Nguyen Ngoc Huy: The Gandhi of Vietnam
By: Jackie Bong-Wright
A Prolific Scholar with a Great Vision
“I usually
don’t read biographies. They often
exaggerate the exploits of their subjects.
But when I watched the fascinating two-and-a-half hour documentary on
Dr. Huy, I was humbled by the huge amount of literary
and political work he bestowed on posterity.”
These were the words of Ly Van Phuoc, Chair of
the Vietnamese Community in the Washington area.
A
hundred people gathered to watch excerpts from the documentary and listen to remarks about the
late Nguyen Ngoc Huy, who died in 1990 in Paris while chairing an international rally of the Alliance for Democracy in Vietnam (ADV). That was the political party he had
established in 1980.
Prof.
Huy came to the U.S. in 1975 after Vietnam became Communist, and worked as a research scholar at
Harvard University. From that
platform, he inspired thousands of his students and political disciples to
follow in his footsteps and carry on his work.
For many he left a lasting imprint.
David Kilgour, Member of the Canadian
Parliament and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, said after Dr. Huy’s death, “Over half-a-century, he became a giant among
those in the wolrd seeking an independent and
democratic Vietnam, so much so that he earned the title “the Gandhi of Vietnam.”
Nguyen
Ngoc Bich, chairman of the National Congress of
Vietnamese Americans (NCVA) and a scholar in his own right, noted that Prof. Huy left, besides his political legacy, an enormous body of
scholarly writings that would take future generations
years to absorb. “ A prolific writer, he collaborated
with Prof. Ta Van Tai of Harvard University and Tran Van Liem, a former
Chief Justice, on the three-volume Code of Vietnam published by the Ohio
University Press. He wrote a famous
monograph, Penal Code of 15th-century Vietnam (Quoc Trieu
Hinh Luat). And with Stephen Young, former Dean of the Law School at Hamline University (Minnesota),
he co-authored the Tradition of Human Rights in Vietnam.”
“One
can mention almost any topic, and be sure that Prof. Huy
has touched upon it, and in a thorough manner,” Bich
said. “For instance, you might be
puzzled by the way Vietnamese names are made up. Well, there’s already a full monograph
written by Prof. Huy on the subject. He has a two-volume study of the history of
political theory in the East, mostly about China. He also wrote
a book-length commentary on the major characters of the “chivalric novels” of Jin Rong, a contemporary Hong Kong author.”
Nguyen Cao Quyen, former judge and prisoner of war, remarked that
another of Huy’s books, entitled the Survival of a Nation, presented a system
of government which would combine the principles of democracy successful in
mature Western civilizations with the unique characteristics of Vietnamese
culture. “Had his principles been applied to Vietnam following the departure of the French in 1954, or
after President Ngo Dinh Diem’s assassination in
1963, there might not have been a Vietnam War.”
At
20, Huy joined the Dai Viet Party and a year later
went to work at Vietnam’s
National Library. He devoured books, and wrote articles on
youth, politics and poetry. At a young
age, he composed the “Unknown
Hero,” which was recited in the schools.
It was later put to music, and sung to urge soldiers to fight to the end
and to praise fallen heroes who had fought in silence, without fanfare.
When
Huy’s Dai Viet Party was oppressed by the
authoritarian Ngo Dinh Diem regime, Huy took refuge in Paris, where he continued his studies while working at odd
jobs. He earned a Ph.D
in Political Science at the Sorbonne in 1963.
Returning to Vietnam, he and his friend, Prof. Nguyen Van Bong,
established a new opposition party - The National Progressive Movement. Huy held various
high-level government positions and taught political science at the National
Institute of Administration and at a number of Vietnamese universities. He also wrote many newspaper articles,
seeking always to promote democracy and motivate young people to become active
in politics.
Poet,
professor, politician, author, Prof. Huy’s literary
output comprises over 20 books in Vietnamese, French and English; 7 monographs;
9 lectures delivered at universities in Vietnam and the U.S. on Communism, U.S.
military strategies, the Soviet Union and Vietnam, China and Vietnam; and a
book of 115 poems.
Unknown Hero
Bui
Diem, Vietnamese Ambassador to Washington in the 1960s, assessed Prof. Huy’s
importance. “There is no need for me to
talk about the vast contribution of Dr. Huy to the
independence of Vietnam and its march towards democracy. I mention nevertheless a special trait of his
personality that was so persistant that it became
dominant over his whole political life.
He was devoted to the idea of reform at every stage of his political
activities and he consistently tried to put that idea into practice.”
“As a
veteran member of the old Dai Viet Nationalist Party, he had already promoted,
in the early sixties, the idea of tranforming that
party into the “Tan Dai Viet” --“new” Dai Viet, with a new vision. Huy became one of
its prominent leaders and, in the mid-seventies, right after we migrated
overseas, he tried to unite the various factions of the party,” the Ambassador
recalled. Thus, the Alliance for Democracy in Vietnam (ADV) was formed in the U.S. in the early eighties, and Huy,
with only one dark suit and contributions from his disciples, went around the
world a number of times to educate and recruit the hundreds of Vietnamese who
became the ADV’s members. Central to his message was always the idea of
non-violence.
Huy
realized that, since refugees from Communism were dispersed all over the world
with no military or financial resources, he had to rely on other people’s power
to exert leverage on the dictatorial regime in Vietnam. Recruiting as
members European, Canadian, Australian and American legislators, he founded, in
1986, the International Committee for a Free Vietnam (ICFV).
These
congressmen and parliamentarians served as honorary members. They committed themselves to work for the
restoration of human rights and basic liberties, such as freedom of religion,
speech and association. That had not
been the Communist government’s norm since they took power in 1975 in Vietnam.
Today,
the ADV and the ICFV work hand in hand to produce, at their annual meetings,
resolutions that call for Vietnam to free prisoners of conscience, open up fair trade
with other countries, allow multiple political parties, and hold free and
transparent elections.
Prof.
Huy’s wife was Duong Thi
Thu. Nguyen Ngoc Thuy
Tan, Huy’s daughter, calls her mother an “unknown
hero.” “Behind each successful leader,
there is a supportive and devoted woman sacrificing tirelessly in the
shadows. My mother was such a woman.”
Today, Thuy Tan lives and works in Albany,
New York, with her husband and two daughters, “While in exile in France, my mother went to work and encouraged my father to
carry on his education. She was the
family’s main breadwinner and brought the three of us up almost
single-handedly. She remained strong and
supportive, a constant companion by my father’s side.”
Tran
Thu, the person who for two years researched Dr. Huy’s
life and spent another year working on the documentary, said, “Dr Huy’s passion for his mission touches everyone, young and
old alike. His charisma transcends
frontiers and races. Like the myth of Sysiphus, Dr. Huy struggled
uphill to build a democracy for Vietnam, a thankless task that saw him fall back many times
over. But he kept climbing. He never gave up, even eight years after he
contracted cancer. His determination was
a fire that lit people up like a lighthouse and guided thousands of us in the
right direction. Let us pledge to follow
his teachings on human rights and democracy until the end of our lives.”
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