Remembering the end of the Vietnam War

Yesterday, 44 years ago, a North Vietnamese Army tank crashed through the gates of Independence Palace, home and workplace of the President of South Vietnam. Saigon fell, and the Vietnam War ended with reunification of North and South. At least, the victor’s (no pun intended) history books focused on the theme of reunification. That wasn’t their end game.

My Dad’s parents owned and ran a mid-sized, but humble business in the South during the War. Both of my parents were Southerners. Dad’s family wasn’t wealthy, but was comfortably middle-class. Until one day, sometime after reunification, soldiers turned up to my Dad’s home, held everyone at gunpoint, whilst ransacking the place, before proceeding to arrest then incarcerated my paternal grandmother for, well, being a bourgeois capitalist, of all things. That’s what they really mean, by Marx’s “dictatorship of the proletariat”.

My Dad lost his future, so did Mum, and many other Vietnamese folk, though Mum’s story was not as dramatic. My parents both met at a Malaysian refugee camp. I don’t think they’d call themselves brave for travelling as boat people across the South China Sea, tiny fishing boats, pirates and all. When political terror drives people to desperation, people will do ‘brave’ things to survive, and/or give it their all for their loved ones. My parents eventually made it to Australia, married, and gave birth to me. Sadly, many others died at sea, trying to reach a new home.

A story I’ve heard many times at the family dinner table growing up, though not the only story. Mum had a similar experience growing up. Her parents left China after 1949 for a brighter future for their children, though they didn’t see the Fall of Saigon coming at the time. It seems that anti-Communism is in my blood. That is why I am fervently anti-Communist. By extension, this is why I oppose the neo-Marxism creeping into the West of late.

I love Australia, and I love the West, and I never want to see us go through anything remotely like, or almost like, or somewhat like, what my family has gone through. Freedom and liberty is the Western birthright worth fighting for, whilst social democracy is the road to socialism, which in turn, is the road to communism. It’s not just merely an economic calculation problem. Just replace the term proletariat with oppressed, and the term bourgeoisie with oppressor, and you’ll get the idea as to how dangerous neo-Marxism is.

Remembering the end of the Vietnam War is not all personal politics for me though. I acknowledge that South Vietnam, whilst anti-Communist, was corrupt, and a poor example of a democracy from a contemporary Western perspective, that led to its demise. I also acknowledge the atrocities of war committed by both sides.

I thank my parents for giving me an Australian life, with their blood, sweat and tears. I remember the sacrifices Australian servicemen and women made in Vietnam. The Battle of Long Tan holds as much dear significance to me as does the Gallipoli Campaign. I was born in the 80s, but I remember, the end of the Vietnam War.