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| Pagoda in Hanoi: Places of
worship are not afraid of being visible. |
| Photo by Thomas Jandl |
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. |
