Rumour has it: Good Morning Vietnam

Nilofer QaziJanuary 15  2012

Good morning Vietnam! Makes you smile nostalgically doesn’t it? Recently, I traveled with some friends through Vietnam, I didn’t really know what to expect,  a welcome get away from the constant emotional roller coaster of living in Pakistan at the most.  I was looking forward to the exquisite cuisine, misty mountains, endless rice paddies and the ethereal water mountains of Ho long bay – a UNESCO heritage site, the famous art galleries and Yes!  Of course, and to see some of the interesting war memorabilia of the 1960/70s.  What I didn’t expect was to reflect on what is going on in Pakistan, my beloved Pakistan, as well. 

Pakistan’s current turmoil , almost a rerun of a bad  and familiar black and white movie, ,a bully  having learnt little from his past, continues unthinkingly and repeatedly  thrashing the little guy, constantly  humiliating  the meek, seemingly helpless, while  the meek, assuming sympathy with the ‘viewer’  seeks  moral  righteousness and  hopes for eventual triumph- in the end!  What is seemingly a straightforward simple typical story subtly suggestively tells another tale. Who is actually meek? And who is actually the bully? Is it always so simple?

I thought about the young guide, Lin,  who showed us through the chu chu tunnels ,a maze of hundreds of kilometers of underground tunnels in which the Vietnamese resistance movement lived, prepared trained, and attacked the’ evil imperialists’.  Lin, having learned I was Pakistani, immediately, and very sympathetically said if Osma bin Ladin had been in Vietnam he would never have been found in those tunnels? I was so shocked at her assumption that as a Pakistani OBL had been welcomed and protected willingly by the people of Pakistan?  I wondered what could OBL possibly mean to a young Vietnamese?  A little embarrassed, I was even more bewildered that Lin, a self confessed non violent Buddhist, empathized with one of the world’s most wanted terrorist?  Why?

I wondered if she had seen one of the many  u-tube  Taliban videos? Had the ‘propaganda videos of the Taliban or Al Qaida’ remind her of messages she had grown up with?  The ‘propaganda’ movie we saw in the heartland of the Vietcong  jungle, had also showed the  ‘evils of the imperialists’ and  how the ‘civilian puppet leaders were only focused  on serving the needs of the imperialists, looting and plundering at the expense of the starving Vietnamese people’, in contrast, a nationalist was  one who ‘took up arms against such puppets’;  further,  emotive  images of  victims of the thousands of  B=52 bombs thrown on Vietnam were also shown-mercilessly  killing maiming and obliterating fields and forests which fed the agricultural dependent  nation;  The only meaning of freedom was  to ‘fight with a bayonet  in one hand, and a plow in the other’ . What struck me were the images of Vietnamese women carrying babies in one hand and a rifle in the other.

The idea to resist violence and oppression is natural, and as a Pakistani I wondered how could I relate and sympathize with the Vietcong and yet have only revulsion for  ‘our’ ‘freedom fighters at home’?   Who are my freedom fighters and defenders? What a disturbing thought.

In contrast, in Lin’s national experience all of Vietnam participated in there freedom struggle.  In  Pakistan, the defenders of our land, make one cringe.  Can I compare the moral, physical or intellectual courage of those young and old ,poor and rich Vietnamese focused on one idea - freedom from foreign control?

What moves  people into action? It cannot only be the ‘level of oppression’ in a country or  degree of  poverty, we see many countries in our neighbourhood who voice and move towards fundamental social change. Not in Pakistan .  It would  also be inaccurate to suggest that communism alone spurred revolutionary fervor in Vietnam, since little is understood of the large non communist and simply a-political support  behind the resistance movement in Vietnam.  I heard little sympathy for communism in Vietnam although Ho Chi Min was revered as the ‘father to all Vietnamese’.

I wondered if our black and white movie would end similarly or not.

Who feeds my people’s intellectual soul? Who leads them into resistance or defensive  battle? Why can’t I relate to our freedom fighters? I am not evil and also not part of the ‘imperialists’ puppetry.  Something is fundamentally absent in my society. It is so difficult to say, in a country of 180 million souls there is little evidence of true indigenous social movements, other than the urban religious based political movement, that too, I do not feel is a reflection of the social conscious of Pakistan, so culturally complex are we as a people, it is almost impossible to define Pakistanis exclusively on religion alone. Neither am I referring to the hollow ‘political’ parties  we currently have, who are  bereft of any clear, grounded, ideological foundations which ‘galvanize citizens’. Barring perhaps one political party in the Frontier, none of the current crop of political parties have a history or any experience of civil political resistance. What sacrifices have our leaders experienced as political activists, self sacrificing, completely, which essentially includes morally becons and pillars of society or truly know their peoples pain?  Do they actually have a modicum of experience of the national social reality? Somehow the vision of the current Pakistani establishment in the Chu Chu tunnels makes me laugh.

The elite by definition are not  necessarily the ‘problem’, rather history has shown us, as Ho Chi Min did, the elite usually spur and lead social movements.  But I don’t see any movement in this direction in Pakistan? Our ‘freedom fighters’ not only fight and resist the ‘imperialists’, but also terrorize and kill their own.

Perhaps most poigently I tried to comprehend a nation, and a people who can forgive. The violence and pain Vietnam experienced is difficult to comprehend, certainly for those of us who only know the war from the movies and books ; and I hope no one has the misfortune of experiencing it; nevertheless, the presence of so many of the ‘imperialists’ in Hanoi and ho Chi Min City as permanent residents, and as investors was incredible- in peace and harmony with Vietnamese society.  The tourist industry, for example, has adopted the entire paraphenalia, recreating the atmosphere of the infamous army camps, and everything associated with the GI JOE- jeeps, camouflage gear, including the very familiar Zippo lighter. I wondered how did the Vietnamese not hate those symbols and reminders of such horror. Then I thought of Lin, a vegetarian non violent Buddhist, showing us around the jungle of war empathizing with OBLs.