[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Books to Vietnam
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 14:16:42 -0700
Subject: Re: Books to Vietnam
This is an interesting subject. It brought me and my feeling to a bunch of
other issues, so I thought I bring it out here, maybe we can discuss
about it.
On one hand, I am all for helping Vietnam, to improve the condition of
the society, and therefore (hopefully!!), the people will benefit from it
(hold on guys, I will share with you my thought on this later, too).
On the other hand, I asked myself "What am I doing?? Helping the communism
gets better. What is the effect of that to the freedom movement in Vietnam?".
I had long and hard arguments with my ex (Caucasian) years ago when Vietnam
just got opened a bit and the West was so excited... The argument was that,
my ex, he felt that "hey, this is just another Communist system. If we can
use the same method like with Russia or the Eastern Europe countries, then
eventually, communisms in Vietnam will automatically dissolved". Agreed,
me, what do I know, and true (partially) that it "might" work, no doubt
about it, education, capitalism, sure does have some effects everywhere.
But at the same time, born and grew up in Vietnam, heard tons and tons
of horror stories of the North pre-1954, I have to carefully evaluate how things
work. In my mind, it will not be "black" and "white" as other big countries
such as Russia. And take the Tienamen Square for example, all kind of ooh aah
and media coverages, and then what... business as usual. And we are talking
about a little Vietnam here, guys... it won't be the same outcome.
When I was younger, I heard that under the Communist system, when it comes
protecting their power, they could kill (careless) a whole generation that can
think/educated and then building it up from the young one. That is scary. In the
past, when they came in, they burned all books and executed people.
All et all, hope that things working out this time, for the people sake..
For whom feels curious, my ex ended up doing it what he thought is right despite
how I felt.
Long and short, hope you gets the drift from my 2cents worth :)
Now I need to go back to work.
Anyone want to share some thoughts??? I am all ears..
Charles
-------------------------------------------------------------------