[Vnbiz] Building the Vietnamese Intelligentsia--Intellectuals and Entrepreneurs [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Sun Jul 13 20:53:59 PDT 2008

Dear brother Hoanh,

This is an interesting topic. Actually, in a similar view, there was 
another comprehensive research some years ago on "dân tộc tính" (people 
characteristics) in Vietnam. I read a part of the book and really 
impressed by a conclusion made by one professor (sorry I forgot his name). 
His view was: 
1. Vietnam has no class of aristocrat;
2. Vietnam has no class of intellectuals (or ideologist)
3. Vietnam has no class of business people. 

I heard that this a little bit shocking view was appreciated by a large 
number of intellectuals. In short, the rational of those conclusion was: 

1. Vietnam has no class of aristocrat: in history, it was rarely found an 
aristocrat family, continuously existed from dynasty to dynasty. The 
system of "cong - hau - ba - tu - nam" was a "learning" replication from 
Chinese system. Not many of those family continue to be aristocrat when 
the kings were changed. It was said that even in some contemporary "royal" 
family, the role of the later generation are not quite important as their 
ancestors. 

2. Vietnam has no class of intellectuals (or ideologist): in a view that 
those people could impress or imprint their idea to the society or 
especially the emperors to rule the country. There is no man like 
Confusius (Khong tu) or Han Phi Tu, or Machivielli appeared during our 
history. Great politician like Nguyen Trai, or Nguyen Binh Khiem, did a 
perfect job from time to time, but more in a role of a senior official, 
not an ideaologist that provide strategic influences to their kings and 
making the policy for ruling the country. And it appeared that they were 
more successful in the role of a culturalist, or artist not ideologist. 

3. Vietnam has no class of business people: In feudal time, business 
(thuong nhan) was not respected (the usual order of society classes was: 
si - nong - cong - thuong or intelectual -  farmer - mechanic - business 
people) and therefore, there was no name of businessmen were mentioned in 
history. They  found that there were a few businessmen successful in the 
period from end of 19th and early 20th century (before the liberation 
1945). However, it appears that those people did not become a true force 
that could lead the whole economy at that time. It was understandable 
because most of the economic power was controlled by the colonial 
administration. 

Currently, this class become more and more remarkable since the "doi moi". 
However, it is only in this starting point. A large number of business 
people are actually leaders of state corporations, which are leading the 
economy with resources provided by the State. 

Have a nice week
----------------------------------------------
Nguyen Quang ANH

"Tran Dinh Hoanh" <tdhoanh at gmail.com> 
Sent by: vnbiz-bounces at mail.saigon.com
13/07/2008 10:48 PM
Please respond to
vnbiz at vietlinks.net

To
vnbiz at vietlinks.net
cc

Subject
Re: [Vnbiz] Building the Vietnamese Intelligentsia--Intellectuals and 
Entrepreneurs [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[ Vietnam Business Forum ]

Dear CACC,

The late historian Tran Khac Vien (I love him) said in his now famous 
quote: "Vietnam has intellectuals but no intelligentsia."  How do you 
think about that comment?

Have a great day!

Hoanh

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 3:18 AM, <Hong-Phong_Pho at ita.doc.gov> wrote:
[ Vietnam Business Forum ]

Dear anh Hoanh,
This is not the same as the call to build an intelligentsia as the old 
writings you read about that was produced in the first half of the 20th 
century in Vietnam.  More accurate, this is a call to build up a 
technocratic class with specific technical expertise in business.  This is 
simply a call to train more MBAs.
Vietnam has always had intellectuals, with great historical ones such as 
Nguyen Truong To, Phan Chu Trinh, Ba Huyen Thanh Quan, Bui thi Xuan, 
Nguyen Trai, Nguyen Du, Doan thi Diem (not in any order).  But, not 
counting the "intelligentsia" in the feudal courts,  Vietnam only had a 
nascent such group that came together in the latter part of colonial 
French rule, but was pretty much wiped out by the time of Nhan Van - Giai 
Pham in the late 50's.  South Vietnam's two decades plus of existence 
hosted the renmants of the northern refugee intelligentsia along with its 
own home grown for a few short years of feverish, war-distorted 
development before being stunted domestically or scattered to the four 
corners of the globe in 1975.  Until "intelligentsia" no longer required 
the qualifier "patriotic" in Vietnam's political lingo, calls for the 
development of a local intelligentsia is either superfluous or insincer e.

While the first steps toward building a private economy is to just let it 
grow, sustained market economy is no piece of cake.  An entire 
appropriated legal framework has to be developed and implementing 
regulations have to be put in place to handle not just the economic, but 
as attendant social and political changes.  Unbriddled capitalism 
inevitably leads to negative things like the "com tu" problem you've 
observed.  But, just to put things into perspective, if such a restaurant 
existed 20 years ago, even with the food and service quality of a 
state-owned establishment, passengers would have considered it a blessing.

Building an intelligentsia is not the business of the government, unless 
you want a state-owned intelligensia.  If intellectuals need government's 
encouragement to think, speak and write freely, the nation is in deeper 
trouble than we can imagine.  The government should encourage/support 
education, protect the people's rights to think, speak and write, and not 
persecute intellectuals who do not agree.

It is wrong to attribute lack of public discourse to culture, unless you 
chose to ignore traditional culture and focus only on contemporary culture 
which is heavily and directly influence by the regime.  There is little 
space for public discourse and only one voice addressing all major issues, 
that of the regime.

Depending on where you are and what you say, speaking out in public may 
mean that your spouse will spend all her time and energy supporting 
you while you're on an extended involuntary vacation, and your friends 
will get numerous requests to meet with the local public secutity office.
Cheers,
HPP

-- 
Tran Dinh Hoanh, Esq., LLB, JD
Washington DC 
_______________________________________________
To subscribe/unsubscribe, please contact admins at
vnbizadmin at vietlinks.net
Info at http://mail.saigon.com/mailman/listinfo/vnbiz
Archive at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vnbiz/
or http://groups-beta.google.com/group/VNBIZforum/
or http://mail.saigon.com/pipermail/vnbiz

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.saigon.com/pipermail/vnbiz/attachments/20080714/c88dce0c/attachment-0001.html 