Forget the media spin, Vietnam’s progress on COVID-19 is real
From the U.S., to the European Union and on to India, the neoliberal powers are in crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it death, illness, instability, never-ending lockdowns, and financial disaster. Major urban centers from Seattle to London and Paris have erupted in mass protests from all sorts of groups unhappy with their bourgeoise overlords and their failure to provide for the basic human rights of their citizenry. India has seen the world’s largest ever strike as farmers have risen up against capitalist austerity measures enacted by the reactionary Indian government.
In Vietnam there is a very different picture. The pandemic has been controlled, and the economy continues to grow. The government led by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is trusted and supported by the Vietnamese people because they have witnessed the success of the government’s policies. On the streets of Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, life appears to be completely normal, other than the lack of foreign tourists who cannot enter the country due to the border being closed to prevent the return of COVID-19.
However, if one were to look at the bourgeoise media, they would be shown a very different picture. Articles have been published claiming that Vietnam is in the midst of a political crisis and facing instability. One publication claimed that the arrest of some 200 anti-government activists over a period of 5 years, in a country of nearly 100 million people, means that the government is in danger of collapse. I will remind readers that on January 6, the U.S. Capitol was stormed by a right-wing mob, leading to a number of deaths and over 150 arrests in a day, yet no one was writing articles about the imminent collapse of the U.S. government.
Another publication tried to spin Vietnam’s economic success during the COVID pandemic as if it was bad. Vietnam was one of only a handful of countries in the world to post economic growth during the pandemic-ridden year of 2020, but the article libeled the success as not being as good as previous, non-pandemic years.
Other neoliberal journalists have taken to Twitter to attack the CPV for not requiring masks at the 13th National Congress. The reason for the lack of masks is that the pandemic has been contained in Vietnam and all congress delegates have been tested. Apparently, this journalist thinks such success is a fault.
Why is the neoliberal media so intent on slandering Vietnam? The reason is that the very existence of the socialist republic and the economic success of the country goes against their ideological narrative. The capitalists want the world to believe that the communist parties and states of the world withered away and succumbed to capitalism with the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. They want people to believe the so-called end-of-history narrative—that any doubts about the supremacy of capitalism ended in 1991. This is a lie.
Vietnam is a shining example of what is possible when a country tries to build a better world, a socialist world. The reactionaries know that even the casual observer of Vietnam can see there are other options, better options that put people before profits. They try to hide this fact under a blanket of slander and lies, but thanks to Vietnam’s stand-out success of containing the pandemic and still growing its economy, it is becoming more difficult for them to hide the truth.
The Communist Party of Vietnam held its 13th National Congress in January 2021. The congress evaluated the last five years and decided on the best path to continue their country’s prosperity on the road to building socialism. There are many important lessons that people worldwide can learn from the experience of the CPV and the people of Vietnam.
We cannot let the bourgeoisie media hide the truth, and the workers of the world must stand in solidarity with the CPV and the people of Vietnam.
Image: Minh Son/Vietnamplus.