[HN Gopher] Shame and Revolution: Vietnam's potent and storied a...
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Shame and Revolution: Vietnam's potent and storied anticolonialism
Author : infinate
Score : 34 points
Date : 2025-04-14 19:14 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (aeon.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (aeon.co)
| gedy wrote:
| I enjoyed the read but it stopped short, and I think people in
| the west too readily latch on to the "anti-colonialism" part of
| the 30+ year Vietnam war.
|
| Certainly fighting the French was motivated by this, however the
| last 20 years of the war it was more a civil war between the
| communists and not-communists, a North vs South civil war, and
| proxy fight backed by both the USSR and the west.
|
| I don't have references handy but it's interesting to read the
| experiences and feelings of the Viet Minh in South Vietnam, and
| how they were sidelined once the North took over. Also Vietnam
| invading Cambodia soon after points out that fighting colonialism
| was not a prime motivation of the northern leadership.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| Vietnam invaded Cambodia to remove the Khmer Rouge from power
| (who were not only massacring their own population, but also
| attacking the Vietnamese border areas). How does that prove
| that the Vietnamese war against the Americans was not anti-
| colonial?
| gedy wrote:
| They occupied Cambodia for 11 years, so it's a stretch to say
| they were adamantly against the idea of foreign interference.
| Khmer Rouge were nasty to their own civilians, but so were
| the Viet Cong, especially early on in the conflict and to the
| south after the war.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| My read is that started as anti colonialism against the French
| but then the big powers took sides so the Vietnamese started
| fighting each other.
|
| The sad thing is that a lot of problems could have been avoided
| if the Americans in the 50s wouldn't have been so scared of any
| kind of communism or socialism. They messed up Iran, they drove
| Egypt into the arms of the Soviets, and they may have even had
| friendlier relationships with Fidel Castro.
| rsoto2 wrote:
| Yeah the Cambodian-Vietnamese war wasn't colonialism.
|
| " In the first major clash between the two former allies, the
| Kampuchean Revolutionary Army (KRA) invaded the Vietnamese
| island of Phu Quoc on 1 May 1975 (barely 24 hours after Saigon
| fell), claiming it was historically part of Kampuchea's
| territory.[17]
|
| Nine days later, on 10 May 1975, the KRA continued its
| incursion by capturing the Tho Chu Islands, where it executed
| 500 Vietnamese civilians. "
| gedy wrote:
| They occupied Cambodia for 11 years though.
| ViktorRay wrote:
| Imagine if South Vietnam had remained independent. If it had
| become a thriving prosperous free democracy like South Korea or
| Taiwan.
|
| Would we still be talking about "Vietnam's storied anti
| colonialism" today?
|
| How often do we talk about Korean anti colonialism or Chinese
| anti colonialism nowadays? Not much. When people talk about Korea
| and China nowadays it is in the context of the differences
| between North and South Korea and the differences between
| mainland China and the free democratic Chinese[1] island that is
| Taiwan.
|
| When I look back at the American counterculture movement and how
| triumphant those people were that the Vietnam War was over...and
| then you read about the end of South Vietnam....the fall of
| Saigon... and then you look at where South Korea and Taiwan are
| today....you can't help but wonder...
|
| And many of these stories of Vietnam are paternalistic. They deny
| the agency of the South Vietnamese.
|
| [1] By this I mean Taiwan is Chinese in terms of culture.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| > How often do we talk about Korean anti colonialism or Chinese
| anti colonialism nowadays? Not much.
|
| Americans don't talk much about Chinese anti-colonialism
| nowadays, but people in other parts of the world (particularly
| in China and Africa) do.
| pvg wrote:
| _How often do we talk about Korean anti colonialism or Chinese
| anti colonialism nowadays?_
|
| These are central to the recent histories of both countries and
| a big part of their own national mythologies. Comes up directly
| and indirectly all the time.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| > magine if South Vietnam had remained independent. If it had
| become a thriving prosperous free democracy
|
| That's not obvious. For starters South Korea was a brutal and
| oppressive dictatorship during and after the war (not that much
| better than NK). It only became a democracy about the same time
| (coincidentally) as the USSR began collapsing. Same as Taiwan
| for that matter...
|
| Also it's a sample of one.. there are plenty of other countries
| where the US intervened that ended up not doing very well.
|
| > you can't help but wonder
|
| About what? Waging the war indefinitely or direct invasion of
| North Vietnam? Because there weren't really that many other
| options..
| ViktorRay wrote:
| It's not just a sample of one. You are forgetting about the
| Marshall Plan. About West and East Germany. About when the
| Berlin Wall came down.
|
| There's no reason South Vietnam couldn't have become like
| South Korea or Taiwan one day. We are all human beings and
| deep down aren't we all alike and want the same things?
|
| https://youtu.be/5F_aHt34a-g
| rayiner wrote:
| > That's not obvious. For starters South Korea was a brutal
| and oppressive dictatorship during and after the war (not
| that much better than NK).
|
| So what? So were most European countries before they became
| democracies. Name a successful democracy that didn't go
| through such a phase to consolidate the state?
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