Everyday Life in Southeast Asia

18 Living with the War Dead in Contemporary Vietnam

18 Living with the War Dead in Contemporary Vietnam Shaun Kingsley Malarney Two of the most common sites visible across Vietnam are cemeteries for soldiers and monuments that instruct the living to remember their debts to dead soldiers. These symbolic reminders of the presence of war dead can be found in virtually every Vietnamese community, yet other reminders are visible as well in the names of schools, streets, and national holidays . They are also present in photographs on family ancestral altars and in government-issued certificates acknowledging the death of a soldier in battle that are hung on the walls of homes. Stated simply, war dead are a regular and visible part of everyday life in Vietnam. Their ubiquity creates an initial impression that Vietnamese people think about, categorize, and engage them in similar ways. However, as this chapter will demonstrate, war dead mobilize many significant cultural ideas, unique sources of anguish, and political complexities. Moreover, their presence both reveals and conceals significant consequences of the decades of warfare that Vietnam experienced in the mid- to late twentieth century. the background to war dead in vietnam Over the course of its history, Vietnam has been involved in numerous wars, most notably with its northern neighbor China. The Chinese successfully conquered the northern parts of Vietnam and turned it into their southernmost province from 111 bc to 938 ad. They then reinvaded several times in subsequent centuries. In the period from 1946 to 1989, Vietnam experienced a series of wars that took the lives of millions of its citizens: first in the eightyear war against the French (1946–1954); second in the prolonged war of reunification that pitted the northern Democratic Republic of Vietnam against the southern Republic of Vietnam and its allies, notably the United States (1959–1975); next in the brief border war against the Chinese (1979–1980); and finally in the war in Cambodia after the Vietnamese overthrow of the 238 / Shaun Kingsley Malarney Khmer Rouge (1979–1989). These latter wars involved the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers, but they also involved the deaths of over at least one million civilian noncombatants. The frequency of Vietnam’s wars, combined with the fact that the majority of their wars have been fought on their own soil, has led to the cultural celebration of heroes (anh hùng) who have resisted foreign aggression. Over the centuries, a wide variety of individuals have gained fame for fighting foreign invaders, such the Trưng Sisters, who lost their lives after they successfully overthrew Chinese rule in 40 to 43 ad; Triệu Thị Trịnh, who also lost her life after leading another revolt against the Chinese in 248 ad; and Trbn Hưng Ðạo, the general who devised the strategy that halted the Mongol invasion of Vietnam in 1285. These and other heroes are widely celebrated in popular culture for their “meritorious works” (công) in trying to protect Vietnam from aggression and occupation. Although fighting to defend Vietnam is accorded tremendous prestige, the greatest prestige is given to those who give their lives in doing so. Such individuals are regarded as having “sacrificed” (hi sinh) their lives, an act that gives them great distinction in the community of the dead. The process of being socially recognized as having sacrificed one’s life for Vietnam, however, begins to illustrate the complexities associated with Vietnamese war dead. The most prominent and prestigious members of this community in contemporary Vietnam are those referred to as “revolutionary martyrs” (liệt sĩ). The term liệt sĩ has a long history in the Vietnamese language, but in the mid-1920s the Vietnamese communists redefined it as an individual who had “sacrificed” his or her life in support of the revolutionary cause. Benoit de Treglodé, based upon an official document from 1957, gives a compelling description of the revolutionary martyr as “a person who died gloriously on the field of honor in the struggle against imperialism and feudalism since 1925.” He further noted that the revolutionary martyr was someone who had “courageously fallen at the front in the defense of the work of the national revolution” (Tréglodé 2001:267). It is important to note, however, that it was initially the Communist Party and later the government of North Vietnam that decided which individuals were classified as revolutionary martyrs. There were no restrictions based upon age, gender, or even Communist Party membership, but the designation could only be earned through official scrutiny and...