Eternal Vietnam, Cont'd.

Add another entry to the list of things "Vietnam" is to the American left (as represented by "The Nation"). Now it's also the fallen idol of an ageing Boomer "activist" and a rebuke to all the youthful folly he clung to till much too late in life:

The question is whether the future, aside from the obvious advantages of peace, will be worth the sacrifices of the past. Is the period of anticolonial revolution--which Vietnam symbolized and so dominated our thinking in the '60s and beyond--becoming an obsolete memory in the era of globalization? Has the promise of those inspiring revolutions faded with the decline of naked colonialism and the emergence of so many corrupt authoritarianisms in the Third World? Or are the supposedly scientific models of history long embraced by the left being replaced with a kind of chaos theory of unpredictability? Is this all that was ever possible?

And here, adopting the point of view of a older Vietnamese man of the war generation:

Look carefully now at the peace we have, painful, bitter, and sad. And look who won the war. To win, martyrs had sacrificed their lives in order that others might survive. Not a new phenomenon, true. But those still living to know that the kindest, most worthy people have all fallen away, or even been tortured, humiliated before being killed, or buried and wiped away by the machinery of war, then this beautiful landscape of calm and peace is an appalling paradox.

Isn't there some sort of "imperialism" in speaking from inside the head of the "other" that way? Especially when what you make him say reflects so much what you wish to be true?

So add "big disappointment" to the list that includes communist tyranny coddled by vicious American business interests; yet at the same time peaceful, happy, prosperous land that is an argument against the Iraq War; victim of dastardly American policies that were an argument against intervention in Kosovo; and proud high water mark of "that great antiwar movement by tens of millions of Americans."

"Vietnam" has been many things over the years to "The Nation." Always those things seem to have more to do with the attitude of "The Nation's" writers toward some contemporary American problem -- or toward themselves -- than with a country in Southeast Asia.

Eternal Vietnam

The Communist Party maintains strict one-party rule in Vietnam. It prohibits political opposition, owns and operates the domestic media, and tightly controls most aspects of the country's civic life. It deals swiftly and harshly with its critics, who have been rare since the North forcibly reunited the country in 1975. Those who have dissented tended to be lone intellectuals who published secret newsletters for tiny audiences, or artists who cloaked their critiques in layers of symbolism. To criticize the government openly was to sign up for a life of isolation and prison, a path few chose.

It is perhaps surprising to meet such a passage in "The Nation", the "Reader's Digest" of the American left. What's even more surprising is to see the article call for a more active official American opposition to the communist rule in Vietnam.

Or not. "Vietnam" has been many things over the years to "The Nation." Always those things seem to have more to do with the attitude of "The Nation's" writers toward some contemporary American problem than with a country in Southeast Asia.

For instance, peaceful, happy, prosperous, modern Vietnam was an argument against the Iraq War. And dastardly American policies during the Vietnam War were an argument against intervention in Kosovo. But wait! Opposition to the Vietnam War (and to the communist party that now rules there) was a proud high water mark of "that great antiwar movement by tens of millions of Americans."