What is so great about Vietnam? Recent messages from various ex-Kiwis on the MitChong network have shown clearly that while there are many ways to measure the greatness of a country, wealth seems to be the measure of choice for a large number of participants in the debate. In this short essay I will argue that wealth confers greatness to a country only under very restrictive circumstances, and our beloved Vietnam is great because in times past she had forgone wealth for something much greater, and because she has contributed to humankind something more valuable than mere wealth.
PART 1. THE GREATNESS OF NATIONS
Isn’t She Great! Isn’t She One Big Mamma!
Let’s deal with the terminology first.
Greatness is a value-laden term. It evokes respect, admiration, adoration, awe, and quite possibly, a desire to emulate And, as such, it is more qualitative than quantitative and more subjective than it is objective. A person uses this term to reveal his own favorable feelings toward a particular subject, or to elicit these favorable feelings among people who may or may not have any feeling at all toward the subject. Just think of the everyday expressions "Isn’t she great!" or "He’s a great guy". In Vietnamese, "great" is rendered as tuyet-dieu, as in "Binh Ngo Dai Cao la mot tuyet tac," or as vi-dai, as in the well-worn slogan "Chu Tich Ho Chi Minh vi dai song mai trong su nghiep chung ta."
Bigness (or, for that matter, strength, and wealth), on the other hand, is strictly quantitative, and immensely measurable in a more or less objective fashion. Height, weight, land area, population size, total and per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP), size of armed forces, and what-have-you, can do the job of measuring bigness. However, by itself, bigness does not generate respect, admiration, adoration, and awe. At most, it elicits envy, downright fear, or submission (to the big and strong, in order to spare oneself the fate of being crushed or swallowed, literally and figuratively), if it elicits any feelings at all. Just think, "The TV actress Camryn Manheim is one big mama!" "King Fahd of Saudi Arabia is the world’s wealthiest monarch," "India’s population is the second largest in the world," "China has the world’s largest army". Where are the respect, admiration, adoration, awe, and desire to emulate?
Let us, therefore, talk about greatness, not bigness per se. And since economic wealth is the one dimension of bigness that seems to interest ex-Kiwis the most, let’s, first of all, look at the connections between economic wealth and greatness. Let’s then find out when great wealth confers greatness to a country, when it does not, and when greatness exists precisely because wealth is absent or not sought after. And, finally, let’s look at the non-wealth sources of greatness.
Greatness and Economic Wealth
In the eyes of quite a few people, greatness comes from economic wealth, the most popular indicator of which is GDP, aggregate or per capita, and measured in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) dollar or US dollar. Our own Le Dinh Lan would even go so far as to use it to the exclusion of everything else, proclaiming that "it is the only thing". Mai Tran, on the other hand, laments that "the world doesn't seem to rate Greatness with anything else except GNP (and its derivatives)". Not so fast, please! Wealth is not everything. People matter too. At the most elementary level, the truly great are great because they have used their wealth to do great things for their people.
Economists do not talk about the greatness of nations, but about how developed or undeveloped a nation is, and the time when economists were obsessed with GDP, which includes the value of goods and services produced in one year, as the indicator of development is long past. Nowadays they talk about GDP always in tandem with human development, which includes achievements in the most basic human capabilities—leading a long life, being knowledgeable and enjoying a decent standard of living. In addition to the real GDP per capita index, now there is the Human Development Index (HDI). For more detail on this index, please check the United Nations Human Development Report 2000, at http://www.undp.org/hdr2000/english/HDR2000.html
If we want to use development as a surrogate for greatness, let’s look at countries that rank at the very top among the 174 nations of the world in both indices (HDI and real GDP per capita measured in PPP$). The great in 1998 are Canada, Norway, and the United States, which rank among the top 3 in both indices. Also commendable are countries that rank slightly lower than the great in GDP index but their HDI rankings are higher than their GDP rankings. These almost great include the Land Down Under, Iceland, and Le Dinh Lan’s beloved Sweden. The Land of the Long White Clouds also is doing well, at number 20 in HDI, which is 7 places higher than its GDP ranking.
However, we should reserve judgment when it comes to countries that have mixed rankings. A country with high GDP ranking may still be considered a poor performer if its HDI ranking is much lower than its GDP ranking. In this corner we find, for example, the filthy-rich countries of Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. If these names do not invoke in you respect, admiration, adoration, awe, and a desire to emulate, you now know why. Luxembourg doesn’t do a good job either, ranking 1 in GDP index, but 17 in HDI.
On the other hand, we should not be so quick to deride a country that ranks low in both GDP and HDI but has an HDI ranking much higher than the GDP ranking. Such disparity in ranking indicates that the country in question is doing a good job at converting what little income it has into human development. Our Vietnam ranks 108 in HDI out of 174 countries, but this is 24 places higher than its GDP ranking. Even more impressive is Cuba with a 56 ranking in HDI, which is 40 places higher than its GDP ranking.
Greatness and the Sweat of One’s Brow
Whether or not a wealthy country is a great country also depends on how it has come to its wealth. Has it become wealthy because for generations past its people have employed their muscles and brain power to understand and manipulate nature? Have they turned the wilderness into fertile fields and habitable lands? Have they bent water, steam, electrons, sunlight and the wind to their will? Have they created something from nothing, and much more from the same? And in the process, have they become not only wealthier but also smarter? The few countries that rank at the top of the list in both GDP and HDI, such as Canada, Norway, and the US, can confidently say Yes to all these questions. They are the truly great. They have earned their greatness through the sweat of their brow.
Wealth that comes from some fluke of nature, such as vast oil and diamond deposits, does not confer greatness. It confers a sense of entitlement. The people in these wealthy-by-fluke-of-nature countries, such as Brunei, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, are wont to regard this wealth as a fortune to which each is entitled a share, rather than a common working asset to which each has made and will continue to make a contribution. This sense of entitlement leads the rulers to grab the lion’s share of the proceeds from the fluke for themselves. To appease the urban middle class, who also feels entitled to a share of the wealth, they create a cradle-to-grave welfare system. To subjugate the masses, they install a bread-and-circus government that provides special favors in place of services, and entertainment in place of education. The masses end up neither wealthy nor smart. The pride that the people in these countries may have about their wealth is, therefore, sadly misplaced.
One should also be wary and weary of pride misappropriated. A native of the US, Australia, and Sweden, may be feel mightily proud, and justifiably so, of being an American, an Australian, or a Swede. The people that have made his country great are his forefathers. He can claim these achievements as his heritage. But can a Viet-Kieu, especially one who cut his teeth in nuoc mam and spent his formative years learning quoc-ngu and Truyen Kieu in Vietnam, justifiably take pride in these achievements? Would it be seemly for him to flaunt his American name, Australian dollars, Swedish passport, etc., and bask in the glory, real and imagined, that emanates from the achievements of generations past of Americans, Australians, and Swedes? My reading of MitChong exchanges indicates that most of us would answer No to these questions.
A Viet-Kieu in the US, or Australia, or Sweden is, essentially, a long-term houseguest at the home of someone who is both wealthy and smart. The home may be beautiful and comfortable, but it is not his; his forefathers did not build it; he does not own it. He can be no more proud of that home than another guest staying the night in that home. The pride in the place is properly the owner’s, not his.
As long as a Viet-Kieu is the offspring of forefathers who have helped build (or destroy) Vietnam, the pride (or imagined shame) that the name Vietnam invokes goes with him. He is not an American, an Australian, or a Swede, no matter what name he calls himself, what currency he carries, what passport he is issued with. He is Vietnamese, and cannot pretend to be somebody else.
Greatness and the Bloated Bully
The greatness of a people is also shown in what they do with their wealth once they have satisfied their basic needs, which include the needs for food, comfort, security, and freedom from fear. A great country is one that uses its wealth to satisfy the higher needs of its own people, which include the needs for belonging, esteem, knowledge, beauty and self-actualization. Furthermore, it would help other peoples who are less well off to satisfy their basic needs.
A wealthy people is not great, no matter how big their wealth, if they go all-out to devise myriad ways to meet a basic need that has already been satisfied far beyond the point of satiation. (How many pairs of shoes does a person really need?) They are not great if they fabricate new basic "needs". (Which designer shampoo would you recommend for my dogs?) And more importantly, they are not great if they use their wealth (and the attendant military might) to cajole, arm-twist or bludgeon the peoples who are less wealthy than they into unequal arrangements that would allow them to continue on their ways, merry, satiated and obscenely bloated.
Were the European countries great in centuries past, when they enslaved the peoples of Asia and Africa in the undertaking of their so-called mission civilisatrice? Are the Americans great now when they neglect the basic needs of nearly one-quarter of their own people, and bully countries all over the world on issues of the environment and trade protection?
The Shame of Ill-gotten Wealth and the Greatness of Hard-won Independence
Wealth gotten in exchange for independence is not a mark of greatness. In an individual, it is a mark of immaturity. In a people, it is mark of shame. Such wealth is neither universal nor long lasting.
A youth on his way to adulthood and a people in its struggle for independence face a similar choice: gratify the basic needs and desires now, or defer gratification in order to acquire the capacity to gratify all needs and desires at a later date. Each option carries its own rewards and risks, but the rewards of instant gratification are puny and fleeting while the risks permanent and fatal.
A person who wants to have fancy clothes, flashy cars and the fun of female companionship during his formative years would cut back on his academic and professional training. Very likely, he would get a job that does not require much training, but does not provide much income and opportunity for professional growth either. Worse, that youth may forgo the training altogether to get any kind of income, legal or illegal. In all likelihood, he would end up as a jobless adult, heavily dependent on material support from the state and charities, and with little control over what life may bring him.
A people that wants to enjoy plentiful food, good housing, beautiful clothing, and all the creature comforts, while they are confronting a foreign power bent on subjugating them, would shy away from the challenges and sacrifices of armed resistance. And these are many and all too real: wearing rags, living in caves and jungles, enduring hunger and thirst, diseases and sickness, facing imprisonment and death. Such people would yield to the will of the foreign power.
In exchange for the compliance, the foreign power would institute and sustain a political and economic system that gives the ruling oligarchy the good life, that is, plentiful food, good housing, beautiful clothing, and all the creature comforts. It would accord the ruling oligarchy all the pomp and circumstance, all the rites and rituals of office that would help create the image of a sovereign state. It would also give the urban middle class a taste of the good life to keep them quiet and complacent. The masses of this country would get little or nothing, in the short run as well as in the long run. Witness the state of affairs in Vietnam under Bao Dai and Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen Van Thieu.
The people of the subservient country, however, would have little control over the political and economic development of their country: Who will govern? Whom to befriend? Whom to oppose? Where to develop? What to produce? What if they want to be a political and economic power themselves? These issues are determined by the foreign power, overtly if need be and always in its own interests. What the foreign power gives, it can take away. Thus, seeking instant gratification of basic needs and desires, the people of this country have short-changed themselves. They end up not in wealth but in servitude.
The greatness of a people is, therefore, reflected in the way they answer the question: Are we willing and capable of disregarding our material needs now, and for generations to come if need be, in order to attain other values, which we regard as vastly more important? Among those values are independence, self-determination, national identity--to name just a few from our primary-school civics lessons. A puny people would say No, or not even think of raising this question in the first place. A great people would say Yes to this fundamental question. The Vietnamese have said Yes, to the face of the Chinese time and again, to the French (1945-54) and the Americans (1965-75). They, therefore, are a truly great people.
In the course of our struggles for independence, self-determination, national identity, we had to forgo material wealth for each one of us, and for the country as a whole. But these struggles implied neither a repudiation of wealth, nor a denunciation of the political, economic, and cultural institutions that have made our antagonists, be they Chinese, French, or American, such powerful and formidable opponents on the battlefields as well as at the conference table. We fought precisely because we want to create wealth and build these institutions on own terms and to serve our own interests. We just want to be masters of our own houses, which we will build with the best materials we will have assembled from diverse sources, including the cultures and civilizations of those who want to lord it over us.
This simple yet powerful truth has eluded a number of people. It has eluded US President Lyndon Johnson who wanted to buy off the Vietnamese resolve with a multi-billion dollar Mekong River Basin development aid package. (What was this guy thinking?) It has eluded the US reporters in post-doi moi Vietnam who marveled at the sight of giant billboards carrying the logos of Ford, IBM, and Coca-Cola, and exclaimed, "Look who really won the Vietnam War!" It has also eluded the Viet-Kieu who wonders whether the arrival of US companies on our shores signals willingness on the part of the Vietnamese government and people to be servants to the American masters. These people just don’t get it!
True, we also have our share of not-so-great leaders who were all too willing to trade national independence and self-determination for hollow titles (king, emperor, quoc-truong, tong-thong…) and material benefits for themselves, their extended families and their camp-followers. But the lasting truth is, throughout our history, the Vietnamese have always hold these leaders not in awe but in contempt, and always heeded the call to join the struggle for the higher values. How much respect do you have for Le Chieu Thong, Thanh Thai, Dong Khanh, Khai Dinh and Bao Dai?
A note on the creation of wealth in post-war Vietnam is in order. Anyone who is impressed by the remarkable economic recovery and growth of Germany and Japan after WWII, and of Dai-Han following the Korea Conflict is bound to feel disappointed at the extremely slow improvement of the Vietnamese economy. Twenty-five years of independence just went by and nothing to show for it! Such disappointment is justified, but one should not just put all the blame squarely on a Vietnamese economic management system that is at the same time amateurish, doctrinaire and corruptible. Germany got the Marshall Plan. Japan benefited from the Korean Conflict. Dai-Han received infusion after infusion of capital from Japan and stood to benefit a great deal from the Vietnam War. What did Vietnam get? We got a punitive embargo imposed by a US Government that wanted to play the China card no matter what principle it might sacrifice, and to exact revenge on an adversary it could not vanquish on the battlefield. The embargo cut us off from the much-needed capital infusion. More importantly, it deprived the Vietnamese political leaders and economic managers of fresh ideas on how to build a nation. As a result, they had to make do with what they got in their bags: obsolete Marxist-Leninist slogans and incantations, which they promptly put to use as economic and managerial principles.
Now, looking beyond economic wealth, a Viet-Kieu may be tempted to conclude that the Vietnamese have contributed nothing of importance to the world in the realm of ideas, from fine arts to philosophy, from literature to the humanities. As proof, he would say, we have no Nobel laureates (the Peace Prize for Le Duc Tho does not count), no winners of the Goncourt, Booker, Pulitzer prizes, etc. Not a thing! We are, therefore, a nothing country! Well, not quite! In the first place, the contributions of Western Europe and North America to humankind in the realm of ideas, while great, are not that great. Furthermore, what the Vietnamese have given to humankind is great beyond any award.
Non-Economic Wealth and the Banality of Cultural Greatness
Let’s do some debunking first. If the contributions of Western Europe and North America to humankind in the realm of ideas are deemed great, it is mainly because Western Europe and North America have been able to define what is great in culture and what is not. From being able to define greatness to claiming greatness for oneself is but one small step.
Cultural greatness comes from without. Whether the contribution from any country, ethnic group, or person, is perceived as great does not depend on the intrinsic value of the contribution alone (however intrinsic value is defined). It depends also on how many people have been exposed to that contribution and whether in the course of the exposure these people have been convinced that the contribution in question is great. Throughout the history of the world, it is the victorious and the dominant who carry out all this exposing and convincing and in the process, define what is great and what is not in culture
The colonial era is illustrative. To lend an aura of legitimacy to the claim that the colonial conquest was really a mission civilisatrice, the imperial powers of the past glorified their own culture and proclaimed its superiority over the cultures of the peoples they had conquered. To ensure the natives’ acquiescence, which would help perpetuate colonial rule, they pursued a two-pronged course of action. On the one hand, they disparaged or even destroyed outright, the natives’ cultural heritage. On the other, they propagated their own cultural achievements and artifacts, extolled the virtue of these achievements and artifacts, and drilled the perception of their greatness into the consciousness of the natives. When the natives became convinced of the cultural superiority of their masters, colonial rule was assured, because nothing guaranteed submission more effectively than the feeling of one’s own inferiority.
Thus, Imperial Britain supplanted the literary achievements of India with the works of Shakespeare, Shelley, Tennyson, Thackeray, etc., and generation after generation of Indians grew up convinced that their people have made no contribution of significance to humankind in the realm of ideas. Thus, Imperial China destroyed the cultural achievements of Vietnam, and generation after generation of Vietnamese grew up convinced that Tu Thu and Ngu Kinh represented the pinnacle of the human intellect. A few centuries later, Imperial France supplanted China and propagated the works of Moliere, Racine, Voltaire, Beaudelaire, etc. A new Vietnamese intelligentsia grew up enamored with the new ideas and modes of expression. As colonial rule progressed, the grandiloquent poetry of Nguyen Cong Tru, the expansive lyrics of Cao Ba Quat, and a whole tradition of melodramatic war literature (embodied in such works as Binh Ngo Dai Cao, Hich Tuong Si, Van Te Tran Vong Tuong Si, Van Te Nghia Si Can Giuoc) gradually became a fading or forbidden memory.
(One shudders at the thought that had the Allies not defeated the Axis in World War II, the Europeans would now have to study Hitler’s ranting and raving--aka Mein Kampf--and praise it to heaven as great political philosophy. And in the East, the peoples in Japan’s so-called East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere would all be taught to believe that The Tale of Genji was the greatest work of literature known to man and the haiku the greatest form of human literary expression. )
Nowadays, the victorious and the dominant peoples do not occupy other countries and enslave other peoples. However, as they own massive amounts of capital and can move them globally at will, they have been able to control the way other peoples live, work, and govern themselves. And while they do not deliberately set out to destroy other cultures, their culture overwhelms the other cultures it comes into contact with. This comes about largely because the mass media under the control of the victorious and dominant peoples produce and propagate sounds, images, and printed words that are more massive in volume, more persistent in frequency, more attractive in appearance, and more persuasive—thanks no doubt to decades of experience in manipulative advertising—than those found in the other cultures.
The indigenous culture that comes into contact with the dominant culture survives only to the extent that it can generate sounds, images, and printed words that, while indigenous and perhaps different, are recognized and eventually co-opted by the dominant culture. This is the way the victorious and the dominant peoples continue to define what is great and what is not in culture. The co-optation process used to be blatant, as in the case of Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian to ever win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore was awarded the prize in 1913, the citation reads, "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West." Of late, the co-optation process has become subtle. Nigeria’s Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986 because he, "in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence," while Egypt’s Naguib Mahfouz won the prize in 1988 because he "has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind."
Cultural greatness thus becomes a matter of recognition by the victorious and dominant culture. Unless a contribution is known to, and deemed great by, the victorious and dominant culture, it will languish in obscurity and even perish, no matter how significant its intrinsic value.
For someone from a non-victorious non-dominant culture, such as the Vietnamese culture, this realization is both encouraging and sobering. Encouraging because it raises the possibility that notwithstanding his own doubts, his culture might have contributed something great to humankind, and all it needs is recognition by the victorious and dominant culture. Sobering because it indicates that greatness does not just happen, but is the result of a deliberate and manipulative undertaking (to gain recognition) for which his people may not have the sense of purpose, experience and resources to carry out successfully.
A people desirous of the claim of greatness for their own culture will have to ask themselves: Do we really want greatness of this type this badly? If the answer is still Yes, then do we have the resources and experiences to present our cultural achievements in languages and formats that are intelligible and accessible to the victorious and dominant culture? (Is it any wonder that Pramoedya Ananta Toer of Indonesia became a serious contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature after his The Buru Quartet had been translated into English?) Secondly, do we have the resources and experiences to market the cultural achievements that we consider most significant rather than the specimens that appeal to the most immediate needs and tastes of the victorious and dominant culture? (Is it any wonder that Bao Ninh’s and Duong Thu Huong’s works, which portray Vietnam in a most unfavorable light, got such a favorable reception from an American public still embittered by the Vietnam debacle and still in search of some morale-boosting schadenfreude?) And finally, do we have what it takes to beg, lie, steal and otherwise network our way into private, non-profit, and international organizations that preside over the recognition and co-optation of cultural achievements from non-victorious non-dominant cultures? (How do you think we received the World Heritage accolades for the ancient town of Hoi-An and the complex of monuments in Hue from the United Nations? Do you still think connections play no role in the awarding of literary honors?)
Knowing that cultural greatness can be so banal, do we still want it? To not seek greatness of this type may turn out to be a measure of true greatness.
Christmas Day 2000 Nguyen Quoc Lap
Washington, DC, USA
Coming soon
PART 2. VIETNAM’S GIFT TO HUMANKIND
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