Ann and I recently returned from two weeks in Vietnam and another week visiting the Angkor kingdom of Cambodia and R&R in Bangkok. But it is of Vietnam that I write. I keep a daily log on such trips, and what I wrote on February 2nd, upon leaving Vietnam, still seems apt:
One is impressed by the
sheer energy of this society. By necessity and ambition, this is an
entrepreneurial culture -- communism be damned. Tremendous loyalty to and
concern for family -- ancestors, current members and successors.
Education a topmost value. People are open except in the presence of
officialdom; officials are assumed to be corrupt and venal. A conservative
society (no tattoos, no gay relationships acknowledged,) one that despite
science and learning, still hedges its bets with superstition, ritual, and
belief in luck, still buying lottery tickets and praying for good fortune from
heroes, the Buddha, various Bodhisattvas, and ancestors -- and good fortune here means money. Friend Tuyen says "it is a hard life but a happy one."
Independence: everywhere
one is confronted with national heroes -- deified in temples, celebrated in
memorials and marshal statues, famed for driving out conquerors and occupiers:
the Chinese, the Khmer, the French, the Americans. Even a would-be but
intercepted assassin of Sect. McNamara has a large memorial in Saigon.
Uncle Ho is
ever-present, but more benign and patriarchal than heroic. The "American
War" is memorialized in every city, town and hamlet; captured American
equipment and armaments on display at army bases and war museums; photos
of atrocities and agent orange reminders; former CIA HQs proudly noted and
memorialized. Their "end-zone dance" of independence.
Viet Nam looks pretty
raw as a society still sorting out what freedom means. It's just shy of forty
years since they won their freedom, having fought 29 years to achieve it after
declaring independence in 1946. Ours took but seven years, from 1776 to '83;
how must we have looked to Great Britain at forty, in 1823?
How do we look today, from
here in Saigon, with "The American War" confronting us at every turn?
John McCain, in a BBC debate from Davos last week, castigated the
administration for not going into Syria two years ago, citing the several
thousand lives that have been lost since as though our presence would have
saved them. (Three million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans lost their
lives during our and France's "presence.") Bob Gates blames
Obama for not trusting his generals (as Johnson and Nixon trusted Harkins and
Westmorland?) and attacks Biden for voting against Iraq and spreading doubt about
Petraeus and the Spartan McCristal. But from here, in the face of all the
hubris and futility, Biden appears more right than ever.
What lessons does Fletch
take away from Vietnam?
* Work at family.
* Work for peace.
* Be skeptical of
governments.
* Ignore
political-economic labels (communism, capitalism, socialism, market economy)
and adopt Deng's precept: "Black cat, white cat -- what difference does it
make so long as it catches mice?"
* But do not ignore
constraints on an individual's civil rights.
* Hold onto good values, think right thoughts, have good intentions, act right,
* and eat good food.
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| The timeless rhythm of rice |
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| Ann explores VC tunnels in Cu Chi |
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| Doing business on the Mekong |
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| Yellow mums for Tet |
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| Uncle Ho -- the "poet" |
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| Marble Mtn. grotto |
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| The Empire of the Motorbike |
Well, bro, this is the war that shaped my generation and about which I can hardly think without tears. Such a terrible time as we watched those who refused to learn from history send young men into an unwinable war. And still they refuse to learn; that Senator McCain still doesn't "get it" shows the futility of expecting growth from those captured by conventional spheres of power thinking or national exceptionalism, despite the real personal cost and suffering he endured as a POW. The power of the human spirit to pursue individual self-determination is writ large all over your musings, and something we who marched and prayed and protested understood. I so regret that so many of us stayed home in 1968, assuring Nixon's victory and 6 more years of unspeakable waste. I cannot help but believe Humphrey would have led us to an end sooner. Perhaps 2010 and the do nothing Congress has taught another lesson in the costs of staying home. I pray 2014 will be different. As we see Iraq explode again, and continued upheavals in the former SSRs, as well as certainty that Afghanistan is headed for more disintegration, I am tired.
ReplyDeleteI hope you will write soon about Ankor. At least in the beautiful stones, preserved by dedicated human beings, there is expression of better natures of human kind.