Vietnamese nationalism

Vietnamese nationalism
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese	Việt Nam dân tộc chủ nghĩa
Hán-Nôm	越南民族主義

Vietnamese nationalism (Vietnamese: Chủ nghĩa dân tộc Việt Nam) is the nationalism that asserts that the Vietnamese are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of the Vietnamese. It encompasses a broad range of ideas and sentiments harbored by the Vietnamese people for many centuries in the history to preserve and defend the national identity of the Vietnamese nation.

Unlike other South East Asian countries, Vietnam is the most concentrated ethnostate, with ethnic Kinh dominates 87% total population, and Vietnamese is recognized as the only language in the country. Most Vietnamese nationalism focuses on the military history of the country; however, there are also other aspects of the nationalism in Vietnam.

However, most of Vietnamese modern nationalist concepts aim mainly on China, which has many times fueled the anti-Chinese sentiment in Vietnam, although there were other anti-Cambodian and anti-French in the past.

History of Vietnamese nationalism

During the first states like Au Lac and Nanyue, nationalism among the population was weak.However, the nationalism grew following with the later Chinese millennium in Vietnam, several attempts against Chinese occupation resulted with many wars that happened throughout thousand years of Chinese rule, after which Vietnam finally regained independence in the 10th century following the battle of Bạch Đằng. Lý Thường Kiệt's famous declaration of Vietnam's independence, Nam quốc sơn hà (Mountains and Rivers of the Southern Country), is a patriotic and nationalistic poem that still lives on in Vietnamese society generations later and now. Nguyễn Trãi's Bình Ngô đại cáo is considered the other declaration of Vietnam's independence against the Chinese Dynasties.

In 17th century, in the North during the time of the Trịnh Lords, the Trịnh mandated that the Chinese entering the country had to strictly follow Vietnamese customs and refrain from contacts with the local Vietnamese populace in the cities.[1] However, in the south, the Nguyễn Lords favored the Chinese, allowed many Chinese settling in new conquered land from Khmer Kingdom. The immigrated Chinese scholars even became Nguyễn Lord officials. The Nguyễn Dynasty under that influence once saw themselves as "Han nhan" (Chinese people).

The Nguyễn Lord after defeating the Tay Son formed Nguyen Dynasty. The Nguyen Dynasty completed the Vietnamese "March to the South" or Nam tiến, in which they over the span of 700 years starting from the Lý dynasty gradually invaded and colonized the entire state of Champa and parts of the Khmer Empire. Under the Nguyễn dynasty (the most Confucius and sinicized Vietnam dynasty), they attempted to assimilate all of the ethnic minorities in the territories that they had captured by forcing them to adopt sinicized Vietnamese customs. Copying the Chinese idea of Central Plain, the Nguyễn dynasty saw themselves as belonging to a superior culture, unlike the Indianized states of Champa and the Khmer Empire. As such, they saw themselves as carrying out a civilizing mission against the minorities who were not civilized and were seen as barbarians.[2] In spite of considering themselves as superior due to being sinicized, members of the Vietnamese royalty looked down upon those that were non-Vietnamese as inferior due to Chinese influence.[3]

On the later time, after the Nguyễn dynasty ruling Vietnam, the dynasty had been using the Vietnamization concepts to begin its massive Vietnamization of non-Vietnamese people. During the nam tiến period of the Nguyễn Dynasty, the Gia Long Emperor stated that "Hán di hữu hạn" 漢夷有限 ("the Vietnamese and the barbarians must have clear borders") when differentiating between Khmer and the Vietnamese.[4] Emperor Minh Mạng, the son of Gia Long stated with regards to the Vietnamese forcing the ethnic minorities to follow Sino-Vietnamese customs that "We must hope that their barbarian habits will be subconsciously dissipated, and that they will daily become more infected by Han [Sino-Vietnamese] customs."[5]

Modern Vietnamese nationalism

As for the French invasion, many resistances came around but failed. However, following from time, Vietnamese nationalism also changed and through it, it also focused on only one goal - independence of Vietnam.

After 1979 war with China, Vietnam nationalism became anti-China. The sentiment grows bigger because of South China Sea/Vietnam East Sea dispute.

Economy

There has been a growing movement among Vietnamese by boycotting Chinese products, and rather using the Vietnamese-made products, which is called "made in Vietnam" to counter with "made in China".

Culture

Despite of being part of Sinosphere cultural influence and sharing many cultural aspects such as Confucianism, and having Chữ Nôm as its former writing script, Vietnamese nationalists mostly refuse to accept the solely Chinese influence. They believe the Vietnamese already had a profound culture before Chinese influence i.e Dong Son, rice cultivating... Adding with the interactions and later conquests of Indianized Kingdom of Champa, Vietnamese nationalists believe it is a major cross-road of two civilizations rather than one.

Vietnamese textbooks also refer the influence of China but refuses to recognize Chinese elements in Vietnamese nation.The current north Vietnam was part of the land of Bai Yue tribes, so they believe the similarities are because of the Chinese culture was influenced by the culture of Bai Yue tribes when the Han Chinese conquered the land of Bai Yue tribes.

Military

For much of its history being razed by wars, Vietnamese developed its nationalism based on its successful history of warfare. Many Vietnamese generals are revered and are a source of pride and nationalism in Vietnamese society, such as Trần Hưng Đạo, the famous general who stood up to the mighty Mongol Empire by successfully repelling the 3 Mongol invasions of Vietnam in 1258, 1285, 1287–88 and Nguyễn Huệ, a revered Emperor and general who defeated the Qing Dynasty of China in the Battle of Ngọc Hồi-Đống Đa, which was a large battle that is considered to be one of the greatest military victories in Vietnamese history. Both Trần Hưng Đạo and Nguyễn Huệ have several streets named after them and statues erected to honor them in Vietnam named, and both are listed as being among the greatest generals in history.

Vietnam also heavily honors its long lists of generals in ancient Vietnamese history that fought against Chinese imperialism, such as the Trưng Sisters and Lady Triệu, who were female generals that led major independent movements against Chinese occupation. Ngô Quyền is well honored for being the first to successfully defeat the Southern Han of China at the Battle of Bạch Đằng (938) and establishing Vietnamese independence, Lê Hoàn for defeating the Song dynasty at the same river in 981, and Lê Lợi who liberated Vietnam by defeating the Ming dynasty and founding the Lê dynasty.

Education

Vietnamese national pride is heavily promoted in Vietnamese textbooks, especially of its development and its heroism.

Many Vietnamese stories are still heavily mentioned in the youth education system and among the older generations which have been regarded as a major factor that keeps Vietnamese nationalism alive.

Pan-Baiyue nationalism

References

Lee (2010), pp. 8-9
"March to the South (Nam Tiến)". Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
Barbara Watson Andaya (2006). The Flaming Womb: Repositioning Women in Early Modern Southeast Asia. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 23–. ISBN 978-0-8248-2955-1.
Choi Byung Wook (2004). Southern Vietnam Under the Reign of Minh Mạng (1820–1841): Central Policies and Local Response. SEAP Publications. pp. 34–. ISBN 978-0-87727-138-3.
A. Dirk Moses (1 January 2008). Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History. Berghahn Books. pp. 209–. ISBN 978-1-84545-452-4. Archived from the original on 2008.

External links

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[1] Lee (2010), pp. 8-9

[2] "March to the South (Nam Tiến)". Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation. Retrieved 26 June 2015.

[3] Barbara Watson Andaya (2006). The Flaming Womb: Repositioning Women in Early Modern Southeast Asia. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 23–. ISBN 978-0-8248-2955-1.

[4] Choi Byung Wook (2004). Southern Vietnam Under the Reign of Minh Mạng (1820–1841): Central Policies and Local Response. SEAP Publications. pp. 34–. ISBN 978-0-87727-138-3.

[5] A. Dirk Moses (1 January 2008). Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History. Berghahn Books. pp. 209–. ISBN 978-1-84545-452-4. Archived from the original on 2008.

Ethnic nationalism
Nationalisms	Acholi Afrikaner Albanian in Albania in Kosovo in North Macedonia Andalusian Arab Aragonese Armenian Assyrian Asturian Austrian Azerbaijani Balkar and Karachay Baloch Basque Bavarian Belarusian Bengali Berber Bodo Bosniak Breton Canarian Cantonese Castilian Catalan Chicano Chinese Circassian Coptic Cornish Corsican Croatian Czech Egyptian English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician German in Austria Georgian Greek in Cyprus Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Iranian Irish Italian Japanese Kabyle Khmer Korean Kurdish Macedonian Malay Manchurian Montenegrin Naga Norwegian Occitan Ogoni Palestinian Pashtun Polish Punjabi Romanian Russian Sahrawi Scottish Serbian Sicilian Sindhi Sinhalese Somali Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swabian Tamil in Sri Lanka Tripuri Tunisian Turkish Ukrainian Uyghur Valencian Vietnamese Welsh Zaza
Pan-nationalisms	American Arab Celtic German Hispanic Indian Iranian Latin Mongolian Pakistani Slavic Turanian Turkic
Movements	Assam separatist movements East Turkestan independence movement Faroese independence movement Flemish Movement Greenlandic independence Guangdong Independence Movement Māori protest movement Ryukyu independence movement Silesian Autonomy Movement Tibetan independence movement Walloon Movement
Concepts	Hutu Power Kashmiriyat Katarismo Ketuanan Melayu Marathi Abhimaangeet Saraikistan
Other	Racial American Indigenous Black Indigenous White Zionism
Note: Forms of nationalism based primarily on ethnic groups are listed above. This does not imply that all nationalists with a given ethnicity subscribe to that form of ethnic nationalism.