Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Even though I talk about national policies in this article, the substance of the writing is for each of you individually, because while national policies are usually determined by political leadership, the thinking and feeling of the people, especially of the intellectual class, are the foundation of such policies.

With so much disruptive commotion around the world today, “chaotic” is an understatement. In every country, every kind of value is being challenged, and … shaking.

In politics, for a while in the 20th century and the beginning of 21st century, democracy appeared to win everyone’s aspiration. But now, in many countries around the world, including the US (the grandfather of democracy), democracy appears to be broken, and ultra rightwing politicians (politicians with the tendency to be dictators) appear to be on the rise.

In religion, US and EU continue to criticize Islamic Middle East countries for human rights violations, especially in their treatment of their women, and the Middle East countries call US and EU “kafir” (infidel, unbeliever). The term is used in different ways in the Quran, with the most fundamental sense being ungrateful toward God.

In economics, most countries today practice protectionism – limiting imports, and using trade as weapons in their trade wars. Globalization is on the downturn. The fashionable word today is “broken supply chain” or “apply chain disruption.” And inflation is skyrocketing in every country, creating political instability in each country.

In popular culture, US and EU have been pushing for LGBT, while many other countries are fiercely against LGBT, to the degree that some countries have come up with capital punishment (death penalty) for “violators,” and many other countries stand on the sideline on the issue.

Wars are happening all over the world: Myanmar; Arab-Israel (Palestinians-Israel, Hamas-Irael, Hezbollah-Israel in Lebanon); insurgency in the Maghreb region of North Africa and the Sahel region of West Africa affect Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo, Algeria, Tunisia, Chad, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Morocco, and Libya; Mexican drug war; Russia-Ukraine war; Sudanese civil war; Columbian conflict affects Columbia and Venezuela; Afghanistan conflict; Somali civil war; communal conflicts in Nigeria; Iraqi versus Islamic State insurgency; insurgency in Pakistan; Kivu conflict involves Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda; internal armed conflict in Brazil; ethnic fighting in Sudan and South Sudan; Boko Haram insurgency against Nigeria government; Syrian civil war; Yemen civil war; Anglophone crisis between Cameroon and Nigeria; Ethiopian civil conflicts; gang war in Haiti…

And many more… (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts)

In such a chaotic world, what values do you want to apply to your country’s policies? “You” here means each one of you intellectual, not just government officials. The intellectuals are the brain power of the country. The intellectuals are the base of the country’s thinking. If the intellectuals are intelligent, the country is intelligent; if the intellectuals are lost, the country is lost.

So, we intellectuals have to think hard about the direction of the country, for the country and its policy makers to go forward.

Brothers and sisters, we intellectuals must lead the country in thinking wide and deep.

Anyway, what values to pick?

In a chaotic world with so many deadly fights among competing values, we cannot really know what to pick, because they all appear questionable one way or another. That is when we need to go back to our traditional culture and values, using our thousand-year tradition and values as the foundation of our modern policies.

In general, our tradition focuses on humility and loving, which have their source in the Vietnamese native religious idea about Ông Trời and ancestor worshipping, as well as in Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Christianity.

Our tradition is peace – our constant wars have been defensive against aggressive powers attacking us. Sometimes we did attack some smaller countries, but those are few and far between, compared to constant defensive wars for thousands of years.

Our tradition is to be strong – we fight to win, when we must fight.

Our tradition is friendship – after we fight, we always befriend our former enemies.

Our tradition is respect and love for the poor.

Our tradition is respect for the aged.

Our tradition is to put the community and the nation first, and the individual second.

Our tradition is that the entire nation is a big family, calling each other uncle, aunt, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, con, cháu…

We can come up with more to the above list.

The idea is to apply those fundamental traditional values to policy making for politics, international relations, diplomacy, social policies (for the poor, the disadvantaged, and the aged), economic policies (based on attention to the poor and the disadvantaged) …

By planting our modern policies on the soil of tradition, we shall have a solid structure of many policies connected to one another logically, tightly, and strongly, avoiding the collapse of culture and politics seen all over the world today.

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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