While Canada might have given Harper a pass on his wish to rewrite the Vietnam war, Canadians certainly would not have accepted what he wanted to do to Canada's Vietnamese community. He had disguise that part as something else. He came up with a clever "hiding in plain sight" kind of strategy.
He rewrote history of the origins of Canada's Vietnamese community, so that the community became composed of the former ruling elite of Saigon, who arrived in Canada in the boat people refugee crisis.[1] That way Harper's desired homage to the Saigon regime could be presented as an homage to the refugees. These homages are now a very public annual affair that are, hiding in plain sight, expressions of hatred against the original boat people.
The essence of the rewritten history is to redefine Canada's response to the boat people crisis as a response to the fall of Saigon. It happens that the US responded to the fall of Saigon in the desired way, and most Canadians are familiar with the popular images of that response. It was not a big leap to make people believe that Canada was involved with the US.[2]
The purpose of this part is to show how government continues to support Harper's "hiding in plain sight" strategy.[3] You see it in every reference that the government makes to the Vietnamese in Canada. Canada's government sustains the myth by never making a reference to the Vietnamese community without including a reference to this myth. There are many ways to refer to this myth, and that is what we are itemizing below.
Part 1: essential facts
The following "facts" are kept in the public's mind by inserting one or more of them into every reference to the Vietnamese community in Canada. They are used as if they referred to the whole community but in fact they refer only to a small political faction within the community. They are therefore offensive in that they marginalize most of the community.[4]
They are listed with the most frequently encountered first.
Revised history reference and
intended (false) implications |
True history and
true implications |
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1. Canada's Vietnamese community has its origins in Saigon.
Any reference to "Saigon" serves as a shorthand reference to this and all the other "facts" which have been repeated often enough that everyone is familiar with them. It implies a partisan reference to the Vietnam war and an association with a militant political faction in Canada.
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The boat people crisis came from all over Vietnam. Canada did not use any political criteria in selecting refugees for admission to Canada.[5]
Canada's Vietnamese community is diverse. They could have been on either side in the war. Even those who did come from Saigon may not wish to be associated with the political faction.
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2. The boat people crisis occurred after the fall of Saigon.[6]
The boat people crisis was a response to the fall of Saigon (the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy). This also helps connect Canada with the well known actions of the US in this event.
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Canada did not respond to the fall of Saigon, except in a very limited, non-partisan way. Canada and UNHCR's later response to the 1979 boat people crisis was conditional on it not being a response to the fall of Saigon.[7]
The fall of Saigon was held to be a US problem. There was no political element in Canada's response to the later boat people crisis.
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3. The date of boat people crisis was 1975.[8]
The fall of Saigon caused the boat people crisis. The boat people came from the RVN.
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The boat people crisis, as recognized by the UNHCR, Canada, and the international community, began in 1979.
It was caused by Vietnam expelling its ethnic Chinese population.[5]The boat people came from all over Vietnam and were not Vietnam war victims. They could have been on either side in the war.
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4. 50 or 60 thousand boat people were admitted to Canada.[9]
The boat people consisted of a select group - the Saigon military and political elite.
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Canada admitted 201,000 boat people, 162,000 from Vietnam.
The boat people program ended when its goal was met, i.e., the refugee camps were emptied.
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Part 2 - embellishments
These embellishments are additional messages that confirm or enhance the basic facts.
Revised history and
intended (false) implications |
True history and
true implications |
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5. The people fleeing Vietnam were admitted to Canada as refugees.
To qualify as a refugee one would have to be in fear of persecution.
This would have restricted admission to the former Saigon ruling elite and military (both the same people), thus creating a rather exclusive Vietnamese community in Canada.
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This criterion was not applied to anyone coming from Vietnam after 1975.
Canada's Vietnamese community came from all over Vietnam and had no particular political background. One might say, informally, that they were economic refugees.
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6. The flag of the Vietnamese in Canada is the yellow flag with three red stripes - the "heritage and freedom flag".[10]
This strongly associates the Vietnamese community with the militant political faction and suggests that everyone accepts the Saigon military as their legitimate leaders and follows their political agenda.
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This flag is the national flag of the Saigon regime..
This is a dog whistle in which the government of Canada tells Canada's Vietnamese that they are required to identify as national of the Saigon regime so that they not be thought of as enemies of Canada's ally and therefore enemies of Canada.
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7. Photographic images or other accounts of the boat people's journey.[11]
The images are intended to cloud the issue with emotion.
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Photos of the boat people's journey taken in 1979 are are irrelevant to the case being made that the people who came to Canada came as a result of the fall of Saigon in 1975.
There are no photographs of victims of the fall of Saigon coming to Canada because none came.
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8. The UN's Nansen medal was awarded to Canada for its response to the fall of Saigon.
Implies that the fall of Saigon was recognized internationally as a refugee crisis, that Canada responded to it, and that the people admitted qualified as UN refugees.
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None of the three implied assertions are true. The medal was awarded for Canada's support to refugees in general, not for a specific event.
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9. Canada was an ally of the US and South Vietnam in the Vietnam war.[6]
This supports a desired national identity for Canada: militant anti-communists.
Canada has an on-going moral obligation to support the "victims of the fall of Saigon".
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Canada did not fight in the war and Canada admitted no obligation to the ARVN or the US.
Canada had held from the beginning in 1954 that Saigon was doomed to fall because of its illegitimacy in the eyes of the Vietnamese people.[12]
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