[Vnbiz] Building the Vietnamese Intelligentsia--Intellectuals and Entrepreneurs [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
QuangAnh.Nguyen at dfat.gov.au
QuangAnh.Nguyen at dfat.gov.au
Tue Jul 15 00:24:42 PDT 2008
Dear anh Hoanh
Thanks a lot for your discussion.
I translated the word "class" from the original Vietnamese term of that
research: tầng lớp. Is that a little bit different from the word: "giai
cấp"?
Regards
----------------------------------------------
Nguyen Quang ANH
Activity Manager
Economic Governance
AusAID Hanoi
8 Dao Tan, Ba Dinh, Hanoi, Vietnam
Web: http://www.ausaid.gov.au/vietnam/
Tel: +84 4 8317755 ext. 129 Fax: +84 4 8317706
Mobile: +849032 88813
Email: QuangAnh.Nguyen at dfat.gov.au
----------------------------------------------
"Tran Dinh Hoanh" <tdhoanh at gmail.com>
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14/07/2008 10:48 PM
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Re: [Vnbiz] Building the Vietnamese Intelligentsia--Intellectuals and
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[ Vietnam Business Forum ]
Dear Brother Quang Anh & CACC,
Thanks for the interesting issue you have just laid out on the table. We
need to cover it a little before going further into this "building an
intelligentsia" issue.
The elements and characteristics of "class" are different from society to
society, and also from each classifier (i.e., scholar) to classifier, but
generally the term "class" implies a hierarchy in the society. The group
of people in the top layer of the hierarchy is called "high class" and the
group at the bottom is "low class." What makes a class high or low is the
power and/or money and/or prestige that the people in the class hold.
Power, money and prestige in turn may come from profession/vocation,
family heritage, racial heritage and other cultural factors
(ex: Brahmin was the highest class and the "untouchable" was the lowest
class in India).
A hierarchy of classes can be very rigid or less rigid. A hierarchy
that doesn't allow people to change class and move into a higher class
easily is a rigid hierarchy. If upward movements are allowed, then the
hierarchy is less rigid.
When we use the characteristics of Medieval Europe's aristocracy or
intelligentsia as standards, we may say that Vietnam didn't have
aristocracy or intelligentsia. But if we just look at Vietnam itself and
figure out who had the most power, money and prestige, then Si nong cong
thuong were very much the four layers in the hierarchy: Si was obviously
the class with most power and prestige. Some si phu didn't have much
money if they didn't get to be government officials and worked as ong do
gia in the village, but they still held the highest prestige in the
village. Thuong was obviously the class that looked down upon, even if
you had money. These classes were not very rigid in Vietnam as in Europe
or India. So it depends on what we mean when we say "class." Yes,
Vietnam didn't have the European-style classes, but Vietnam had the
Vietnamese-style classes.
The idea of class is still important today in sociology and other studies
of human behavior. My observation is that marketing people are the true
masters of social classes today. They group people into all kinds of
grouping, by age, profession, gender, hobbies, shopping habit, etc. and
they don't use the term "class" at all; instead they use "category,"
"group" and the like. But that is really the study of class to
the extreme degree. My point is that the idea of class (or group) is
still very useful in today sociology and social engineering.
Given the socialist revolution in the recent pass, which was premised on
all kinds of bloody class conflict, many people today don't want to use
the term "class" and don't want to say that we have any class. That is
very understandable. I would avoid using the term "class" or "giai cap"
in all of my writings if I can.
Now back to the intelligentsia, the word "intelligentsia" was coined by
the Russians writers during the Russian Revolution, to indicate the
class of intellectuals, which is between the exploiting class and the
proletariat at the bottom. The intelligentsia, according to the Marxist
Leninist tradition, were paid by and served the exploiting class
(Obviously, the proletariat didn't have money to pay the intellectuals).
OK, we are not talking about the "intelligentsia" in that way. Let's
clarify the term "intelligentsia" as we understand here (or at least, as I
intend to use it here). First, I define intellectual loosely as a person
who works mostly by brainpower, especially creative brainpower, more than
physical power or repetitive tasks without much thinking. This would
include writers, journalists, teachers, lawyers, doctors, government
managers, engineers, social workers, etc.., and college students as young
intellectuals.
By intelligentsia, I mean the connections among, and the network of, these
intellectuals so that they are close to each other, they stimulate each
other's thinking, they share their thinking wide to the public at large,
and their thinking provide insight or at least intellectual input for many
parts of the nation, especially the government and the policy-making
bodies.
To have a vigorous such a vigorous intelligentsia, first and foremost,
intellectuals have to be free to talk and publish their thinking. This is
90 percent of the issue. If intellectuals are free to talk, we have gone
90 percent of the way. The rest 10% is for technical management issues.
You simply can't have an intelligentsia if intellectuals have to talk the
Party line. That is no intellectual. Why should we need any brainpower
to repeat the Party line? All we need is a cheap tape recorder (Don't
even need an expensive one).
And let us be clear that "the Party line" here doesn't just mean the VCP
line (although I do mean the VCP), but it also covers other party lines.
Ex: Can an intellectual talk freely against the anti-communist line in a
Vietnamese language newspaper here in the US or Australia? You can do it
for a couple of days, and no one can guarantee how you would be after
that, right?
I have talked with enough high ranking friends in the VCP to know that
everyone of you understand the issue as much as I do. No need for me to
keep talking about it. I just want to have a message to the
brothers/sisters in the VCP, especially you guys in the top leadership
role: I know there are practical concerns for development stability.
But we all, both you and me, also know that the nation needs to unleash
its brainpower. I know everything needs to be within certain limits, but
the limits you guys have now are ridiculous; they simply choke the
intellectual bloodlines, suffocate our intellectuals, and make the nation
so uncreative. This issue involves the brainpower, i.e., the current and
the future, of the nation. Please work on it seriously.
Have a great day!
Hoanh
__________________________
On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 11:53 PM, <QuangAnh.Nguyen at dfat.gov.au> wrote:
[ Vietnam Business Forum ]
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>
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13/07/2008 10:48 PM
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Re: [Vnbiz] Building the Vietnamese Intelligentsia--Intellectuals and
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[ 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
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Tran Dinh Hoanh, Esq., LLB, JD
Washington DC
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