OPINION
The Editor
I am currently in Vietnam for a long-planned family trip.
My wife is Vietnamese and we have brought our three-year-old son here to visit his grandma and maternal relatives for the first time.
This is my fourth visit to this fascinating country, but the first during its ‘dry’ season. The southern half of Vietnam has two seasons only – the dry and the rainy.
We are based in a location which is under 10 degrees north of the equator and I can tell you it’s hot – sticky, humid, the kind of weather where you need to have a cold shower two or three times a day to maintain a basic level of comfort.
When checking the local temperatures I am surprised at how low they are. The hot days I mentioned are recorded as only being around 26 to 28 degrees Celsius. I have never experienced anywhere near the same level of heat in New Zealand, yet in a normal summer you will see temperatures in our traditional ‘hotspots’ listed in the late 20s to early 30s. Either the recording of temperatures in Vietnam is too low, or ours is too high.
I recently saw a doomsday map produced by climate alarmists which showed the entire country of Vietnam under water by the year 2050 due to ‘rising sea levels’. I am not sure how that will be possible as the coast in our area is a good 10 metres above the waves on average.
Vietnam is a developing country of 100 million people. The biggest city, Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon and commonly abbreviated to HCMC), is a behemoth of a metropolis, with a total urban population somewhere between 20 and 22 million.
Watching the HCMC 5pm rush hour is an unforgettable experience – a huge mass of humanity on the move at the end of the work day. Millions of people on motorbikes are travelling in every direction with virtually no road rules in force. Somehow, in this chaos, the traffic keeps moving and everyone gets home, road-rage free.
Tens of millions of people here rely on oil and gas to survive day-to-day. If the man-made climate change cultists back in Wellington think Vietnam (or the scores of other countries like it) are going to give up cheap fossil fuel energy then they are living in a dream world. It will never happen, especially as we move towards a multi-polar world led by BRICS. The use of fossil fuels will only accelerate as countries like Vietnam continue on their economic development pathway. The notion that we should punish hard-working Kiwi farmers out of existence for something they are not responsible for is not only stupid, it will kill our Golden Goose. It’s economic and ultimately social suicide.
It’s been interesting to observe Vietnamese culture and society in the context of New Zealand’s current train-wreck political and social system.
Vietnam is a one-party communist state. In the eyes of most Kiwis communism represents the ‘evil of all evils’. We have a belief that democracy is inherently a better system than communism. Having spent a lot of time in Vietnam, I am not so sure.
In the West we have preconceived ideas about what living a communist country would be like. We have this notion that such societies are not free, that their populations are enslaved against their will and are unhappy, their cities slums and countries backward.
The reality in Vietnam is the complete opposite. I have been privileged to see and experience a stunning country, where the vast majority of people are happy and feel fulfilled with their lot in life, even those who live in poverty. I have found beautiful vibrant cities that never sleep. I have found a society that trusts and respects their government, and a government which does not micro-manage the lives of its people.
I am no disciple of communism, and Vietnam has its flaws for sure, but it seems to me that the question of whether communism or democracy/capitalism is the best model for social economic and political governance is irrelevant. To a large extent, the left wing/right wing dichotomy, as it pertains to arguments about the best form of government, is also a waste of time.
The most important consideration is whether a government is ideologically passive or aggressive, and whether the system in which it operates can provide adequate checks and balances to counter overreach. There are good communist governments, and bad ones. There are good democratic governments, and bad ones.
It may come as a surprise to many Kiwis, but the communist government here is ‘hands-off’. As long as you don’t (excuse my French) ‘piss people off’, you are pretty much free to do whatever you want.
Even getting a visa to come here was easy – pay USD $25, complete a simple 10 minute online form and you will have a one-, two- or three-month tourist visa.
Contrast that with the rigmarole my wife (who holds a Vietnamese passport) had to go through just to get a transit visa for a two-hour stopover in Sydney. She had to give a full biometric fingerprint sample to the Australian government, as well as complete a detailed online form with documentary evidence. Tell me then, which government is the paranoid control freak? Communist Vietnam, or ‘Democratic freedom-loving’ Australia?
Want to sell organic natural medicines? Want to set up a restaurant or cafe business? Want to teach English? Want to start a shop selling scuba gear? Go for it. Only the limits of your imagination and determination will hold you back here in Vietnam, although learning the language is advised. Whereas in New Zealand, the government interferes in everything – you need government permission or a licence to do anything which entails earning money. There’s so much red tape in NZ, so many regulatory barriers to getting ahead. And on top of this the NZ state thieves a good percentage of your earnings through taxation.
The life-blood of the Vietnamese economy is free enterprise – the tens of millions of small-time traders who operate free from government interference and regulation, and taxes. There’s no social welfare system so you have to make money to survive and put your children through school. Cash is king. Every road is full of shops of all description – retail, restaurants, primary produce, bakers, fishmongers, consumer electronics, furniture, stores selling clocks, shoes, T-shirts, suits – you name it, everything. The result is a resourceful, hard-working, peaceful, patriotic, focused population.
In New Zealand just two companies control virtually the entire grocery market. In other sectors – clothing, fast-food, banking, petrol, insurance etc – a similar model exists where a small number of the same brands (usually not even owned by New Zealanders) dominate the market. We have little real choice. Honest, free enterprise in New Zealand is dead, killed off by the control freaks in big government, by big foreign brands and shopping malls.
In the spiritual and religious realm Vietnam also thrives, contrary to what many in the West would believe, as communism tends to be associated with ‘godlessness’. Buddhism is alive and well, and the scale and beauty of the Catholic cathedrals, which are packed each Sunday, magnificent.
The education system is also of a high standard. I have met many school-aged children here and they take their studies very seriously. There is an emphasis on learning English, maths and science. There’s none of the woke ideological time-wasting rubbish prevalent today in our school system. Vietnamese kids are intelligent, articulate and most of all respectful. They respect their elders. They work hard to get ahead – from 7 am to 5 pm six days a week they are at school learning, and Sundays are often taken up with extra privately paid classes.
The Vietnamese also do not wallow in the pits of historical injustice. This country was bombed into the ground and sprayed with chemical weapons by the Americans just 50 years ago. While not forgotten, nor forgiven, the country has moved on and has got on with life. The old division between north and south is gone. In my conversations with locals I have never detected any animosity towards the Americans, nor the previous colonial masters, the French, despite the many atrocities perpetrated by both. We could learn a lot of lessons from this attitude.
In early February I was in central Auckland for the first time since the lockdowns. The place was dead and hardly anyone was about. There were more seagulls than people. The scene was symbolic of New Zealand, a country which in my eyes has become decadent and lost its soul, its identity. And I fear it’s only going to get worse because there’s no going back now on the climate change and co-governance agendas – both of which will fundamentally change the fabric of our society, for the worse, forever.
The last three years have shown up New Zealand’s democracy for what it is – a grand illusion. By stealth and treachery the New Zealand state will ultimately devour individual autonomy and freedom, a process which is well underway but which few today have the ability (or will) to recognise. Covid has shown that we do not have sufficient checks and balances to stop the process. All aspects of our lives will be centrally controlled by an aggressive government, a corrupted media and a select group of mega corporates. They will exploit the numerous weaknesses in our constitution to force unpopular, non-consensual and self-destructive agendas onto our society. Sadly, given the experience of Covid, most Kiwis will simply fall into line believing they still live in a free democratic society, unaware they will have become what they fear the most – a totalitarian communist state.
Can this be avoided? Yes, but fundamental changes are needed.
New Zealand is in urgent need of constitutional reforms that will impose strong checks and balances on the executive branch of government. There needs to be a clear separation of powers between the executive, legislature and judiciary, and each must be given the powers necessary to provide effective checks and balances on the others. The ‘Gold Standard’ template is the American Constitution as it was enacted and envisaged by the Founding Fathers – yes, America today is corrupt basket case politically, but the US constitution model worked well for at least 150 years, and we can learn from, and avoid, the mistakes made in the modern US system.
Such change cannot be achieved within the existing political system. New Zealanders will have to fight for it. And unless that happens my son ironically will have to grow up in communist Vietnam in order to enjoy the freedoms and decent education system I was lucky enough to benefit from in the land they once called ‘Godzone’.