From Spiritual Homes to National Shrines: Religious Traditions and Nation-Building in Vietnam

Abstract

As in China and Soviet Russia, religion in Vietnam was considered to be harmful superstition. However, a glimpse into the Governmental Gazette -Công Báo -displays the important transformation of the state's policy toward religion that became translated into national representation. While this article focuses on nationbuilding as a dynamic cultural process that leads to the promotion of selected religious practices as 'national heritage,' it also explores the state-society relationship beyond binaries. By looking at religious spaces and local communities I argue that in Vietnam religion is a powerful form of nation-building process and constitutes a creative space in which different actors exercise their agency beyond resistance and accommodation.Visitors to Vietnam might find themselves confused by the diversity of venerated spirits and gods who exist in multiple variations in many localities, dwelling in mountains, forests, rivers and the sea. Like saints worshipped by Catholic believers, many of those spirits were born as humans and their biographies were marked by unusual events. However, in contrast to Christian saints, in their earthly existence Vietnamese spirits were neither ascetic nor austere. Therefore, the visitors would be astonished to find that violent and enigmatic death that breaks the natural order, such East Asia (2012) 29:25-41

Ancestor Worshiping Beliefs in the Beliefs and Religion Life of Vietnamese People: Nature, Values, and Changes of it in the Current Period

“…This is a fundamental cultural difference between Vietnam and other countries. West, where the spiritual life of people is predominantly Christian or Arab countries where Islam is the state religion (Roszko, 2012).…”

“…Vietnam is a nation's emotional, respectful, introverted people, often solving problems emotionally rather than rationally (Kim, 1919). The tradition of "when drinking water, remember its source" is one of the most respectable qualities of the Vietnamese people (Kim, 1919. Vietnamese people tend to look back on the past and regret the past more towards the future like Westerners (Roszko, 2012). Therefore, Vietnamese people often retain their feelings of grief for their deceased parents.…”

“…Thus, in history and in the present life, ancestor worship has greatly affected people's life. Vietnamese and foreign scholars have had many opinions around this worship phenomenon (Anh, 2005;Binh, 2005;Roszko, 2012;Van, 2019). Is this some kind of belief or religion?…”

Introduction: nationalism in Southeast Asia

“…Territorial frontiers, the very stuff of neatly bounded sovereignty, are thereby recast as sites of social practice, which over time contribute to structuring an imagined entity called the state; ‘To take a simple example, international border controls are only effective for as long as those enforcing them turn up for work each day’ (Painter 2010: 1105). In turn, this provides a framework within or against which the ‘imagined community’ (Anderson ) of the nation develops, though we should beware of constructing artificial binaries, such as centre vs. periphery (Roszko ). In line with the above‐cited view that ‘margins are central to nationalism’ (Harms : 11), then, vernacular perspectives on territoriality and belonging that do not match official narratives play a central role in all three articles.…”

Vietnamese diasporic citizenship

“…A sense of spiritual confraternity is variously used by the incumbent, communist government (Jellema 2007), anti-communist religious leaders in the diaspora (Hoskins 2011, Ong andMeyer 2008), and Vietnamese villagers pursuing their own localised agendas (Roszko 2012) to evoke an 'imagined community' (Anderson 1991) in which national loyalties mix with religious observance (Hoskins 2011, 71). In the wake of Vietnam's economic liberalisation from the mid-1980s onwards, the Vietnamese Communist Party's (VCP) move away from condemning religious practice as 'superstitious' (me tin) has led to more open displays of spirituality (Taylor 2002(Taylor , 2007Endres 2011) and the revival of religious festivals.…”