|
|
T A B L E+T A L K
Does anybody take Pat Buchanan's holy war seriously? Discuss the religious right in Table Talk's Politics discussion area
R E C E N T L Y Burn, baby, burn California Republicans: "Circular firing squad" Russian roulette Justice in Jasper Dumping scandal: The export of bad blood - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Browse the - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
![[ News: Abortion foes win big in California ]](/news/1999/03/src/04newslinks.gif) |
||
|
THE WAR AT HOME | PAGE 1, 2
Yet, having said all this, I must admit that I, who fled Vietnam when the war ended at the age of 11, also have mixed feelings. Of course I believe that Truong has every right to speak his mind. But I cannot help but think that this man, who went out of his way to fax various Vietnamese organizations in Little Saigon about what he was doing, is a kind of narcissistic ass. Although he got what he wanted -- the media limelight, the underdog image -- Truong remains incoherent at best and inane at worst. On TV he lights incense and bows to the Communist flag and the Ho Chi Minh poster, but he betrays no sense of irony over the larger picture -- that he fled to America to gain the right to free speech so that he could eventually bow to the Communist flag of Vietnam. For their part, the protesters are so mired in their anger and lust for revenge that many can only view Vietnamese identities through the myopic ideological lens of pro- or anti-communism. There's no room for discussion. The oppressed have become the oppressors -- yielding the moral high ground to Truong. The truth is that many Vietnamese both in Vietnam and abroad have gone far beyond the old "us" vs. "them" mentality. We are aware of the injustice Vietnamese refugees suffered after the Communist victory, and of the atrocities that followed Vietnam's reunification. But we are also now too individualistic and too circumspect to allow a defunct flag and the fading photograph of a dead man to frame the complex meanings of our lives. A young Vietnamese-American friend of mine from Los Angeles whose sister was killed by Thai pirates while escaping Vietnam recently returned to Saigon, where he is now a thriving entrepreneur. The son of a colonel who spent 14 years in reeducation spent his honeymoon in Vietnam, despite his dislike of the Hanoi regime. Having lost the war, these people have emerged as the victors of the peace. They've learned to remake themselves and go on with their lives, refusing to let the politics of the homeland dictate how they live. Some 60 percent of Vietnam's population today is under 30 years of age -- born long after Ho Chi Minh died. They have no personal memories of the war nor any personal attachment with the bloated body of the long-dead Uncle lying in the mausoleum in Hanoi. Ask them if they are working for a communist paradise and they will probably snicker that they want what you want -- a good job, the freedom to travel, schooling for their kids. They want a VCR, a TV, a computer with access to e-mail and the Internet. And if possible, they want a nice car. The irony is that with the exception of San Jose and Orange County and perhaps Dallas, nowhere in the world would an image of Ho Chi Minh provoke such a potent reaction -- including in Vietnam. On TV I heard a young man protesting outside Truong's store declare to the camera that he "would die for the South Vietnamese flag." I winced. The time to die bravely has passed, I wanted to tell him. Live bravely instead. Spend that same passion to build a memorial for the dead, write a book about your life, tell your children about your past, lobby for Vietnamese rights in America, in Vietnam. And watch how the old picture of the Uncle with his white beard in the
old woman's house in Hanoi is fading with age, waiting to crumble into
dust.
Andrew Lam is an associate editor of Pacific News Service. © 1999 Pacific News Service |
||