Figure 2 Occupying the easternmost swath of the Indochinese Peninsula, Vietnam is a mostly hilly and forested land. Its 127,882 sq mi make of it the sixty-fifth largest country in the world, inhabited by 95,5 million people, thus ranking fifteenth when compared with other countries’ population. The human presence in what is now Vietnam is a fact since the Lower Paleolithic, as attested by some 500,000 years old fossils of Homo erectus found in the north of the country. Time passed, and different human groups overlapped each other until their combined cultural achievements converged to the Đông Sơn Bronze Age culture, so named after the northern Vietnamese village of Đông Sơn, where their remains were found. What is more, Đông Sơn’s influence “spread to other parts of Southeast Asia, including Maritime Southeast Asia, from about 1000 BC to 1 BC. The Dong Son people, who are also known as Lạc or Lạc Việt, were skilled at cultivating rice, keeping water buffalos and pigs, fishing and sailing in long dugout canoes. They also were skilled bronze casters, which is evidenced by the Dong Son drum found widely throughout northern Vietnam and South China. To the south of the Dong Son culture was the Sa Huỳnh culture of the proto-Chams” [4]. The homo vietnamiensis – if we can him so – started to be shaped in this cultural scenario. Yet more times than not, the influence from the giant of the North has been unavoidable. Chinese presence is a fundamental constant in the Vietnamese way of life.

Figure 2: “A dictatorship is a state in which all fear one and one fears all” (Alberto Moravia).

In essence, Vietnam’s history is not different from that of other nations we may be more familiar with: we will find there the same cycles of dynasties, kingdoms, internal and international wars, territorial expansion and shrinking. As for particular historical landmarks, July 2 1976 is a date not to be forgotten for all Vietnamese; on that day, North Vietnam and South Vietnam merged by force of arms into one single country (the Socialist Republic of Vietnam). Atheism become the “religion” of the State, being all true forms of religion subjected to persecution. Not content with eliminating all other political rivals, Communist leaders usually do not want competition in the spiritual arena either: no other being can be worship but the Communist Party, the Communist People and the Communist Dictator (see North Korea and China). Notwithstanding, religiousness heroically survives in Atheistic Vietnam. Within this small spiritual universe, Buddhists are majority and Hindus minority. Christianity ranks second in terms of number of followers, but leads the ranking of martyrdoms. In fact, “The atheist dictatorship of Vietnam persecute all kinds of religion. In particular, Christians are most affected. Open Doors has ranged Vietnam on place 21. The country’s Communist regime can close churches without any reason. In 2012 the regime closed at least seven Catholic churches. A Catholic orphanage was also closed and a pastor was beaten by the regime’s authorities. In the Vietnamese countryside, the situation is worse as in the cities, because tribal leaders discriminate against Christians for their faith”[5].

More: “Christians in Vietnam are targeted by both the government and, especially in rural contexts, tribal leaders. The government has some level of tolerance for Christian groups, particularly Catholics, but if any believers are deemed to be politically active, they can be imprisoned. In places where religion and ethnic identity are closely tied, Christians who convert from traditional religions are often victims of pressure and violence from their families and communities. On the state level, villagers collude with local Communist authorities, beating believers, kicking them out of their villages and stoning places of worship during meetings. Local and national government authorities persecute the Christian minority through their laws, and Christian bloggers and political activists have been arrested and sentenced” [6].

It is not of today that Christians have been persecuted in Vietnam. Communism has only continued with a centuries-old tradition. Indeed, since the 16th century, Vietnam has bequeathed to eternity a great number of Christian martyrs; in the West, the best known of them seem to be the Blessed Andrew of Phu Yen (1624- 1644), also named the “Protomartyr of Vietnam”, and Saint Andrew Dũng-Lạc (1795-1839). As a matter of fact, “The tortures these individuals underwent are considered by the Vatican to be among the worst in the history of Christian martyrdom. The torturers hacked off limbs joint by joint, tore flesh with red hot tongs, and used drugs to enslave the minds of the victims. Christians at the time were branded on the face with the words ‘tả đạo’ and families and villages which subscribed to Christianity were obliterated” [7] (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Hòa Nhập.

Disability is, among many others, a sensitive issue in Vietnam. The country has one of the world’s highest rates of disable per capita [8], which means that nearly 15% of the Vietnamese population suffers from at least one kind of disability. A simple outing in Vietnamese cities and villages demonstrates that the expression accessibility, unfortunately, is not much more than a flatus vocis, i.e., a mere abstraction – or, as the nominalist philosophers would say, a name that lacks any individual and objective reality to correspond to. Nonetheless, progress has been made in recent years, as testified by the partnership between the Vietnamese Government and institutions like UNICEF, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and ILO (International Labour Organisation). Mention must also be made of the Vietnamese institution called Hòa Nhập (“Reaching Out”), established in the historical city of Hoi An in year 2000, with the purpose of opening professional doors and windows for the disabled of Vietnam, thus providing them a better quality of life. In their own words, “Reaching Out (Hòa Nhập) was established in 2000 with the vision of providing opportunities for disable people to learn skills and gain meaningful employment so that they are able to integrate fully with their communities and lead independent and fulfilling lives. Over the years, our social enterprise, Reaching Out, has grown to a multi-location group of businesses where people of different abilities can showcase their unique talents in an array of exquisitely crafted goods and gracious services. Driven by strong core values and a commitment to quality and integrity, more than 70 employees, both able bodied and disable, now comprise a strong team who, together, have created this world-renowned enterprise” [9].

Figure 4: Hanoi.

1. Brantly Womack etalii.
2. Celeste Brash (2011) Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, Victoria, Australia, pp. 807.
3. Alain de Botton(2014) The Art of Travel, London, Penguin Books, p. 39.
4. Keith W Taylor et al (2013) The Art of Travel, London, UK.
5. https://www.conservapedia.com/Religion_and_Atheism_in_Vietnam.
6. https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/world-watch-list/vietnam/.
7. Donald Attwater, Rachel John Catherin et alii. http://andrew4jc.blogspot.com/2007/06/vietnamese-martyrs.html.
8. https://www.angloinfo.com/how-to/vietnam/healthcare/people-with-disabilities.
9. https://reachingoutvietnam.com/about-us/our-story/.