Foreign scholars highlight values of President Ho Chi Minh’s writings on anti-racism

Under imperialism, “Black Lives Don’t Matter”- an assessment by President Ho Chi Minh in an article, was a prediction for the rise of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which started in 2013, commented Joe Pateman fromt he University of Nottingham in the UK.

He said that the Vietnamese leader's articles have reminded the Asian community and the black community to support each other in the ongoing struggle against racism.

Pateman made the remarks at a talk held by York Centre for Asian Research in Ottawa, Canada on February 19 on the book entitled “The Black Race by Ho Chi Minh and Selected Works on Systemic Racism” compiled by Nguyen Dai Trang and edited by Luis Silva.

The talk was held within the Black History Month that is held annually in February across Canada to honour the legacy of Black Canadians and their communities.

At the event, Pateman, Trang and Silva reviewed milestones in the 30-year trip abroad of President Ho Chi Minh.

In 1912, when the young Vietnamese man named Nguyen Tat Thanh (then President Ho Chi Minh) arrived in New York, standing under the Stature of Liberty, he wrote: “The light omitted from the head of the statue of Liberty shines out, lighting up the blue sky, but at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, the rights of black people and women were being trampled on. When will the blacks be equal to the whites? When will there be equality among nations? And when will women be equal to men?”

They held that issues of the leader’s concerns remained urgent matters, especially after the death of black man George Floyd, which resulted in protests of the "Black Lives Matter" movement globally.

According to Pateman, President Ho Chi Minh paid great attention to the lives of the blacks and their struggle for equality. He was one of the first Asian communist leaders to discover the problems facing the black community and promote their movement for freedom.

The book “The Black Race by Ho Chi Minh and Selected Works on Systemic Racism” is a collection of 20 articles written by President Ho Chi Minh, including 13 articles in the work "Black Race" and seven articles in other publications written in the periods of 1922-1924 and 1963-1966. It is the first English-language publication that explores this aspect in the revolutionary leader’s legacy and provides a clearer view of his thought regarding the field.

The book’s editor, Silva, said that the Vietnamese leader’s works help him understand the underlying causes of systemic racism and discrimination.

Foreign scholars agreed that the writings showed the special interest of President Ho Chi Minh in the liberation of the blacks.

They held that Vietnamese author Nguyen Dai Trang was right when commenting that the articles on anti-racism have remained highly topical so far./.