Sunday, August 2, 2009

Freedom of speech in Vietnam

Vietnam is a lovely country. I enjoy living in this state. However, there's one thing I don't like about it: Vietnam lacks freedom of speech. Nobody can criticize the ruling Communist Party here.

Once upon a time, Vietnam went through a fierce war. Politics destroyed everything in this country. Since the Vietnam war ended in 1975, Vietnamese people have lost their interest in politics. They have learned that politics doesn't make them happy.

Vietnam has neither freedom of speech nor democracy. But people don't seem to care as long as the government keeps its promise that it brings economic development to its people. This is a kind of implicit social contract. And so far so good.

I don't really object to it. After all, Vietnam is still a developing country and it's more important to feed its people properly than to give them freedom of speech. This is understandable.

However, there's a risk that it will prevent Vietnamese from thinking in a creative manner in the future. This can become a problem once Vietnamese economy has reached a certain level of affluence.

You could say that Vietnamese people are currently tuned more to be good factory workers than to be imaginative creators. Maybe, it's okay for now. I hope that someday it will have a full-fledged freedom of speech for the future generations in Vietnam.

1 comment:

kensaii said...

absolutely. I'm Vietnamese who currently studying in US. I'd love to do and say everything I like. It strongly needs a divergent thinking way than a convergent one. :)