In October 1945, early in the war that ultimately overthrew French colonizers in Vietnam, a French fuel depot in Saigon caught fire and exploded, turning barrels of fuel into a raging inferno. Was it arson? An accident? It wasn’t long before the real story emerged: a teenage boy named Lê Văn Tám had done the deed. Desperate to exact vengeance for his father’s death in the war against French colonizers, Lê soaked his body in gasoline, walked into the depot, and lit a match. The enemy’s fuel supply went up in flames, and thus began the end of French occupation in Vietnam.

Lê has been glorified as the living torch of Vietnam. Still today, city parks, streets, schools, and hospitals throughout the country bear the name of the teenage exemplar. Lê’s place in history seems beyond reproach.

The only problem is that Lê never existed. Although the depot did indeed explode, the story of Lê’s martyrdom was entirely fabricated as a tool of wartime propaganda. In 2009, professor Phan Huy Lê, an established historian, Communist Party member, and former President of the History Association of Vietnam, published his evidence of the invention of the hero. Many other renowned scholars joined the effort to expose the truth on personal blogs and social media channels.  

Phan revealed the fabrication was made at the request of Professor Trần Huy Liệu, the then Minister of Propaganda of Northern Vietnam, who fabricated the story of the teenager Lê Văn Tám. The concocted icon served to facilitate wartime propaganda, and once the country was at peace, Phan argued that the truth needed to come out. 

The domestic media, now controlled by both the Ministry of Information and Communications as well as the Ministry of Public Security (both led by generals), was silent on the debate surrounding the authenticity of the figure of Lê. Institutions across Vietnam that are named after this fictional hero remain unchanged today. And while historians and others in the know followed the revelation, most people in Vietnam were none the wiser. In 2009, it was hard to find sources of information beyond official, state-run media and on this point they were unanimous.

In a country with one of the fastest growing internet economies in the world, with almost 80% of its population on social media, Vietnamese youths have alternative ways to learn about different narratives of the past.

It wasn’t until a decade later that the winds began to shift. In 2017, Phan’s announcement was published in international outlets, such as BBC Vietnamese and RFA Vietnamese (deemed by the Vietnamese government as “enemy” channels and blocked in Vietnam). Also, by that time, Facebook had arrived on the scene and changed the way Vietnamese people received and shared information.

A historian-cum-Party member based in Hanoi who spoke on the condition of anonymity and had been in contact with Trần Huy Liệu confirmed Phan’s position. However, state media remain silent.

“In fact, historians had long discussed the fabrication of Lê Văn Tám before Phan’s statement”, said the anonymous historian. “There are many concocted ‘Lê Văn Táms’ that I can’t tell now, otherwise I would get into trouble.” 

Now and then, Party mouthpieces still publish articles that defend the existence of the hero as an “indisputable fact”, and discredit the claim made by Phan. News on state media is considered official news. Versions of stories that are not in line with Party direction will be automatically considered as “fake news”. The CPV has a monopoly on the historiography of Vietnam: they control the publication of history textbooks and reference books for all levels of education, they dictate the content of history museums, and celebration of Party-centered events in mainstream media. Yet, in a country with one of the fastest growing internet economies in the world, with almost 80% of its population on social media, Vietnamese youths have alternative ways to learn about different narratives of the past. 

Communist heroism and heroic communism

The creation of such heroes lies front and center of the identity and legitimacy of the CPV. The CPV decides who, when, and what is to be venerated or vilified. CPV-honored heroes include those fighting in defense of Party-led battles, and mothers whose sons died on the front line. 

General Võ Nguyên Giáp (1911-2013) stands as an iconic figure, a so-called “hero of the people among the people of heroes”. Revered by historians both within Vietnam and abroad, Giáp’s leadership as the commander-in-chief during the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ in 1954 serves as a symbol of military triumph for the CPV over the French, marking the end of French colonial rule in Southeast Asia. British military historian Martin Windrow, the author of “The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam”, referred to the battle as “the first time that a non-European colonial independence movement had evolved through all the stages from guerrilla bands to a conventionally organized and equipped army able to defeat a modern Western occupier in a pitched battle”. 

Each year, during their annual celebrations, the CPV proudly recalls this historic victory, hailing it as an earth-shattering and world-shaking testament to the unwavering determination and unity of the Party and the people. 

In a twist of fate, it was not the government that initially announced Giáp’s passing in 2013, at the age of 102. Instead, it was social media, in particular Facebook, that became the first platform to break the news, followed by BBC Vietnamese. The year 2023 marked the 10th anniversary of his death, but domestic media barely mentioned the late hero, considered as one of the foremost military strategists in the 20th century. 

Thành, a mechanical engineer from Hanoi and a Party member, held deep admiration for General Giáp (a close aide of Bác Hồ (Uncle Hồ Chí Minh) whom he affectionately referred to as “Uncle Giáp”. Though he had never met the hero, in 2013 Thành planned to visit the general’s house on Hoàng Diệu street in Hanoi to pay his last respects to the venerated history teacher-turned-military leader. But he was not able to make the visit in the end. A few days after Giáp’s passing, an overwhelming number of visitors all over the country flocked to Hanoi to bid farewell to the general during the state funeral that was live broadcasted nationwide–a privilege reserved only for a few national leaders. Domestic media reports featured photos of tearful admirers of all ages and from all walks of life. 

“I wish General Võ Nguyên Giáp would be mentioned in our history textbooks”, the teenage participant said.

Thành, now 65, was taken aback as his then 16-year-old son remained nonchalant about the passing of General Giáp, despite widespread discussion of the event. His son was completely clueless about the late general, which made Thành upset. “I was stunned since he [Thành’s son] did not know about such a great hero. We are all indebted to him”, said Thành. 

It took Thành some time to realize that his son’s lack of knowledge about General Giáp was not solely the teenager’s fault. The general’s contributions had been omitted from official history textbooks, despite the glorification of the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. Thành said that his friends shared similar stories about how their own children had barely heard of the late general. 

That said, young people were not totally unaware of the omission of the general. In 2014, at the popular quiz show “Conquest” for secondary school students broadcast nationwide on a state-owned channel, one participant raised the issue on screen.

“I wish General Võ Nguyên Giáp would be mentioned in our history textbooks,” the teenage participant said. 

The teenager received a thunderous applause, but no change was made. Former versions of national history textbooks at primary, secondary, and high school levels published by the Vietnam Education Publishing House, under the Ministry of Education and Training, have failed to mention General Giáp’s name, despite a promise to do so in 2013. 

The Ministry of Education and Training has licensed five publishers to join forces in publishing national textbooks; a top-down move known as socialization of national textbooks, yet the CPV is still the final overseer of the content. 

As of 2020, new textbooks have been published. But the name of Giáp–the maker of history as the CPV has always asserted–is nowhere to be seen in any version. The government perhaps no longer felt the need to include any of his writing in the literature textbook. The top-down amnesia, the coercive deletion of memories to trigger collective forgetting, still persisted. 

Yet, the party is far from homogenous. It has always been divisive, albeit always putting forward a face that is meant to appear united, both in the past and present. None of the five publishers led by Communist Party members responded to requests for comment.

The hero-offending scandal

In 2018, Daniel Hauer, an English teacher based in Hanoi, made headlines in Vietnam with a series of videos in which he criticized his Vietnamese colleagues at several English language centers for their mispronunciation and misuse of the English language. However, little did Hauer expect that his joke on a Facebook comment in January 2018 about the late General Giáp would bring him so much trouble. The American teacher, who spoke fluent Vietnamese and had a large local following at the time, was accused of dishonoring the architect of the battle of Điện Biên Phủ in 1954 and defaming the entire country.

As the country’s football team, for the first time ever, made it to the finals of the Asian Cup, a Facebook commenter said that they would get a tattoo of the Vietnamese flag if the national football team emerged victorious. In an exaggerated jest, Hauer said that this was a minor commitment compared to his own pledge to get a genital piercing resembling General Giáp following a recent gold medal win by a Vietnamese athlete.

Hauer was reportedly summoned to meetings with various central state agencies, including the Ministry of Information and Communication. Hauer was ordered to pay a fine of VND70-100 million ($3,100-$4,400) for violating the internet management law. 

Hauer later apologized to Giáp’s family and the people of Vietnam, explaining by video in Vietnamese that he did not intend to offend them and that the incident boiled down to cultural differences. 

The Vietnamese government has effectively used this law to restrict free speech and control the narrative of historical events in the country. According to the 2023 Press Freedom Index by Reporters without borders, Vietnam ranks 178 out of 180 countries, above China and North Korea. And Vietnam is currently the world’s third biggest incarcerator of journalists.

One comment on the widely read Vnexpress reads, in English: “You’ve [Hauer] never ever respected Vietnam and Vietnamese people. You insulted millions of us. You said that you felt sorry and that you didn’t know Vietnamese culture, such a liar! Better go back to your own country. We Vietnamese people don’t welcome you any more. I don’t want to say curse words that you usually say in your videos to you”.  

According to several domestic media reports, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanted to deport him due to his insults towards the late General. The English-language centers Hauer was working with reportedly terminated his contracts. 

The CPV was quick to punish anyone daring to offend its hero,  however much that hero might already be sidelined. Even a small offensive post could result in severe consequences. In the case of Hauer, it was the rare occasion that netizens and the CPV spoke with the same nationalistic voice: both were impatient to punish an American citizen who dared to insult a Vietnamese hero. It is unclear whether Hauer eventually had to leave the country or not. However, the incident made clear that a foreigner could face penalties for disrespecting a national hero, which is a criminal offense under the 2015 Vietnamese Penal Code. Article 8 of the 2018 Law on Cybersecurity prohibits acts such as distortion of history, denial of revolutionary achievements, undermining national solidarity, and blasphemy on online platforms. The Vietnamese government has effectively used this law to restrict free speech and control the narrative of historical events in the country. According to the 2023 Press Freedom Index by Reporters without borders, Vietnam ranks 178 out of 180 countries, above China and North Korea. And Vietnam is currently the world’s third biggest incarcerator of journalists.

History at school: a minor subject 

The Hanoi-based engineer Thành recalled that he had been frustrated with the way history was taught in schools when he was still a student in the late 1970s, during war-time. While he enjoyed reading about feudal history, things came to a head when it came to studying the history of fighting against the French and the Americans, known internationally as the Indochina war and the Vietnam war. 

When reflecting on studying history at school, Thành noted that “it was boring because we knew that the truth was not entirely told.” 

For example, Thành said that he and his brothers did not volunteer to fight the war. They were mobilized or even forced to become soldiers, but were required to write letters expressing volunteerism and patriotism.

“We were asked to fight. We did not want to do so”, said Thành. 

Minh, a retired history teacher at a Hanoi secondary school, said that she barely read up on what she had been asked to teach. 

“I only followed the teacher’s guidebook”, said Minh, who also admitted that there was no need for additional sources since “it is best to just stick to the guidebook by the Hanoi Department of Education and Training to be on the safe side.”

“At secondary schools, students are expected to note down what teachers lecture”, said Minh.  “If we do not adhere to official guidelines, parents might complain that we are not teaching the right thing”.

Every year, Vietnamese domestic media reports on the declining interest in history among young people, along with their poor performance in history during major national high school graduation examinations. For several years in a row, history grades have been among the lowest. 

History has long been relegated to a “môn phụ” (minor subject) or “môn thuộc lòng” (a subject of rote learning) or “môn đọc chép” (a subject of dictation). Unlike their colleagues teaching math, literature, and foreign languages, who can earn money by teaching after-school classes, history teachers do not have the opportunity to provide tutoring, the main source of income for most Vietnamese teachers at public schools, many of whom are overworked and underpaid. 

“History teachers, as well as teachers of other minor subjects, receive less gifts on National Teachers Day and are generally less respected by parents and students”

“History teachers, as well as teachers of other minor subjects, receive less gifts on National Teachers Day and are generally less respected by parents and students”, said Minh. 

In 2022, the Ministry of Education and Training proposed making this subject entirely optional. Various reasons have been cited to support this proposal, including monotonous pedagogical approaches, limited job opportunities for history majors, and the perceived “unimportance” of the subject.

However, netizens, especially public intellectuals, were quick to point out that the politicization of the subject is the elephant in the room. History curricula must always highlight the Party spirit. 

Hải is a party member and lecturer in international history at a prestigious university in Hanoi, and believes that teaching of history is exceedingly Party-centric. Once, he found in his daughter’s lecture notes that the reasons for the failure of rebellions and uprisings in the early 20th century against the French colonizers was due to the lack of Party leadership, unlike Party-led movements later on.

Hải told his daughter to change the lack of CPV leadership into “strong enemy”, since one cannot blame every defeat of an anticolonial uprising on the absence of the CPV, which did not come into being till 1930. His daughter followed his advice, only to be told by her teacher that her response was incorrect. 

“My daughter then told me not to meddle in her studies”, said Hải, who admitted from that day on that he would let daughter provide whatever answer his own teacher had expected so that her grade would not be affected. 

“I do not expect history teachers to know much. They were rote learners themselves,” said Hải, explaining that in the 1980s, only academically weak students would choose to enrol in universities to become teachers. And at that time, only low scoring students would choose to major in history. 

After all, Confucian culture was imposed in the education system. A student, especially a teenage one, is not supposed to deviate from standard responses provided in the lecture notes, which follow teachers’ books issued by the Department of Teacher and Training. 

Phượng, from Huế city, was selected as one of the gifted students in the subject of history to represent her school at the national level competition. She was granted the privilege of waiving other subjects to focus solely on preparing for the competition for almost an academic year.

The teacher responsible for coaching her provided a list of sensitive subjects that would not be tested. War and revolution are the key parts of each and every exam. The role of the CPV is the most central question in every single competition edition. And for the world history section of the exam, politically sensitive events in China are not to be studied or tested for the competition either. 

“For example, we cannot talk about the fall of the Soviet Union”, said Phượng, now already a college student. 

According to Party propaganda, the fall of the Soviet Union is attributed to the Union’s erroneous reform policies, the sabotage of the West and most importantly, the betrayal of the reactionary Gorbachev who allied with the West to overthrow the regime. In short, it has little to do with Communism as a whole. Gorbachev exemplifies what the Chinese and Vietnamese Communist Parties describe as Communist party members who embrace “self-evolution”, moral degradation, and undermine the party from within. 

According to Party propaganda, the fall of the Soviet Union is attributed to the Union’s erroneous reform policies, the sabotage of the West and most importantly, the betrayal of the reactionary Gorbachev who allied with the West to overthrow the regime.

“No state policy could be considered a mistake or misstep,” added Phượng. Phượng was informed by “highly paid trainers” who have been familiar with competition prompts for a decade that while the limitations of certain state policies could be pointed out, one cannot criticize the government. In the history book, the disastrous Maoist land reform in the 1950s modelled upon that of China was described as a Party’s rare mistake that was already corrected. On the whole, the Party was always right. Unjust deaths and denunciations are not to be discussed.

Associate Professor of Information and communication sciences, Thanh Phuong Nguyen-Pochan, at The Catholic University of the West in France, consider the rewriting of official history “a very significant protest practice on social-digital networks”, especially the rewriting of history by the VCP’s “organic intellectuals”, i.e. the intellectuals of the regime who contest the current political system. 

“In my current research on the Đồng Tâm land dispute in 2020, I have identified several publications that recall past experiences (which were concealed or omitted by official historians) to criticize the socialist land tenure system and the authorities’ attitude towards farmers,” said Dr Pochan. 

“In my opinion, history can be rewritten by dissident opponents as well as by ‘loyal opponents’ from within the regime”, said Dr Nguyen-Pochan. “It reflects internal conflicts rather than external challenges to power. In other words, it seems to me that within the VCP, some people are beginning to realize the importance of restoring the truth about the past in order to better manage tensions in the present.”

The challenge of talking about history

For Dr Nguyen-Pochan, those really willing to discuss histories on social media remain in the minority. 

“From my own experience, very few people I know in Vietnam are aware of or interested in debates on ‘sensitive’ (political) topics on social networks,” said Dr Nguyen-Pochan. 

The disinterest in history does not just stem from top-down restrictions of information. In fact, young people are reluctant to explore and engage with national history that is full of pain and injustices. In the restrictive academic and media landscape, many Vietnamese people have learned to practice self-censorship. 

The term “reactionary forces” or “hostile forces” are often used by the CPV to describe individuals or groups of advocates for democracy. Nowadays, the term “reactionary” has become a common label for any content that the government deems harmful to its legitimacy and reputation. As an example, the BBC Vietnamese website, VOA, RFA, even online fora of public intellectuals who are Party members, have been labeled as “an reactionary outlet” and blocked in Vietnam.

Vietnamese people have every reason not to trust any signs of loosening grip on the freedom of expression. Between 1955 and 1956, a group of Party-friendly writers and artists in Northern Vietnam sought to convince the Party of the need for greater artistic and intellectual freedom. Because they published literary and artistic works that departed from the prescribed Party-centric version of literature, the dissident movement came to be known as the Humanity and Masterworks affair (Nhân văn giai phẩm). What happened later on resembled Mao’s political purge: all writers were denounced and jailed. This left intellectuals-cum-party members remained shocked and silent.

In pro-communist narratives, Vietnam is proud of its resistance to foreign aggression which culminated in victory or liberation of American-occupied Saigon on April 30, 1975.

For Professor Keith Taylor from Cornell University, the history of southern Vietnamese has never been respected by powers in Hanoi who considered southerners “as less authentically ‘Vietnamese’ than are northerners.”

“Southern history is a problem for the Hanoi version of history, which is based on the myth of the unity of the Vietnamese people. Diversity challenges the authority of the Party-State,” said Professor Taylor. 

After the Fall of Saigon, civilian and military officials of the Southern regime were sent to reeducation centers to embrace socialism. Historian cadres from Northern Vietnam were sent to educational institutions in the South to renovate the system. 

The Republic of Vietnam (1954-1975), founded by staunchly anti-Communist and anti-colonialist Ngô Đình Diệm, is notably absent from public display in museums, and if mentioned, is often portrayed with condemnation and contempt as traitors and colluders with colonizers and imperialists.

Hương, a Vietnamese tour guide working in Buôn Ma Thuột, which was formerly part of South Vietnam, said that she is only allowed to tell the version provided by her affiliated institution. 

“I only knew that Americans might have used the prison for something,” said Hương.

Hương said that as a licenced tour guide, she must introduce the state-enabled version of history to visitors, known as sử chính thống (the official history).

“There is no official record of Đắc Lắc [province] between 1954 and 1975 under Diệm. I must wait for the above to tell me what I am allowed to tell visitors,” said Hương. 

Journalist Bình, whose parents lived under the Saigon republican regime, said that his parents told him to “just read the history textbooks for fun”. 

“It is different from what we [Southerners] actually experienced”, said 23-year-old Bình. 

Bình’s uncle worked for the Southern regime, which allowed his extended family to live in the lap of luxury. But the fall of Saigon made them lose everything. Due to their large number of children, they were unable to board the plane for the U.S. Bình ’s uncle was then sent to “re-education”, a Communist term for imprisonment.

“Fleeing the enemy” means running away from foreign invaders for Northerners. For us, it meant fleeing the Communist”, added Bình. 

Albeit curious, Bình never had a chance to talk at length about his uncle’s experiences. Sufferers of violence in the Communist regime are generally silent so that their descendants can survive and succeed in the new “socialist” system, yet Bình learned about them via social media. 

Propaganda and censorship go hand in hand. As for other history books, any section that defends, extolls, or favors the collapsed Saigon regime or American puppets shall be modified or even suspended from publication.  

In pro-communist narratives, Vietnam is proud of its resistance to foreign aggression which culminated in victory or liberation of American-occupied Saigon on April 30, 1975.

Chí (not his real name), a staff member of a major publishing house in Đà Nẵng, told a story of a book by a young Vietnamese historian about the modern history of Đà Nẵng city, which was under the Southern government from 1955 to 1975. The book did not explicitly commend the Saigon regime, but it depicted many positive aspects of the society, with pluralistic press and dynamic literary landscape.

“It took the book so much time to be approved and circulated”, said Chí. 

Still, some teachers also feel compelled to teach beyond what they are told to.

Hanoi-based university lecturer, Hải, found a way to expose his students to events that were not mentioned in any textbook. As a Party member who is in charge of different international programs, he just felt the need to inform students of different perspectives. Using euphemistic language is one of his strategies, though Hải acknowledges “it is hard to teach beyond bias and barriers”.

When explaining the founding of ASEAN, which was originally established as an anti-Communist bloc in Southeast Asia, Hải found himself obligated to relay the official version to his students: “ASEAN is about regional integration.” 

However, he also believed it was crucial to acknowledge the bloc’s original efforts to halt communism, though he could not say so openly. Instead, Hải emphasized that the founding members of ASEAN initially held unfavorable opinions of the Soviet Union, which put Vietnam at a disadvantage when the country initially sought to accede to the bloc. 

“You can’t hide a lot because youths would check on the Internet”, said Hải. 

Hanoi-based engineer Thành admitted only getting to know a different version of Vietnamese history thanks to his interest in watching Youtube videos about Vietnamese history in recent years. “I can only learn about the past now that I am retired and pretty economically stable”, said Thành. “In the past, I had little time and energy to care”. 

Thành also said that he only recently came to know through the Internet that there were different political parties in the 1930s and 1940s rather than just one CPV fighting the French. In addition, the Tet Offensive in 1968, when North Vietnam and the Communist forces in the South launched an untoward attack against South Vietnam and the US forces, which had been taught to students as a resounding victory for the North, was eventually a military loss. South Vietnam, which he knew as a puppet government, was indeed an internationally recognized state in the national territory of Vietnam. 

Thành has now learned to screenshot his mobile phones whenever he reads a politically sensitive story, as it might be “deleted shortly”. Meta has so far yielded to the CPV’s demands to remove content that is deemed inimical to the Party. He and his friends  also learned to use VPNs to read the BBC and VOA in Vietnamese, which has been blocked in Vietnam.  ​​

Silence on war with China was broken when in 2014 an oil rig incident was a wake-up call for Hanoi and a reminder of the fragile comradeship with Beijing, with whom Vietnam fought a bloody war in 1979. Vietnam has been more vocal in defending its territorial claims over the Paracels and Spratly islands, known in Vietnamese respectively as Hoàng Sa and Trường Sa, in the South China Sea, known in Vietnamese as the Biển Đông (East Sea).  

The occurrence of political incidents has prompted a new chapter in the teaching of history in Vietnam. Schools across the country have since had to add a module on territorial waters of Vietnam. Any individual or organization that publicizes a map that does not include the two archipelagos would be subject to a heavy fine. The Sino-Vietnamese border war in 1979, the Paracels in 1974, as well as the skirmish in the Spratly islands, are no longer unspeakable in the mainstream media.

Learning our own history overseas

As more and more young Vietnamese choose to study abroad, light is being shed on Vietnam’s distorted or deleted history.

Associate professor of History and Asian studies Nu-Anh Tran, from the University of Connecticut, who teaches Vietnamese students in the US and Bangladesh, realized that many of her Vietnamese students who received pre-university education in Vietnam studied history based on rote learning with little or no exposure to primary sources. However, when abroad, they were interested in engaging with history in a more complex way.

“When we got to the 20^th century, I covered some sensitive topics like the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) – that is sensitive in Vietnam, not in the US… or Bangladesh!” she said. “My Vietnamese students had heard of these topics but didn’t know much, so they found it interesting. They were aware of the sensitivity, but they were very intelligent and mature in handling such topics.”

One student, Leo, who asked to be referred to by his French name, went to France to begin his MA study program on International Relations in 2015 after finishing his first degree in Hanoi. Leo recalled the time when his perceptions of history completely changed. “In my books, French authors referred to Vietnam and France as such. Book authors never wrote “our enemy or our army”, said Leo. 

As more and more young Vietnamese choose to study abroad, light is being shed on Vietnam’s distorted or deleted history.

But what Leo learned about Vietnamese history went far beyond classrooms. Leo recalled a moment from Christmas 2015 when he was walking around Lyon during the holiday season and unexpectedly encountered a woman. Despite not knowing him, the woman, who spoke with a distinct South Vietnamese accent, began shouting at him, accusing him of “being the son of a Northern Communist.” This encounter left Leo wondering how a stranger from the South could harbor such animosity towards him, and more importantly, how come Communism was so much detested and decried. 

“That was the moment I started to make sense of the North-South division”, said Leo. 

Leo took part in a voluntary project aimed at helping descendants of boat people who had fled the Communist regime in the 1980s to trace their grandparents’ migratory experiences from being stranded at sea in the wake of the fall of Saigon to finally making it to France. He was responsible for translating videos from Vietnamese to French. Despite having finished the translation, Leo dared not watch the actual videos, because the stories of migration were ”too harrowing”.

“I thought the boat people were betrayers,” said Leo.” It turned out that they were victims too”.

Leo’s grandparents and parents lived through harsh realities in Northern Vietnam. His grandfather was denounced as a rich landlord during the 1950 Maoist Land Reform. Then the exchange rate reform during the Renovation in 1986 left his family financially devastated overnight. Despite the pain caused by these events, his family did not hold resentment towards the government and still worked hard to become civil servants.

Leo is grateful that he has been exposed to different versions of history through his education in France, though, understanding its complexities is never tantamount to countering the Party’s discourses.

“Not many can afford to criticize historical wrongdoings”, Leo said. “After all, we still need to live with the incumbent regime.”

This reporting is sponsored by the Bruno Foundation, set up by journalist and writer Martin Walker. Walker is a celebrated international reporter, historian, and author of the popular Bruno detective series. Bruno’s eponymous protagonist has a distinct awareness of justice, intrigue, and tenacity – traits the Bruno Fellowship encourages.