Vietnamese flag choice sparks ideological protest

By: David Ramli

A Vietnamese war of ideology is set to break out next week because of the Catholic Church’s decision to use the Communist flag instead of the South Vietnamese flag as the official symbol of Vietnam for World Youth Day 2008.

The official Vietnamese flag features a yellow star on a red background, while the old South Vietnamese has a yellow background and three horizontal red stripes.

Phong Nguyen, President of The Vietnamese Community in Australia, also expects to use the controversial new annoyance laws against visiting Vietnamese pilgrims if goaded with aggressive waving of the official flag.

“If these people are deliberately provocative in using the North Vietnamese flag towards our Vietnamese refugees from Australia and overseas, we think the police will have a job to do and we hope the police will deal with that,” he said.

“They [the Vietnamese government] will not let this opportunity go by without some provocation, I’m quite sure about that,” said Nguyen.

The Papal Mass on 20 July is set to be a flash point, with soaring community demand for South Vietnamese flags that will be used as a silent protest during the event.

“We make these on request and the requests have been overwhelming... This is freedom of speech and this is an expression in answer to the official flag,” said Nguyen.

The Vietnamese Government is aware of the plan and says that if anyone is going to be charged with ‘annoyance’, it should be the expatriate Vietnamese.

“They are trying to organise, on July 20, using the South Vietnamese regime flag. If they do so they should be punished first for their use of their flag because no one recognises this flag,” said Tran Quoc Khanh, a spokesman for the Vietnamese Consulate in Sydney.

The Vietnamese Government has dismissed Nguyen’s comments while praising the Church’s decision and believes that the expatriate community should follow official guidelines.

“When we reunited the country, that flag became a relic of South Vietnam. They don’t recognise the reality of Vietnam and realities between Vietnam and the rest of the world including Australia,” said Quoc Khanh.

The number of pilgrims from Vietnam to WYD is set to reach a record high of 800, but they remain greatly outnumbered by the 2,300 domestic Vietnamese-speakers expected to attend, many of whom were raised to respect the South Vietnamese flag.

Joseph Dinh, 22, is a liturgy coordinator and pilgrim group organiser. While he shares the political views of Nguyen and will be carrying a South Vietnamese flag to the final Papal Mass, he feels that spirituality should outweigh politics during WYD.