April 30th Independence Day: Media and Nation Building

The context of post-colonial Vietnam is strongly associated with the need for nation-building process. Not only because the aftermath of war has left tremendous effect on Vietnam’s national identity but also the advent of digital media in this convergent era has virtually blurred the gap between borders and increased the risk of domestic conflicts due to sensitive political issues. This writing examines different interpretations of national images during nation-building process in Vietnam regarding the 40th celebration of the Independence Day in Saigon (South of Vietnam) illustrated by mass media. Thus posing an answer to the issue to what extent the media exerts its power on nation-building process and suggests some solution for a hegemony in the hearts

Anderson once introduced a concept to illustrate the connection between people and their nation, which called "imagined community". He explains ‘nation’ as ‘imagined community’, because the members living within that nation cannot know each other but still imagine themselves to be in the same group and share common interests and experiences. Through that shared set of values and identities, one nation can differentiate itself from others and produce the public consciousness of ‘us’ – the home nation and ‘the other’ –nations with different eternal values (Birch 2001). This imagination thus ties the people with strongly emotional bonds and creates the sense of belonging. Hall also argued that the state of a nation 'is not only being but also becoming' which clarifies the continuous process

Hall’s assertion that identity is not only being but also becoming (hall 1996) - National identities, if they are to be perpetuated, continually need to be ‘’re-imagined’’, and the ideals and values on which they are based brought ‘up to date’, in order to appease or counter the many ‘discontents’ that threaten them.

Understanding what national identity is through the idea of ‘imagined community’ makes it easier to comprehend the nation-building process. The mission of nation-building is to strengthen the bonds between citizens as well as the feeling of ‘comradeship’ within their community and promote the shared image through the use of various apparatuses. Media is considered one of them and lies in the center of this process.

Recently there has been a lot of information about the 40th anniversary of the Independence Day on April 30th. Most of the national media including government oriented TV channels, newspapers and online newspaper hosting news and headlines about national event all raised a single voice of happiness and victory. This is to the fact that the preparation for national commemoration day took place a year ago when the government passed an act which requires all media to focus on underlining the strength, pivotal position of the country and its great stature therefore arousing and promoting the tradition of patriotism, glorifying and mobilizing the entire Party (Central Propaganda Department 2015).

In his opening speech for the celebration, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung praised "the great victory in 1975 has brought an era of independence and reunification thus setting a stepping stone to build socialist Vietnam into a democratic, justice and civilized society," nation state Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper reports.

During the week of the anniversary, tons of events to celebrate the big day took place across the country. The national theater in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City showed a special selection of movies to commemorate historical events, most of which were documentaries and war movies. Ceremonies and a military parade were to be held in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City on April 30th, and broadcasted live on television (Nguoi Lao Dong 2015). There were massive military parades executed by Vietnamese veteran represented for the Vietnamese Communist’s army with strong, powerful, rhythmic walks. The images of the parade were omnipresent through media landscape. The Vietnamese People’s Army newspaper (2015) compared the spirit of the ceremony to the glorious victory moment dated back to 40 years ago. This image is widespread on most media landscape. Along with the parades, national festivals, martial music events and the firework performances were also occupied the first page on every newspaper, both printed and online ones. There was a video on nation state website hosting news about the reconstruction of five major roads and landscapes in preparation for national holiday (btv.org.vn 2015). Also in the preparation for the anniversary, new billboards have gone up around town. One of them was an upbeat, brightly colored poster describing Communist propaganda of decades past, with the red flag and gold star. One of the billboard was read “Promote strength and ethnic unity, promote comprehensive national renewal process, successful implementation to provide people with wealthy, democracy, fairness and civilization’’ and the other one was ‘Communist Party of Vietnam live long forever’ (Central Propaganda Department 2015). Also, most of the articles publishing across the country were about the hardship of Vietnamese entrepreneurs when doing business, the innovative ideas and the willingness of the Party to have accepted the challenges and moved on, etc. during post war time. This is to promote the productivity and arouse people’s patriotism.

The ceremony finally ended with hope and promising future for Communist society moving towards civilization, fair and democracy. The media, in this case, successfully went in harmony with the government intension in disseminating the common images and values of the Independence Day to the Vietnamese audience. The country then through the scope of media is a place of possibilities, of unification and modernity, all of which goes to the contribution of the leading party’s policy and the following of the people. What we can see here is an integral and amicable nation moving forwards modernity (Vietnamese People’s Army 2015). This combination of modernity and national identity is at the heart of attempts by Vietnamese leaders who try to promote the ‘authentic’ image of the country (Nguoi Lao Dong 2015). And the citizens accept those images as the nation status by enjoying the country's new found prosperity (Maresca 2015). They both share the imagination of modernity, independent and sovereign through the beautiful and vigorous image of the ceremony. According to Sayer (1994) modernity is embodied through state project. A modern nation is characterized by its productive ability to develop rules and practices to ensure its ‘’health, productivity and security’’ (Ong 1997). Mass media therefore becomes a powerful tool to create a sense of consciousness and awareness among people who concern about the limitation and weakness during the nation building process. It also holds a positive role in educating both the masses and policy makers (Holden et. al. 2006).

The Vietnamese government did so well to disseminate the national identity through massive of events and announcements on collective media landscapes. However, much of the images are widely spread, the overall modern, civilized image of Vietnam in the eyes of some citizens is not sustainable. An article on New York Times (2015) by Nguyen Qui Duc stated that much of the citizen pay less attention to the politic matter than the issues within this country: corruption, inequality. As the more the regime attempts to glorify its past the more it seems to emphasize its failures at present.

However, the Vietnamese government has forgotten to mention a lot of things about the meaning of April 30th, it is not only about victory and happiness, what lies behind are lost, death and grief. And national media clearly did not put this information into public circulation. In a video posted on BBC YouTube page (2015), there was a story of a migrant flashing back on the April 30th. To her, April 30th is the day she lost her mother– a Vietnamese war correspondent from the North and when the Saigon fell, she was left behind in the woods with wounds and never has been seen again.

More concerns go to the historical events and reconciliation issues. While the tightly controlled official media covered the anniversary event with a triumphant glow, other voices on Facebook, blogs and websites have grown increasingly critical of a one-party state that they consider to be opaque, corrupt, abuse of power (Nguyen 2015) and stuck in the past (Maresca 2015). People are complaining that the government misuses the word “liberation” when it refers to what it did to the South; the socialist policies it implemented there brought poverty to escalating levels (Nguyen 2015). There were comments about having had enough of “reheating” the blood spilled during the war, and the reposting of articles from Western media about the failure of reconciliation since then. On a video conducted by AFP Newslook showed opinions of people who claim Communist victory was a ‘’hollow one’’, for the most part is the reconciliation the government could not solve. For journalist and author Huy Duc (2015), the point here is to take into account of different concepts of war and why it was fought. Besides, ‘’Vietnamese people from both sides have to agree on what happened" he said. That is the misinterpretation of war that brought about dissents and division.

Nevertheless, no matter how different perspectives they can be, it is the truth that Vietnamese people living locally and globally all share something in common. It is not the mechanism or politic, rather it is the sense of nationalism and patriotism when it comes to ‘Vietnam-the homeland’. It is the country itself that links them together and although under different backgrounds and disciplines, they all present Vietnam as the place of home. As for the diaspora, there are always a triadic connection between the host country, the home land and other diaspora community (Vertovec 2010). The case is true to the Vietnamese. So that is the national identity that pulls them together into the same sphere of news circulation despite being physically distant.

However, the influx of paradoxical information and juxtaposed perspectives from overseas Vietnamese, international views and ideologies generally challenges the image of communist state in Vietnam. That due to the intervention of global mass media, which circulates around the idea of ‘media convergence’ (Jenkins 2006). It is about all the images, sound, information, appearances and voices are blending like never before which make secured information and news around the globe are prevailed and merged so fast. The media landscape is not only a space for government to pass down information and announcement one way like it used to. The internet users now play a role of 'prosumers' and act as a pivotal role in new media context. The sphere is cross influential and circulates not only top down but moves around the bottom up to the top. Thus media becomes a playground for any individuals to raise their voice and presence. And from which produces cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, this trends represents a new dimension and offers new possibilities of online affiliations, expressions, communities, and means of circulation (Holden et. al. 2006). The flip side of the coin is the developments in modern communication technologies are mitigating a state’s capacity to regulate and control the flow of information and cultural texts that makes its way across and within its physical boundary (Holden et. al. 2006).

In the context of Vietnam, the media convergence turns out to threaten its homogeneity and monopoly on political news and the dissemination of information. As for the press system in Vietnam is rated not free (Freedom House 2015) therefore the uncontrollable flow of information would exceed the government’s censorship and come to the internet users. This is inevitable and maybe go along with positivism to Vietnam media landscape. Because even in nations with strict regulation, there are possibilities of having access to alternative and international news sites. The chance of major contributions on a large scale space is small; however, the increasing ability of self-expression would divert the government’s priority (Hannerz 1992).

Set aside historical issues, the national image is not about whether the government’s Independence ceremony is appropriate or not, but rather a fixity in shared values. Inevitably, due to the political conflicts, Vietnam’s national identity is imbalanced and not integral among local and global communities. It is because of many reasons, part of which is the misinterpretation of subjective media from one part of the globe to another which is out of control of the government. Thus, this problem calls for a solution to bring ideas and values and consciousness among peoples in aligning with each other and therefore contributing to nation building projects, to ‘to look ahead not at the past’ (Maresca 2015).

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