The two sides in a dispute over the display of the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam at the University of Southern California will hold a public discussion forum on April 21.
See background story by the OC Register’s Deepa Bharath here.
Here’s the announcement. The Bolsavik‘s rather lengthy thoughts follow after.
Identity, Diversity, and Fair Representation?
A closer look at Student Exclusion and the politics of the VKC Flags
Monday, April 21st, 5:30 – 7:00 PM
Room TBA VKC 156
Food: TG Express
This forum will be a respectful, constructive and open space for a closer discussion about the recent VKC Flag controversy, with its implications for identity, student exclusion, and University space. The Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) and the Vietnamese International Student Association (VISA) will begin the dialogue and clarify current misunderstandings about the politics of the flag and student representation. Other student organizations like the Armenian Student Association and the general student body will have opportunities to voice their concerns about possible university exclusions and recognize both differences and commonalities. Faculty members Dr. Viet Nguyen and Dr. Janet Hoskins (tentative) will contribute to this discussion and school administrators will also be invited. This event is an important foundation for further advocacy. Students can engage the University’s current response and explore how student organizations can collaborate among themselves and with the University to inclusively represent a rich, diverse student body.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=35834995703
Contact: apasa0708@gmail.com
–
Daniel Wu
University of Southern California, 2010
B.A.: International Relations
Minor: Public Health
714-220-7989
“VKC” is short for the von KleinSmid Center for International & Public Affairs at USC, the building where the flag is hung. The VSA is the organization of mostly Vietnamese-Americans. The VISA consists mostly of students from Vietnam studying at USC on a student visa. Hence the acronym. Cute. 
There is a deep feeling held by many Vietnamese-American, not just the right-wing extremists, that the current official red-and-star flag of Vietnam stands for the oppression that they and their parents and their parents before them suffered in Vietnam. (That is the mainstream Vietnamese opinion. The extremism comes in prohibiting anyone from raising a peep about the red flag, calling them a commie.)
To an overwhelming majority of Vietnamese-Americans, the red-and-star flag is an insult to their past and their identity as victims of the communist regime. The flag that represents the Vietnamese part of their Vietnamese-American heritage, to them, is the yellow-and-stripes flag of the former Republic of Vietnam (right, with the Governator). Although it doesn’t represent any country any more, it does represent a sentiment, and that is what they want to use to represent the Vietnamese community.
On the other hand, there is also a probably equally deep feeling among many younger people in Vietnam, who may very well be anti-communist for all we know, but who have never ever seen the yellow-and-stripes flag, and who may be too young to remember, not just the war pre-1975, but also a lot of the harsh represssion that followed in the decade or so afterwards. All they have ever seen was the red-and-star flag which they use to display their patriotism. To them, the red flag is sacred while the yellow flag is alien and meaningless.
The Bolsavik has expressed the thoughts above publicly on Radio Free Asia‘s Vietnamese service. Click here to listen (in Vietnamese); the Bolsavik comes on at around before 50%.
That RFA interview played a major role in the Bolsavik becoming a main target of the protesters. Not just outside extremists are unhappy, but quite a few older people working at Nguoi Viet were not pleased either. The Senior Editor who had approved the survey in question backtracked. At one point, the protesters laid out a row of VC helmets labeled with names of the accused communists. Right beside the Bolsavik’s name was the name of Thien Giao, the RFA reporter who had interviewed him.
BTW, if the above photo looks familiar, that’s because the Bolsavik took it at the same event that later gave rise to Trung Nguyen‘s notorious Photoshop scandal.
The OC Register’s Martin Wisckol is working on a piece about OC Viet politicians’ position on the anti-communists. He’s been posting bits and pieces of his interviews on Total Buzz.
LIVEWIRE by Joe Dovinh
The Vietnamese Flag in Living Colors
The latest controversy regarding the Vietnamese yellow flag with three stripes appearing in a foot bath, published by Nguoi Viet daily newspaper in their 2008 Tet New Year Special Issue has drawn international attention, yet no one has been able to adequately explain the phenomenal outrage that have not just engulfed Little Saigon, but polarized the overseas Vietnamese’s sense of national pride and ethnic identity.
So far, two opposing views have emerged from this debate, one casting the issue as a matter of artistic freedom of expression while the other alleges that any unorthodox representation of this Vietnamese flag is a desecration and direct attack upon the cultural values of overseas Vietnamese who hold that the yellow flag is the symbol of their Vietnamese heritage and aspirations for freedom. The two camps appear to be on a collision course with no middle ground to steer them from mutual destruction. Let us be so bold as to wade into these dangerous waters and see if we could save them both from drowning in their own exuberance.
First, it is worth noting that despite a vocal minority that diligently protests, the majority of Vietnamese Americans has not taken to the streets but has exercised other civic rights such as withholding their support for such offensive and hurtful artwork and by not dignifying it with a response. These are people who have matured in their sophistication and understanding of first amendment rights to freedom of speech and have grown beyond the point of intolerance. After all, we do not see frenzy and mass paranoia whipped up every time the American flag is burned or otherwise offended. Such activities may be viewed as hate crimes if they rise to that level and the appropriate authorities are alerted to investigate and criminals are prosecuted as necessary.
Generally, those who commit such acts are held in contempt and the general public should roundly denounce them and move on so that such behaviors would not get the same publicity in the future. Here, the protesters are actually furthering the harm by keeping the issue alive in the news without educating the public about their grievances or offering any solutions or preventions against future attacks upon our beloved flag. Instead of exploiting such opportunities to win friends, some protesters choose to wage an all-out battle against the media culprit even though they have since apologized profusely to the community for their mistake in publishing such ugliness. This has only served to alienate a valuable asset of our community and has a chilling effect on Vietnamese free press throughout the world.
On the other hand, those who have added injury to insult by ridiculing the protesters or defending the artist’s intentions while she has not apologized for the pain and suffering she has caused, deserve no praise either. Perhaps it is best that we look more deeply into the matters at hand and attempt to reach a higher level of understanding of our present situation than what has been aired in the news.
It is time to recognize that the Vietnamese overseas community is no longer just a community of refugees but includes those who have gone abroad under other circumstances that do not necessarily share the same cultural heritage and identity as those of us who were born, lived, served and sacrificed under the Vietnamese yellow flag. While to us, the yellow flag is a sacred and living symbol of our hopes for freedom, democracy and human rights, as well as other inalienable values which we attribute to the flag, not all other Vietnamese share the same views. This does not permit them to offend our flag, but neither does it permit us to insist on eradicating their treasured symbols. Unless we recognize some degree of mutual respect, increased conflagrations on much larger scales are bound to happen, at any moment, anywhere there are Vietnamese communities of diverse backgrounds residing side-by-side.
Those who insist that as overseas Vietnamese, we could only have one heritage and one identity are bound to failure because the Vietnamese people have always been a diverse and dynamic force that resist singularity and value plurality—a hundred children born of a single mother. What we need are real leaders who can unite us through reason and compassion and not political demagogues who divide us into small camps for their own advantage. The Vietnamese yellow flag is not just about heritage and freedom, nor does it belong to any one group, historically or at present. It is a symbol of the Vietnamese’s aspiration to unite as a people, even though we are as different as the three main regions of Vietnam for which the three red stripes stand for. Thus, to act divisively is to go against the spirit of the yellow flag and to defeat our own purpose. We need to remind each other to be tolerant and open to other expressions and values not our own, if we are to survive and succeed as an international people.
The recent controversies have provided us with just one more opportunity to come together and heal the wounds of past wars, and not to create the seeds of future hostilities…
Dear Mr. Joseph Dovinh:
I respect your overall ideas, but disagree with some of your comments and would like to present my dissenting opinion on selected items.
[the other alleges that any unorthodox representation of this Vietnamese flag is a desecration and direct attack upon the cultural values of overseas Vietnamese who hold that the yellow flag is the symbol of their Vietnamese heritage and aspirations for freedom.]
In light of modern view of freedom of expression, the above learned set of values and beliefs is no longer appropriate and needs to be unlearned. A worthy concept of freedom of expression should be learned here, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” -Noam Chomsky
[On the other hand, those who have added injury to insult by ridiculing the protesters or defending the artist’s intentions while she has not apologized for the pain and suffering she has caused, deserve no praise either.]
It is so unfair to imply that the artist’s intention is at fault and she should appologize for the pain and suffering she has caused. This “pain and suffering” is a self-inflicted mental problem arising from one’s perception. Your reasoning offended me and caused an emotional anguish on my part, should I hold you responsible for that? An adult should be responsible for her self-inflicted “pain and suffering” because of her own perception!
[While to us, the yellow flag is a sacred and living symbol of our hopes for freedom, democracy and human rights, as well as other inalienable values which we attribute to the flag, not all other Vietnamese share the same views. This does not permit them to offend our flag,]
I also share the same view as mentioned above, but my implementation of the view is different from the majority, should my view be deemed less valid than that of the majority? While a majority considers a foot bath offensive to the flag, I consider it a respect for the flag. Should the majority’s feeling and value outweigh my own feeling and value?
[What we need are real leaders who can unite us through reason and compassion and not political demagogues who divide us into small camps for their own advantage.]
If we educate ourselves with moral values and beliefs, we don’t need any leader to unite us and no demagogue can divide us. 2,500 years ago, Confucius already taught: “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”
[The recent controversies have provided us with just one more opportunity to come together and heal the wounds of past wars, and not to create the seeds of future hostilities…]
The recent controversies have proven that a large portion of people of Vietnamese descent (communists as well as anti-communists) never have any concept of MORALITY. I would like to share here a message from the late author Hoa`ng Van Chi’ (From Colonism to Communist) during a lecture in Northern California in 1979 or 1980, “If we (the Vietnamese people) adhered to morality, neither the French nor the Communist would have been able to dominate us!”
-Tien Huynh
Mr. Tien Huynh: I respect your response. I am glad I posted my message so that other people, like yourself, can voice their opinions also. I don’t believe there is any one “correct” way to think about this very important and complex topic, so disagreements are natural. Perhaps we can learn from each other. Thanks, JDV.
Mr. Dovinh, you are chickened. You dare not take the right side. It’s important, but it’s not complex. You seem to raise an issue and then you back off with such a no fault comment. Those protesters take advantage of the issue, and you know that. Nothing can defend them, nothing at all. They can protest peacefully and boycott the paper and stop reading and seeing it. That’s it. Why do they protest without a leader? Why did they allegedly commit “assault” and “battery” an employee of the paper? Why did they urinate at Nguoi Viet’s property? Why did they chase and threaten clients of the paper? Why did they use bullhorn to attack people? And so on… They should not throw their Vietnam War bitterness on those people. In short, the protesters are just losers who dare not react to their US ally but their countrymen.
@Bolsaviet: even though I disagree with the protestors, I defend their right to protest, as long as they do it in a legal, non-violent way. The actions you described are illegal, disgusting, and disgraceful. I hope (but I’m afraid I’m wrong) that only a very few people engaged in such acts? As someone who honors the yellow flag, I’m ashamed that such people are supposedly “on my side”. I say “supposedly” because even though they claim to defend the yellow flag, by their disgraceful actions they abuse and dishonor it.
I like the red flag, as much as the yellow one.
I have lived in Vietnam almost all my life, and I naturally accepted the red one as a symbol of the country, of my people. I went to the U.S. around 2 years ago to study, and I learned many great battles of the other side of the Vietnam War. Somewhere between those stories, I feel in love with the hidden nation and history of Vietnam that I didn’t ever known. Weird indeed, I feel like going back to another Vietnam, which has been moved away from the physical country.