Wednesday, September 16, 2015

In Ho Chi Minh's speech declaring independence, he contains a demand that the free world support that independence in part as payment for services...

The original question had to be pared down, but I invite you to post the other questions separately because they are quite profound.


I think that one of the "services" that Ho Chi Minh directly mentions is assistance to the French.  As World War II advanced, conflicts between Japan and the French spilled over into Vietnam.  Ho Chi Minh addresses this by saying that as both nations battled for territorial supremacy, the Vietnamese Republic paid the price.  He argues that despite the fact that there was an increase in the "sufferings and miseries" of the Vietnamese people, they still assisted the French:



Notwithstanding all this, our fellow-citizens have always manifested toward the French a tolerant and humane attitude. Even after the Japanese putsch of March 1945, the Vietminh League helped many Frenchmen to cross the frontier, rescued some of them from Japanese jails, and protected French lives and property.



It is evident that Ho Chi Minh argues that the best way to acknowledge the efforts of the Vietnamese people is to accept their claims of self-determination.   


Ho Chi Minh frames the argument for Vietnamese sovereignty in the context of World War II.  He makes clear that the principles which motivated World War II also govern the issue of Vietnamese independence:



We are convinced that the Allied nations which at Tehran and San Francisco have acknowledged the principles of self-determination and equality of nations, will not refuse to acknowledge the independence of Vietnam.


A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eight years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.



Ho Chi Minh asserts that if principles like self-determination justified American entry into World War II, then they can be applied to the case of Vietnamese freedom. He argues that if the Allies stood up to Fascism in the name of a nation's right to embrace self-determination, then the independence of Vietnam should be guaranteed.  In referring to the Tehran conference and Treaty of San Francisco, he appeals to the Allied assertions which ended fascism, a reality he would like to apply to the case of other nations controlling Vietnam.


Ho Chi Minh opens his speech with direct quotations from Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence.  In his mind, the issue of Vietnamese independence is as clear as the Colonial cause for freedom from the British.

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