Abstract
Throughout the book, personal and collective recollections of torture are entwined with the veterans’ ethics of spectral, prospective remembering. In Chap. 2, the performance group’s president and founder, cô Nhựt, discusses memories of performing patriotic solidarity in prison and describes what she calls the Vietnamese “tradition of optimism.” For cô Nhựt, optimism is a traditional feature and a national practice; it is something already there but yet must also always be performed. The chapter engages the creative powers of performing rebellion under conditions of imprisonment and torture, the veterans’ narrative-practice of locating themselves within the national lineage of patriotic warrior heroines, proper gender practice during wartime, and ways in which an “inheritance of memory” is pressed upon Hương—Eisner’s research collaborator, translator, and friend—as a stand-in for other postwar women.
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- 1.
Sadly, during the final stages of completing this book, cô Nhựt passed away shortly after her 81st birthday in December 2017.
- 2.
See front matter Notes and Chap. 1 for additional explanation of the Côn Đảo Islands and prison.
- 3.
“Performative” here and elsewhere refers to Elin Diamond (1996), D. Soyini Madison (2005, 2010), and Della Pollock’s (1998, 1999, 2005) readings of J. L. Austin, Jacques Derrida, and Judith Butler’s foundational theorizations of performativity and the performative rather than Homi K. Bhabha’s characterization (1990). For a helpful reading of Bhabha’s sense of the performative, see Pollock’s description in “Introduction: Making History Go” (1998).
- 4.
Michel de Certeau’s explication of memory is also applicable to the memory-based practice of tradition when he says “[i]ts mobilization is inseparable from […] alteration […] memory derives its interventionary force from its very capacity to be altered” (1988, 86). At the same time, individual acts of performance often derive much of their cultural and affective power by drawing on familiar, shared knowledge and traditions, even if remaking or breaking them. Trinh T. Minh-ha expresses the embodied tradition of storytelling, and stories themselves, as reliant on the seemingly oppositional tensions of “guardianship and transmission,” a dynamic process of transfer between and across bodies and selves that she describes as acts of “creation” (1989, 149).
- 5.
- 6.
In No Other Road to Take: Memoir of Ms. Nguyễn Thị Định, the famous NLF leader and revolutionary Nguyễn thị Định cites her brother’s imprisonment and torture as instigating her political awakening (1976). Cô Nhựt’s and other veterans’ stories of political coming-to-consciousness share striking similarities with Nguyễn thị Định’s account.
- 7.
For more see Don Luce , “The Tiger Cages of Viet Nam,” Historians Against the War, accessed 16 June, 2017, https://www.historiansagainstwar.org/resources/torture/luce.html.
- 8.
Ibid.
- 9.
Peter Zinoman’s research shows that the Communist practice of utilizing prisons for political education was widespread and highly organized in Vietnam by the 1930s (2001a, 2001b). Zinoman writes that while in prison Communist activists possessed a “unique capacity” to spread their ideas and broaden support by way of “Leninist strategies of education, agitation, and indoctrination” and through “Leninist principles of secrecy , centralization, obedience, and discipline” (2001a 237, 239).
- 10.
The use of performance (including songs , plays , poetry, etc.) to help teach and spread Communist values and ideals while in prison is also discussed in Peter Zinoman’s work on colonial era prisons and prison life (2001a).
- 11.
Here and elsewhere in the chapter, translations of cô Nhựt’s written accounts in Vietnamese have been provided by Hương .
- 12.
During the war, NLF theater troupes were formed to help raise morale and teach people stories of nationalist martyrs and ancestral heroes in ways that were infused with Communist beliefs, values, and aspirations. For the story of one cultural worker from Củ Chi, and an overview of wartime guerilla performances, see Tom Mangold and John Penycate’s “Pham Sang—The Story of an Entertainer” (1986, 144–157).
- 13.
At the time of this interview cô Nhựt was still periodically leading courses on Vietnamese women’s history.
- 14.
Wendy N. Duong states that “[t]he conceptual and linguistic structure of the Vietnamese culture contains no framework for feminism as a doctrine […]. There is no word for ‘feminism’ or ‘feminist’ in the Vietnamese language” (2001, 194). David G . Marr provides a Vietnamese translation for the term “feminism ,” as it was used by writers in a women’s periodical in the 1930s, but notes that it was considered a “pejorative label” (1981, 226). At this time, Marr explains, feminism was generally deemed too Western and bourgeois, and was criticized for creating divisions between women and not adequately addressing economics or class (1981). See also Helle Rydström for further discussion on this topic and for descriptions of what she views as Vietnam’s three phases of feminism (2016).
- 15.
- 16.
In Vietnam, it is believed that “historical hero figures as guardian deities continue to watch over the nation’s affairs and, thus, transcend and tie together past and present ” (Giebel 2001, 86). Christoph Giebel explains that the decision of who is, or is not, included in this “national pantheon” is highly political and continuously under negotiation (2001, 86). Shaun Kingsley Malarney’s discussion of the sacred status of the wars against the French and the Americans is also helpful here in understanding why and how the act of sacrificing oneself to these struggles was “given noble and transcendent qualities” (2001, 49). See Giebel (2001) and Malarney (2001) for more on the national pantheon of historical deities and the Party’s attempts to alter and utilize beliefs about death and spirits to serve the war effort.
- 17.
Patricia M. Pelley gives an in-depth account of the way in which the Trưng Sisters became nationalized historical figures (2002, 143–145, 159, 172–173, 176–182, 191).
- 18.
Refer to Patricia M. Pelley’s detailed historiography for more on the construction of the Hùng Kings as the founders of Vietnamese civilization and nationhood and their use as nationalist figures (2002).
- 19.
It is interesting that, despite the Trưng Sisters’ and Bà Triệu’s eventual failure to secure Vietnam from Chinese rule, the women are still seen as successful heroines . Patricia M. Pelley notes that Communist historians “emphasized that in the contemporary struggle against the United States, revolutionary leaders benefited from what the Trưng Sisters tragically lacked—popular support and a powerful military” (2002, 181). This rendering of the Trưng Sisters was used to support the idea that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam would succeed in winning the war (2002).
- 20.
For more about the historical meanings and contemporary usages of images and stories about women such as the Trưng Sisters and Bà Triệu , as well as to compare the differences and similarities in their interpretations by Vietnamese studies scholars and historians, see David G. Marr (1981, 198–201), Patricia M. Pelley (2002, 143–145, 176–182), Hue -Tam Ho Tai (2001b, 173–174), and Karen G. Turner (1998, 24–28).
- 21.
- 22.
- 23.
Similarly, as Micheline Lessard expresses in her work on political activism during the colonial period, for many Vietnamese women, “[d]efending the Vietnamese nation was itself a filial endeavor” (2010, 105).
- 24.
See William J. Duiker for in-depth analysis on the relationship between Vietnamese Communism and nationalism (1996).
- 25.
William J. Duiker provides insightful analysis regarding Hồ Chí Minh’s use of Confucian beliefs and frameworks in building and guiding Communist revolution against the French and in mobilizing forces during the American War (1996, 2000). See Duiker’s explanation of why and how Hồ borrowed from Confucian moral codes, as well as why these values were likely an expression of Hồ’s authentic beliefs and wishes for the Vietnamese Communist movement (2000, see especially 135–136). Duiker also provides a list of shared qualities between Marxism and Confucianism to help explain why Marxism was particularly compatible with Vietnamese cultural tradition and contexts (1996, see especially 26–28). His work helps explain why Vietnamese Communists often embraced, rather than rejected, tradition.
- 26.
The “Three Submissions,” sometimes also referred to as “subordinations” or “obligations,” are most commonly referenced together with the “Four Virtues,” as in the “Three Submissions and Four Virtues” (Tam tòng, tứ đức). A friend and professional linguist has explained to me that none of the English translations (submissions, subordinations, or obligations) fully captures the meanings bound up in “Tam tòng,” which she finds is best understood as a combination of unconditional devotion, commitment, and service. She notes that nowadays, these concepts are seen as antiquated by many women in Vietnam.
- 27.
I am aware that commonly held Vietnamese beliefs regarding filial duty and the spirit world (a mixture of Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions as well as other influences) are not inherently more just or socially equitable than other beliefs and traditions. I also recognize that Marxist philosophy does not guarantee greater social equity when put into practice. My discussion of hauntological consciousness here is an expression of potential, rather than absolute, ideals.
- 28.
What I am calling cô Nhựt’s hauntological consciousness is, in part, and in following Hồ Chí Minh’s philosophy and directives, a fusion of Confucian and Marxian beliefs and values about self, society, and responsibility . William J. Duiker identifies a number of shared values between Confucianism and Marxism, several of which are particularly salient here in relation to cô Nhựt, namely: “the stress on personal ethics and selfless service to society; the subordination of the individual to the community; the belief that material wealth is not the ultimate end product of the human endeavor but should be firmly subordinated to more uplifting goals” (1996, 26).
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Eisner, R.S. (2018). Performing Survival, Ancestral Inheritance, and the Spirit of Optimism. In: Performing Remembering. Contemporary Performance InterActions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73615-0_2
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