Shame and Revolution: Vietnam’s potent and storied anticolonialism

Scroll through the comments section of any popular YouTube video about Vietnamese history, and you will see admiration and respect from around the world for Vietnam’s anticolonial prowess. ‘I’m Nicaraguan and we went up against US imperialism several times and won. Vietnam was a huge inspiration to the Sandinistas! Long live a free Palestine!’ ‘The Vietnamese struggle for independence is one of the greatest David vs Goliath stories in the history of the world.’ ‘How Vietnam managed to endure Chinese domination, French colonialism, and US imperialism is beyond me. What a country.’ These sentiments reflect a heroic narrative of resistance, one that is effectively propagated by the Vietnamese Communist Party as Vietnam’s ‘official history’ in state-sponsored publications, schools, museums and elsewhere. The narrative goes like this: for the past 2,000 years, the Vietnamese people, unified by national pride, time and again expelled more powerful foreign invaders from their land. This trad ... Read full article.