Pay attention to what you see at the core of the event and not to what you hear about the event and not to the peripheral banners. This what you see:

Men dressed in the military uniforms of a defunct military dictatorship performing a formal flag raising ceremony

The national flag of a defunct military dictatorship going up the flagpole at a prominent Canadian public building.

A crest on the speaker's podium that identifies the organizers as "The Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam" (South Vietnam).

Politicians attending and speaking in a formal setup that gives official government recognition to their national flag.

Politicians and others wearing a version of the flag over their shoulders which signifies that they are members of the ruling class.

Politicians handing certificates to the organizers declaring that they are officially recognized as the Vietnamese refugees (which they are not).

A main banner that, in Vietnamese, describes the event as "the national memorial day of hatred".

Is that bizarre?

This event is exactly what it appears to be. To save you from reading this entire web site, this is all you need to know to save you from making bad assumptions:

• They are not "the Vietnamese community"; they are not "the boat people".

• The symbols (flags and uniforms) and rituals are partisan symbols of the Vietnam war; not ethnic or cultural symbols.

• Nothing here is representative of the boat people or any other refugees that Canada recognized.

Now, there is nothing wrong with a militant political faction going around holding parades and ceremonies.

The story is: why are politicians addressing this obviously political assemblage as "the Vietnamese community", and why are the formally recognizing the flag of a defunct military dictatorship as a national flag?^[1]

Next time you write about Journey to Freedom Day, please answer those questions.

Think of it:

Canadian politicians are attending events put on by the former Saigon military regime to lend them substantial political support.

That support is having a negative effect of the majority of the Canadian Vietnamese community.

Politicians deny what they are obviously doing -- what they claim they are doing is a little fuzzy -- they either don't know or don't want you to know.

Isn't that eerily like 1960's USA, when politicians were lying to the US public about their involvement in the Vietnam War?

What we need right now in Canada is another Pentagon Papers.

Don't know what the "Pentagon Papers" are? Several movies have been made about it, the most recent by Steven Spielberg - "The Post". The press is always the hero in these movies, and the government is the villain.

That's what Canada needs now - a reporter who will report on what is in front of them instead of repeating the press releases.

We've seen many stories written about Journey to Freedom Day over the past four years. None of them got it right.

Some reporters sensed a divided community and wanted to write a "balanced story". But they couldn't find a balance.

The people who run the ARVN side are former military government propagandists. Experts. There have a few hundred serious supporters, at most, in a community of 300,000. To give them a hearing as "one side" would leave things a little lopsided.

The other side are former boat people. Poor language skills, no political skills, unaware of how the propaganda and Canadian politicians are exploiting their story, and no desire to make themselves visible in public. The story does not affect them that much, so they have little incentive to "stir the pot" because they know that the ARVN will come after them for revenge (revenge is the entire raison d'etre of the ARVN).

So how do you find "the other side"?

More than one reporter has gone into the academic community looking for an outside "expert". That was a total failure -- the military propagandists have reached the "experts", too. The real Vietnamese community is not on anyone's radar.

The answer is -- keep looking. There is a growing second and third generation that is being more affected by the issue. Recent immigrants also come with more willingness to analyze and talk about the issue. These are the people who are directly affected by the issue and who are becoming quite angry about it. These groups today amount to fully half of the Vietnamese community. As these people become politically savvy the issue will hit the public eye.

Contact us if you like, and we'll find someone to talk to in your area, although we might not be able to meet a tight deadline.