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Human Right In Vietnam
Of Human Rights in Vietnam
This topic is not chosen at random in the wake of a related action taken early September by the US House of Representatives, an action in no way acceptable to the Government and people of Vietnam.
Human Rights are a cultural value of humankind, with enormous importance. As the Vietnamese often say, to lose one?s culture is to lose everything. Culture of such as the Vietnamese nation is cultivated with four thousand years of history, through fierce struggles with foreign invasion, natural calamity and within itself. Therefore, in the thought of the Vietnamese people Human Rights are the cultural strength, the requirement of every individual for the value of the right to live in an independent country, the right to development, the freedom to religion and belief. Strange to the Vietnamese is the idea of opposing individuals to the community and separating rights from obligations. Codified in the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Human Rights are practiced in all political, economic, cultural and social life and are better and better guaranteed with the advancement of the country enriched by absorbing cultural quintessence of other nations in its intercourse with the world community. By the way, one can contemplate the fact that human rights standards provided in the 10 Amendments to the US Constitution only include civil and political rights while largely excluding economic, social and cultural rights. How these rights are provided depends on the characteristics and the right of the American State and people. For developing countries including Vietnam, however, the most imperative right is also the rights to life, economic and social development. Differences in history and culture necessarily result in differences in human rights perception and practicing. Different countries cannot be forced to have the same perception and a similar human rights model. Furthermore, the practicing of human rights is mere internal affairs of each country.
Those Americans having visited Vietnam saw with their own eyes that every Vietnamese enjoys a life made better and better with every passing day, particularly after the last 15 years of renovation, also known as Doi Moi. As the country had undergone decades of war and is developing from a backward agriculture-based economy, difficulties remain in every Vietnamese? material life. However, each Vietnamese feels comfortable with and proud of being a citizen of an independent Vietnam, having a safe life and the full right to stand for election, nominate and vote to administration at all levels, the right to have shelter, to employment, to free enterprise to amass riches for himself/herself and his/her family, etc.
Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese leader, a man of culture of the world as conferred upon by UNESCO, made a simple but fully humanistic statement about the right to be human being of the Vietnamese people: After gaining independence ?comes the task of how to assist every fellow country man and woman to be fed, clothed and educated?. The drinking and eating culture of the Vietnamese is connected closely with cultivating rice, eating rice or noodle soup, not pizza or hot-dog. With regard to learning, the Vietnamese now also use the Internet ? a wonderful product of mankind?s civilization. But they do not want to have contents in their ?learning and practicing? to be contrary to their fine traditional custom or detrimental to the Oriental ethics and living style, thus causing damage to the families ? the cells of the society.
In order to build a better life, the Vietnamese also understand they must rely basically on themselves. All foreign cooperation and assistance are valued and appreciated. But it would be an offense if someone tried to arbitrarily impose conditions for assistance level to Vietnam on ?progress? on the lifestyle and human rights of the Vietnamese. The right Human Rights, as now consented by the majority, must be for ?development for all.? Linking unreasonable human rights conditions to expansion of mutually beneficiary cooperation is a big mistake. That is even worse in the Vietnam-US relations. Given severe long-term consequences left by the war to our two nations, whenever can such way of thinking help conciliation and heal the war wounds.(1)
Some are concerned about religious freedom in Vietnam. Currently, about 20 million, or up to one-third of the population, follow one religion or another; the majority of the other two-thirds practice ancestral worship. The precious tradition preserved by the different Vietnamese ethnic people in history was to allow no religious discrimination or conflict, to maintain the coexistence among religious and non-religious people and among different religions as a natural reality and aspiration. If the State of Vietnam today suppressed religions, how could there exist up to 500 Protestant Churches. How could the Protestant Church of Vietnam just come to being? How could 6 seminaries be established from 1987 to 1994? How can Vietnam possibly be home to the second largest number of bishops in Asia (second only to the Philippines)? There are now three Buddhist Universities compared to just one before 1975. How could the Hoa Hao sect, the country?s fifth largest religion, celebrate its 60 anniversary in 1999? So on and so forth. As for abiding by the laws, is there a state on Earth under which citizens, religious and non-religious, can live and act beyond its laws, beyond his/her nation?s fine custom and cultural traditions? A few law violators cannot be defended by criticizing a right policy and a vast positive reality. All citizens need to have the right to be treated equal before the Constitution and laws. What important in Vietnam is that no individual is arrested or jailed for religious faith.
What about freedom of expression? The Vietnamese are entitled to the right to democracy and freedom written in the Constitution, including the freedom of speech and expression, freedom of press, freedom of information, freedom of assembly, association and demonstration as regulated by the laws. Every effort made by the State is to enhance these rights. That is why democracy from the grassroots now prevails in the life in Vietnam. This form of democracy is rooted from age-old community-based life in Vietnamese, now the strength for the Vietnamese nation to live forever. It is being practiced through hundreds of daily newspapers, magazines and television networks; through their representative members to the National Assembly they themselves elected by direct vote. Ordinary people now have sufficient conditions to express their views over all political, economical and social issues of their country; criticize negative phenomena within the administration and corruption committed by bureaucratic officials; and have a voice in the decision and policy making process at all levels. Therefore, actions to abuse the right to freedom and democracy to contravene state interests and damage the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and citizens, like in other countries, must be subject to criminal judgment.
Ushering in a new century, all Vietnamese share a common wish for peace and stability so that they can focus on producing and building the country into a more and more prosperous one, and building a just, democratic and civilized society. Vietnam has stated its willingness to be a friend and reliable partner of all countries. Even though the Vietnamese are still poor compared to people in other countries, they have a fine cultural tradition of protecting and helping one another and are making every effort to carry out ?hunger eradication and poverty alleviation?. This policy and Vietnam?s cooperation with the United Nations (UN) in hunger eradication and poverty alleviation efforts have been praised by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as exemplary for cooperation between the UN and the developing countries. The State has promulgated numerous preferential policies in education, health care, household production loan, giving priority to construction of social infrastructure projects in order to improve the life of ethnic minority groups. It is also doing its utmost to assist the poor, especially those in the mountainous Central and Northwestern Highlands. While many countries are still hesitant to do so, Vietnam has acceded to most of the major international conventions related to human rights, including all the conventions on protecting women and children, social elements that suffer ill-treatment and persecution the most. With enhanced prestige and sustained effort in regard to human rights, the election of Vietnam to the UN Human Rights Commission in 2000 is well deserved.
A senior US official in exclusive charge of Human Rights said, ?No country is perfect? with regard to Human Rights. But the Vietnamese people are quite proud of the achievements recorded in ever protecting and improving their rights. This reflects enormous efforts made to date by the State of Vietnam, a State with good nature from birth being of the people, by the people and for the people, given continued economic difficulties being solved domestically and the requirements from the world civilized life.
Mutual respect and understanding instead of imposition are the guidelines to address the human rights issue, which is so sensitive and important.
Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in USA
Of Human Rights in Vietnam
This topic is not chosen at random in the wake of a related action taken early September by the US House of Representatives, an action in no way acceptable to the Government and people of Vietnam.
Human Rights are a cultural value of humankind, with enormous importance. As the Vietnamese often say, to lose one?s culture is to lose everything. Culture of such as the Vietnamese nation is cultivated with four thousand years of history, through fierce struggles with foreign invasion, natural calamity and within itself. Therefore, in the thought of the Vietnamese people Human Rights are the cultural strength, the requirement of every individual for the value of the right to live in an independent country, the right to development, the freedom to religion and belief. Strange to the Vietnamese is the idea of opposing individuals to the community and separating rights from obligations. Codified in the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Human Rights are practiced in all political, economic, cultural and social life and are better and better guaranteed with the advancement of the country enriched by absorbing cultural quintessence of other nations in its intercourse with the world community. By the way, one can contemplate the fact that human rights standards provided in the 10 Amendments to the US Constitution only include civil and political rights while largely excluding economic, social and cultural rights. How these rights are provided depends on the characteristics and the right of the American State and people. For developing countries including Vietnam, however, the most imperative right is also the rights to life, economic and social development. Differences in history and culture necessarily result in differences in human rights perception and practicing. Different countries cannot be forced to have the same perception and a similar human rights model. Furthermore, the practicing of human rights is mere internal affairs of each country.
Those Americans having visited Vietnam saw with their own eyes that every Vietnamese enjoys a life made better and better with every passing day, particularly after the last 15 years of renovation, also known as Doi Moi. As the country had undergone decades of war and is developing from a backward agriculture-based economy, difficulties remain in every Vietnamese? material life. However, each Vietnamese feels comfortable with and proud of being a citizen of an independent Vietnam, having a safe life and the full right to stand for election, nominate and vote to administration at all levels, the right to have shelter, to employment, to free enterprise to amass riches for himself/herself and his/her family, etc.
Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese leader, a man of culture of the world as conferred upon by UNESCO, made a simple but fully humanistic statement about the right to be human being of the Vietnamese people: After gaining independence ?comes the task of how to assist every fellow country man and woman to be fed, clothed and educated?. The drinking and eating culture of the Vietnamese is connected closely with cultivating rice, eating rice or noodle soup, not pizza or hot-dog. With regard to learning, the Vietnamese now also use the Internet ? a wonderful product of mankind?s civilization. But they do not want to have contents in their ?learning and practicing? to be contrary to their fine traditional custom or detrimental to the Oriental ethics and living style, thus causing damage to the families ? the cells of the society.
In order to build a better life, the Vietnamese also understand they must rely basically on themselves. All foreign cooperation and assistance are valued and appreciated. But it would be an offense if someone tried to arbitrarily impose conditions for assistance level to Vietnam on ?progress? on the lifestyle and human rights of the Vietnamese. The right Human Rights, as now consented by the majority, must be for ?development for all.? Linking unreasonable human rights conditions to expansion of mutually beneficiary cooperation is a big mistake. That is even worse in the Vietnam-US relations. Given severe long-term consequences left by the war to our two nations, whenever can such way of thinking help conciliation and heal the war wounds.(1)
Some are concerned about religious freedom in Vietnam. Currently, about 20 million, or up to one-third of the population, follow one religion or another; the majority of the other two-thirds practice ancestral worship. The precious tradition preserved by the different Vietnamese ethnic people in history was to allow no religious discrimination or conflict, to maintain the coexistence among religious and non-religious people and among different religions as a natural reality and aspiration. If the State of Vietnam today suppressed religions, how could there exist up to 500 Protestant Churches. How could the Protestant Church of Vietnam just come to being? How could 6 seminaries be established from 1987 to 1994? How can Vietnam possibly be home to the second largest number of bishops in Asia (second only to the Philippines)? There are now three Buddhist Universities compared to just one before 1975. How could the Hoa Hao sect, the country?s fifth largest religion, celebrate its 60 anniversary in 1999? So on and so forth. As for abiding by the laws, is there a state on Earth under which citizens, religious and non-religious, can live and act beyond its laws, beyond his/her nation?s fine custom and cultural traditions? A few law violators cannot be defended by criticizing a right policy and a vast positive reality. All citizens need to have the right to be treated equal before the Constitution and laws. What important in Vietnam is that no individual is arrested or jailed for religious faith.
What about freedom of expression? The Vietnamese are entitled to the right to democracy and freedom written in the Constitution, including the freedom of speech and expression, freedom of press, freedom of information, freedom of assembly, association and demonstration as regulated by the laws. Every effort made by the State is to enhance these rights. That is why democracy from the grassroots now prevails in the life in Vietnam. This form of democracy is rooted from age-old community-based life in Vietnamese, now the strength for the Vietnamese nation to live forever. It is being practiced through hundreds of daily newspapers, magazines and television networks; through their representative members to the National Assembly they themselves elected by direct vote. Ordinary people now have sufficient conditions to express their views over all political, economical and social issues of their country; criticize negative phenomena within the administration and corruption committed by bureaucratic officials; and have a voice in the decision and policy making process at all levels. Therefore, actions to abuse the right to freedom and democracy to contravene state interests and damage the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and citizens, like in other countries, must be subject to criminal judgment.
Ushering in a new century, all Vietnamese share a common wish for peace and stability so that they can focus on producing and building the country into a more and more prosperous one, and building a just, democratic and civilized society. Vietnam has stated its willingness to be a friend and reliable partner of all countries. Even though the Vietnamese are still poor compared to people in other countries, they have a fine cultural tradition of protecting and helping one another and are making every effort to carry out ?hunger eradication and poverty alleviation?. This policy and Vietnam?s cooperation with the United Nations (UN) in hunger eradication and poverty alleviation efforts have been praised by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as exemplary for cooperation between the UN and the developing countries. The State has promulgated numerous preferential policies in education, health care, household production loan, giving priority to construction of social infrastructure projects in order to improve the life of ethnic minority groups. It is also doing its utmost to assist the poor, especially those in the mountainous Central and Northwestern Highlands. While many countries are still hesitant to do so, Vietnam has acceded to most of the major international conventions related to human rights, including all the conventions on protecting women and children, social elements that suffer ill-treatment and persecution the most. With enhanced prestige and sustained effort in regard to human rights, the election of Vietnam to the UN Human Rights Commission in 2000 is well deserved.
A senior US official in exclusive charge of Human Rights said, ?No country is perfect? with regard to Human Rights. But the Vietnamese people are quite proud of the achievements recorded in ever protecting and improving their rights. This reflects enormous efforts made to date by the State of Vietnam, a State with good nature from birth being of the people, by the people and for the people, given continued economic difficulties being solved domestically and the requirements from the world civilized life.
Mutual respect and understanding instead of imposition are the guidelines to address the human rights issue, which is so sensitive and important.
Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in USA
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