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Deception and
Propaganda within the Vietnamese Community in Australia
If you get news only from the
Vietnamese language media outlets in Australia or in the United States, you
would have no idea of the situation in Vietnam. You will not find anything
positive in or about Vietnam. Indeed, in virtually all Vietnamese language
papers and radios, including the SBS Radio (Vietnamese Program) in Australia,
Vietnam is a lawless country and is on the verge of collapse; everything comes
from Vietnam seems to be bad; everyone in Vietnam is either corrupted or
incompetent; every policy of the Vietnamese government is either wrong or
incoherent; every product made in Vietnam is not acceptable ... In fact, you
even do not know the official name of the country; what you will find is either
“Communist Vietnam” or “Communist Hanoi”, not Vietnam.
Let us have a look at
the most popular Vietnamese language newspaper in Australia: the Sydney-based
Chieu Duong (Sunrise). In every issue, apart from the indispensable
negative news and articles about Vietnam, the paper prints a substantial amount
of soft pornography probably pirated from the internet and pornographic books.
It also openly carries advertisement for brothels. It was awarded “The
Newspaper of the Year” by the New South Wales Ethnic Affairs Commission!
Unbelievable you may say, but it is true.
Let us sample a radio station called
“Vietnamese Radio in Australia” (which is at present actively campaigning
against the SBS Television Management). The operator of this radio station
proudly and crudely suppresses any viewpoint he deemed to be undesirable. In
any talk-back program, the operator makes sure that anyone calling in with view
that he doesn’t like is immediately cut off and then label the caller “a
communist”. (It is not surprising that this station and their associated
“leaders” are now calling SBS Television a Vietnamese communist organ too!)
For almost 30 years, the overseas
Vietnamese language media outlets, including those in Australia, have been
feeding the Vietnamese community with those kinds of information produced by
those types of media operators – without challenge. In papers or radios,
anti-Vietnam is the rule rather than the exception. The community is so sick
and so tired of the information which are, we definitely know, largely false,
imaginary, or manufactured.
A few weeks ago, SBS Television
decided to transmit a news bulletin from VTV4, a satellite-based Vietnamese
television station. The decision angered many Vietnamese media operators in
Sydney and Melbourne and some of the so-called Vietnamese “community leaders”.
They demand that SBS Television must stop transmitting the news bulletin. Why?
They argue that by transmitting the 30-minute news bulletin, SBS Television
helps broadcasting propaganda materials from the “dictatorial” Vietnamese
government. In the mean time, they derisively refer to SBS Television as a
“propaganda organ” of the Vietnamese government. They even spread an innuendo
accusing that SBS Television Management has received bribery from the Vietnamese
government!
Australians who are used to the
concept of freedom of information may be puzzled by the actions of these
“community leaders”, and may think that Vietnamese Australians share their
view. The reality is different: We (yes, I can use the pronoun “we,” for I know
I speak for the silent majority), the majority of Vietnamese Australians, are
delighted with the SBS Television’s decision. Finally, SBS Television has
provided the community with an alternative news bulletin, and free us from the
on-going deception and one-sided propaganda churned out by the Vietnamese media
outlets in Australia and their leaders.
I find the objections to SBS
Television raised by the Vietnamese “community leaders” rather offensive. Their
objections manifestly display their contempt for democracy and human rights in
Australia, where the right to information is sacredly respected. The right to
information is a crucial underpinning of a participatory democracy. The right
to information is a fundamental human right which upholds the inherent dignity
of all people. How do these Vietnamese “community leaders” dare to withhold
that right to information from us. Who do they think they are?
I also find their objections quite
hypocritical. Let me be open about this: For more than a decade now, all
Vietnamese language media outlets in Australia have been pirating news and
articles from online Vietnamese newspapers in Vietnam. (They also daily copy
news and articles from mainstream Australian newspapers and media organisations,
but they never acknowledge the source). Right now, if you open any Vietnamese
language newspaper in Sydney or Melbourne, you will find that up to 100% of news
content concerning Vietnam are simply copied [without permission or
acknowledgment, of course] from sources in Vietnam.
Moreover, some people who have
access to satellite television have been recording satellite television programs
from Vietnam, pack the programs into video tapes, and sell them in the market
for as low as $5 a tape. Many Vietnamese bookshops in Sydney and Melbourne (and
in the United States) stock up to 70% of books, newspapers, music, and
literature materials from Vietnam. During the past ten years or so, SBS
Television has also regularly screened movies and current affair programs from
Vietnam.
Thus, news and information from
Vietnam have existed – as they should be – within the Vietnamese community for a
long time. And, during that time, I have neither seen nor heard a single
“community leader” condemning those materials as propaganda from the Vietnamese
government.
What is the difference between news
bulletin transmitted by SBS Television and news that covered by the local
Vietnamese media? The difference has something to do with ethics and
professionalism. SBS Television broadcasts news from Vietnam in Vietnamese
without alteration, so that viewers can judge for themselves. In contrast,
Vietnamese newspapers and radios in Australia pirate or plagiarise news and
articles from sources in Vietnam, and then alter the information to make them
negative and unfavourable to Vietnam. For example, if a news is originally a
good news (such as economic development, educational achievement, artistic
prizes, etc), they would modify it to look bad; if a news is a bad news (such as
corruption, crime, disaster, etc), they would reword it to sound worse, much
worse, as if it was a scandal. When a news article contains the word “Vietnam”,
they change to “Communist Vietnam” or “Communist Hanoi”, although the news item
has nothing to do with the Vietnamese government. In fact, most of these media
operators have never been trained in media or mass communication, and as a
result, they show no ethical standards or professionalism. It appears that they
don’t know how to respect the truth, and they seem to operate with intent to
deceive and brainwash their readers.
There is no dissent
voice in the Vietnamese community. The local Vietnamese media and their
“community leaders” are used to live in a world of dichotomy, in which there are
only two-values: Good versus evil, right versus wrong, enemy versus friend,
etc. Anyone who is not fully committed to their side is automatically grouped
into the “other side”. Living in this world, they lack the ability to manage
difference. Being unable to manage difference, they also can not tolerate
different viewpoints from others. Indeed, anyone dares to publicly express a
different view from the view held by these media operators and “community
leaders” is immediately branded as “a communist” – equivalent to a death
sentence within the community. A few years ago, a prominent academic in the
community suggested that many Vietnamese refugees had escaped from Vietnam only
to be imprisoned by their community in Australia, and he was immediately
denounced as a “communist”, or a “communist sympathizer”, and had subsequently
been vilified for more than a year.
In one word, the local
Vietnamese media and their “community leaders” have one common business:
Anti-Vietnam. They are anti-Vietnam, not necessarily anti-communism, because
they do not hold to any particular political principle. They think that by
manipulating and indoctrinating their readers with bad news about Vietnam, they
help the struggle for democracy and human rights in Vietnam. However, these
media operators and the so-called “community leaders” do not contribute to the
debate on, or advancement of, human rights in Vietnam. Instead of criticizing
the Vietnamese government in a civilized and constructive way, they resort to
disinformation by churning out brainless and groundless accusations against the
Vietnamese government – day after day. The result is that they gradually become
totally irrelevant to the development in Vietnam. Try to talk to anyone in
Vietnam or any Vietnamese in Australia, and you will soon find out that they do
not know, do not need to know, or do not to care about these so-called
“community leaders”.
In this article, I write
“community leader” in quotation marks, and there is a good reason for it. Those
who vocally object to SBS Television claim that they are leaders and that they
represent the Vietnamese community in Australia. This is not true, if not a
blatant lie. They do not represent the Vietnamese community in Australia.
Ninety-nine per cent or more Vietnamese Australians don’t vote for them.
Instead, they maneuvre through their social or interest groups and get
themselves voted and “elected” to spend the tax-payers’ money.
These people are no leaders; they
are extremists. These extremists are there not to serve the Vietnamese
Australian community; they are there to manipulate the community for their own
political agenda. Their primary concern is how to overthrow and sabotage the
present government in Vietnam, not how to solve social problems within the
Vietnamese community in Australia. In the mid-1970s and 1980s, they advocated a
policy of overthrowing the Vietnamese government. However, they soon discovered
that their objective was unlikely to be met; so in the 1990s, with the
re-discovering of the concepts of democracy and human rights as political
weapons, they wholeheartedly utilized the weapons with the long-term aim of
removing the current government in Vietnam, so that they can return to Vietnam
to lead the country as they used to do in the 1960s and 1970s.
Yet, they love to dress
up as “community leaders” and hang around the corridor of power to garner
political influence. Some opportunist and ill-informed politicians have fallen
into their trap, and put out meaningless and absurd statements on social and
religious issues in Vietnam. These “leaders” like to boast that the Australian
government regularly consult them for advice on Vietnam affairs. If that is the
case (e.g., if their boasting is true), I think the Australian government has
definitely asked the wrong people, because these people do not have insightful
knowledge about the present Vietnam, and more importantly, they are likely to
mislead the Australian government. (Should the Australian government or
industrial groups need advice on Vietnam, they should consult Vietnamese
Australian academics in Australian universities and research institutions.)
In summary, we, ordinary individuals
within the Vietnamese community in Australia, have been subjected to, and
suffered from, a continuous deception and childishly one-sided propaganda from
the anti-Vietnam industry. This industry has been thriving during the past 30
years thank to the silence of the community. Now is the time for a change.
Only the Vietnamese community public opinion can change the single viewpoint and
single ideology currently imposed on us by the extremists who self-proclaim as
our “leaders”. But we can change if we know about the truth of issues by
acquiring new information. SBS Television is helping our community in this
endeavour by providing us with full information, to which we are greatly
grateful.
I would like SBS Television to know
that the majority of us, Vietnamese Australians, do support SBS Television. We
may be silent, but we are with SBS Television.
Hoang D. Tran
Normanhurst, NSW
P.S. You may be interested to know who am I or whether I represent an interest
group. I am a computer scientist. I am also an ex-refugee who escaped from
Vietnam to Malaysia in 1980, and was subsequently admitted to settle in
Australia in 1982. I closely follow developments within the Vietnamese
community, but I have never been a member of any organisation. Since 1992, I
have often visited my relatives in Vietnam, but do not have any link with the
Vietnamese government.
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