Lessons from the Past: Vietnamese Scholar Speaks Out
Nha Magazine, Q & A Special Report, Trinh Do, Posted: Oct 01, 2005
Professor Le Xuan Khoa has had a long and distinguished career in academia and public service. Before 1975, he taught philosophy and Vietnamese civilization at several universities in South Viet Nam. After coming to the United States in 1975, he began advocating for refugee resettlement issues. As president of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC) for nearly 17 years, he led the organization to work on behalf of people from Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Mr. Khoa retired from SEARAC in 1997 to continue teaching and research at Johns Hopkins University. In August 2004, he published VIET NAM 1945-1995: Wars, Refugees and Lessons of History—Volume I, an account of 50 years of Vietnamese history spanning four wars, two refugee movements and the growth of a resourceful expatriate community. The book is a result of many years of extensive, painstaking research and critical analysis of the mistakes made on all sides. Trinh Do recently caught up with Prof. Khoa to talk about his new book.
NHA: Thank you for taking time off from your busy schedule to talk with NHA Magazine. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
LXK: I was an educator by profession. I began my teaching career in 1950 in Ha Noi. In 1953, I went to Sai Gon to teach in the Petrus Ky High school and to write textbooks for the Center for Textbooks and Instructional Materials of the Ministry of Education. In 1960, I received a scholarship from the French government to prepare my doctoral thesis on “Dhyana Buddhism in Viet Nam” (Le Bouddhisme Dhyana au Viet Nam) at Sorbonne University. I went to India several times and had the opportunity to meet with the Dalai Lama at his residence in Darjeeling after an international conference on Tibet held in New Delhi. I taught Upanishad philosophy at the Sai Gon Faculty of Letters and Vietnamese Civilization at Da Lat, Minh Duc and Van Hanh Universities.
My last post in Viet Nam was to serve as the Vice President of the University of Sai Gon. I came to the United States in 1975 and began to advocate for refugees immediately. As the president of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), I focused on lobbying for the resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees in America and other countries. In regards to Vietnamese refugees, SEARAC’s most notable achievements were to organize an International Conference on Boat People in Washington, DC in 1988, to successfully lobby for the plan to resettle former political prisoners in 1989, and initiate a special program called Resettlement Opportunity for Vietnamese Returnees (ROVR). The lobbying for the resettlement of returning Vietnamese continued until 1996, when it finally received approval from both the U.S. and Vietnamese governments. In 1996, I returned to teaching as an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. In 2001, I joined the Foreign Policy Institute, also at Johns Hopkins University, as a visiting scholar and began to work on my book project.
NHA: What drove you to write the book VIET NAM 1945-1995?
LXK: The main reason driving me to write VIET NAM 1945-1995 is the need to extract the lessons of the past in order to build a better future. In the last half of the 20th century, the Vietnamese people have endured some of the most tragic events in history. From these events, there came many necessary lessons about politics, the military, and diplomacy for all sides involved in the Viet Nam wars, particularly the many wrong decisions and missed opportunities for peace. To be able to learn the lessons of the past, one must respect and present historical events truthfully as they happened. The problem is that after 30 years of war, historical truths, with a few exceptions, continued to be hidden and distorted both inside and outside of Viet Nam, driven by political reasons or by subjective judgments of those who wrote about them. Thus, my goal in writing this book is to try to restore the truths of history so that readers, particularly the younger generations, will not have misguided understandings of our people’s history.
NHA: What differentiates your book from works written by other Vietnamese and American scholars about this same historical period?
LXK: The main difference between me and some other authors, Vietnamese or foreign, is the impartial objectivity in presenting and explaining historical events. For a number of authors and even American leaders, because they did not understand Vietnamese history, culture, and psyche very well, even though they might report events accurately, they still explained those events wrong or with bias. I understand the subjective attitudes of people on each side during the war, because I was one among them. In time of war, it is understandable if each side promoted its causes as just and accused its enemies of all sorts of crimes. However, when the war had ended, historical truths cannot continue to be presented in that manner.
NHA: What did you find to be most challenging about writing this book?
LXK: My biggest challenge was to maintain an impartial attitude when analyzing historical events and assessing the players who were responsible. The first difficulty was to rise above my personal preconceptions and biases toward certain people so that I can achieve a calm and objective attitude when researching and presenting historical facts. The second difficulty is to assess fairly and honestly the leaders on all sides, including pointing out weaknesses of those who were considered to be idols, or honestly recognizing the strengths of our opponents, even though these admissions may not please people who wouldn't want to accept any values of their “eternal enemies.”
NHA: In this first volume, VIET NAM 1945-1979, you spent a great deal of time analyzing the lessons of the Viet Nam War from all sides, the American government, the Republic of Viet Nam, and the North Vietnamese. Can you tell us what are the key lessons from the war for the Vietnamese people in general and the overseas Vietnamese, who are mostly anti-communist, in particular?
LXK: As I mentioned earlier, the 30 plus years of war have provided many political, military, and diplomatic lessons for all sides. These realistic, practical experiences were discussed throughout the book. For Vietnamese, whether they are from North or South Viet Nam or living inside or outside the country, I wanted to emphasize three key lessons.
First, in international relations, only one's national interests are most important. There are no permanent allies or permanent enemies. Second, no political doctrine, communism or non-communism, is the absolute truth. An arrogant, self-centered attitude will lead to dictatorship, causing harms for the country and ultimately for the regime itself. Third, a small country like Viet Nam needs to really understand itself, its friends, and enemies well in order to survive for a long time. Flexible military and diplomatic strategies have helped Viet Nam survive for many centuries. However, the last half of the 20th century has recorded too many mistakes on [the part of] North and South Viet Nam toward both allies and enemies. These mistakes have caused our people to suffer heavy sacrifices during wartime and we still couldn't quite overcome the effects of war even after many years of peace.
NHA: Do you believe the overseas Vietnamese have really learned and understood these lessons? Or are we likely to repeat past mistakes in the future?
LXK: We, overseas Vietnamese, currently have many complex, conflicting feelings and thoughts about ourselves, our allies, and our enemies because we haven't really been calm and objective enough to review past experiences. I hope that this book will provide readers with useful information for the task of “reviewing the past to learn new lessons.” Hopefully, when the conditions are right, the overseas Vietnamese communities can use our abilities to make important and appropriate contributions to the building of a strong, prosperous, and democratic Viet Nam, one that has lasting relations with America and other advanced countries.
NHA: What are the key lessons from the war for the American leadership? Have the American government and leaders really learned and understood the lessons of Viet Nam? Or do you believe they are repeating some of the mistakes of the Viet Nam War in the current Iraq war?
LXK: The Viet Nam War has brought about two key lessons for American leaders. First, military and economic power could not win the “hearts and minds” of other people, whether they are allies or enemies. Second, American leaders need to understand very well the history, culture, and national characteristics of a people they are dealing with so that they can avoid imposing decisions, paradigms, or models that are not appropriate as well as not missing opportunities for peace or victory. Obviously, American leaders have not learned these lessons from the Viet Nam War because they are still too confident in the unmatched power of [the] American military and money. Because of this superiority complex, the U.S. government has not assessed correctly the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and attacked Iraq, despite all the warnings from the United Nations and a large number of European allies. Now, the government has realized these mistakes but still tries to find justifications. Meanwhile, they have not found a safe way out of the Iraq quagmire, an “exit strategy” that can protect American interests and ensure peace and stability in Iraq.
NHA: What are the key lessons from the war for the Ha Noi leadership, in your view? What do the Ha Noi leaders believe to be the lessons from the war? How do you explain the differences?
LXK: This question is fairly complex, but I can concentrate on two main points and give you a concise answer. First, I believe the Ha Noi leadership has learned many lessons from their successes and failures after more than half a century of war and peace. Particularly, after the Soviet Union and the Eastern Communist bloc collapsed, the Ha Noi Communist Party clearly realized that they have to “change or die.” However, because they are too concerned about the survival of the regime, the Party and the government has only tried to find ways to adapt but not change. This direction has caused the cooperative relationships with America and the world to be stalled, and the objectives of “a prosperous people, a strong country, and a just, democratic, and civilized society” still do not have the right conditions to be realized. In their efforts to join the world community, the Viet Nam leadership often takes reactive rather than proactive measures. Thus, they are still very confused, uncoordinated, and often make conflicting decisions, taking some steps forward then some steps backward.
The second point is in regards to the policy toward overseas Vietnamese communities. For the past ten plus years, the government has changed its attitude towards Vietnamese refugees, from denouncing them as “traitors” to praising them as “an important resource” for the development of the country. However, the Viet Nam leaders still have yet to recognize the patriotism of people who do not share their ideology. Also, they still have not yet admitted their past mistakes, such as the policy of imprisoning and mistreating former soldiers and officials of South Viet Nam in re-education camps after the country was unified. Thus, their policy toward overseas Vietnamese communities remains simply an “open arm strategy” designed by the winners trying to convert the losers to their side. This condescending attitude can never achieve the objective of truly unifying the people. Because of this policy, contributions by overseas Vietnamese until now have been directed only towards improving the lives of people in the country and facilitating the process of change, not to supporting the government or the regime.
NHA: You have just published only the first volume of this book. When do you expect to complete the second volume?
LXK: Honestly, I haven't begun writing the second volume though a detailed outline of the book has been completed. I am currently busy helping a number of projects by non-governmental organizations and overseeing the translation of the first volume into English. I hope I can start writing the second volume very soon. I believe I can write it much faster than the first volume because I understand the issues well and won't have to spend a lot of time researching old and hard-to-find documents.
NHA: Can you give us a rough idea the key areas that the second volume will focus on?
LXK: The main subjects of the second volume are the history of the waves of refugees from 1975 until the early 1990's and the formation of the Vietnamese communities in America. The topics to be presented and analyzed will include the harrowing, tragic escapes of Vietnamese refugees by boat or through land routes, the policies of first asylum countries toward boat people, the efforts to advocate and lobby for the protection and resettlement of refugees, the solutions put forth by the United States and the world, the experiences of adapting and integrating into American society of more than a million Vietnamese in many states, and the contributions of this new population to America and to Viet Nam. In addition, I will also have to talk about a wide range of community-based organizations including social service agencies, groups that foster cultural activities, and the many and complex political factions in the expatriate communities. The relationship between the United States and Viet Nam, the relationship between the Vietnamese American communities with the Viet Nam government and the Vietnamese people will also be discussed. Last, the book will consider the roles, rights, and responsibilities of the Vietnamese American communities toward the country which has adopted them and also toward their country of origin.
NHA: In the past several years, the Ha Noi government increasingly realized that the overseas Vietnamese represent a great capital, technical, and intellectual asset for the economic development of Viet Nam. As such, they have tried to entice overseas Vietnamese to come back to visit or invest in the country. Do you believe that these efforts are sincere, long-term policy or are they just temporary manipulative measures?
LXK: The policy of the Communist Party and government toward the overseas communities is no longer limited to a number of disparate measures aiming at encouraging the contributions of a number of overseas Vietnamese. Recently, with Resolution 36 and the plan to implement this resolution, the Politburo has formulated a comprehensive strategy toward overseas Vietnamese communities with a view to formalizing and normalizing all relations between Vietnamese inside and outside of the country. This is a worthy objective that needs to be achieved, but as I mentioned previously, the Vietnamese government has not truly meant to reconcile with the overseas communities. Resolution 36, other than having a number of measures that provide preferential treatments, still sets forth a one-way propaganda strategy and tactics. It does not address rightful, reasonable expectations of overseas Vietnamese.
NHA: What would be your advice to young Vietnamese Americans who care about doing something for Viet Nam and Vietnamese? How should they go about learning and understanding the true lessons of the Viet Nam War given that most materials written in English have strong American bias and ignore the roles, sacrifices, and contributions of Vietnamese in the Republic of Viet Nam?
LXK: Obviously, the young Vietnamese American generations, like all other young Vietnamese growing up in other advanced countries in the world, are important human resources that can accelerate the process of modernizing the country and help Viet Nam to become a developed country and to achieve a rightful position in Southeast Asia and in the world community. It is also obvious that these young generations want to look forward to the future, including a large number of those who were victims of the Communist regime when they were young. Having been successful in a truly free and democratic society, they are more tolerant than the older generations and are willing to not only address the needs of the poor, unfortunate Vietnamese but also to contribute their talents to the country. However, until now, almost all contributions from this group of people still concentrate mainly on humanitarian rather than development projects. The right, favorable psychological and political conditions in the country still do not exist to allow them to do so. I trust in their good will and judgments. As such, I don't have anything to advise them. I believe what they expect from the older generation is to help them understand the truths of history, especially what actually happened in the long years of wars, to share with them fair, unbiased assessments and practical experiences that can be useful for building a democratic and prosperous Viet Nam. I hope that my book, Viet Nam 1945-1995 can meet some of their expectations.
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