The slavery is in our minds

The life is insane. I am quite stunned about how diverse life actually is. Sometimes I do not know what to believe. Life’s like a dream to me. Visions are unstable. First I thought to know roughly about my future. But certain plans are now uncertain. No matter what comes, it is good. I don’t fear future. Embedded you can find pictures from a Chinese artist who went to Germany in the age of thirteen. (More pictures here) Needless to say that stereotype pictures speak for the general public and I often disagree with her drawings.

We haven’t got any perfect society in our world. People create their society. We are responsible for our future. Wikipedia says a society is a population of humans characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive culture and/or institutions. In Germans social order I feel like in the “Matrix“. In Viet Nam rather like in “Pleasantville“. I do not belong to the perfect civilization. I am the intruder. Either I play my role perfectly, or I am myself.

I occasionally give Joscha a ride on my motorbike. A police car recently drove in front of us. Then Joscha whispered to me: „ You know what Michael; this is how I thought about Viet Nam before my arrival. I mean the police, military and a disciplinary society which I’ve seen in media before. But, you know, it is so different and distant from that.”

My understanding of teaching as voluntary employment is in intercultural exchange. I do not force norms and values on someone. I want to know different point of views and wish to learn from others. But I also talk about cultural differences. I want that my people altercate actively with their culture. I encourage and animate them to think differently. Tough for them, tough for me. Many foreign volunteers ask me why I live with such a burden. And continue saying, take it easy. I take it easy. My lessons are joyful and we joke around a lot. Everybody plays his role in the world. Vietnamese are very good actors. They play their role perfectly. Then I think about Ronald Reagan and his unforgettable speech in Berlin. He demanded the soviet president, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Well, I am not as important as Mr. Reagan but I motivate my learners to tear down their walls in their minds. For sure, my way isn’t the simplest. But by this way I could experience great times.

Indigo started anew after my holiday in Laos. We attracted other people and a new Indigo administration crew started its work. They, unfortunately, never took part in Indigo before. So they are green and have to grow with their experiences. They are not aware of Intercultural learning. We held a workshop about cultural differences. I had the feeling to escape as soon as possible out of this. Harshly, I was confronted with the reality. We asked the attendants, as well as the Vietnamese key members, about their image of their own culture in comparison to others; as for example western cultures and the culture of their Asian neighbors. My apprehension was right again. I should be used to it. They came up with bloodcurdling stereotyped answers. All westerners eat fast food, are thoughtless and without sense of family, have no culture at all, take a shower in the mornings, live in big houses with garden and swimming pool…and so on. They are even miles apart from assuming their neighbor’s culture veridical. Or do you really think, that Japanese only drink tea when they wear a kimono?

They are well educated. Most of them study foreign trade or graduated already. It wasn’t amazing to me that they judged about Vietnamese culture rather positively. Indeed, they are aware of misbehavior. However a change is implicit as too difficult and not even taken into consideration at all. And this is exactly the point where we have to continue working on it.

In Goethe institute was an exhibition. “Hanoi transformation” consists of photo art (different pictures than in my blog) in combination with interviews. Vietnamese of any age were interviewed. I wrote down the first interview with a retired auto mechanic. He lives in Ha Noi and is 64 years old. In my opinion, he is so damn right.

“I believe that at the moment our society is deep in a dream, or maybe it’s a nightmare. Maybe we have to first have a major disaster; maybe people have to experience the consequences themselves before we can wake up from this nightmare. The dream we are dreaming is the dream of riches.

There are these mediums that are possessed by a supernatural spirit and they speak for it… I think that today in our society the people who still believe in socialism are like these mediums – there is no truth behind it; it’s all pure hallucination. To wake these mediums from their dream, to end this hallucination…Maybe it will take someone to give them a good shake to wake them up.

It’s like a big theater piece. There are people who are not communists or socialists, but they are still wearing the costumes of the communists and socialists. And sometimes they play the role so well that they themselves believe it is real. But it’s a lie, a big lie. And they lie to themselves first, and think that they are this or they are that. And when you live so long with a big lie, and believe it, it becomes a second reality.

When I ask people here, some are high ranking officials or party members in very high positions, even they can’t tell me what this socialism is, what socialism means, they can’t give a really clear definition. Maybe that means that its value is not particularly high. Whatever! There is a group of people who use this term “socialism” for their own ends. They use it as it means to get what they want.

I would say there are three ways to look at this “socialism”. There is the first group. They know that socialism has no value anymore. They know it doesn’t exist. But they can use it; they use it to their own advantage, for their own profit, to get what they want. Then there’s the second group. They don’t know if socialism exists or not. And they are betrayed by their belief that something like socialism is somehow hanging in the air. And that we continue to try to realize it. And then there’s the third group. They know that socialism doesn’t exist. But they also don’t know how to function without it, what can then possibly remain for them. And so they hang onto it because they have breathed that air for so long. They have become accustomed to it and they think that they are themselves socialism. They are afraid of what would be left of them if socialism were taken away. Those, I think, are the three groups in Vietnamese society, the three points of view about socialism.

The dream we are dreaming is the dream of riches. The dream of being rich, the dream of having power. Maybe it’s because until now the Vietnamese in their society had practically no chance of getting rich and having power. So now everyone who gets even a little tiny bit of something in his hands tries to get as much as possible out of it. Everyone wants to be rich. This dream is so deep within them, that they are beside themselves. And that’s why they do something that is really totally crazy and irresponsible – they destroy their own living space.

I can say this because I see it in the people here who live around me. My neighbor recycles plastic polymer. Polymer releases dioxin, something that is similar to Agent Orange and highly toxic. But although his wife and his son are already ill, he doesn’t stop; he keeps making plastic because he has earned so much money with it. I bought him a book which explains all about Agent Orange. He read it. But he keeps on making plastic because he wants to be rich! And he believes that with money you can heal all illness. But you can’t.

I don’t believe that there in any chance at all that those who are in power will willingly democratize the system. But it would be wrong to make the government responsible for everything, to blame the political leadership for what happens, that wouldn’t be fair. There are many who will now say, it all comes from the communist government. But it’s not that. Those things are now the way they are – that has a lot to do with the people here. The people in Vietnam accept it: I see that the desire, the need for freedom here in Vietnam is still very, very, very limited.

The system of slavery, which ruled here for centuries, is still deeply rooted in peoples thinking. Whether educated or uneducated – they all still think that they give their work and their strength for someone who is above them. Slavery begins in our minds. And it is still very strong. And you have to realize what this means. The people must change first, before they can demand a new political system.

I see a root cause in Confucianism. Because particularly China, Vietnam and a few smaller countries are deeply influenced by Confucianism. When Confucianism was founded the world was very different. China was a great empire which had occupied many smaller countries. They needed someone who could stand for unity, someone they could all follow. And it was a system where there was always someone who must be obeyed, who was in control. And for a certain historical epoch that was good, it was a system that worked well. As a historical phenomenon. But under present conditions Confucianism as a system is very wrong. But in any case, the people in Vietnam have lived so long under its influence, have had it drummed into them for so long, that it’ s not something that will simply change overnight. It will take a very, very long time.

To change you have to wait for the time. And it is essential that people in Vietnam manage to get out now and then, out of their own world. Just to see how the world is. And to see that not everything is the same as the way they live – that things can actually be different. And they need to experience this difference themselves. Simply so that they can imagine something different for themselves.

People in Vietnam today still live in their very closed societies. They are isolated from the world. And from other societies. It’s almost as if they live in a sort of desert. They don’t come into contact with anything else. For them reality is what they hear coming out of the loudspeaker. But that comes from this system. They read only the newspapers that come from this system, they watch only the TV that comes from this system. That’s why they don’t want anything else – they don’t know anything else.

I think my greatest dream … it is, that we can freely express ourselves, as free as much as you could to be yourself. And every society, every system which tries to prevent that is a great danger. People are prevented from being themselves. In other words that means: conformity.

They lose their own identity. And that is really a great, great danger. I see this danger today in our society. That is all that I have always sought in my life. You can’t be afraid of challenges and difficulties. As long as you know what you yourself want you can overcome difficulties. And as long as you are your own person, there is really nothing to fear. But when you cannot be yourself, are not permitted to be yourself, then you run the risk of losing yourself completely.

I think the blame lies on both sides: with those who choose not to speak freely and with those who want to hinder people from speaking freely. I mean the political leaders, the government. But equally I mean the people who fearfully think only of themselves, who don’t have the courage to speak the truth. And they must bear the consequences of that. They must live with the lie…

I will go so far as to say that in our society there are many who do not have the courage to stand up for something. Because they all have this fear, like a burden on their shoulders. I see so many people to whom that apply, even high ranking politicians who have much knowledge, and many, many titles and awards and this and that…and they have no backbone, they don’t stand up straight, all because of fear and ego.

I think that the powerful are the same in all countries:  they want to have everything under control. And that’s why people have to look after themselves.”

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~ by buudien on December 11, 2008.