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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 04/13/01 -- Vol. 19, No. 41
Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-817-5619, mleeper@avaya.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-332-6218, eleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@avaya.com
HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@avaya.com
HO Librarian Emeritus: Nick Sauer, njs@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-447-3652 for details. The Denver Area Science Fiction
Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of every month at
Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
===================================================================
1. The final paragraph of last week's editorial was accidentally
truncated. It should have read:
I think that this is a lesson we would do well to
remember when dealing with people with strong
religious motives.
===================================================================
2. Our trip logs for our recent trip to Vietnam and Singapore are
available at:
http://www.geocities.com/markleeper/vietnam.htm
http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper/vietnam.htm
===================================================================
3. I talked a little about the American view of the Vietnam War two
weeks ago. That was written before my trip to that country. This
week I want to talk a little about the impact on Vietnam of that
war. It is not a continuation of that previous article, but as you
can imagine Vietnam has been on my mind a great deal of late. The
common belief is that the Vietnamese people have put the war behind
them and are getting on with trying to become wealthy by overtaking
Thailand as the largest rice exporter in the world. That
surpassing may even happen this year. So they are getting back to
business, but I think in some ways we have done a better job of
putting the war behind us than the Vietnamese have.
First of all, American-Vietnamese relations are over-shadowned by
this problem I call the "Grand Fenwick problem." Some of you may
have read the book THE MOUSE THAT ROARED by Leonard Wibberly or
seen the film made from the book. Grand Fenwick was a little
independent European Duchy that fell on bad financial times.
Seeing the financial aid the US gave its defeated former enemies of
Germany and Japan, they decided they wanted to become a defeated
former enemy of the United States. For this to happen they had to
lose a war with the United States. They decided to have a small
war which they would certainly lose. They put a complete
incompetent in charge of their army of archers. But under
conditions rather contrived by Wibberly and less than convincing
circumstances the incompetent accidentally defeated the US. I am
not saying that Vietnam accidentally defeated the US, but there are
parallels in their resulting dilemma. It is easy to get aid from a
country who has defeated you. It is very difficult to get
financial support from a military giant if you have defeated them.
Somehow the sympathy factor is missing and Vietnam certainly cannot
force us to give them aid.
America is quite central to the Vietnamese economy. They would
like reasonably friendly conditions with low tariffs in their
relations with the US. This implies a friendship about which both
sides feel rather tentative. Frankly I have done a lot of travel
and I have never been to a country where the American dollar is so
easily interchangeable with the local currency. I remember in
India only one local business quoted its process in dollars. In
Vietnam anybody who had anything to do with tourists seems to be
ready, willing, and happy to accept payment in US dollars. It even
seemed to be the preferred currency. The American brands are often
preferred also. You saw a lot of primitive shop houses selling
American brands to the locals. Unlike the US, just about any
restaurant there gives you your choice of Coke or Pepsi. I do not
remember seeing food franchises like McDonalds as yet, but it can
not be long in coming. Yet the past is really not forgotten at
least by the government and their museums and public buildings seem
to dwell very much on the war.
In Ho Chi Minh City (which the locals tend to call by the nickname
"Saigon") the War Remnants Museum is the recently renamed War
Crimes Museum. It has graphic displays of citizens with their
faces burned away and actual deformed babies in jars the results of
napalm and chemicals used in warfare. It is a mostly convincing
display, though it is easy to find errors in the exhibits
indicating some may be contrived. For example they have an
extensive quote from January 19, 1970, LIFE magazine about the sort
of fighting we did. One problem: a quick calculation told me that
issue of LIFE magazine never existed. LIFE magazine I remember
always came out and was dated on Friday. In any case that was
certainly true in 1970. The idea was it was a magazine to linger
over on the weekend. January 19, 1970 was a Monday. I have since
found an ad for a used January 23, 1970, issue of LIFE magazine
confirming that 1970 issues were dated on Fridays. The quote may
or may not have come from a LIFE magazine, but it certainly was not
where they claimed it was. Their fact checking is very poor if a
visitor can so easily find problems with their claims.
Now the Vietnamese are trying to change the tone of this museum.
The final and biggest room documents the American experience in the
war. The museum is now making the statement that both sides were
noble and both suffered a great deal in the war. As you would
expect there are some people there who still want to remember the
Americans as arch-villains whom Vietnam destroyed, and others who
want to think of them as trading partners. They are two opinions
that do not rest easily side-by-side. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
HO 1K-644 732-817-5619
mleeper@avaya.com
Experience is a wonderful thing. It allows you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
-- Sandy Berger
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