Showing that they cling more to their fragile and insecure ideology than they care about Vietnamese, these zealots have been making the accusation on web sites and in dozens and dozens of email being circulated around the net for a week now. The wild accusation is based on one person alleging that, in a fundraiser in California, the woman many Vietnamese call “Miss Heart” supposedly did not salute the old South Vietnamese flag.

“Miss Heart” (“Cô Tim” in Vietnamese) was just a young 20-year-old art-school graduate when she engaged on a trip around the world in 1992. Going through Asia, Aline Rebeaud arrived at Saigon.

As the story goes, one night Rebeaud came upon a Vietnamese boy lying in the street of Saigon, about to die of starvation.

Where thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese just walked on by, Rebeaud stopped.

She picked up the street kid, brought him back to the “mini-hotel” where she was staying, and nourished him back to health.

And she has been doing that ever since, to hundreds of other children of Vietnam, a country with no particular tie to her other than a caring heart of one human being for another.

Using money from the sale of her artwork, Aline Rebeaud bought a thatched house in the far outskirts of Saigon and began housing young orphans and handicapped there.

Thus was born the Maison Chance (in Vietnamese: Nhà May Man). Maison Chance houses orphans and the handicapped, and teaches them handiwork skills that would allow them to make a living when need be.

That was when Aline Rebeaud became known as Miss Heart, and the orphans that live with her call her Mother Heart (in Vietnamese: Me Tim).

Maison Chance needed, and was granted, a license from the communist government of Vietnam to operate in the country as a non-governmental organization (NGO). Unlike other countries, in Vietnam you’re required to have permission to do good deeds.

As Maison Chance grew, the sale of Rebeaud’s artwork wasn’t enough any more. Rebeaud began raising funds to support the expanded institution. Vietnamese around the world chipped in and created support arms for the Maison Chance in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

It was during a recent fundraising trip that the controversy erupted.

Last month, “Cô Tim” went on a North American fundraising tour, including a stop in Little Saigon, at Nguoi Viet Daily News’ community room. Rebeaud brought along a series of artwork created by the children of Maison Chance. In addition to raising funds for the organization, Rebeaud was also selling the artwork, with proceeds going directly to the child-painter, she said.

At Nguoi Viet, although it was not an official fundraiser, people still donated money and bought the artwork.

Even perennial protestor Ky Ngo had enough sense not to disrupt the Nguoi Viet event.

Elsewhere, “Cô Tim”‘s fundraising was hugely successful. At an event in San Jose, with alumni of the now-closed Buddhist university Van Hanh, she raised at least $57,000 in just one evening.

It may be the success that engendered envy and jealousy, but shortly after news of the successful fundraising spread, emails began to surface, questioning Cô Tim’s motives.

Then it was said that, at an event in San Fernando Valley, Cô Tim had left the room when the people began to salute the flag of the former South Vietnam. When she came back, she asked for the flag to be taken down, and the organizers obliged.

For that, Cô Tim has been accused of being communist spy, an agent of the government of Vietnam.

Epithets started flying.

This writer derided Cô Tim as a “big-nosed shrew from nowhere and working in communist Vietnam.” A reference to the big nose is a Vietnamese racist term to call Caucasians.

This email calls on people in Texas to “chase the Tim Aline Rebeaud wench … out of Houston.” The yellow highlight is in the original.

This writer gave the opinion that Vietnamese abroad should not contribute to any humanitarian efforts in Vietnam. “Poor, orphaned, handicapped children – let the communists deal with them,” he wrote. Vietnamese abroad should, according to him, only give money to anti-communist causes.

Now, if hundreds of orphans are counting on your status as a NGO approved by the communist government, then wouldn’t you put the lives and livelihood of the orphans ahead of the need to display a flag?

Maybe you wouldn’t. But that says a lot about your perverted sense of priority.