To Be or Not To Be in Sync

To be or not to be in sync

C’est a mon tour. Avec une voix trainante et bredouillante, I’m uttering these words of mine. (I was thinking of writing this piece in French, but I abandoned the idea because I have not got around learning to use the diacritic marks and I’m pressed for time. Besides, writing in French would inevitably trigger the sense of loss and longing. What would I try to prove? Laura is not in this forum and I would come across full of pretentiousness). Anyway, the phrase “to be in sync” has been thrown around lately in this forum without given a proper exposition as what exactly the user means by the phrase. Now the dissident lawyer LCD has been observed as being “out of sync” for his conduct by some distinguished members of this forum. I am distressed by this “observation”, hence this “stream-of-consciousness” of mine.

But first, let me clarify what I understand by “to be in sync”. To me, the phrase means to be in tune with a situation and act accordingly. Thus, to be in sync is to be with the tenor of the times, to be full of congruity with the circumstances. A person can be in sync externally (with other people and society at large) and internally with himself.

Internally, a person is out of sync with himself when his actions are out of character, when he is not altogether. At a more refined level of analysis, a person can be out of sync deliberately when his actions and words don’t go together. In that case, he is simply a hypocrite. When he is out of sync unintentionally, he is delusional; he is not in touch with himself. When a person SINCERELY prays (talks) to his God, he is mildly delusional (he is engaging in self-hypnosis and not aware of it), but when he asserts that God speaks to him and he clearly hears God’s commands, he is definitely delusional and needs immediate treatment. That is why we have a quip: Prayer is when you talk to God, schizophrenia is when God talks back to you. With this understanding of mine about to be or not to be in sync, I asseverate that LCD has been in sync, contrary to what some have alleged and averred.

Anybody who calls himself educated must have the intellectual honesty of recognizing reality for what it is. So, the question is: Does the situation (rampant corruption, totalitarianism, moral decay, breakdown in education system, ceding land and water to historical enemy, ineptitude and kleptocracy in governance, and so on and so forth) in Vietnam needs urgent changes? If the answer is yes, an intellectual who loves his country has a moral obligation to act in order to bring about, to effect the changes. As a patriotic intellectual, LCD has been doing precisely that.

Anybody who has traveled to Vietnam and talked with the common people would know that the people don’t like the political system they are forced to live under. They yearn for freedom, for a system that answers to their wishes and needs, and not to the wishes and needs of the ruling elite. They long for the basic human rights currently enjoyed not only by established democratic societies in the West, but also by their close by neighbors in Thailand, South Korea, and Taiwan where elections are not farcical affairs but true exercises in democracy. They hunger for true leaders who have the courage to stand up and answer to the call of the people. LCD is such a leader and he is very much in sync with the needs of the people, no matter he looks like a Viet Kieu. He articulates and fights for what the people want. When do looks have anything to do with an ability to recognize the needs of the people? And when and why does a politician have to start from ground up at the municipal level and work to higher up? Hillary Clinton’s first elected job was as a federal senator and she did well in her job. Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected a governor of the most populous state in the U.S. without holding any elected office before. The fact that there are no laws in any country that I know of, stipulating that to run for a public office requires that one has first to hold an elected job lower in rank is a testament to the recognition that talent and desire are prime ingredients, not prior elected office experience, to be a politician. Could it be a classic case of envy, and not logic, at work here? One is or is not a politician. One is either a doer or just a talker. Some are both doers and talkers, but those people are rare. Being just a talker, a shooter of the breeze in order to have one’s voice heard even if that contributes to noise pollution, is OK with me, as long as such person does not attack or disparage doers who have done good deeds. I cannot stand hypocrisy, just as I cannot tolerate sophistry. Truth is my passion.

To be a dissident politician in a totalitarian regime requires much courage. The courage could come from naked ambition, but more often, it originates from an intense, undying love for one’s country. Based on what LCD has done (please see the articles posted by Gorille about him), any reasonable and intellectually honest person would have to conclude that LCD is a true patriot who could have an easy life outside of Vietnam, but he chose to go back to help his country. In addition, he advocates a regime change in Vietnam while living inside Vietnam. In other words, LCD has been sticking his neck out, in full recognition of the risks involved. To anticipate an ‘observation” from some defeatist reader that LCD’s actions against the government are futile and that other dissident lawyers and others have done as he does and now have an involuntary stay in confinement at the courtesy of the government, my answer is that if everybody, especially potential leaders, thinks in such a defeatist, negative framework, change is impossible. Certainly, even after the failures of uprising (Can Duong movement, VNQDD, just to cite 2 examples) against the French invaders, the Vietnamese persisted in their fight against colonialism and when the right time arrived in 1945, the whole country exploded and most Vietnamese joined in the fight. Past failures don’t necessarily guarantee future failures. Where is the virtue of persistence? Imagine, if millions of people pour out in the streets in Saigon and Ha Noi, peacefully, non-violently demand changes, do you think that changes would be impossible? Don’t underestimate the power of the people, the law of large number. As I wrote before, oppression preys on fear. Once the people no longer fear, anything can be possible, including regime change. Any regime which dares to suppress such an outpouring of display of discontent would lose legitimacy intentionally and cannot last. The current regime in Vietnam never has legitimacy domestically. The people didn’t really vote for it because the elections have always been farcical affairs. A single-party system does not have true elections. Don’t think the regime does not have fear. It knows it lacks legitimacy. It knows it has been playing a game of words with the people. It knows it is out of sync. It is fearful of losing power. Oppression reflects fear. It does not tolerate dissent. It is full of insecurity, not of confidence.

To those cynics who petulantly questioned and ridiculed LCD’s motives and wisdom in his answer to the call of the people and the call of his conscience, I have several questions for them:

Have you, self-described intellectuals and self-appointed elites, done anything concrete for Vietnam, the land of your birth and of your ancestors?
Have you stuck your neck out as LCD has done? Or are you just decrepit members of the NATO (No Action Talk Only) Alliance of Stale Air, babbling and blathering platitudes in the safety and comfort of living outside Vietnam?
Whose side exactly are you on? The side of the people or the side of the corrupt, mercantilistic ruling elite? Be honest. It’s about time.

A person’s true character is usually well-hidden unless and until it is tested. To me, the variegated reactions to the arrest of the dissident lawyer LCD constitute a litmus test of one’s character. The test also reveals if one’s life is in sync with higher values, namely, truth; fairness and decency to fellow men, especially to men of courage like LCD; and love for one’s country of birth even at the expense of one’s skin. Let’s organize protests in front of the embassies and consulates of Vietnam over the arrest of LCD. Let’s write to the media and talk to concerned people about the continuing suppression of human rights in Vietnam. Let’s get politicized. Let’s point out to the world that the current regime in Vietnam lacks legitimacy. My piece today in this forum is a small step in that direction. I have stuck my neck out. I have publicly declared my affiliation. What about you? Are you in sync with the plight of LCD and many others like him currently in jail simply for holding dissident views, with our fellow men (and women) living in oppression by a regime that does not reflect the will of the people? Or are you only full of hot, stale air and slyness? Has your life been shot through with the beauty and abundance of decency, of conscience? Have you caught fire yet as LCD has or are you still full of smoke and no heat?
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Wissai
June 19, 2009