"It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me" (Ho Chi Minh)
Sometime in 2004 Vaughan and I watched a fasinating documentary called The Fog of War, about the life of Robert McNamara, US Secretary of Defence from 1961 to 1968. In this film -which won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature- McNamara relates the lessons he learned from his role in US foreign policy, most notably about the Vietnam War. Little did I know that we would be visiting Vietnam only a few years later, but his words stuck by me and provided some very valuable insights into the conflict. As most of my knowledge of the Vietnam War is heavily influenced by American movies like 'Platoon' and 'Apocalypse Now', I always saw the division between North and South to be one of pro-communist versus anti-communist ideals. South Vietnam and its Western allies indeed portrayed the conflict as a necessary action to deter the expansion of Soviet-based control throughout Southeast Asia. In other words, they were afraid of the so-called 'domino-effect' and were basically protecting their interests. But after reading up more on the subject and talking to Vietnamese people it's apparent that the North Vietnamese government and its Southern allies viewed the war not as a fight for communism, but as a struggle for national independence. Their goal was to reunite the country and to repel the foreign aggressor — a continuation of their earlier war for independence against the French.
McNamara realised afterwards that the Americans completely misread the situation: "We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience … We totally misjudged the political forces within the country and underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values." The US intervention ended up causing the deaths of 58 000 American soldiers and about 3 million Vietnamese people, and could not prevent the establishment of the independent Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1975. Amazingly though, most Vietnamese harbor no resentment at all toward the Americans, or any other foreign invader for that matter (the French, Chinese and Cambodians all tried to get their hands on the country). Our guide to the Mekong Delta, Hai, explained that after a century of war, all regular Vietnamese people want is peace and enough money to live a decent life. In his opinion rehashing the past is pointless, because the whole nation is eager to move forward towards a better future. If only other nations would share this attitude!
On a trip to the De-Militarised Zone (DMZ) we visited the Vinh Moc Tunnels, where an entire village of 400 people took shelter from US bombs. The dark and damp tunnels made me feel claustrophobic after only 20 min, but these people were forced to live underground for 5 years...
The Ben Hai River at the 17th parallel, a natural division between North and South Vietnam from 1954 untill 1975.
Museum at Khe San Combat Base, where a famous battle between the US army and the Vietcong took place in 1968 .
Remnants of heavy US artillery
Khe San's visitor's book
1 comment:
Like all such conflicts the participants bring very much there own perceptions - cultural & otherwise - to it & so the field is very much concealed by the 'fog of war'. In many ways Vietnam is fascinating because although history is written by the winner here the winner is less powerful so thus there is still competition over the 'reality'. As you know for many Americans still the US didn't lose the war.
Another reason why most Vietnamese just want to get on is that historically they have the pride of having won & also over 60% of today's population of Vietnam have been born post war. For them it's probably as relevant as WW2 is for you.
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