate people's religious instincts and opted to try control them instead by becoming the authority on what was orthodox and what was heterodox. Paul Mus had an article on this "La Religion de l'Indochine" in Sylvain Levy, L'Indochine (1931). J.J. M. de Groot, a Jesuit priest, wrote along the same lines about China in Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China (1901).
The issue of state/religion was a vexed one not just in China or Vietnam. European history is dominated by religious conflicts.
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Sun, May 22, 2011 at 2:12 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
It seems to me that in all modern states, the authority of the state must override that of religion. The case that Hue-Tam refers to is one in which state authority derived from Heaven, but only the Islamists would subscribe to that these days. The authority of modern states derives from a secular source, usually some concept like 'the nation' or 'the people'. Imagine if religious communities were able to create their own systems of governance - adhering to some allegedly higher authority. There are many contemporary problems with this e.g. Israeli settlers who don't accept the laws of any state, only god's law that gave them the land; attempts to impose sharia law that contradict civil laws with regard to gender discrimination and other human rights; and so on.
cheers,
Melanie
--
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From: Balazs Szalontai
Date: Sun, May 22, 2011 at 2:23 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
This is indeed mostly true, but in Thailand and Sihanouk's Cambodia, the legitimacy and authority of the head of state was (or still is) strongly derived from his role as supreme patron of Buddhism. In these countries, and also in Burma, Buddhism is considered a central and indispensable element of national identity. On the other hand, you are certainly right in that the Sangha does not try to superimpose its religious regulations upon secular state laws in the same way as Islamists seek to do.
Cheers,
Balazs
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From: Thi-Bay Miradoli
Date: Sun, May 22, 2011 at 3:03 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I do not foresee the next President of the US being Buddhist, Atheist, Muslim. Jewish etc The only non Protestant one was Carter, an Irish Catholic, and that was considered exceptional...And Obama had to go to very great lenghs to prove to everyone he was not, never was and never considered being a Muslim with the implied message that it would make him unfit to be president...he had to fire his preacher during the presidential campaign. Whether the reasons were valid or not, so much for a political process free of religious hegemony. I would argue that in the US, and other so-called "modern states" the authority of the state doesnt completely ovveride religion in the sense that religion is a large part of who is elected President. And the US President holds executive power.
Also the US has had relatively non-restrictive religious policies (incidents of targetting specific groups aside but those groups are still entitled to file anti-discrimination law suites) yet the country is full of cults, religious fundamentalism (of several denominations) and crazy rapture parties ideas.
I apologize if I'm getting too far from the topic.
Thi Bay Miradoli
Independent Consultant
HCMC
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From: Thi-Bay Miradoli
Date: Sun, May 22, 2011 at 3:18 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <Vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sorry I meant Kennedy, not Carter (as someone just poitned out to me - Thanks for that). I had Carter, a proud protestant church-goer, on my mind because on his recent visit to Vietnam (2009) he prioritized freedom of religion in his speech during a volunteering event with Habitat for Humanity. Ironic I thought.
Thi Bay
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Sun, May 22, 2011 at 6:43 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Regarding the supremacy of the secular state in modern societies, as some have posted, this is not a universal feature of modern societies; the queen of England is the head of the Church of England, as the king of Thailand is the head of the Thai sangha. . E.P. Thompson showed quite clearly how religion, in particular Methodism, helped the formation of class consciousness among the British working-class in the 19th century. It does not matter much that most C of E Brits only see the inside of a church when they are baptized and when they die (and sometimes when they get married); religion continues to play a role in British life (ask Catholics), as it does in the US.
But the kind of supremacy of the state I described would be alien to modern secular states. We do not expect the secular French state to examine Catholic priests as the Chinese and Vietnamese states (including the very devout Vietnamese Buddhist rulers of the 11-14th centuries) did, to control the number of monks that each monastery could have, or to control and manipulate the distribution of cultic materials. In fact, those same rulers who decided to institute minh kinh exams to determine whether monks were knowledgeable about Buddhist doctrines, and if not, returned to the ranks of tax-paying, draft and corvee eligible commoners, also sent missions to China to obtain sutras in order to gain merit in the afterlife and prestige in this world in the eyes of their subjects.
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From: JKirkpatrick
Date: Sun, May 22, 2011 at 8:51 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
You seem to have confused John Kennedy, Roman Catholic and President of the USA with Pres. Jimmy Carter, who was a Protestant. He helped to found the New Baptist Covenant, as an alternative to the Southern Baptist Convention.
Joanna K.
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From: JKirkpatrick
Date: Sun, May 22, 2011 at 9:00 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks Hue-Tam for this additional history on the management of
Buddhist institutions in China and in Vietnam, most helpful so
far as my query goes. Of course, I do know about the relation
between heads of state and Buddhism, currently in Thailand and
formerly in Cambodia, Burma, and Lao.
Best,
Joanna Kirkpatrick
VA
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Mon, May 23, 2011 at 3:08 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I'm not sure if we are talking at cross purposes or this remark about the supremacy of the secular state is directed to someone else. However, FWIW, the fact that some states have Established churches (in the sense that the head of state is also the head of the church/sangha etc) or that a US President has to be Christian does not change the source of legitimacy of the state which no longer comes from heaven. Neither the English Queen nor the US President claim to rule by virtue of their unique access to the Divine. They get their authority from the people via elections (or from the revolution/ coup d'etat staged in the name of the 'National Interest') and, in the Queen's case, she has to do what the Prime Minister tells her to do. As head of both church and state she can no longer impose her religion on her subjects (i.e. she is subject to the secular laws of the land). The Thai king may still have greater authority as he seems to be able to determine the fate of various coup leaders. Anyway, the great majority of modern states are secular in the sense that religious leaders cannot appeal to higher 'laws' than those promulgated by the state. In fact we can only enjoy religious freedom insofar as the religious agree to abide by those laws. If every religion decided to impose its own divinely-inspired laws, we would no longer have nation states. Hence the nervousness about the burqa in Europe and in Vietnam about Hmong millenarianism and in China about the Vatican.
cheers,
Melanie
--
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Mon, May 23, 2011 at 5:28 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
why should Vn be worried about millenarianism among the Hmong or China about the Vatican. The Rapture does not seem to have discommoded anyone except the few who believed in Harold Camping, and the Vatican is not able to truly interfere in the politics of even those countries thatare nominally Catholic. It is not even able to dictate what Catholics do in their private lives.
Why should things be any different in Vietnam or China?
Hue Tam
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From: Kyle Horst
Date: Mon, May 23, 2011 at 12:11 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The Vietnamese leadership understands well the role of the Vatican and the Church in helping European Communism along its way into the dust-bin of history, and knows also the growing popularity of Catholicism among Vietnamese youth. The government’s concern is not misplaced; it is not on a whim that Mother Teresa’s sisters were expelled from Viet Nam fifteen years ago, just a few weeks after Beijing similarly shut the door, telling Mother that there were no poor in China who needed her Sisters’ care.
I have to believe that if not for its proximity to China Viet Nam long ago would have reached a modus vivendi with the Church, there being so many areas in which its greater contribution is needed (caring for the HIV-positive and victims of AIDS, the mentally disabled, single mothers and women at risk of abortion, et c.).
The nao Vua Bac phai co An Nam chu…..
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 3:09 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The Vietnamese Communist leadership demonstrated its suspicion of religion well before Solidarity came into existence.
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From: Alec Soucy
Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 3:45 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Similarly, in November 1994 the government shut down a relief mission organised by the Unified Buddhist Church if Vietnam to help flood victims in the Mekong Delta, arresting a number of monks and lay Buddhists in the process. The government statement in an article in the November 12 issue of the official Saigon Giai Phong newspaper accused church members of "lying to the people" by telling them they intended, without the permission of the state, to rescue flood victims, when in fact their intention was to "sow disunity and insecurity in Vietnamese society."" (according to a Human Rights Watch Asia report of March 1995 [Vol.7, No.4]).
It seems to me that the state was not entirely incorrect in its estimation of the risks that the UBCV's mission posed, and it strikes me that the relief mission must have had more than humanitarian intentions in putting together this action. I don't know what the deliberations of the UBCV were, but they must have surely anticipated this reaction from the state, and even intentionally prevoked it, given that the trucks carrying relief supplies were adorned with Buddhist flags and posters which read "UBCV Rescue Mission for Flood Victims" (Vietnam Insight December 1994 Vo.V, No. 12 ).
Alec Soucy
Dept. of Religious Studies
Saint Mary's University
Halifax, Nova Scotia
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 4:24 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Why should advertising the relief group's identity be considered an act of provocation? nowadays, hospitals could hardly function without the contributions made by various religious groups, including Hoa Hao, Cao Dai, protestants, Catholics and Buddhists. What has changed?
yes, I know neo-liberalism at work. But that begs the question: why should the state not only suspect religion but actively seek to suppress its activities however beneficial to society?
Again, at the risk of boring non-historians, it's deja vu all over again (see history of Buddhism in China).
Hue Tam Ho Tai
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From: Balazs Szalontai
Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 5:06 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
It is not just the issue of religion; it is more the question of alternative and potentially competing sources of legitimacy and authority. In Egypt and other Middle Eastern societies, the state often failed to provide much-needed humanitarian services, whereupon religious (and often specifically Islamist) organizations stepped in to fill the gap. By providing services the state could not or did not care to provide, they directly or indirectly discredited the state as the supreme source of social order and welfare. The same happened in Tsarist Russia during the 1891 famine when civil society NGOs assisted famine victims who received little or no aid from the government. In North Korea, the authorities often insisted during the famine that the humanitarian and food aid provided by South Korea or international organizations should be given in a way that recipients would not see direct references to the actual donors, because this might make people think that foreigners (and particularly the rival South Korean government) gave more assistance to North Korean citizens than their own government.
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 5:20 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I really don't know the story of the UBCV and its conflict with the state, so I'm not on very strong ground. But I would like to make the point (possibly at the risk of repeating myself) that modern states find it very important that religious movements agree to subject themselves to the secular authority. In the past (and still in a few parts of the world - Saudi Arabia comes to mind) state and religion have not been separated. However, there has been a pretty consistent trend over the last couple of centuries for the secular authority to push religion into the private sphere (perhaps partially being reversed in the Islamic world - though I think the jury is still out on that one). Once this privatisation is achieved, then it becomes possible to have 'freedom of religion' - i.e., for individuals to believe whatever they like. Individuals cannot challenge the state's authority - only organised movements can.
I think it is important not to confuse this argument with the human rights argument. Maybe the Vietnamese state feels threatened by the UBCV advertising itself because the UBCV has refused to be pushed into the private sphere and doesn't fundamentally accept the legitimacy of the state in its present form? The same might apply to ethnic minorities that have only rather recently been incorporated into a territorial state based on the current boundaries. The formation of the modern Vietnamese state has not exactly been uncontested.
Melanie
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From: Stephen Denney
Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 11:29 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The Unified Buddhist Chuch of Vietnam was formally incorporated into the state sponsored church in 1981. I believe the name of the state sponsored Buddhist organization, which is recognized as the only legitimate represenative of Vietnamese Buddhism within Vietnam, is the Vietnam Buddhist Church, although I don't know the exact name in Vietnamese. Some UBCV leaders strongly protested this situation, particularly Ven. Thich Quang Do and the late Ven. Thich Huyen Quang. Other UBCV leaders, such as Thich Tri Thu, accepted the new arrangement. From what I understand, the UBCV has no control over any of the Buddhist pagodas or other Buddhist organizations in Vietnam, since the UBCV is no longer a legal organization in the country.
I recall a point made by one writer in a book published in Vietnam some years ago, that Vietnamese Catholics must be Vietnamese first, and Catholics second. Since the party, state and people are all considered one in the official ideology, that would presumably mean that Vietnamese Catholics, as well as other religious believers, must accept the values of the party/state over their own religious beliefs if there is ever any conflict between the two.
All religions have at least some leaders who view their role as not just to practice religion in the private sphere, but also to act in the public sphere, whether it be relief activity, education, social welfare or addressing problems of injustice in the society. To some degree the Vietnamese government shares this view, but mainly in the sense that the role of religions is to faithfully support and promulgate to their followers the policies of the state.
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From: Chung Nguyen
Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 11:43 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Exactly. It’s a long story but after April 1975, the state organized a new Buddhist Church under its sponsorship. Part of the pre-1975 GHPGVNTN (Unified Buddhist Church) in the South refuses to be absorbed and continues to fight for an independent existence, currently under the leadership of the Ven. Thich Quang Do. What complicates the issues is the fact that Ven. Thich Quang Do appoints Vo Van Ai in Paris as the official spokesman for the Unified Buddhist Church. Vo Van Ai then leads the effort abroad to agitate against the government. At the same time, for a number of years, Vo Van Ai received money from the National Endowment for Democracy, between 70 to 90 thousand dollars a year, to publicize Vietnam’s violations of human rights via his magazine Que Me and publications supposedly distributed secretly in Vietnam.
The conflict with the state, viewed from the state’s perspective, is likely no longer an internal issue.
Chung Nguyen
UMASS Boston
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From: Chung Nguyen
Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 12:39 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
>>The Unified Buddhist Chuch of Vietnam was formally incorporated into the state sponsored church in 1981. I believe the name of the state >>sponsored Buddhist organization, which is recognized as the only legitimate represenative of Vietnamese Buddhism within Vietnam, is the Vietnam >>Buddhist Church, although I don't know the exact name in Vietnamese. Some UBCV leaders strongly protested this situation, particularly Ven. >>Thich Quang Do and the late Ven. Thich Huyen Quang. Other UBCV leaders, such as Thich Tri Thu, accepted the new arrangement. From what I >>understand, the UBCV has no control over any of the Buddhist pagodas or other Buddhist organizations in Vietnam, since the UBCV is no longer a >>legal organization in the country.
The UBCV has a number of temples affiliated with it both in the Central Region and the South. This affiliation is, of course, not recognized by the state. Most of the overseas pagodas used to belong to the overseas branch of the UBCV, but that is no longer the case. There’s an election every five years, but before every election organized abroad so far, Vo van Ai always produced a letter from Ven. Thich Quang Do asking for the retainment of the existing leadership. It’s understood that had the vote been allowed to proceed, Vo Van and a number of others in the leadership would have been removed. During the last election, it was the last straw. The overseas UBCV is now split into two.
The issue is a bit more complicated than that. It is true in terms of the Catholic Church in Vietnam because of the long history under French colonialism and the Ngo Dinh Diem regime. One very well-known statement related to this is Father Hoang Quynh’s dictum during the Vietnam war – “Tha mat nuoc hon tha mat Chua” (Rather lose our country than lose our religion). That’s the first time in Vietnamese history that there is a conflict between one’s patriotism and one’s religion.
The conflict in terms of the UBCV is more like what Melanie has described: the CPV would not allow any independent entity that could potentially challenge its power within the country. The UBCV has already demonstrated its capability in the protests against the Diem regime. Since the state allows individuals freely to practice their religion, it’s, however, not as easy for the UBCV to gather the kind of universal support it did in the 1960s.
Chung Nguyen
UMASS Boston
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From: Stephen Denney
Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 1:21 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I believe it was Thich Huyen Quang, not Thich Quang Do (see your other posting in this thread) who appointed Vo Van Ai as the head of the overseas press office for the UBCV, which occurred at the same time as the establishment of the overseas UBCV. I don't know about the ongoing politics of the overseas UBCV, but I recall that before its establishment, most of the information I received concerning repression against Buddhists in Vietnam came from Sister Chan Khong, Thich Nhat Hanh's assistant.
Regarding your point that the state allows individuals to freely practice religion in Vietnam, that would seem to be less true for ethnic minority Christians than for other religious groups, and the state still maintains the right to oversee all activities of religions, particularly the appointment of clergy and religious leaders, establishment of churches or pagodas, publication of religious scripture and so forth.
I think there is a difference between trying to overthrow a government and strongly protesting repression and human rights violations. The UBCV first ran into trouble with the government in 1977, when its leaders appealed to government authorities to end various forms of repression against the church and issued a general appeal on human rights. At that time its top leaders were arrested and imprisoned. The UBCV represented no more a political threat to the regime than the Catholic Church, yet suffered a much harsher fate as an organization.
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 4:26 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Re the difference between 'trying to overthrow a government and strongly protesting repression': this was precisely my point. My suggestion was that the state may feel threatened by alternative systems of authority (i.e.. appeals to a 'higher' authority than the state) - even if they do not manifest in open revolt. In the case of UBCV, the fact that it has an overseas branch no doubt increases the perception of threat.
I think it would be interesting to see a comparison of all the differrent religious groups in Vietnam, the extent to which they offer a rejectionist ideology and the degree of sensitivity in relation to the state's nation-building ('Vietnamese first') project. It might throw lighr on the nuances of how the state treats them and the level of public activity they are permitted. My apologies to anyone who may have already done this.
cheers,
Melanie
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From: phuxuan700@gmail.com
Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 7:44 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Chung Nguyen brought up Vo Van Ai and NED money issue several times before but I think that is all irrelevant!
Facts (Bat Nha, Thai Ha incident, etc) show that Hanoi would have treated UBCV the same way whether VVA received NED money or not, whether VVA is UBCV overseas spokesman or not?
To paraphrase a saying from math genius/Fields Medal winner Ngo Bao Chau recently, from the state's perspective, everything should be fine as long as 80-plus million Vietnamese people behave like flocks of sheep.
Calvin Thai
Independent Researcher
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From: <sdenney@library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 11:08 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
>From what I understand, the overseas branches of the Unified Buddhist
Church of Vietnam were not formally established until after Thich Huyen
Quang took the position of Supreme Patriarch of the UBCV, around 1992. But
the UBCV experienced the harshest repression in the late 1970s, when its
top leaders were arrested and imprisoned. I referred to a letter Thich
Huyen Quang wrote to PM Pham Van Dong in 1977, a few months before his
arrest, describing various forms of abuse by local officials against
Buddhists and asking for redress.
After 1992, on the other hand, Thich Huyen Quang issued several statements
strongly denouncing the government's policy toward religions, but while he
was put under house arrest he did not experience the same severity of
repression as before.
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From: Alec Soucy
Date: Wed, May 25, 2011 at 1:39 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
What happened to the pre-Reunification leadership of the Unified Buddhist Church, Thich Tri Quang (the leader of the militant faction) and Thich Thien Minh (who took over the leadership of the moderates after Thich Tam Chau stepped down following the 1966 Buddhist crisis)? It seems like there was an abrupt change, with Thich Quang Do and Thich Huyen Quang taking over, but I haven't run across many references to these new leaders before 1975. Likewise, I haven't read anything about what happened to Thich Tri Quang and Thich Thien Minh. I know that Thich Tam Chau eventually made his way to Montreal, where he still lives.
Thanks,
Alec Soucy
Halifax, Canada
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From: <sdenney@library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Wed, May 25, 2011 at 10:05 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thich Thien Minh died in prison. He was one of the seven UBCV leaders
arrested in 1977. He is also believed to be the author of a statement
issued by the UBCV condemning human rights violations in the country. This
document, along with other documents, were smuggled out of the country by
Thich Man Giac in 1978, and were translated and published into English in
a book by Jim Forest on the UBCV. Thich Quang Do and Thich Tri Quang, also
among those arrested at the time (released in Dec. 1978), were also among
the UBCV pre-reunfication leadership.
Thich Tri Quang was not imprisoned, but my impression is that he lived
under very supervised conditions. Perhaps someone else here would have
more information.
Thich Tam Chau led a rival faction of the Buddhist Church before 1975 that
was more favorable to the RVN.
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From: Chung Nguyen
Date: Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
It's a long and complicated story: the top leadership in the UBCV mostly
all went their different ways depending upon which path they chose. The
Ven. Thich Tri Quang chose meditative silence, concentrating all his
energy in translating Buddhist sutras. Most of them are available on the
net. He's known to have completed his memoir of the Buddhist struggle,
but it remains so far unpublished. There's a very interesting short
introductory text - "Tieu Truyen Tu Ghi" (My Minor Story) published on
Giao Diem journal in 1997. One paragraph in it highlights the exquisite
role General Duong van Minh played at RVN's 25th hour. In mid 2000s I
met him for about an hour at Gia Lam pagoda in HCM city. A most
remarkable personality.
Ven. Thich Thien Minh died in prison right after April 1975. Ven. Thich
Nhat Hanh wrote a most moving poem when he heard the news (if memory
serves me, it's in the poetry collection "Call Me By My True Name").
Both Ven. Quang Do and Huyen Quang were already active in the Buddhist
movement, but before 1975 they assumed secondary role to the top tier of
the leadership. Do Trong Hieu, the southern cadre entrusted with the
task of forming the new government-sponsored Church after 1975,
understood the Buddhist situation in the South intimately. Had Truong
Chinh remained his direct supervisor (as head of the Dan Van Trung Uong
department), things might have turned out completely different!
Unfortunately he moved to another role and Tran Hoan took over. Tran
Hoan, having no understanding of either Buddhism or the state of the
Buddhist sangha in the South, disapproved many of Do Trong Hieu's
approaches, and ordered him using sort of brute force to get the job
done. Do Trong Hieu protested, resigned, was imprisoned after being
stripped of party membership. He wrote a moving 30-page report of the
situation as he saw it. A most remarkable document.
The suppression of the Ven. Huyen Quang and Quang Do's UBCV has to be
seen in the context of this sort of total disconnect in post-unification
Vietnam and the serious security situation in the country, destabilized
by the combined fronts of the U.S.'s policy of revenge and China's
pro-Pol Pot strategy.
That's why, I think, the Ven. Tri Quang chose the course of keeping
silence, and Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh made all efforts to reconcile with the
government. They might not yet succeed, but the road is long and the
future is still open.
One of the best interpretations of the long-running Buddhist struggle in
Vietnam is a recent interview with Cao Huy Thuan on Thoi Dai journal.
You rarely find that kind of interpretation anywhere else.
Chung Nguyen
UMASS Boston
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From: Stephen Denney
Date: Thu, May 26, 2011 at 12:28 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thich Thien Minh died in prison in 1978. As I mentioned before he was among the top seven UBCV leaders arrested in 1977 and 1978.
I don't know what positions Thich Quang Do and Thich Huyen Quang occupied within the UBCV before April 1975, but it is not my impression that they were in secondary roles. The reason they became most prominent afterwards was that they led the protest against the incorporation of the UBCV into a newly created state-sponsored Buddhist church in 1981, which split the UBCV leadership. And they were also involved in the first appeals against religious repression, in 1977.
Thich Nhat Hanh and Sister Chan Khong were the main source of information on the ongoing struggles of the UBCV for about the first 15 years after reunification. The information they provided led to the first open protest from the peace movement against human rights violations in Vietnam, in a letter published as a full page ad in the New York Times, in Dec. 1976.
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From: Chung Nguyen
Date: Thu, May 26, 2011 at 4:45 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
One correction: The name should be Do Trung Hieu (-Do^~ Trung Hie^'u), not Do Trong Hieu.
-Ch.