Vietnam’s victory over imperialism and independence was achieved by a tremendous sacrifice of blood and bone. The fight was not only for formal independence, but for meaningful independence and liberation — for a society where the needs of humanity comes before profit. This has economic, political and cultural dimensions.

In imagining and shaping a new society, the role of culture looms large. Here I don’t refer to culture only as the amalgam of the performing and visual arts, but as the relations between people and between people and the whole of society — as a whole social process in which men and women define and shape their lives. Some have defined culture as, "how humans live and work."²

Combining traditional and revolutionary values, Vietnam had developed a culture that valued equality, sharing and collectivism. This was part and parcel of an ongoing struggle against certain backward cultural remnants of feudal/peasant economic relations. This achievement highlights the Vietnamese Communist Party’s efforts to combine Vietnamese national culture "in combination with a selective acceptance of the cultural essence of humankind". (General Vo Nguyen Giap’s characterization of President Ho Chi Minh’s view of development of a new society.)³

Now, 26 years after liberation, Vietnam’s culture has had to adjust to doi moi. The improved economic conditions have often not been accompanied by cultural progress. To a person, my Vietnamese friends remember the immediate post-war period as a time of terrible economic hardship but also as a time of togetherness and solidarity. Many bemoan the loss of those communitarian relations, in today’s dog-eat-dog market-oriented society.

As culture has as its material base the development of the productive forces and the mode of production, these changes have gone hand in hand with the introduction of market relations in Vietnam. Faced with the pressures from global capital, Vietnam has had to reintroduce certain capitalist relations in order to survive and feed its people. The interjection of profit and exploitation into Vietnamese society has provided opportunities for corruption, cynicism, individualism and for commodification of culture. The culture thus created, in turn, influences the productive forces and relations.

Much attention has been devoted to trying to protect Vietnam’s independence, in the economic and political spheres. I want to focus on the cultural sphere — on how U.S. commodity culture has been inculcated with market relations and how such culture may be shaping production and other human relations. I then want to suggest some steps that may be taken to counter cultural imperialism and safeguard Vietnam’s independence, including how we outside the country can help.

What is Cultural Imperialism?

Cultural imperialism may be simply defined as the operation of global capital in cultural relations or, more specifically, as the attempted domination of the cultures of the world by U.S. capital.

It has also been called "a verifiable process of social influence by which a nation imposes on other countries its set of beliefs, values, knowledge and behavioral norms as well as its overall style of life".⁴

The victory of the Vietnamese people over U.S. military might contributed to the importance of cultural imperialism in the arsenal of the U.S. government. With the advent of "the Vietnam Syndrome", the U.S. shifted emphasis from protracted land wars to high tech, quick strike wars and to economic, ideological and cultural means of dominating and exploiting other countries.

Antonio Gramsci identified the concept of hegemony — the ability of the dominant class to project its own way of seeing the world so that those who are subordinated by it accept it as ‘common sense’ and ‘natural’.

In this era of neo-liberal structural adjustment, and increased concentration and centralization of media, entertainment, and information, achieving cultural (and ideological) hegemony has never been more possible or dangerous.

If there is any doubt about the increasing domination by the U.S. of information and cultural production and distribution, a few figures should suffice:

• Cultural products are now the largest Unites States export.⁵
• In 1992, the United States purchased only $288 million in cultural products from the nations of the European Community (EC) combined, while the EC nations bought $3.7 billion in U.S. cultural products, including films and television: more than 10 times the United States’ import expenditures.⁶
• Of the Top 100 films in the world in 1993, 88 were American.⁷
• U.S. films account for 60% of box office revenues in France and 95% in England. In 1996, the U.S.’ share of the European Union film market was 70%.⁸
• Mergers of media giants such as Time-Warner and AOL have increased the consolidation of media power — "‘made in America’ cultural and informational ouputs and the English language now dominate movie and TV screens, music-making, entertainment centres and business conversation."⁹

Some in U.S. ruling circles are not shy about announcing their control and dominance in the cultural arena. David Rothkopf a director of Kissinger Associates and a former official of the Commerce Department in the Clinton administration minces no words in proclaiming U.S. cultural hegemony (in an article entitled In Praise of Cultural Imperialism, no less):
 

Impact of Development of Market Relations on Culture

The advent of the market economy with a socialist orientation brought into existence productive forces and new relations of production. These forces and relations have had a noticeable affect on Vietnam’s culture.

Marketization

The Communist Party of Vietnam, in its line and statements, has been clear and vigorous in maintaining revolutionary values and morality. It has consistently understood the development of culture as that which creates a new person imbued with "creativity, a sense of community, benevolence, tolerance, respect for humanity, a cultured lifestyle [and] a harmonious relationship with the family, community and society".¹²

The Party has itself recognized "unhealthy trends" in cultural development related to negative aspects of the market economy. "Certain cultural values and social ethics have been on the decline; and superstition and backward habits, on the rise."¹³

My personal experience is that many, if not most, Vietnamese Communist Party members are honest, dedicated revolutionaries who continue to make sacrifices in the interest of the Vietnamese people. In often lengthy and ongoing discussions, however, these comrades raise their concerns about the influence of money and individualism in Vietnamese society and the impact this has on relations between people.

Not being an economist, I will not attempt to present a full picture of the impact of Vietnam’s market economic relations. I will present some anecdotal evidence of the effect of marketization on cultural relations:¹⁴

The Role of U.S. Cultural Imports

Separating the effect of marketization on Vietnam’s culture from the effect of international capital is really a false dichotomy. In reality, Vietnam has had to embark on marketization in order to survive in a hostile world dominated by U.S. imperialism. The Vietnamese Party and government are trying to handle the resultant contradictions described above — clearly in a manner that promotes the development of a socialist future. How well they are able to do this is impacted by the more direct influence of U.S. and western commodity culture.

The most noxious U.S. cultural export is not Coke or Kentucky Fried Chicken or Gone with the Wind. It is the idea of U.S. superiority and supremacy. It is the idea that the U.S. is number 1; that the U.S. is the most democratic, freest country on earth; the illusions about the way the majority of U.S. working people live. I don’t have to explain to those attending this conference that none of this is true; that despite its wealth and technological development, the U.S. has one of the largest gaps between the rich and the poor in the world with homeless people sleeping on the streets of every U.S. city. The official 2000 census report found that one out of six children in the U.S. live in poverty.¹⁶

The U.S. ruling class is adept at communicating the myth of U.S. superiority. U.S. products and advertising and cultural exports are pressed into service. Talking among themselves, they are quite bold about their chauvinism. "The United States should not hesitate to promote its values… Americans should not deny the fact that of all the nations in the history of the world, theirs is the most just, the most tolerant…and the best model for the future."¹⁷

But the message that is conveyed to people in other countries is not a blatant message of superiority — it is a message that equates the U.S. with modernity and the pursuit of "cool". All things U.S. are portrayed as modern and stylish and cool. This may even mean appropriating symbols of resistance or countercultual elements (as in the use of U.S. 60’s radical culture to sell cars). It may mean coopting forms of national culture (such as the transformation of much of hip hop music in U.S. African American communities from progressive music to commercial music whose only "radical" features are the use of profanity and violent, misogynistic images).

One of the more dangerous U.S. exports is the equation of democracy with the right to consume commodities, also known as the right to shop. Before the 2000 presidential elections there appeared, outside of my home in New York, stickers which read, shop, don’t vote. The promotion of some store or other, it epitomizes the consumer rather than citizenship approach to democracy.

The exports of U.S. music/literary/entertainment products promotes these values as well. U.S. culture is certainly not monolithic; nor is it completely in the realm of commodity culture. The U.S. has a long history of people’s culture; of culture of struggle and resistance. However, what is exported to or arrives in Vietnam tends to be the most commercial of U.S. culture.

Advertising is the most widespread and visible means of U.S. cultural influence. In 1999, foreign companies spent $116 million on advertising in Vietnam. "Consumer goods giant Unilever topped the list of advertisers, spending over $14 million…Proctor & Gamble, which spent $4.11 million on advertising, ranked second, and Coca Cola…remained the country’s third ad buyer".¹⁸

On the streets of Hanoi, booksellers hawk copies of the latest Danielle Steele or Sidney Sheldon book. Gone with the Wind, that glorification of the slave plantation system in the U.S. South, continues to be widely read.

In addition to being poorly written, this type of book gives a wildly inaccurate portrayal of life in the U.S. They contain either rags to riches stories or stories situated entirely within the echelons of the rich and powerful. Combined with advertising of U.S. products and "lifestyle", they promote the love for possessions over the love for people or they promote the love for people as possessions.

The problem here is not that these types of books and other entertainment commodities are translated and published in Vietnam, it is that they are the predominant examples of U.S. culture available.

Nor is the problem that Vietnamese culture needs to be protected from outside influence. Vietnam has long recognized the need to incorporate the best of foreign culture in its development while at the same time maintaining it’s independence. In the 1951 Political Report to the Second National Congress of the Vietnam Workers Party President Ho Chi Minh said that, "the enslaving influence of imperialist culture must be systematically rooted out. Simultaneously, we must develop the fine traditions of our national culture and assimilate the new in world progressive culture in order to build a Vietnamese culture with a national, scientific and popular character." ¹⁹

Impact of Commodification of Culture on Vietnam’s Development

How does the commodification of culture imposed on Vietnam effect its efforts to build an independent socialist society?

Here I’d like to return to Gramsci’s idea of hegemony — the ability of the dominant class to project its own way of seeing the world so that those who are subordinated by it accept it as ‘common sense’ and ‘natural’.

People’s ideas about "the way things are" are shaped by a combination of their own experiences and external communications. The dominant class in the world today — the capitalist class — exerts tremendous influence on such communications. Internationally, this has led to serious consideration of even the most ludicrous theories, for example, Francis Fukayama’s theory about the end of history being upon us.

In socialist countries like Vietnam and Cuba, the commodification of culture threatens to undermine revolutionary values of egalitarianism, collectivism, equality, brotherhood/sisterhood and solidarity by substituting worship of elitism, competitiveness, individualism, racism/sexism and selfishness. This, in turn can have an effect on peoples’ attitude towards the economy and the building of socialism.

First, the very monetizing of societal cultural relations valorizes profit above all else. As Herbert Schiller puts it:
 

Second, the commodification of culture invariably promotes (unfair and unhealthy) competition and comparison between Vietnam and other, particularly developed, countries. This comparison is based on illusions, fed by U.S. cultural imports — illusions both about the reality of life for working people in the west and the ability of underdeveloped countries such as Vietnam to attain a fair share of the world’s resources in this age of global capital. In this competition, Vietnam will always come up short. The portrayal of capitalist countries as rich and successful is conflated with the illusion of people in capitalist countries as rich and happy. This provokes a question about whether capitalism is "natural" if that’s the way things ‘are’ elsewhere.

This accommodation to the world of relations mediated through money is contradictory to socialist politics and economics. Socialism is a society developed in the interests of the working people — the workers and peasants (and, as Vietnam has added, working class intellectuals). I need not elaborate why a mentality that values personal enrichment above all is incompatible with this goal.

Ideology and culture are also closely related. Perhaps the most pernicious effect of commodification of culture is its negation of Marxism-Leninism and the legacy of President Ho Chi Minh. The collapse of the Soviet bloc has caused uncertainty in the minds of many — the growth of a culture of money effectively solidifies these doubts. The daily experience of having to live many aspects of life via the medium of monetary exchange is alienating and destructive of human values, but it "works", given its own twisted internal logic. Even if one is on the losing end of this arrangement, there is always the hope of "striking it rich" (like in those Danielle Steele novels) or the resort to superstitious practices to change ones ‘destiny’. The struggle required to build a new society with the "new person" Ho Chi Minh wrote about seems distant and quixotic. The culture of pragmatism (that quintessentially American philosophy) soon leads to the idea that it doesn’t matter if society is capitalist or socialist; the only thing that matters is whether one succeeds. With this attitude, who can expect people to subordinate some of their individual interests in the process of building an independent and socialist society?

Commodification of culture is similarly destructive to Vietnam’s efforts to build a strong socialist economy. Commodity relations can negatively impact on the education and health of the population, reducing the creativity and ability of Vietnamese workers. This, in turn, reduces the peoples’ mastery over their role in the economy and production, leading to increased exploitation of working people.

As the state sector is made more efficient and is forced to lay off workers, and the private sector expands, some workers may conclude that the future of the country lies "where the money is". This could hurt attempts to recruit the talented people to the state sector and discourage efforts to start collectively owned and run enterprises. Already, among many young people in Vietnam, it has become trendy to study business and to go into the fields of finance, banking, or entrepreneurial work. This, in turn, may result in a shortage of teachers and other much needed government workers.

At the same time, international demands to open up Vietnam’s communications and entertainment market to U.S. and transnational companies may also undermine this sector of the domestic economy.

Consumerism and conspicuous consumption is also harmful to the Vietnamese economy (and to its ecology), devoting scarce land and other resources to luxury housing and production.

Defeating U.S. Cultural Imperialism

Cultural imperialism is a struggle for the hearts and minds ²¹ of the people. On one hand, the U.S. uses bi-lateral and multilateral agreements to penetrate Vietnam’s information market. On the other, it projects itself as the epitome of modernity and cultural cool, especially to young people.

Vietnam’s ability to change international intellectual property laws and treaties is limited, but it can try to interpret international agreements in such a way as to protect its own cultural production as much as possible.

Censoring or banning international material, for the most part, will be difficult and counterproductive. Sometimes the lure of the forbidden makes even the worst junk more attractive.

What is needed is conscious attention on the part of the Communist Party, the mass organizations and the government to popular education and cultural development.

While the U.S. government advises other countries that there is no role for the state in cultural affairs, which are better left to the dictates of the market, they don’t follow this "advice" themselves. Kissinger colleague David Rothkopf, stresses U.S. control over the "Global Information Infrastructure", saying that despite the role of the marketplace in its development, "governments will control crucial elements of it."²²

The Vietnamese government can use the power of the state to ensure support for genuine cultural work (by subsidizing or otherwise assisting artists and providing cultural programs for the entire people). It can encourage and promote the publication and distribution of international culture that has real artistic value (as opposed to junk commodity culture). There are many foreign books, films, and songs that represent people’s culture and can appeal to popular tastes in Vietnam. A number come to mind:
 

This requires exposure of the negative elements resulting from the commodification of culture. Professor Tuong Lai speaks of the modernization of tradition and the traditionalization of modernity. It is important to counter the U.S.’ attempt to equate modernity with U.S. commodity culture. Commodity culture can be deconstructed and critiqued in a dynamic and non-dogmatic way. The idea that money is the most important thing can be fought using both the history of Vietnam and the international struggle against globalization, global capital and neo-liberalism.

Alongside this critique, the assertion of a positive Vietnamese culture can engage the creative energies and intellect of people, and especially, youth. A new meaning of "fashionable", "cool" and modern can emerge from such cultural movements. This will empower young people to both develop and defend their own culture.

Increasing the quality of ideological work is also a necessary accompaniment to building a new culture.

What Can We Do?

Supporters of the Vietnamese revolution abroad can make a number of contributions to cultural work in Vietnam.