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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-02128 to 363-02137.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-02128 to 363-02137
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Title
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"The 'Silver' Race vs. the 'Black' Race"
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Description
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Original caption: "The 'Silver' Race vs. the 'Black' Race." Article by Keever about class division in Vietnam. This is article 3 of a 7-part series reflecting on the overthrow of Ngô Äình Diệm
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Transcript
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Hoope
article 3 of 7 article series
page 1
THE "SILVER" RACE VS. THE "BLACK" RACE
SAIGON--In the underdeveloped lands of Asia, there are
One is the
two races--irrespective of color of the skin.
"silver" race ¡ one is the "black" race.
The "silver" race has the money, position, prestige and
power; the "black" race is living centuries behind the rest
of the world, sometimes in Stone Age conditions.
Because of social and economic rigidity, the slavage
is not simple the "haves" vs. the "have-nots;"
vs. the "nover will haves."
but the "haves"
Unloss there is a change. In
America that change would be called reform; in Asia, it is
called revolution.
with Communism.
Sometimes, that revolution is identified
As a typical example; a Vietnamese government official,
working in the customs office, makes 9000 piastres a month in
salary.
This is not much by Western standards--$125. But
because of his position, he makes up to 50,000 piastres ($700)
through corruption--a pay off for not opening suitcases of
pre-arranged passengers who are smuggling valuables in and out
of Viet Nam. He's now building a new house, spreading rumors
that he acquired the additional funds from "the Americans"
who in time would lease his old cracker--box abode.
(More)
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deepe
article 3 of 7 article series
page 2
His maid, or "boyesse" In Vietnamese-French slang,
makes 2000 piastres ($30) a month. A tired, straggly,
uneducated woman in her 40's, she has six children who live
on the outskirts of Saigon. She lives in the back of the
kitchen of her employer's house. She gets up at five every
morning--the boss wants his coffee at six before going to
the office. She's responsible for the family cooking,
housecleaning, floor-scrubbing, marketing, caring for four
children. After dinner and until midnight each evening,
she washes the family laundry under the dim light on the
back porch.
This schedule continues six days a week, Sunday is
a "half-day." She can leave after dinner--about 10 p.m.
She does not have enough money for a taxi so she walks to the
outskirts of Saigon to see her family, arriving at 11p.m.
At four the next morning, she again walks back to work,
arriving at five. After all, the boss wants his coffee
before work.
A 20-minute taxi ride from Saigon takes one only
15 miles into the countryside--but into a different world
existing partially an Vietnamese villagers lived thousands
of years ago.
(More)
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deepe
article 3 of 7 article series
page 3
The worlds between the capital city and the village
seldom meet,
which is one of the major problems of the
Saigon government.
"The ideas and views of all the government ministeries
stops at the suburbs of Saigon,"
one American official
complained, "as though a giant cordon sealed off the capital.
"Saigon is a symbol of a constipated city.
comes in. Nothing comes out. Nothing circulates.
Nothing
It lacks
any ideas--or any iniative initiative to cope with the
Communists. Even the ministories don't give damn about the
provinces."
In the rural provinces, the differences between the
"black" race and the "silver" race are camouflaged, but even
more complex. The distinction between the two races need not
necessarily be money--though large landownning classes have
grown up--but it depends on the traditions of an ancient
Confucianistic society, which blossomed forth more than 1000
years ago after Chinese invasions.
(More)
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deepe
article 3 of 7 article series
page 4
The doctrine of Confucius (551-479 B.C.) framed
morality in terms of personal relationships with specified
duties and obligations of child to parent, younger brother
to elder brother, student to teacher and subject to king.
Ancestral worship practiced before family altars in each
home symboliwed the basis allegiane to the family. In Asia,
the family might number 100 are includes uncles, aunts,
in-laws; in ancient times, as many as five generations
lived in one house. (Vietnamese now jokingly call close
distant relatives as
relatives "cousins of one kilometer",
"cousins of one hundred kilometers.")
The head of each family was a virtual dictator;
A group
each individual was simply a member of the group.
of families formed a village and became isolated units of
government headed by village chiefs and village notables,
established rules of
who parcelled out village land,
communal life, made and enforced the law. Even in ancient
times the decrees of the Emperor extended only to the gates
the religious aspect
of the village. Through the years,
of Confucianism blended with other religions; the village
became less significant as the central government pushed
for more power.
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deepe
article 3 of 7 article sorios
page 5
But, oven now the central government has not developed
much beyond a "series of communities" stage. Confucianism
is still the traditional source of attitudes and values among
the peasants; throughout the villages, peasants regularly
place inconse and janmino flowers upon their ancestral altars;
students still collect dew drops from the lotus flowers and
present them to their teachers for tea-naling.
Through-out the generations, all the family land was
handed donw from father to the eldest son, who was responsible
for the welfare of the younger members of the family. During
coming years of population explosion, the younger sons always
outnumbered the one elder son; the small plots of land supported
more persons with each generations and a self-gonerating form
of poverty dovolopod that was never corrected because of the
scarcity of land.
Again, the "haves" maintained their power as the
grew poorer and more numerous.
"have note"
This traditional village life is now predominantly
seen in the contral provinces extending from Saigon northward
for 400 miles to the old imperial city of flue, in which, until
1954, resided the Emperor. Those central provinces, now the
stronghold of the Buddhist movement are currently the sparking
the anti-government demonstrations and organizations.
(More)
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doope
article 3 of 7 article sonies
page 6
It's hardly an accident that these strongly
traditional, strongly authoritarian areas are also the most
revolutionary--many leaders of the Communist North Vietnamose
regime were born in these poor areas.
It is from the rural areas like these that the young
men join the Communist guerrillas or the subversive political
cells. But the traditions of history, family life and
ancestral traditions are also an obstacle for the Communict
revolution.
"Given the choice between fighting and notfighting,
the Vietnamese peasant would choose not to fight,"
Western diplomat explainod.
one
"But fow have that choice. Given the preference
of fighting for the government or for the Communists, the
peasant would go to the Communist side. He's boon indoctrinated
by Communist political cadre for years--and the Communist
troops are always in his area."
This hardly moans the young recruits of the
Communists are revolutionaries--but neither are they satisfied
with the status quo offered by the American-backed Saigon
government.
(More)
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doopo
article 5 of 7 article sories
page 7
"The people are caught between two vormin," ono poasant
farmer southwest of Saigon complainod bittorly. "The Communists
malo us dig up the road by night; the government troops make us
fill it in by day. The government forces them to put up barbed
wire fences; the Communists force us to tear it down. The
government comes to us for taxes; the Communists for rice and
chicken. We can not win."
One villager could not win was Phanthi Thanh 25, from
the small village of Huynh Lion, 400 miles north of Saigon.
Her mother died when she was 16, her two elder brothers went
to North Viet Nam with the Communist guerrillas at the close
of the French Indo-China War, in 1954.
Sho lived with her deaf, blind father, 78-years-old,
who complained one day: "My sons have been gone for ten years
and their wives are not like daughters any more. We can not
give them orders like before. If they come to see us, they
come; if they don't come, they don't."
Miss Thanh told her unhappy story: "One night,
thirty Viet Cong (Communist) guerrillas came to hor hamlet
with rifles and grenades," she explained, cupping around her
drolled cigarette. "They asked the people to assemble. There
are about 80 to 90 adults in the hamlet; about 60-70 or these
aro women. The women are two-thirds of the population because
the men are in the army or elsewhere.
(More)
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deepe
article 3 of 7 article series
page 8
The people told the Viet Cong: If you come here the
national army will come and kill us.
The Viet Cong replied:
soldiers to protect us."
Don't be afraid; we have
For four consecutive nights--the village assembled
and made demonstration, she said in the daytimes it destroyed
the government strategic hamlet (the fortified hamlets
established by the government, supposedly the keystone of the
pacification effort). Villagers during the day tore down the
bamboo fonces and the Viet Cong rolled up the barbed wire fences.
The strategic hamlot had been set up 2 years ago;
Miss Thanh said; she had helped work on it, digging trenches,
picking bamboo and making it into poles and plunging them into
the ground for the fences.
The government gave the hamlet several thousand
piastres (US$30) for this work and she had received 40 piastres
(6 conts).
But the hamlet was considered an area which had lost
its security. There had boon a hamlet chief, but two months
earlier he was frightened and went to live in the village center
His assistant in charge
and stayed with the village council.
of security was kidnapped by the Viet Cong and the villagees
had heard nothing about him since.
(More)
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Acope
article 5 of 7 article series
paco 9
Misc Thanh oaid: The village used to have combat
youth, too, trained by the government for one month and given
rifles and a radio to defond the hamlet. Ilovovoz, a few months
before, they were dissolved so they gave their rifles and radio
back to the village council. When the Viet Cong came to the
honlot, they asked three combat youth to join thom and gave
then woapons. Those three woze later killed in the big battle.
"Then one night, the Viet Cong asked me to round up
the vonon to como to a moeting in one of the family's houses."
Mos Thanh explained: "Those are about 60 vonon in the hamlet,
but only 30 came to the mooting--the others vero busy with their
children. One Viet Cong soldier with a rifle kopt watch outside
the house and sometimes he'd look into the meeting.
"At the beginning of the necting, the cadre said that
with the revolution the Viet Cong must liborate the vonon so
they have their doservod place. He said they would organise
a committee of wonen in order to guide the vonon and load thoir
activities. He asked who would be ol88ted and suggested two
capable cadre; ono named Tuong and the other was mo.
The cadre he appointed. Ehong an chairman and me an
vico-chairman.
I vao not very happy or prooud and I told tho cadro
that. I said I didn't want to accept. It would be dangerous;
the national army could come and beat me."
11
(More)
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doope
article 3 of 7 article series
page 10
One day bhe government troops ordered the village
Miss Thanh said she fled to a nearby hamlet. On the first day,
cannonshells fell on the hamlet; no one was killed, but
everyone was terrified, she said four days later said she
returned to her hamlet, and at 9 in the morning the government
troops came to her hamlot.
house,"
"At first I was scared and stayed in the trench in my
Miss Thanh said: "But when the Viet Cong fled, I asked
them to tako me along. They were not very happy to take no,
but didn't force me to stay. I told then I wanted to go bocause
I was elected vice-chairman of the Women's Association and if
I stayed the government would arrest me and torture me. So I
said I was going with them.
"The Viet Cong fled towards the river and the national
army was coming from the other side. There was a lot of shooting.
When it endod, eight Viet Cong were dead. One was the chairman
of the women's committoe. I was shot in the finger and captured.
The government said I was a Viet Cong, a liaison agent."
executed.
A high-ranking military officer said she would bo
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Date
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1964, Oct.
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Subject
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Vietnam, 1961-1975; Social conflict; Social classes
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6297
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B3, F3
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections
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Language
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English
