Report From Cambodia

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I have now moved on from Việt Nam to Cambodia. Slow and sometimes no internet service have made it difficult to keep up with my usual type of posts about domestic U.S. issues; but we can look upon that as an opportunity to record some information and observations from half way around the world.

Here in Cambodia, the focus of tourism is mainly on two things: (1) the incredible 9th to 13th century temples and other structures located among the jungles in the center of the country, going by the general name of Angkor Wat, and (2) the story of the “killing fields” genocide of 1975 to 1979. For photos of several of the better-known of the temples, go to Mrs. MC’s Instagram posts at DenieDM. I will focus on the story of the killing fields.

Perhaps because of the original application of the word and as a result of its etymology (“geno” derives from the Greek for “race”), we tend to think of genocides as involving the mass killing of people of one race or ethnicity by those of another race or ethnicity. Prominent examples include the holocaust (murder of Jews by German Nazis in the early 1940s), the Rwandan genocide (murder of Tutsis by Hutus in or about 1994), the Armenian genocide (at the hands of the Turks in the period of about 1915 to 1920), and so forth.

The Cambodian “killing fields” genocide of 1975 to 1979 was not one of these. . . .

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Report From Việt Nam -- Part VI

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Report From Việt Nam -- Part VI

While Mrs. MC has been busy taking beautiful and artistic pictures on our trip (follow her at DenieDM on Instagram), I’m making it my business to get a few pictures of things you will not see elsewhere. I don’t do Instagram or Facebook, so why not post a few of these here?

For example, you are probably dying to see what Việt Nam’s electricity infrastructure looks like. We were told that about 25% of the people in the country continue to lack access to electricity; but those 25% are located mostly in remote and mountainous areas. In the cities, and also small villages in the Mekong delta, electricity service was generally available, although many small homes in the villages did not appear to be hooked up to it. But even in the major cities the system looked like it was put together with chewing gum and duct tape. . . .

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Report From Việt Nam -- Part V

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Apologies for the lack of posts for the past several days. I have been out of internet range. I will try to make it up over the next several days.

Here is some history of agricultural production in Việt Nam. My source is the book “Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present” by Ben Kiernan. Kiernan is a professor at Yale. The book was published in 2017.

When Ho Chi Minh’s communists gained control of the northern part of Việt Nam in the early 1950s, one of their first significant projects was a systematic “land reform” that included evicting the pre-existing landlords and collectivizing agriculture in the Stalinist model. From Kiernan (page 431):

Led by then-[Việt Nam Workers Party] secretary general Truong Chinh and backed by Ho Chi Minh from the start, [“land reform”] involved two major processes. The first comprised land reform proper, the redistribution to poor peasants of lands held by landlords, “rich peasants,” and even many middle peasants. . . . [T]he results [came] with a high level of violence. Landlords and rich peasants had not merely lost their lands. Thousands were killed, including some of those who formerly comprised 29 percent of the membership of village party committees.

Kiernan provides fewer details, but a similar process took place in the South both before and after the communist victory in the early 1970s. How did that land redistribution and agricultural collectivization work out? . . .

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Report From Việt Nam -- Part IV

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Report From Việt Nam -- Part IV

Today I’ll focus on some economic changes going on here in Việt Nam, many of which a visitor can observe personally at least in part.

When the Việt Nam War ended in 1975, this was a very, very poor country. A site called countryeconomy.com has some statistics for the period from then to 1986. I would not take these numbers as anything exact, but rather as a rough indication of the extent to which Việt Nam was completely isolated from the world economy at that time, under the strict Communist régime imposed at the end of the war. Country Economy has Việt Nam’s per capita GDP as a big $80 in 1975, increasing to $556 in 1986 (although that includes what I would consider highly dubious increases of 283% in the single year of 1980, and another 121% single-year increase in 1986). Even if you believe those increases, $556 annual per capital GDP represents rather extreme poverty for a country. (The current U.S. figure is about $60,000.) . . .

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Report From Việt Nam -- Part II

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Report From Việt Nam -- Part II

If you come to Việt Nam as a first time tourist, of course you will have to visit the obligatory top tourist sites. Many of those tell the story of what we Americans call the Việt Nam War, and which Vietnamese unsurprisingly call the American War. In Hanoi, there is the gigantic mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh (complete with mummified body, in the great tradition of Lenin); and then the grim little building known as the “Hanoi Hilton” — the one-time French colonial prison in the downtown area that was converted to house American POWs during the period 1963-73. John McCain famously spent several years there. In Saigon, there is the museum now bearing the name “War Remnants Museum” which, we were told, formerly had the name “War Crimes Museum.”

That museum’s earlier name — War Crimes Museum — gives the better indication of its perspective on the story of the war. The Americans were “murderous oppressors.” Along with their colleagues from “mercenary satellite countries” (e.g., UK, Australia) they propped up the “puppet régime” in South Việt Nam, and viciously attacked the brave Vietnamese peasants. After many great victories, the Vietnamese finally achieved “complete liberation” of the country in 1975. Although much of this rhetoric seemed harshly anti-American, we were informed that it had been meaningfully toned down (including the museum’s name change) in the years since the American-Vietnamese reconciliation that occurred in the mid-1990s under President Clinton.

Comparing the narrative in the museum to the situation in the country today gives cause for reflection on what it means to “win” a war in today’s world. . . .

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