It’s Not What You Have but How You Use It

I’ve always been fascinated by Vietnam and the Vietnamese. I’ve always had this fascination long before I got married to a Vietnamese lady who brought a little girl who would change my perspective on life. I guess, it was the fact that the Vietnamese were the first guys who took on the world’s biggest military power and won. While my school friends at the International School of Hamburg saw Rambo as being cool, I identified with the little men in black pajamas.

Now that I am now married to a Vietnamese girl, I can see that I was not far off in those childhood images. The Vietnamese are a tough people, who have endured a lot. Vietnamese women in particular are tough cookies.

Age has allowed me to better understand my sympathies for the Vietnamese. These were small, poor guys who took on the world’s biggest powers and won. History has made it such that we can never forget the Americans flying off from their embassy in Saigon despite dropped numerous bombs on them. History is also littered with records of how the Chinese have invaded countless of times and always returned home with a bloody nose. The thrill in life is not being part of a big unit but being a small and puny thing that beats the world's big guys.

In the age of the Coronavirus, that image of Vietnam has become even more pronounced. In the early days of the virus, Singapore rushed to grab international headlines of what a great job it was doing. Yet, at the time of writing, Singapore is Southeast Asia’s hub for coronavirus infections with some 9,125 infections (which it is quick point out is mainly foreign workers) and 11 deaths. America, the world’s greatest nation has 824,698 cases and 40,297 deaths. Vietnam by contrast has 268 cases with no fatalities. The real model for pandemic measurement is Vietnam.

This achievement is even more impressive when you look at Vietnam’s relative handicaps. Unlike the USA and Singapore, Vietnam shares a border with China and regular border crossings are a part of Vietnam’s history. Unlike Singapore, Vietnam is a large country with developing communications infrastructure., which means that enforcement of the rules, particularly in remote areas is a challenge. More importantly, Vietnam has a weak healthcare system and unlike Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan, Vietnam does not have the financial resources. So, how did Vietnam succeed where more advanced nations failed?

A detailed article on Vietnam’s success can be found in the following article from the Diplomat:

https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/the-secret-to-vietnams-covid-19-response-success/

I believe that the further point that’s not mentioned is the fact that Vietnam understands its own strengths and weaknesses. While Vietnam has achieved impressive economic growth and been a beneficiary of the US-China trade dispute with manufacturers moving from China to Vietnam, the Vietnamese understood that they didn’t have the resources to cope with a full-scale pandemic. As such, Vietnam took the view that prevention was better than the cure and acted quickly and early on.

By way of an example, when I landed in Hanoi airport in early January of this year, Vietnam had installed thermo-cameras at the airport at the airport and all airport staff had to wear a mask. By comparison, Singapore, a global model of efficiency, was still debating on whether you should wear a mask if you were unwell. A week later, when I returned to Singapore, the Vietnam Airlines staff all wore mask on the flight. By contrast, the staff at Singapore Changi Airport did not have mask.

Something similar was visible during the Vietnam War. The Americans with their superior fire power and military tactics won all the pitched battles. The Vietnamese realized they couldn’t take the Americans on in a full scale pitched battle, so they merely made life difficult for American troops (including ensuring the GIs ended up with the diseased hookers) and ensured that when American fire power was used, it was always done for the world’s cameras, and the nation that was used to being the “good guys” did not look good. While Americans troops looked at the battle, their opponents looked at the war and its long-term objectives.

If Vietnam has anything to teach the world, its probably to understand what you have and don’t have. It’s a case of being clear about what you want and utilizing your strengths quickly so that your weaknesses don’t become a part of the equation. While other nations have grabbed headlines, Vietnam has focused on its objectives and been the real-world beater in dealing with this virus. Vietnam’s understanding of itself will make it the country to be in Southeast Asia.

  

You’re not even a Nigger – You’re Lower than That – You’re an African!

The TV has decided to play “Hotel Rwanda” as its late night/ early morning show. The movie tells the story of Paul Rusesabagina, the Rwandan hotelier who managed to hide 1,268 Tutsi and moderate Hutus during the 1994 genocide.

I remember the genocide. I saw it on TV. It happened at the same time as the Bosnian War and while Europe and the USA made lots of noise about placing an arms embargo on the Milosevic regime in Serbia, the Rwandans decided to do things the old-fashioned way – they butchered each other with machetes and the world watched as it happened.
To put it in its crudest terms, Bosnia was an unequal war while Rwanda was a “Snuff Movie-Made Real.” Everyday you would turn on the TV and you’d get to graphic images of people who had been hacked to death. One day, one group of people decided that they would take a sharp chopper to their neighbours and that was that.

The Western Powers lead by the USA, who had so efficiently kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait two-years earlier, sat by and watched. Saddam had to be kicked out of Kuwait because he was a murderous thug was an amateur compared to the chaps in Rwanda. What went wrong?

Well, the simple answer is this – Kuwait was and is a reliable oil supplier for the West while there is utterly no strategic interest in Rwanda. The contrasting attitudes were best summed up by one of the most poetic lines in the movie – “You’re not even in a Nigger – You’re Lower than That – You’re an African.” It is important to save Kuwait from a murderous thug called Saddam because Kuwait has oil – nobody scores points for saving African lives.

I never appreciated it at the time but the difference in the way the world reacted towards Rwanda and Kuwait were lessons that history had already demonstrated. Great powers inevitably act towards the world – they inevitably act in their self-interest. This was true of the British in the 19th century and it is the same of the Americans in the current one. China has shown that if it grows into the next power, it will do the same.

Both the British in the 19th century and the Chinese in the next century have been clear on how they’d run things. The Americans are a different case. They’ve worked on the policy of “Doing Good.” Whenever they’ve invaded a country in the last century, they’ve always done it on the official premise they were “liberators.” To be fair, both Saddam in Iraq and Noriega in Panama were dictators. However, if you look at the way they’ve tried to manage Iraq, you have to question their real motives.
Which leads to the point on what can the rest of the world do? Well, for the most part, it is best to work with the superpower in terms of trade. Chances are the superpower is a superpower for a reason. In the 19th century it was the British and today it is the Americans who have the skills and the technology that the rest of us simply don’t have. As such, it’s always a good idea to send your best and brightest to learn from the superpower. This is a good exchange. For the British, educated natives helped to run the colonies. The Americans use them to help run multinationals.

Superpowers, especially America can be benevolent. Americans forces have helped keep the peace in various parts of the world. Both PAX BRITANICA and PAX AMERICANA have kept the world from exploding into a larger conflict.
However, smaller nations and people from smaller nations have to remember that superpowers don’t act out of the love of their smaller brethren but out of their own strategic interest.

Simply put, anyone who believes that the super power will rush to their defence out of the goodness of their heart will be in for a massive disappointment. So what can smaller countries stuffed with black, brown and yellow people do.

Well, the answer is to learn to be independent and self-reliant. One should learn the skills of the superpower and what makes the system tick but not be dependent on the superpower for ones security and prosperity. While I don’t always agree with the official stance of the Singapore government, I do give credence to the idea of National Service – simply put, - it is good to have someone defend you but also important to doubly ensure that you know how to defend yourself.

It’s good to have alternatives. As long as you remember that as far as the superpower is concerned, you are “Lower than a nigger,” you’ll always have the instincts to look out for yourself and not rely on the superpower to do it for you.