Here are the latest pictures of the altar to South Vietnam’s military dead placed by Ky Ngo at the protest against Nguoi Viet. It was first put up around the time of Vietnamese New Year (“Tet”) in early February, and has been at the site ever since.
Recently, however, the landowner there asked the protesters to get off the building wall so they could start doing remodeling. Read more here. So the altar is now on a truck.
It’s the same altar that Janet Nguyen paid respect to and for which she is accused by a piece on Nguoi Viet here of being a communist sympathizer. How? The Nguoi Viet piece, signed by the Coalition Against Resolution 36 the organizer of protests here against Viet Weekly, accuses the Nguoi Viet protesters of being communist tools, etc. You know how it goes.
One commenter here, Lanin (oh gosh, first “Bolsavik” now “Lanin” – what will people come up with next?) wrote: “an altar in a protest? Wow… Never seen it b4.”
Actually, historically, the idea of dragging an altar around in a protest is not Ky Ngo’s invention. Back in 1963, protests against South Vietnam’s president Ngo Dinh Diem also featured altars in the street protests.
Ironically, that was how the Nguoi Viet original shareholders met and made their names. Late publisher and founder Yen Do, current chairman Dat Phan, senior editor Toan Quy Do, even the former CEO Anh Viet Do, they all met while in the boy scouts, and then all joined the anti-Diem protests. Toan Do, in fact, made his first mark writing a poem entitled “Fire” – about the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc (below).
