Socialist Republic of Vietnam

The Washington Times, May 29, 2003


As religious freedom legislation aiming at Vietnam makes its traditional way through the U.S. legislative process, pagodas and churches in Vietnam are open and well visited. There is an obvious discrepancy between the perception of religious freedoms in the halls of the U.S. Congress and for the observer on the ground.

Vietnam’s government can truthfully claim to have implemented the American principle of separation between church and state. Following a time-honored American tradition, in Vietnam, the state certainly does not espouse any religion. (It does, however, unlike in the United States, build and maintain places of worship for a variety of religions. According to government numbers, 30,000 sites of worship exist, and about 20 million of the 80 million Vietnamese adhere to some religious group.)

A variety of religions co-exist in Vietnam. They range from the dominant Buddhism to Catholicism brought by the French colonial power, and from a small Protestant and Muslim population to home-spun sects such as the Hoa Hao and the Cao Dai, who worship Jesus together with French existentialist author Jean-Paul Sartre.

Their churches, temples and pagodas are ubiquitous, visible, beautifully decorated, reverberating with chants and wafting with the scent of candles and incense – unmistakable for any prying government official’s eyes, ears and noses.

Yet there are reports of house arrests of Buddhist monks and Catholic priests, which do not square with a image of laissez-faire that prevails on the ground.

One reason for the discrepancy in fact is due to a rather vigorous separation of church and state. The Vietnamese government does not tolerate religious leaders’ use of their spiritual position for political purposes.

When Vietnam last year settled a border dispute with China by granting China sovereignty over a few acres of previously disputed land, a Buddhist monk spoke out about what he perceived to be a failure of the Vietnamese government to protect Vietnam’s national interest. He was arrested.

While one can debate whether a Buddhist monk should worry about such worldly possessions as national sovereignty over land at all, the government was in no mood to discuss the question whether it was appropriate for a spiritual leader to use his considerable moral standing among his flock to propagate his decidedly worldly, political views.

Members of Congress can argue that even a monk should be allowed his political views, but the Vietnamese side argues vigorously that this is not a question of religious freedom.

Self-fulfilling prophecies

The consistent reminders of American concerns over religious persecution are leaving their mark on the Vietnamese as well.

A young Protestant in Hanoi said her very small community was facing religious persecution. When asked how that persecution manifests itself, she said that during the 2002 Christmas celebration, about 300 worshippers met in a private home, as the small congregation does not have its own church. At some point in the night, probably alerted by neighbors, the police arrived to check out what this nightly mass meeting was about. Asked what the police did, the young woman said with a surprised look: “Nothing. We did not do anything wrong.”

Her idea that the arrival of the police was due to religious persecution contrasts vividly with her firm understanding that there is nothing wrong – in her or the police’s mind – with celebrating Christmas.

The U.S. Congress and the Vietnamese government still differ over what a pluralistic democracy should look like. But this is not the same as saying that an individual’s right to hold religious beliefs and participate in rituals is curtailed.

The government does not endorse these beliefs and rituals – one of the many principles borrowed from the Constitution of the United States.

The Vietnamese government is stricter than Americans ever were in insisting that the church(es) do the same – keep their spiritual world separated from politics.