From: becherer@suna0.cs.uiuc.edu (Max Becherer)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Subject: Response to Mai Re/Normalization
Date: 30 Sep 92 13:33:47 GMT
Organization: Saigon.COM PubAccess UNIX(tm), Sillicon Valley CA  (408)739-1520


     Van Dao Mai writes...I Respond!

>I sincerely hope that the aftermath of Western democracies will not be
>horrible as the vision that the doomers have been painting since the 
>forties. I will not blame North Americans for the somewhat short-sighted
>views they have about Vietnam. Do not take me wrong that I support the
>regime over there! I know the old regime so well to hate them, but I do
>not think the younger generation will be that bad especially the Russian
>masters have gone out of bussiness.

     If you really hated the "old regime" as much as a Vietnamese should,
you would not have been so supportive of them in your last article.  As for
your misguided faith in the so-called "younger generation" of Communist 
leaders, who are these people ?  The slightly-less-old men who are taking 
power now ?  If so, the human rights situation in Vietnam is worsening, not
improving.  The only POSSIBLE hope for reform-minded Communist leadership
(and its a very, very, long shot), is after every leader over 60 has died and
been replaced, and most of their hand-picked replacements are gone too.  Then 
PERHAPS there would be enough reformers in Hanoi to affect genuine change.  
That could 20 years.  VIETNAM CANNOT AFFORD TWENTY MORE YEARS OF BRUTAL AND
INCOMPETANT COMMUNIST RULE !!!!  To make matters worse, there is no certainty
that there would be enough reformers in the government after 20 years to put
Vietnam on the right track.  And even if there are, the damage the Communists
will have done to VN will be so vast that the road to recovery will be VERY
long and VERY painful.  Not that they haven't already done a great job of
ruining Vietnem.
     You are asking the Vietnamese people to sacrifice years of their lives 
for the possibility that the VC will eventually reform.  Even if it was 
guaranteed that the VC would reform after 20 years, it would not be worth it.
Especially not when there is a simpler solution: throw the bastards out now.

>What Vietnam has to do is to learn what the old cultures in the West to
>offer. I repeat OLD, OLD, OLD .... Not the new ones such as modern American
>culture or British or French, etc ... As the old chinese say, you do not
ask your teacher to teach you. You ask him to show you the road. You then
>decide whether you should follow the road. Vietnam should not let the
>West shove their mercy down her throat. 

     You are right, modern American culture has little of value to offer the
world.  What I don't like, and you did it again in the last paragraph, is the
way you believe that democracy is inherantly bad, and suggest that democracy 
is somehow the root cause of the problems with modern Western culture. Let me 
ask you, since you don't like democracy, what kind of government would you 
like to see take power ?  For all its problems, democracy is BY FAR the best
form of government known to man. Do you have some idea for a totally new type
of government which is perfect in every way ?  If so, I hope you will share 
your ideas with us, perhaps someone will nominate you for the Nobel Prize!

>I am lucky to be an Australian. I am proud to say this now because I see
>this new home land of mine is benevolent. I cried when I learnt that the
>Italian POWs shipped to Australia are so grateful to this land. One told
>his story that when he got off the ship which was hell on Earth. He 
>struggled to stay on his feet. As his line of POWs walked into the 
>reception planned for them, he was so surprised that there was a long 
>table with beautiful ladies waiting there and tea, coffee and biscuits.
>One lady asked him "Would you like tea or coffee?" The lady handed him
>a cup of tea and a peice of chocolate. The poor man broke down and cried
>at her feet. Perhaps this was the land of the sufferers (the convicts)
>that they know how to be human. I am hurt to see that young Australian
>people have been corrupted by Holly Wood and American violence. I now
>hear young Vietnamese girls growing up in this country speaking
>English with a naturally sweet tonge. There is no sign of cynical
>mentality and prejudices of older generations.  

       STOP!! Quick reality check!  In your last article, and the beginning
of this one, you slammed democracy.  What kind of government, may I ask, 
does Australia have ?   Could it be an evil, corrupt, Western democracy ?

>The media here in Australian is simply EXECLLENT. We have national
>television the ABC and SBS (Special Broadcasting Service). These two
>services brings the closest to reality pictures to Australians and
neighbouring regions. They are the first to confirm to Australians
>that the Khemer Rouge was genocidal after 12 years of Western media
>deceptions. As Australia and Vietnam are working intensively together
>to rebuild Vietnam, Americans have not realised that the relationship
>has been developing for about 7 years. Vietnam has adopted Australian
>telecommunication standards (arguably the best in the world). You
>guys will have to be in Australia to see that the USA is breaking up
>Australian homes (together with the European of course!). The farmers
>aer selling off. Their children are committing suidcide. You have
>to know that trade has no mercy! It simply breaks human heart. 
>There was an old buhhdist saying "Poverty makes devils. Prosperity
>makes saints". Vietnam as the whole has learnt all the illnesses
>of teh masters (Chinese, French, American and Russian). Now it is
>the time to learn the good of the rest of the world to blend with 
>her own. Once the country becomes more economically prosperous then
>the political scene will change.

     I don't see what relevance this point has to Vietnam.  With a good
democratic government, I am confident that Vietnam can do much better than
the United States.  America is not s good example for emerging democtrcies;
perhaps Australia is a better one.

>I had a meeting with a Dannish high commissioner to Vietnam who
>headed a UN delegation "Aid to Vietnam" about 3 years ago. He gave
>me a short but reassuring comment. He said "I have been to many places,
>Arab countries, Africa, etc ... Vietnam is different! It is a land of
>intellectuals. I have no doubt that she will rise". I personally 
>know many who are technically more intelligent than I am)*. They simply
>do not have the chance like what the overseas Vietnamese have. I have
>hope that Vietnam will be the land where poetry and steel will
>combine to build a civilisation tougher than steel. 

     * Yes, I also know many people who are more intelligent than you.

>As real warriors who walk the high way of life, thy shall not entertain
>hatred and revenge. There are different people. Some talk but do not
>act. Some act but do not think. Some act with careful deliberation.
>This is the time of true guts and good will. With all the imminent
>ecological/environmental problems, trade wars, regional conflicts, 
>etc ... it is real courage that counts. Many of you may find that it
>is silly of us (the Australians) to attempt to build optics factories
>in Vietnam and Africa to help curbing eyes diseases. Fred Hollow
>(a great Australian bush wacker doctor) is building portable factories
>to be shipped to Vietnam in 1994. I say "Bless Fred, bless Australia".
>I see that the Germans have financed a children hospital to help the
>suffering malformed children who were the innocent victims of the
>American orange agent. Perhaps this is part of their bussiness plan, 
>but I can see that the children get some benifit. If these children
>do not hate America, why do Americans hate their country? 

      Americans (decent ones, at least) do not hate Vietnam.  If the 
United States normalizes relations with Vietnam, IT WILL NOT HELP THE PEOPLE!
The communists will squander and plunder any aid the United Ststes gave to
Vietnam. Sure, some crumbs would probably trickle down to the people, but are
those crumbs worth the propping up of the illegitimate regime in Hanoi which 
has caused the Vietnamese people so much grief over the years ?  I think not.

>The wind of change is on the air. The communists will die out to give
>way to nationalism. Nationalism sounds BAD as it is the flag of Nazi
>Germany and many other totalitarian regimes. However to see the true
>reality of nature, one must go back to common sense. Can one build
>a stable structure with  crumbling building blocks? Of course the
>answer is NO. A nation must be strong before it can participate in
>world democracy.** To be strong it has to avoid disunity. This implies
>discipline (like the Japanese) and hard working (like the south Korean).
>However the Vietnamese has to learn how to be humane as well. Shall I 
>say "like the old Australian"?. Some people out there still have hatred,
>revenge and ill feeelings for Vietnam as a nation, soon they will 
>surely be the insignificant echoes of the past. As you sit in your 
>comfortable lounge and drink your coffee today, please remember that 
>there are people just as nice as you are out there. They have nothing 
>but malaria, empty stomach, memories of lost ones, etc ... They also 
>ask themselves why the foreign powers do not have mercy on them 
>despite the fact that they do not hate these powers.***

   ** In other words, you want a transitional dictatorship to smooth the was
to Democracy.  That is one of the cornerstones of Marxism, the Dictatorship 
of the Prolitariate.  Both you and Marx did fail to realize one extremely 
important fact: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There
is NEVER a justifiable reason to have a dictatorship.

  *** The real onus of blame for Vietnam's suffering falls on the laps of the
VC.  They are the ones who drove Vietnam to the wreched state it is in now.
The war is no excuse, either.  Whatever happened to the BILLIONS of dollars
of economic aid the Soviet Union poured into Vietnam ? The Russians could have
done better to burn the money; at least it would have kept them warm in the
winter.

>For those in Australia, please watch the documentary comming soon
>on Australian SBS (this Friday?). It will tell you more about the
>people in Vietnam and how desperate they are in waiting for the
>USA to lift the embargo. This is really an insult to injury. I can see
>a clear path to a friendship between Australia and Vietnam. Australia
>is getting herself totally integrated into the ASEAN region.

     As I said earlier, lifting the embargo would do little to help the 
Vietnamese people.  The real winners would be the Communists.

>Gee, I am glad that I am Australian!
     ^  For some reason, this sounds silly comming from you.

>Van Dao Mai
>Wollongong Australia



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                 Max Becherer    becherer@cs.uiuc.edu

       Nothing Evil lasts forever -- the Future belongs to the Free.