Superiority and Inferiority

Superiority and Survival

Most, if not all, reasonably intelligent humans harbor a desire to be the best at what they do, at their chosen métiers, their endeavors. The feeling that of all humans on this planet, one is truly unsurpassed in a given area must be an intoxicating feeling for that person to have. Thus, we, or at least I do, wonder what goes on in the minds of Tiger Woods and Phil Ivey, two American black men, when they are universally acknowledged the masters of their fields. We also wonder what went on in the minds of past world conquerors and religious founders.

On the other hand, we cannot help but laugh at lesser men who fancy that they are smarter or better than the rest of us, but have nothing to offer us in terms of proofs and evidence. Sure, we understand the need of humans to triumph, to assert, to excel, to crow, and to yelp and yell and call attention to themselves. Every dog wants to have its day in the sun. While all the dogs are busy barking and asserting themselves of their superiority, in a land with the shape of the letter S, the people are in dire traits and in danger of being assimilated by their historical and numerically superior foe, the Chinese.

It does not take a person with Darwin’s learning and intelligence to recognize that life is a never-ending process of struggle to survive and prosper. It goes on around us. Life is the will to stay alive and to reproduce. The inferior is being killed and consumed by the superior. Plant life takes nutrients from its surroundings. Herbivores consume plant life. Carnivores eat herbivores. Carnivores compete among themselves to be the masters of this planet. Man has come a long way ever since he ventured out of the forests in Africa and peered into the vast savannahs stretching hundreds of miles in front of him. He has arrived in all corners of the world, establishing communities and nations. In the process, nations come and go, and with them languages. Those peoples with the strongest will to survive and who know how to band together to fight their enemies are the ones who have their names recognized in the Assembly of the United Nations in New York. Those who are disunited and weak are now ruled by others and continue living in humiliation and abject slavery and are in the process of being assimilated. They eventually will disappear and their names are just footnotes in history. Ask the Tibetans and Uighurs (in Xinjiang of western China) of how they feel and you can taste the bitterness of defeat, the burning sensation of regret of not fighting when they had a chance.

We Vietnamese, the proud and ancient people, have survived for thousands of years. We once ruled the whole Indochina peninsula in 19th century prior to the arrival of the French. I had no respect for the Nguyen dynasty. Ngyen Anh relied on the French for help in the fight against Tay Son. Because of him, the French had an interest and a desire to conquer us. Ho Chi Minh, the so-called icon of North Vietnam, did exactly the same thing. Because of him, the Chinese are now the beneficiary of the brutal civil war, also known as the Vietnam War, and are now taking over our country

We are 87 million strong. We have produced many talented people in all kinds of endeavors. Are we willing and content to sit around and stand idly while the Chinese go on killing our fishermen and taking over our islands and our land, possessing our women, and teaching the products of such unions the Chinese language? Are we not the descendants of the proud people who managed to defeat the Mongols THREE times while the whole world trembled at the mere mention of the coming of the Mongols? At that time, the Mongols were numerically superior to us, too, but our forefathers had no fear of them. They were willing to fight for their pride and dignity. They did not want to live in slavery. Are we now, the descendants of such valiant people, pitiful cowards and willing to roll over and play dead facing the arrogant, expansionist Chinks of the North?

Wissai
October 29, 2009.