The column by
USC professor Viet Thanh Nguyen and others ["A destructive
obsession," June 6] reflects a naiveté typical of many academics
on Vietnamese issues. These scholars are often oblivious to the
oppression in Vietnam or the actual experiences of
Vietnamese-Americans.
Claiming that
the majority of Vietnamese-Americans do not wish to continue the
struggle against the communist regime denies obvious realities. The
world recently witnessed tens of thousands of Vietnamese-Americans
organizing for 53 consecutive days around a video store in Little
Saigon to protest the mere display of the Vietnamese communist flag
and the Ho Chi Minh portrait. Within the last 15 months, legislators
from over 65 jurisdictions across the U.S., including states, counties
and cities, have passed resolutions recognizing the Vietnamese
nationalist flag in defiance of the official U.S. policy of
recognizing only communist Vietnam's red flag. A few vocal
anti-communists in those communities could not have accomplished this
phenomenon.
Some do work,
travel or socialize with the communists, but that reflects our open
and democratic society.
The
anti-communist sentiment is not an obsession about the war 30 years
ago, as alleged in the June 6 column, but a condemnation of continuing
oppression by the communist regime against its own people after the
war ended.
Many
Vietnamese stayed in Vietnam after the war hoping to rebuild their
war-torn country. Instead, they faced a full-scale retaliation against
those who had any association with the previous regime or any suspect
classes, such as religious, intellectual or entrepreneurial
communities. The punishments invariably included torture in
concentration camps, property confiscation, forced labor, denial of
official identification documents, or barred access to employment,
education, health care or legal protection. These policies would
continue in full steam today, except that most of the people affected
have been pushed out of Vietnam, eliminated from influential
positions, rendered harmless to the regime or conditioned to not
question the government.
Yet the tight
grip continues with no less intensity. The Vietnamese government has
routinely sentenced dissidents to years in prison for distributing
information critical of the government on the Internet. Earlier this
month, the government issued another decree requiring all Internet
users to register and present IDs for each use and the service
providers to keep track of Web sites the customers visited and the
information they downloaded. Users and service providers who don't
comply can be fined or jailed.
People openly
associated with any organized religion can be prevented from obtaining
sensitive government employment, access to selective college admission
or promotions in government jobs.
Clearly, the
Vietnamese government's repressive policies hinder the country's
economic development and create numerous other problems. Maintaining a
tight control of the Internet inhibits the use of that technology for
education, health care or economic development. Discriminating against
large segments of its population prevents talented people from
participating in national rebuilding.
Vietnam's
rampant corruption today is not only a social vice but a tool to
ensure loyalty from government officials who may be asked to squelch
any opposition to protect existing governmental power and their own
survival.
The regime
needs to make substantive gestures of reconciliation, but not by
driving through Little Saigon (on the eve of a commemoration of the
fall of Saigon) in an open motorcade with flag displays, police
escorts and a stop to Westminster's Vietnam War Memorial, a monument
that the regime calls "a symbol of continuing hatred by the
fanatics."
The passing
of the communist-free and flag resolutions forces the Vietnamese
communist regime to confront the issue of their own human rights
records everywhere they go and helps the American public better
understand the issues involved.
Here's hoping
the regime, and the scholars who defend it, will see the root of the
problems or the entire forest rather than a few trees.
