Home Viet Nam Human Rights » Analysis-Comment » home » April 30th: Victory Day for Vietnamese and the progressive peoples - Black for enemies and hostile forces

April 30th: Victory Day for Vietnamese and the progressive peoples - Black for enemies and hostile forces

26/4/17

Annually, when the April comes, Vietnamese people will remind of the happiest day in the country’s history - The Reunification Day (or Victory Day or Liberation Day). It’s the date of April 30th 1975, an unforgettable day in every Vietnamese people and soldiers who have experienced those important times. But for some, mainly the losers in the wars, who lived and served under the South Vietnamese regime, they claim this day, this month as black. Even reactionary elements in Canada and America called those countries’ authorities to ratify a bill naming the date as the Black April Day Act (lately the Journey to Freedom Act).
Poor them, when it’s a time of celebrating by the whole nation these individuals, for their own old reasons, still hold firmly despair and hatred and try not to understand the righteous course of Vietnam’s revolution.
 The event marked the end of the Vietnam War and the start of a transition period to the formal reunification of Vietnam under the Socialist Republic - the unique united, independent and free state of Vietnamese people. April 30th is celebrated as a public holiday in Vietnam. People get the day off, as well as May 1, and the holiday is filled with many public celebrations and festivals. But for those conservatives, the event is approached from different perspectives, with arguments that the date was a sign of American abandonment, or as a memorial for the war and for the mass exodus as a whole. This is a commemorative day for exiled Vietnamese who served, were affected, and displaced in those overseas communities. Why did they leave? Surely this requires an inquiry? Certainly some of them left, especially those with money and connections, because they had assisted the occupiers in committing crimes against their own people and did not want to answer for their crimes. However, it’s still a pain, a pity, a part of the history that we all want to overcome and continue a new road of developing the country. But they seem not.
 For the Vietnamese and world’s people, April 30, 1975 represents the total victory of the Vietnamese people against barbaric U.S. imperialist aggression. This historic victory earned the Vietnamese people the greatest respect and admiration the world over for their courageous and heroic struggle which stands second to none in the annals of national liberation struggles. In the words of Fidel Castro, it was “one of the greatest events in modern history”. How could a great event like that be named as Black April? Black for whom? The bill to designate it as Black April is unreasonable and slanderous.
 The bill that was signed by the Canada’s and the U.S. Congress to commemorate the April 30th as Black April is opposite to the reality and Vietnamese people’s sentiment. For all the progressive freedom loving people of Canada, the U.S. and throughout the world, April 30, 1975, could not come fast enough. It was the day they had all fought and wished for, so that the Vietnamese people could be free from all foreign aggression and create a life for themselves without any interference. With the liberation of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the National Liberation Front (NLF) in the south of Vietnam and the North Vietnamese Army in the north of the country achieved the main condition required to reunify their country. They showed the world that a people determined to defend their freedom and sovereignty are more powerful than any aggressive army, no matter how powerful and arrogant it is.
The reunification of Vietnam was finally proclaimed in 1976 and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was established. Since then the government of Vietnam has made important advances in rebuilding the country and establishing a stable prosperous economy.
Considering the history of Vietnam, what problem are these states’ law-makers trying to solve with the bill like that? Jason Kenney, the former Canadian Minister of Multiculturalism, said that he supports the bill because it celebrates 60,000 people who “risked their lives in search of freedom and found it in Canada.”
If Mr. Kenney was really concerned about people “risking their lives in search of freedom,” would he not honour the more than 90 million Vietnamese people who risked their lives every day during more than 15 years of U.S. occupation and crimes and the millions who were mercilessly killed by U.S. forces, both Vietnamese and American? Neither Kenney nor Senator Ngô Thanh Hải have anything to say about the crimes committed against the Vietnamese people. This glaring omission suggests that these crimes and victims were a necessary sacrifice to bring the Vietnamese people “freedom and democracy.”
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a sovereign country with the right to determine its own social system and policies. It is shameful for any foreign governments to support legislation which in fact harms the bilateral relations between these countries and Vietnam and the friendly relations between our peoples. In the name of promoting freedom and democracy, these governments are mobilizing their citizens, particularly those of Vietnamese origin, against Vietnam and interfering in its internal affairs, including the people’s right to select the political system of their choosing. It is an insult to the history of the Vietnamese people and a perversion of history in general.
The bills are also to criminalize communists, fomenting hatred against them and blaming them for the crimes the Americans and other imperialists and colonialists have committed against humanity. It fools no one.
On the frontline of the global struggle against imperialism, Vietnam had the support of progressive people worldwide. The support of the socialist camp was certainly a crucial factor in the continued successes of the Vietnamese Revolution. The anti-war movement in the US also had an important impact. Although the role of this movement is sometimes overstated by those who want to negate the role of the Vietnamese masses in freeing themselves, there’s no question that this movement struggled bravely and creatively, and as a result was able to pull a large portion of the US public towards an anti-war position. This in turn served to somewhat restrain the US government, and may well have influenced the decisions to withdraw troops and to end congressional funding to the South Vietnamese army. The role of civil rights and black liberation movement leaders in the anti-war movement made a historically important link between the struggle against imperialism abroad and the struggle against imperialism and racism at home; a link that needs to be emphasized today, when the same imperialist ruling classes are fuelling civil war in Syria, seeking the overthrow of the government in Venezuela, and killing unarmed black people on the streets of Baltimore, New York and Ferguson.
In many ways, Vietnam’s victory is not just for the revolutionary forces of Vietnam but for the progressive forces of the world, and a lesson as to what we can accomplish if we’re united.
For all the sophisticated military technology and the obscene brutality; in spite of the billions of dollars spent, the millions of lives destroyed, the endless strategic shifts and the best efforts of numerous US presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford); the US simply could not win in Vietnam. From north to south, the ordinary Vietnamese people refused to be defeated. As Ho Chi Minh correctly predicted: “We, a small nation, will have earned the signal honour of defeating, through heroic struggle, two big imperialisms – the French and the American – and of making a worthy contribution to the world national liberation movement.”
The unity, bravery, heroism, creativity, discipline, endurance and selflessness of the Vietnamese people is a profound lesson to all those struggling for freedom, independence and socialism. In the 60s, 70s and 80s, Vietnam gave great inspiration to the masses of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Guinea Bissau and South Africa. Today, it is our duty to study and understand how the history of the Vietnamese freedom struggle informs our modern-day anti-imperialist struggle, be it in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Congo, Yemen, or in the streets of London, Paris and Baltimore./.
Chia sẻ bài viết ^^
Other post

All comments [ 0 ]


Your comments