Memories of National Resistance

What struck me the most about museums in Hanoi is the strength of the collective memory of national resistance and yet there is a profound absence of personal narratives, with some obvious exceptions, that embody this spirit for the visitor. These museums face the challenge of reconstructing this history of resistance to create understanding both with younger Vietnamese and international visitors who may be distanced from historical events spatially and temporally.

Without personal stories of valour and victory, struggles and loss, the museum’s resistance narrative will remain nationalistic and ephemeral to the visitor, and in doing so limits the diversity of audiences who are imperative to sustaining the memory of Vietnam’s national resistance.

I am the first to admit I haven’t grasped the complexities of Vietnam’s history, the Communist regime and the causes and effects of French imperialism and the American-Vietnam War. Although I don’t have a background or even a passion for photography, my interest has peaked with the use of photographs as evidence of change, specifically the effects of conflict on the landscape. These photographs are key objects to ignite storytelling and the sharing of experiences, the essence of national resistance.

The Museum of Revolution had many photographs evident of poignant and challenging dark heritage. A sense of injustice for the effects of conflict was overwhelming and yet I wanted to know what the effects were, understand the context of the photographs I was viewing. In the case studies I have selected to share, an obliterated school as an image of complete loss was replaced in my memory by an image of people walking children to school, hand-in-hand, for the new school year in 1974.

Although the schools photographed were from different locations, as a visitor I connected them and wanted to grasp the effects of warfare on children and student’s education during the American-Vietnam War. Did their education cease during times of conflict? How interrupted was their learning opportunities? How did the children and students engage with the world around them? How are the 57 pupils killed on the 9 February 1966 remembered today? Was their Secondary School at Huong Phuc rebuilt and witness to a similar scene of renewal in 1974?

How did the students and parents in Dong Ha feel walking their children to school for the first time in 1974? What effects of the conflict permeated into the student’s learning environment? How did the education system cope with loss both in terms of human loss and the loss of resources? How safe did the students feel going back to school?

I think these questions could be answered by examining the cultural values of Vietnamese people and how these values interplay with the nationalistic value of resistance presented in Hanoi’s museums. The limitation of this exercise would be to delimit the Vietnamese population into a collective as from these museum and site visits it is evident that various ethnic groups had significant roles during conflict. The second limitation which is tied to the first, is the timing of such an endeavour. With ongoing talks of themes of remembering, reconciliation, forgiveness and nation building, can such discussions assist in the healing and unification process or could they highlight disparate, hidden or ignored histories and stories of suffering and perhaps neglect which could reopen wounds and detract from the memories of national resistance. An understanding of the Vietnamese sense of spirit is a theme which I hope to explore at the Vietnamese Women’s Museum and will hopefully help me understand how the nationalistic voice of resistance is evident in the lives of contemporary communities and its significance. 

Hayley Young.

 Photographs taken at the Vietnam Museum of Revolution, Hanoi, 8 January 2016.