No Boundaries: Saigon

Suffering knows no boundaries....

There have been a handful of days in the past two years that have been full of enough raw emotion to make me feel physically ill. Today was one of those days. Images of wars atrocities were branded into my conscience today... forever. Agent Orange and the birth defects it created make for gut wrenching pictures of real human beings. Soldiers overstepping their bounds in crimes against humanity reveal the brokenness of our human spirit. Survivors of napalm bombs despite all odds, however, reveal the capacity of human courage to live.

The stories of the Vietnam war for me, a child of the generation "after", have never been celebratory stories. The history I learned always forgot to mention who "won" as if the winner was some aloof person hiding in a corner not wanting to talk about what did or did not happen. "Was there a winner?" was the unspoken question taking up residence in my mind.

I knew of the youth resistance to the war. As a child I always revered the university students of the 60's-70's for standing up for what they believed in. Their protests proved that democracy works in our country--we can stand up and speak out against our government even if we don't get what we want. Ironically their fight claimed others shouldn't be forced to have what we have. Should anyone be forced even when we think it in their best interest? I don't think so. Yet, I'm one who has benefited from a democratic upbringing and I've always thought democracy was about freedom of choice.

Until now Vietnam was never really a country in my mind. Even worse it has even failed to be a people. Vietnam has always been a war or the subject of my all time, admittedly most obscure, favorite movie "Good Morning Vietnam". (To think that I became an English teacher in an Asian country is laughable) In the last week this place and people became real; I no longer have the luxury of objectifying this people or their land to the likes of war. Even more I've encountered a part of the story, the raw human suffering side, I somehow missed in high school history class. Either I wasn’t paying attention--history class was always at the end of the day and right before basketball practice--or we just didn't talk about in a way that I remember. Maybe it was both!

The version of the war story here is colored with the socialist/communist hue in which it was created. This is hugely significant and sets so much of what I've seen in the museums and palaces apart from any version we'd tell in the US. But there is a part of this story that defies politics be it Democratic or Communist. At some point it isn't about who won.

As the Communist story of the war confronted me and even put my mind in a spin today with a question like,” What is true?", I came to the conclusion that I know what is true. Human suffering has no sides or winners; its power has no biases. Suffering knows no boundaries. Winners, losers, leaders, followers, rich and poor all are prone to the worst kinds of human suffering. Some because of their status experience suffering more often and if you can qualify suffering more deeply. But don't all suffer in war eventually? Human struggle was great in this place before what we call the "Vietnam War" because right before the US got involved the French warred with this people. Colonialism and its brother Imperialism leads to war in so many places around the globe and Vietnam isn't a lucky exception.The problems were not over for Vietnam's people when the US left and for some it was the beginning of their own suffering plight. People with Vietnamese heritage and people with western (and other Asian) roots all suffered deeply--that is undoubtedly clear and something to wrestle with no matter what generation, country or political upbringing we have. What is so blatantly obvious to me today is how the generations post-war suffer too. Vietnam has not fully recovered still and it has been more than 30 years. War has no real winners.

As a citizen of the USA I full of remorse today for my people's part in the suffering of human beings. It is one thing to walk into a museum about the atrocities performed by the Japanese, the Tutsi, German or whoever else but something all together different to be a part of a people who in recent history participated in the cause of such suffering. There is a great deal of compassion in me for the victims of this war on all sides. While a part of me so wants to choose a side I know it isn't about sides. I'm learning something of compassion today. Of course I have compassion for the suffering. Yet, that compassion is tested when those suffering people are on a side that has always been "the enemy". While I struggled with some of today's propaganda ( one video called the war "genocide" on the part of the Americans) I felt compassion for the North's plight. I felt compassion for the soldiers involved who had to face life altering orders from their superiors. I felt compassion for the children born into the world with little chance of living a 'normal' life. I felt compassion for the veterans who were never really understood or appreciated for fighting in a war in a far off country. I felt compassion for all the thousands of families who lost someone in the war. I felt compassion for the "boat people" who were never even mentioned in all of these museums but who faced great suffering when the war "ended". Suffering takes no sides. True compassion doesn't either.

After taking in as much as I could at the War Remnants Museum, the Ho Chi Mihn History Museum and the Reunification Palace (the place where on April 30, 1975 Northern Tanks rammed the gates to take control of Saigon), I ventured over to Notre Dame Cathedral. After the morning I had there was no better place I could think of going (that is besides getting an Ice Coffee in an air conditioned Coffee shop). The sky was beautiful and I was taken back a bit by the statue in front. Mother Mary, I presume, holds what to me looks like the globe with a Cross on top. In the gospels it is often said of Mary that "she treasured these things in her heart". Mary the mother of Jesus must have been a woman of compassion. Seeing Mary holding the globe in front of this massive Gothic church served as a symbol of hope for me today. When there are so many world tragedies and so much suffering I'm reminded that a different Kingdom has come and is coming. In this Kingdom while suffering may have no boundaries, compassion for the suffering knows no boundary either.