Hearts and Minds Documentary: Vietnamese Pride

In Peter Davis' film Hearts and Minds, a Vietnamese man defends his position when he says: "Americans say Vietnamese are just slant-eyed savages. The Vietnamese have 5,000 years of history. We fight against the invaders. It is not we who are the savages." (Davis, 1974, 40:10). This is one of the few times in the film that a Vietnamese person stands up in defense. Do you think that he is just in calling Americans invaders instead of liberators?

Analytical Papers:
http://www.trinity.edu/adelwich/documentary/papers.html

Viewing Guides:
http://www.trinity.edu/adelwich/documentary/guides.html

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• peter
• davis
• hearts
• and
• minds
• vietnam

[sexiflaka]

Oh please, can we stop with the concept that the U.S. is always out there to liberate! Is violence and massive killings a sort of liberation? Ironically, it was. Invaders? Yes, that's what U.S. is - just invaders that exploit and make things worst and all in the name of their democratic values.... Leave the countries alone!!! If they want to consume in communism- leave them alone!!!!!!!!!

[vnRock]

Summarize? We dont' need no liberators. We have 5000 years of history and we will fight any invaders, no matter who would that be!!

[teamcrumb]

@BrendaQG no it was a FAMOUSLY a colonial war

[teamcrumb]

@sexiflaka

the French also had a ton of shit to do with it!!!!!!! when the nazis took over France in WW2 the then french colonials who had been thrashing the shit out of indochina became Vichy colonials (ie french nazis) and the germans were on the side that backed the Japanese. . . so the french kept up good relations with Japan, this allowed them to continue raping indochina, the U.S backed up the French and then so did the South Vietnamese!

consume in communism? what does that mean?

[BrendaQG]

The thing is this was a civil war. That you can find people in the South who supported the north is not surprising. The south had at least the semblance of freedom of speech and political tolerance to allow such dissent. (Even though it was a financially corrupt government. )

Now if you asked someone who was say in the South's military or government or who simply did not want rule from Hanoi they would see it differently.

In the end the north had two superpowers the south only one.

[P0oDoll]

@ trinitydocumentary of course he is when he says that they're invaders because the majority of the Vietnamese population didn't even want the Americans and the French with their bs political systems. Also, liberation is freeing somebody, not forcing your own system and ways on them.

(not that I'm anti-America or w/e, I don't side, but it IS true that every party should've just minded their own business).

[mercury11043]

But China and the USSR both made big contributions of men and material to North Vietnam. It was a proxy war in the Cold War. The US was doing what it had to do to maintain its credibility as leader of the non-communist world.

[wwwPNACATTACKcom]

Vietnam was was nazi-Fascism and terrorism by USA and started with old 9/11 lie...

[quyhac]

The war has ended over thirty years ago. Liberators or Invaders, does that matter now? Vietnam is a unified country, where the people look towards the future. The Vietnamese-Americans often times remain stuck in the past, for good reason though. I just feel that for Viet Kieu and Vietnamese to mend wounds, the past must be forgotten. That will take a long time, generations perhaps.

[deptrai1989]

eh, that monk is a communist monk who writes alot of books you can find at Barnes and Nobles. The communists believe America wanted to take over vietnam and make it a colony like France did before them. If the communists didn't ruin everything, Vietnam would be at least prosperous like South Korea now.