Struggling for Peace:
South Vietnamese Buddhist Women and
Resistance to the Vietnam War
[1]
By Robert Topmiller, PhD
Eastern Kentucky University
Published by the University Press of Kentucky
---o0o---
“It
is not by protecting and defending yourself that you survive,
but by giving yourself away.”
[2]
- Karen
Armstrong, Buddha
In May
1967, a Buddhist woman named Nhat Chi Mai immolated herself in Saigon,
South Vietnam, after declaring her intention to employ her “body as a
torch . . . to dissipate the darkness . . . and to bring peace to
Vietnam.” Although few historians have investigated the anti-war movement
in South Vietnam, her premature death expressed the anguish felt by peace
activists over the conflict raging in their country and highlighted the
essential role of women in the Buddhist Peace Movement.
[3]
Indeed, although Buddhists agitated for peace throughout the war, most
accounts of the conflict discuss the military aspects of the struggle but
few investigate indigenous attempts to end the hostilities. In the same
fashion, while more has been written in recent years about the military
contributions of American and Vietnamese women, little has been said about
the women who served as foot soldiers in the battle to terminate the
fighting.[4]
This
article forces us to rethink our conceptions of South Vietnamese women by
considering their extraordinary efforts to halt the fighting and pointing
out that their toils conformed to a long tradition of feminine service to
their nation. Just as Duong Van Mai Elliot's family history, The Sacred
Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family,
challenges common images of Vietnamese women, this essay posits a fresh
conception that contradicts stereotypes of wartime South Vietnamese women
as hapless victims, guerilla fighters or sex workers. Instead, it shows
them acting as non-violent agents energetically working to determine the
future of their country.
[5]
Many
commentators have noted the enhanced status of Vietnamese women during
times of war and foreign invasion.
[6]
One Vietnamese proverb argues “When war strikes close to home, even the
women must fight,” illustrating the need for every Vietnamese to resist
external threats.
[7]
During the American War (ca1960-75), as US and Vietnamese forces battled
for control of South Vietnam, women continued this tradition by joining
the National Liberation Front (the NLF, better known as the Viet Cong) and
the Peoples Army of Vietnam (PAVN, often referred to as the North
Vietnamese Army or the NVA).[8]
Some historians estimate that women constituted as much as 50 percent of
the NLF while the women's museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam contains
numerous photos and exhibits of fighting women that powerfully convey the
image of the heroic female who upholds home and country.
North Vietnamese women also fought in large numbers during the conflict.
In her landmark work on the American War, historian Karen Gottschang
Turner examines the thousands of young women who served as anti-aircraft
gunners, medical personnel and guides and engineers along the Ho Chi Minh
Trail. In the process, Turner details the amazing heroism and sacrifices
of women who suffered heavy casualties as they braved years of ferocious
American bombing to carry out their duties.
Given that women performed critical combat assignments, it remains
unsurprising that some worked for peace as well. In fact, their political
and social activism continued their long history of battling to save their
people. Just as women joined the PAVN and the NLF to preserve their
nation, many southern women endured incredible hardships and demonstrated
remarkable agency to end the war and expel the Americans.
If as Turner argues, “North Vietnam nearly became a gender-neutral field
during the war,” so too did parts of South Vietnam under the influence of
the antiwar movement.[9]
But the significance of gender neutrality during the conflict was not that
it represented an aberration but rather a continuation of Vietnamese
tradition. It is after the war that one observes a startling difference.
Unlike the women who fought for North Vietnam only to see society fail to
honor their wartime service, the women who immolated themselves during the
Buddhist protests may have achieved perpetual gender neutrality, in that
countless Vietnamese venerate their memories and seem unconcerned with
their gender. Moreover, while working for peace remained their primary
motivation, some women may have believed that by destroying themselves,
they could escape patriarchy and reincarnation forever.
Much of the information in this essay derives from interviews conducted
mostly in Vietnam during the late 20th and early 21st
centuries. Wartime repression of peace activists presents a great
challenge to researchers because much of the material on the women who
protested against the war or annihilated their bodies was lost or
destroyed in a deliberate attempt to downplay the popularity of the
nonviolent bloc. To compensate for the relative paucity of primary
sources, the author interviewed Buddhist nuns, former peace activists and
acquaintances of women who sacrificed themselves. This essay revolves
around their recollections.
Astonishingly, nearly forty years after the actions described here,
almost all Buddhists in central Vietnam appear eager to discuss the
self-immolations of Buddhist women while their gender seems unimportant.
Indeed, many Buddhist women express delight when outsiders show interest
in their experiences because they want the world to know the moral
commitment they brought to the antiwar movement despite the danger they
court by speaking out in Communist Vietnam where free discourse remains
proscribed. Moreover, historian Robert Brigham points out that after
enduring over twenty-five years of Marxist-Leninist dictatorship, many
Vietnamese attribute greater legitimacy to the Buddhist hierarchy than the
Communist Party.[10]
Given that most of the Buddhists who burned themselves belonged to the
Unified Buddhist Church which the Communist Party later banned, Buddhist
zeal to enlighten others may also serve as an indirect criticism of
Hanoi’s suppression of religion after 1975 and an effort to remind
listeners of the religious devotion that lay behind their pacifism.
Despite the information that can be gained from oral interviews, one
must acknowledge the inherent problems in relying on the memories of
people who participated in events portrayed years later. As the
distinguished Vietnamese historian Hue-Tam Ho Tai points out, it seems
close to impossible to remember life experiences without having the
intervening years influence a person's depictions of those events.[11]
Meanwhile, a fierce battle still rages in Vietnam over memory. What is
recalled and how it is evoked remains vitally important to both sides of
the war and to people, like the Buddhists, who tried to stand in the
middle. At the same time, the Vietnamese Communist Party's (VCP) efforts
to project an aura of omnipotence in defeating the US further marginalizes
the Buddhists, who appear to be double losers in Socialist Vietnam because
they failed to halt the war in the 1960s and then saw the Communists
launch a blistering postwar attack on their religion. Yet, their version
of events may be the most inspiring of war stories: a movement that
attempted to stop a fratricidal war through self-sacrifice and moral
example that still honors the memory of women who sacrificed themselves
for peace and the preservation of their religion. If, as Hue-Tam Ho Tai
asserts, "the struggle over the past is an aspect of the struggle to
control the future," by celebrating the women who burned themselves,
Buddhists may be staking out their place in post-Communist Vietnam and
telling a story that has been long neglected in official accounts of the
war.
[12]
Gender in
Vietnam
Throughout their long history, the Vietnamese have both celebrated and
constrained women. Vietnamese civilization
originally materialized centuries ago in today’s northern Vietnam.
Ideally located along the eastern coast of Asia, the region emerged as a
way station for trade, commerce and communications between Southeast Asia
and East Asia, ensuring continuing Vietnamese exposure to numerous
peoples, languages and ideologies. As a result, the Vietnamese ultimately
exhibited the cultural traditions of many areas, including the matrilineal
practices of the Highland tribes and the Indianized societies of Southeast
Asia.
Early
Vietnamese traditions confirm roughly equal marriage patterns. Although
society followed a hierarchical order, gender parity seemed to have been
the norm and would become a recurring theme throughout Vietnamese history,
especially when the Vietnamese defined themselves in opposition to China.
[13]
Yet, this did not translate into complete equality. Vietnamese women, in
general, enjoyed better legal status than Chinese women, but patriarchy
still shaped the family. Males dominated politics but women often
controlled commerce because many elite Vietnamese viewed trade as an
activity in opposition to the Confucian belief that benevolence and
meritorious action should constitute the foundations of a harmonious
society. In the same fashion, the Taoist emphasis on tranquility
projected men as less busy but more powerful than women. Hence, scholars
spent time in meditation but women managed the domestic sphere, becoming
"generals of the interior," who engaged in hard-nosed deliberations in the
marketplace and retained power over the family's money.
[14]
Because some Vietnamese believed that women brought chaos to the public
sphere, they did not enjoy access to education and generally received
tutoring at home on a respectable woman’s behavior and the importance of
submitting to their fathers, husbands and oldest sons.
[15]
Yet, they
did not remain totally victimized by patriarchy. As R. Marie Griffith
points out in her study of evangelical American women, gender relations
cannot be cast solely in terms of oppressor and oppressed. Instead, "women
have always carved out spaces for themselves within the social,
historical, cultural and religious structures that constrain them and have
resisted those structures in subtle and unexpected ways."
[16]
Nor did the position of women remain static: numerous factors including
race, class, ethnicity and regional identification all influenced gender
roles.[17]
Vietnam’s
centuries-long contentious relationship with China allowed Vietnamese
women to create a niche in which they could wield power and resist
patriarchy as well. Indeed, even though the Vietnamese in the modern era
have been characterized as the Prussians of Asia because of their military
prowess, they have seldom seen themselves in that light. Their
self-perception remains one of vulnerability, wherein conflict with
foreigners often brought the most dramatic alterations in gender roles.
Turner contends, for instance, "Indigenous, pure Vietnamese culture
allotted high status to women. When foreign influences muted these
progressive forces, women suffered and so their revolts made sense – when
fighting for the nation they were fighting for their rights."
[18]
Often the Vietnamese defended themselves by
allowing foreign penetration into the country and then wearing down the
enemy by waging irregular warfare. In other words, they inherently
adopted a strategy of weakness wherein the whole land became feminized
during wartime. The use of guerrillas to defeat aggressors placed a
special burden on women, who had to support the soldiers in the field,
tend businesses, care for families and provide intelligence for the
insurgents.[19]
Hue-Tam Ho Tai argues, moreover, that the Vietnamese perspective of war as
"patriotic self-defense" and something to be endured rather than a
celebration of manliness allowed for the feminization of conflict given
that the Vietnamese view themselves as victims. Historian Mark Bradley
points out that the concept of Vietnam as feminine remains central to its
self-image and its perception of its relationship with China. Indeed,
Vietnamese literature often stereotyped China as a forceful male while the
Vietnamese characterized themselves as powerless females. Hence, women
have often been cast as victims of foreign invasions and as allegorical
symbols of the nation’s resistance to alien incursions.[20]
The Chinese gained control over the early
Vietnamese in 111 BC, which eventually sparked a rebellion led by the
Trung sisters (Hai Ba Trung) in the 1st century AD. For
Vietnamese of every generation, the Trung sisters personify nationalism,
self-identity, cultural differentiation, and the crucial function of women
in defending the nation. According to the legend, Trung Trac, in an effort
to wreak vengeance on local Chinese lords for slaying her spouse, joined
with her sister Trung Nhi to rally unhappy Vietnamese elites in expelling
the Chinese and establishing an independent regime. Historian Keith Taylor
asserts “strong patriarchal authority” stood “at the heart of their (the
Chinese) political system, if not their entire civilization.”
Consequently, the rebellion represented both an effort to retain the
privileges of a vanishing aristocracy and an affirmation of the
superiority of traditional Vietnamese culture over that of China.
[21]
After ruling for three years, according to popular accounts of the
rebellion, the sisters committed suicide rather than submit to a
counter-attacking Chinese army.
On
another level, however, the saga may correspond to allegorical attempts by
Vietnamese historians to contrast the position of Vietnamese women with
Chinese patriarchy and draw a clear distinction between themselves and
China. During the early part of the 20th century, the great
Vietnamese revolutionary Phan Boi Chau pointed to the Trung sisters as
examples of Vietnamese patriotism. Unlike other writers who saw the
rebellion resulting from Trung Trac's urge to avenge her husband, "Phan
showed this as merely the catalyst energizing her preexistent love of
country and her desire to expel the foreign invader."
[22]
Although
the Vietnamese drove out the Chinese in 939 AD, Chinese colonization
eventually led to the widespread acceptance of Confucianism by Vietnamese
elites which contributed to greater gender stratification over time.
Hence, women struggled to escape the incessantly tightening bonds of
Confucian patriarchy. In 1802, Nguyen Anh established the Nguyen Dynasty.
The new emperor relied mainly on Confucian scholars to order the kingdom,
which added to an increasingly unyielding social and political culture
hostile to challenges to gender positions.
[23]
However,
not all Vietnamese welcomed the renewed
Confucian emphasis. In the early years of the dynasty, Nguyen Du penned
Vietnam’s greatest literary work, The Tale of Kieu. The story
constituted a stunning indictment and rejection of Confucian values and
male dominance that detailed the tensions that arose among Vietnamese
women who often had to choose between filial piety and individual desire.
The narrative related the experiences of a betrothed woman named Kieu
whose family suffered misfortune at the hands of an insensitive and
avaricious mandarin. Eventually, Kieu became a prostitute to save her
family from financial ruin but when she finally reunited with her fiancé,
they pledged to remain celibate forever. Not surprisingly, Nguyen Du
utilized a woman to symbolize Vietnam, a nation forced constantly to
prostitute itself to survive.[24]
However, Nguyen Du may have had a deeper message in that Kieu also
epitomized the ongoing struggle of Vietnamese women to act independently
within a patriarchal system. His discussion of romantic love and sexual
passion ran counter to Confucian morality and proper conduct but, more
importantly, he used Buddhist themes to explain Kieu's predicament and to
point out the superiority of Buddhist philosophy over Confucian thought.
Hue-Tam
Ho Tai argues that The Tale of Kieu "contained the quintessential
representation of women-as-victim," but Kieu may symbolize more than
victimization. Even though much of the story dealt with her unjust
treatment and the impact of fate, she made many difficult choices and, at
times, demonstrated significant agency, particularly in her decision to
remain celibate. In some ways, the tale reaffirmed that Vietnamese women
have always resisted oppression.
France
seized control of Vietnam in the 19th century, opening a window
of opportunity for Vietnamese women to seek liberation from colonialism
and Confucianism. The breakdown of the traditional family system
that accompanied the rebirth of Vietnamese nationalism during the early 20th
century encouraged women to assert their rights as individuals in what
Hue-Tam Ho Tai refers to as the "marriage of feminism and anticolonialism
with the Vietnamese revolution." For many women, emancipation from
patriarchy became intertwined with revolutionary rhetoric, indicating that
they wanted freedom from the oppressive Vietnamese family structure most
of all. As Hue-Tam Ho Tai points out, however, women who left home and the
traditional family system risked both imprisonment and condemnation in a
society where chastity and proper conduct remained valued above all other
feminine qualities.
[25]
Eventually, the Vietnamese drove France from their land in 1954, only to
see the country divided into two new nations. South Vietnam emerged as a
US client state while North Vietnam moved into the Communist camp. War
broke out again in the early 1960s, leading to the introduction of
American forces into South Vietnam. As the war deepened the misery of a
peasantry at the mercy of both sides, many Buddhist women, fulfilling
their traditional roles as liberators of the nation, attempted to rescue
their people.
Women
and Vietnamese Buddhism
In the
latter half of the 20th century, a combination of religious
ethics and resistance to patriarchy led many women to embrace the growing
peace movement in South Vietnam. Their pacifism grew out of traditional
Buddhist beliefs on compassion and non-violence, a desire to save their
nation from a ruinous war and the increased sense of empowerment felt by
Vietnamese women in the 20th century. As their religion
redefined itself in political and social terms, some Buddhists asserted
that Vietnam needed a societal revolution to accompany the quest for
independence. For 20th century Buddhist women, in particular,
popular attitudes linking womanhood and compassion infused them with a
fervent desire to assist their people through a socially active
application of Buddhist teaching.
Vietnamese Buddhism had long
been considered the religion of women, while the Vietnamese Bodhisattva of
Compassion, Quan The Am, is a female deity. According to one scholar, most
Vietnamese assumed "that a female Bodhisattva has more compassion."
In many ways, Quan The Am epitomized empathy in that
she remained intensely interested in ending human suffering, reinforcing
the image of women as sympathetic liberators of the nation. Her statue
graced the courtyard of almost every pagoda in South Vietnam, and often
women could be seen praying for her intercession. According to Thich Man
Giac, a leading Buddhist prelate, belief in Quan The Am remained so
pervasive, that when boat people fled postwar Communist Vietnam, "even
Catholics prayed to Quan The Am."
[26]
(Vietnamese Buddhist monks and nuns adopt Thich as a surname upon
ordination. Thich Nu indicates that the individual is a nun.)
While
non-violence and empathy constituted the essence of Buddhism, Vietnamese
particularly expected women to serve humanity. However, this did not
represent biological determinism. Instead, the Vietnamese had been
socialized to believe that women remained more compassionate than men both
by a society that overwhelmingly subscribed to the view and the ubiquitous
representations of Quan The Am that constantly reminded Vietnamese of the
benevolent nature of women. Indeed, many women may have internalized this
universal belief viewing themselves as agents of Buddhist empathy.
Expected mainly to serve Buddha and the people, Vietnamese nuns ostensibly
led lives of subservience and ambivalence. In general, Buddhist nuns came
from a broad stratum of society, although the peasantry probably comprised
the main source of young women entering nunneries given that it made up
the bulk of the population. Families generally expressed regret when an
offspring joined the temple because of her lost earning ability and
separation from the family. Nevertheless, they also felt pride that a
daughter had decided to work for their religion and appreciated the
increased spirituality gained from having her serve society and Buddhism.
Yet,
entering a nunnery also represented the first step in escaping patriarchy
given that nunneries tended to be highly autonomous. Nuns followed arduous
monastic regulations and policies, including strict dietary rules and more
rigorous daily schedules than those imposed on monks. More importantly,
they had to project love and kindness and never show anger or hostility.
[27]
Hence,
nuns had a strong motivation to linger in their nunneries, which evolved
into close-knit communities, run by other women, wherein they gained a
sense of sisterhood, empowerment and harmony. Many entered religious
orders at a young age, but expulsion for failing to follow the rules
remained very rare. Most claimed that they felt no sense of loss over not
having husbands or children. Instead, they expressed pleasure at living in
a society of like-minded individuals. In fact, one nun, Thich Nu Phuoc
Niem, argued that she did not “regret giving up marriage and family
[because] the Buddha gave that up.”
[28]
Given
that most joined nunneries to practice compassion and help people, a
collective desire to achieve social amelioration drove their sense of
camaraderie. According to Thich Nu Tam Van, nuns “lived in a compassionate
environment” which drove their desire “to end suffering,”
while Thich Nu Nhu Tri claimed, “Buddhism changed her life because
she could work to save children.” Moreover, Thich Nu Dieu Cuyan “became a
nun because she wanted to do the Buddha’s work.”
[29]
Indeed, their commitment to social justice remained the most consistent
thread in their collective experience.
Some
women accepted a subordinate position in Buddhism, partially because of
the Buddha’s ambivalence over their admission to the clergy, but also due
to the secondary status of women in Asia.
[30]
No general agreement on the standing of women in Vietnamese Buddhism
existed. Some monks and nuns stressed the equality of men and women while
others argued for the superiority of males and characterized womanhood as
a step towards enlightenment.[31]
According to Thich Man Giac, however, despite differences in structure and
rules, men and women had equal standing because "all possessed the Buddha
nature" and worked to end suffering.
[32]
Thich Tam Tri dismissed the notion that women had a lower status in
Vietnamese Buddhism as a "western misconception." He asserted that women
had to follow more regulations than men because women suffered a "karma
that required more rules."[33]
Thich Chon Kieu maintained “Men and women are the same spiritually’ but
“men are always in charge [because] male control is a tradition from the
Buddha’s time.”
[34]
Thich Nu Trung Chau acknowledged that monks and nuns received different
treatment but, nevertheless, "nuns had a better mental spirit than men."[35]
Other nuns argued that they obtained more respect than monks because they
worked in the community and supported charitable organizations, poor
people and handicapped children.
Even
though Buddhism’s hierarchical structure ostensibly awarded more power to
men, women engaged in various acts of resistance to patriarchy while
carving out independent spaces for themselves. Vietnamese nuns often
expressed reservations about a male-dominated society while asserting
their feelings of equality with men.
[36]
In fact, one nun argued that when men entered a nunnery, "women lost
power." She reasoned that women
could do anything as well as men but traditionally they had exercised less
authority in society. Thus "she only worked in the pagoda."[37]
A desire to end the war and a determination to alleviate the enormous
poverty and mal-distribution of wealth that afflicted their people drove
countless Buddhist women to oppose the government of South Vietnam (GVN)
during the 1960s. Most members of the antiwar movement regarded the French
and Americans in similar terms as invaders who had plunged them into
unnecessary wars to establish hegemony over their country. Moreover,
during the American war, antiwar militants asserted that South Vietnam had
been caught up in a proxy war between the US and Communist China over
which the Vietnamese had little control. They believed that peace,
independence and justice could only come with an American departure from
their nation.
Ironically, many Buddhists viewed their faith as a compassionate antidote
to the Western philosophies - like Marxism - that had plunged their people
into misery. By emphasizing Buddhism, opponents of the regime highlighted
its association with foreign elements and its alienation from the people.
Thus, when Buddhists demonstrated against the government while claiming to
represent the community, they underscored their dedication to Vietnamese
history and tradition.[38]
The Third Force
The three
mottos of Vietnamese Buddhism - compassion, wisdom and involvement -
dictate that Buddhists cannot ignore suffering, but must vigorously work
to end it.[39]
Driven by a desire to practice benevolence by halting the conflict in
their country, South Vietnamese Buddhists launched a series of concerted
challenges to the Saigon regime beginning in 1963. Led by their
charismatic leader Thich Tri Quang, Buddhists dreamed of sparking a social
revolution that would eradicate poverty and injustice while relieving the
distress of the masses of Vietnamese whose lives of extreme privation
rendered them susceptible to NLF promises of a future egalitarian society
under its tutelage. The growing war in the countryside particularly
concerned Buddhists because of the human suffering involved and its
potential to derail their social revolution.[40]
Alfred
Hassler, an American pacifist who contacted Buddhist antiwar activists in
1969, claimed that many South Vietnamese, “perhaps the majority,”
supported the notion of a Third Force to end the conflict.
[41]
Third Force advocates claimed that they were neither anti-NLF nor
anti-US but rather pro-peace since they wanted to halt the misery caused
by the fighting.
[42]
Rejecting the idea that the conflict had to be settled on the
battlefield, many saw the “third solution” as a way for the US to withdraw
honorably from South Vietnam.[43]
South
Vietnamese women performed an essential role in the Third Force despite
the fact that many felt great ambivalence about entering the political
arena. But, the Buddha’s injunction to practice compassion convinced them
that they could not remain silent and apolitical. Many believed that their
history, religious and cultural orientation and obligation to their people
left them no choice but to act. As one nun, Ni Su Nhu Hai, pointed out,
"when the US military left, the people were poor but they didn’t care,
they had what they wanted: peace, independence and freedom."
[44]
However,
it is never easy to defy long-held social and cultural conventions,
especially in a tradition-bound society like Vietnam. But thousands of
women did, perhaps because as one female veteran told Turner, "Only when
women tell the truth about war can there ever be true peace."
[45]
Hence, Buddhist women participated in demonstrations, placed family
altars in the streets, led students out of classes to protest against the
war, made efforts to ease the human impact of the conflict, and immolated
themselves to call attention to the plight of their people.[46]
Women
followed various paths to peace. Tran Hong Lien, a noted scholar and
historian of Vietnamese Buddhism, became a peace activist in the 1960s and
joined the student movement to resist what she referred to as the American
invasion of her country. Professor Dan Thi Lau Anh claims that many women
went to jail during the war "because they wanted to serve the Buddha."
[47]
Duong Van Mai Elliot championed the growing Third Force movement, while
another militant who helped “build temporary homes and . . . collect
donated clothes for the war victims in Saigon” subsequently became an
antiwar campaigner at Cornell University and a member of the Third Force.
[48]
One
Buddhist woman entered the movement after witnessing the 1963
self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc. Her anti-government militancy gained
her a stay in prison but she later became a social activist after the
Communist victory in 1975.
[49]
Thich Nu Dam Luu joined the 1963 Buddhist agitation against Ngo Dinh Diem
and served a jail term until Diem's removal in late 1963. As the fighting
escalated, she directed an orphanage for "abandoned or parentless
children," and after the war, she continued her outreach work in America.
[50]
A
different nun worked for four years as a teacher and then took out a
personal loan to open a health clinic for the poor that also educated
young women to work in the medical field.[51]
Thich Nu Minh Tanh toiled among the sick and poor in Hue throughout the
hostilities. After the conflict, she established a school for children
suffering from Agent Orange while also managing a huge welfare network.
According to her, in Buddhism, "misery becomes action."[52]
Thich Nu Nhu Tri dedicated her life to saving children as well. She
participated in the 1966 demonstrations and spent time in jail.[53]
Some
women, who objected to Buddhist clerics engaging in political activity,
found an outlet for their idealism in the new School of Youth for Social
Service (SYSS). Disagreeing with Thich Tri Quang’s militancy, they argued
for a Buddhism bereft of political action that focused on reducing human
suffering.
[54]
Thus, they wanted the SYSS to act as an internal Third Force neither
supporting nor opposing either side.
Cao Ngoc
Phuong and the SYSS
In the early
1960s, the well-known Vietnamese Buddhist philosopher, Thich Nhat Hanh,
reintroduced the concept of Engaged Buddhism, a militant social activism
that ignored both sides of the war and concentrated on ministering to its
victims.
[55]
However, he spent
much of his time outside of South Vietnam, leaving the leadership and
dangerous work to a Buddhist woman named Cao Ngoc Phuong, who became the
organization’s inspirational leader and the person most responsible for
its successes.
In her
memoir of the SYSS, Cao Ngoc Phuong places particular emphasis on
Engaged Buddhism, a tract written by Thich Nhat Hanh in 1964 calling
for radical activism to cure the suffering of the Vietnamese people.
Despite the fact that the government outlawed this work, Buddhists
smuggled over 4000 copies out of Saigon and spread them all over the
country. The document electrified Buddhists and a significant portion of
the urban population with the hope that the Buddhists could relieve the
agony caused by the fighting.[56]
Established in 1965, the SYSS represented the culmination of Thich Nhat
Hanh’s and Cao Ngoc Phuong’s belief in socially Engaged Buddhism.
By employing a
spirit of love and volunteerism to attack the acute social crisis in South
Vietnam, Cao Ngoc Phuong sought to instill hope in a society increasingly
resigned to never-ending war. Explosive urban population growth brought on
by refugees fleeing the fighting in the countryside had an especially
overpowering influence on Vietnamese society and drove SYSS efforts to
relieve these conditions. Indeed, prices increased 52 percent in 1965 and
42 percent in 1966 as 11 percent of the population (1.8 million people)
became refugees and Saigon-Cholon grew from a city of 1.4 million in 1962
to 2.5 million in 1965 to 4.5 million by mid-1967. By August 1967, 25
percent of the population of South Vietnam resided in the Saigon-Cholon
area. Increasing
urban populations created enormous slums, while the refugee camps that
sprang up on the edge of every large city constituted little more than
prisons surrounded by barbed wire. In addition, a general breakdown in
services plagued Saigon, where crime and prostitution soared, garbage lay
uncollected, roads remained in a state of disrepair and buses never ran on
time.
[57]
The
collapse of South Vietnamese society seemed especially acute to women who
had joined nunneries to serve their people. At any given time, women
constituted around 25 percent of the program’s students and SYSS leaders
located the first school building in the women's section of the Tu Nghiem
pagoda in Saigon. Thich Nhat Hanh specifically called for "religious
youth, young monks and nuns to be present in the movement" and never
expressed reservations about admitting women. Instead, he seemed eager to
enlist them as equals. In many ways, the SYSS espoused a radically
egalitarian approach to the social crisis in South Vietnam while
anticipating a large measure of agency on the part of its volunteers,
irrespective of gender.
[58]
Yet, it
took astonishing physical and moral courage for women to both deny
traditional social constraints and enter many villages where they could be
subjected to the dangers inherent in a combat environment. In time, as
more students graduated from the training, despite the war going on around
them, SYSS members opened schools, built hospitals, fed the hungry, housed
the homeless, cared for refugees, arranged local truces during natural
disasters, worked for peace and tried to end the suffering of the innocent
victims of the war.
Eventually the Saigon regime imprisoned Cao Ngoc Phuong for her peace
activities. After leaving South Vietnam in 1968, she toured the US and
called on Americans to oppose the war. She later joined the Buddhist Peace
Delegation to the Paris Peace talks in France. Tragically, after the
Communist victory in 1975, the VCP branded Cao Ngoc Phuong a war criminal.
[59]
Self-immolation
Some women took extraordinary steps to halt the fighting. Indeed, at
least twenty, mostly young women set themselves on fire during the
conflict to call attention to the plight of their people. Thus the
Buddhist Peace Movement became an outlet for their idealism that turned
into self-sacrifice for some when they failed to stop the killing. In
recent years, the author has noted an increased willingness on the part of
Buddhists to discuss self-immolation in the context of their peace work.
Perhaps, on one level, Vietnamese honor the women who burned themselves
because they defied the government, an almost unthinkable action in
Communist Vietnam.
Vietnamese look up to the women who carried out these acts. Yet, their
entry into the public realm represented a significant departure from their
normal roles, especially for Buddhist nuns.
[60]
Most South Vietnamese expected nuns to shun politics while many, including
monks and nuns, argued that Buddhist clerics should never express
political opinions. Some maintained that by shifting to political
activism, antiwar prelates sacrificed their ability to claim the mantle of
religious authority, while others viewed self-immolation as a form of
radicalism unacceptable in a faith that embraced non-violence. A number of
Buddhists asserted that clerics who wished to immolate themselves had to
seek permission from the congregation or hierarchy while some cast it as
an individual religious decision.
[61]
Thich Tue Sy, a prominent Buddhist monk, for instance, “opposed any kind
of burning by anyone at any time” because it went “against Buddhist
doctrine to kill oneself.”
[62]
The fact that Buddhist nuns ignored such deeply held prohibitions gave
further evidence of their resolve to end the fighting and their desire to
keep the light of compassion glowing in a war-torn society.
Furthermore, the women who destroyed their physical bodies may have also
been motivated by the possibility of release from the endless round of
death to rebirth to death by escaping both the bonds of karma and
patriarchy. Although most nuns accepted that they would be reborn as men
on their path to enlightenment, many also believed that a person who
obliterated her body became a bodhisattva because of the exquisite purity
of her perfect action. Thus, if she had an untainted spirit and had been
motivated to die for her people, her self-sacrifice enabled her to avoid
rebirth as a man, forever escaping gender identification and the endless
process of reincarnation.[63]
For Buddhist peace activists,
self-immolation went to the very heart of their labors to terminate the
conflict. While most historians agree that the Vietnamese paid a ghastly
price for the American obsession with confronting Communism, few
acknowledge the presence of an independent peace movement in the country.
Why is it that historians can accept the deaths of millions to fight the
war yet find it so hard to believe that some died for peace? Buddhist
lore tells the story of a mother tiger so ravaged with hunger that she
prepared to eat her cub. When a Buddhist observed this condition, however,
he gave himself to the mother tiger to save the offspring. Buddhists used
this story to illustrate the importance they place on saving lives. Seen
in this light, it becomes easier to understand self-immolation, although
its grim nature provides further evidence of the torment felt by Buddhists
over the hostilities.
[64]
In many ways, self-immolation represented
the highest manifestation of Buddhist non-violence, given that the person
committing the act harmed herself rather than another being.
[65]
In fact, Thich Chon Kieu contended, “Self-immolation was a non-violent
way” for those who “stood up to demand democracy and human rights.”
[66]
Buddhists argued vigorously that self-immolation did not constitute
suicide. Rather than the act of a despondent person fleeing the problems
of the world, the self-immolator sought to liberate her people from a
ruinous war.[67]
Indeed, the willingness of women to die for peace serves as a poignant and
lasting testament to their commitment to non-violence.
The first and
most spectacular self-immolation during the 1963 Buddhist Crisis stamped
an image on the Vietnam War that has never faded. In June 1963, as the
Buddhist rebellion against the Ngo Dinh Diem regime gained momentum, an
elderly monk, Thich Quang Duc, calmly sat in a lotus position on a busy
Saigon street and set himself afire. He died believing that he would
become a bodhisattva for calling attention to the desperate condition of
his fellow Buddhists in South Vietnam.
[68]
Women
also joined the anti-Diem agitation. In August 1963, an eighteen-year-old
Buddhist woman attempted to cut off her hand “as a humble contribution
while our religion is in danger” and Do Thi Thea, a member of the
Vietnamese royal family, publicly offered to immolate herself to support
the Buddhist cause.
[69]
On August 15, 1963, Thich Nu Dieu Quang, a twenty-seven-year-old Buddhist
nun and elementary school teacher obliterated her body in Nha Trang to
halt Diem’s “reign of terror on Buddhism." Although denied permission by
her congregation to annihilate herself, one night, according to Thich Nu
Huyen Quan, "she burned herself suddenly," an action that initially
shocked her fellow nuns but gained their great respect later on.
[70]
In the 21st
century, the Thich Nu Dieu Quang nunnery stands on the spot where she
destroyed herself in Nha Trang. According to her cousin, Bill Pham, a
former South Vietnamese soldier, "his family [still] honors her today"
even though she died opposing the government he defended. Nevertheless, he
felt great pride when he saw her name on the temple because of the esteem
she brought to his family and to Buddhism.
[71]
Self-immolation did not end with Diem’s
overthrow in November 1963. On January 26, 1965, seventeen-year-old Dao
Thi Yen Phi, a popular Buddhist youth leader, burned herself in Nha Trang
in the midst of a hunger strike by 200 Buddhists because "she wanted
freedom, peace, and independence,” for her country. Afterwards, local
Buddhists dedicated a park to her memory that has endured into the 21st
century.
[72]
During the
Buddhist Crisis of 1966, Buddhists once more “turned to their ultimate
weapon: self-immolation.”
[73]
On May 23, 1966 Do Thi Bich, a nursing student in Hue, “used her own blood
to write letters” deploring the Saigon regime.
[74]
A week later, on May 29, a middle-aged Buddhist nun, Thich Nu Thanh Quang,
set herself on fire in front of the Dieu De pagoda in Hue in a dramatic
attempt to make the world hear “the tragic voice of my people.” At the
same time, she bemoaned the fact that “For twenty years . . . much of the
blood of our compatriots has flowed because of a war without reason.”
[75]
Adding to the mystical quality of the nun’s sacrifice, the match she used
to burn herself would not light initially, but after “she prayed and then
lit the match, it worked.” Originally, she had wanted to destroy herself
in front of the American consulate, but unable to do so, she extinguished
her life at the headquarters of the peace movement in Hue. Although denied
permission from the congregation to obliterate herself, in the end, “she
was so strong [that] she did it anyway.”[76]
Unlike most of the women who immolated themselves, Thich Nu Thanh Quang
had been a nun for over thirty years and had spent many years assisting
the people of Hue.
Thich Nu
Thanh Quang has emerged as a particularly important figure in Vietnamese
Buddhist history because she represents the ultimate symbol of the gender
neutrality of the Buddhist Peace Movement. She remains the subject of
nearly universal admiration on the part of Buddhist clerics while her
photo appears in almost every temple in central Vietnam. In the 21st
century, Buddhists in the city revere her memory. Yet, people seldom
mention her gender. Indeed, she transcended gender by her self-immolation
while instilling an enduring and enormous pride in many of the city’s
nuns, monks and lay people.
Interestingly, Hue Buddhists often refer to her sacrifice as the "perfect
action," only made possible because of her untainted character. Thich Nu
Dieu Tam, who had been close to Thich Nu Thanh Quang, explained "she was
happy when Thich Nu Thanh Quang burned herself because she could keep
calm" and demonstrated that she loved Buddhism by annihilating herself.
Thich Nu Dieu Tam maintained that she "really loved her because Thich Nu
Thanh Quang did something she could not do."
[77]
Thich Nu Minh Tanh, who lived in the same nunnery, claimed that she “was
happy when Thich Nu Thanh Quang burnt herself because she could keep
calm.” According to the nun, the women who destroyed themselves
demonstrated that they “loved their religion.”[78]
Thich Tu Phong, a monk who attended her immolation, described her
sacrifice as “a perfect action" performed by the nun to bring “peace and
freedom to South Vietnam . . . and a strong action for the people who live
in the world." Afterwards “thousands of people came and prayed" at the
site of her death.[79]
Thich Nu Bao Nghieu felt mystified when the nun destroyed herself because
"she was only a woman, but she had the courage to burn herself."
Nevertheless, she believed that the nun wanted "freedom and peace for the
Vietnamese," who are better off without war.
[80]
Thich Nu Thanh Quang’s grave on the outskirts of Hue displays an
inscription in Chinese that describes her immolation in part as “the light
outside [that] was also the light in her heart and mind [which] did not
come between life and death.” The monk who interpreted the Chinese
characters declared, “Everyone knows her story.”
[81]
The nun’s
act helped spark a wave of self-immolations by women throughout South
Vietnam. The same day as Thich Nu Thanh Quang’s death, a Buddhist
laywoman, Ho Thi Thieu, immolated herself in Saigon and a
nineteen-year-old Buddhist nun, Thich Nu Vinh Ngoc, whose father served as
an officer in the South Vietnamese Marines, “spread a mate of . . . straw
on a curb, folded her legs in the lotus position . . . and set herself
afire.” On May 31, seventeen-year-old Nguyen Thi Van burned herself in
Hue.
[82]
On June 4, twenty-seven-year-old Thich Nu Dieu Tri annihilated herself
at the Dieu Quang pagoda in Nha Trang after she “realized the terrible and
unhappy condition of her divided country and religion.”
[83]
The same day, twenty-four-year-old Thich Nu Bao Luan destroyed herself,
while on June 17, another young woman obliterated herself in Saigon.[84]
Although demoralized by government
constraints, peace advocates gained new life from thirty-three-year-old
Nhat Chi Mai's self-immolation in 1967. Her death compellingly reminded
Buddhists of their desperate attempts to end the terrible war imposed on
them. Despite severe government repression, 50,000 Vietnamese marched in
her funeral procession, a potent indicator of the antiwar feelings of many
and an acknowledgment of the depth and importance of her sacrifice.
Nhat Chi Mai, a SYSS employee and close
friend of Cao Ngoc Phuong, became an enduring symbol of Buddhist
opposition to the war as well. According to religious historian Sallie
King, “As she died, [Nhat] Chi Mai embodied reconciliation, kneeling in a
position of worship before statues of the Virgin Mary and the Bodhisattva
of Compassion Quan [The] Am . . . That she had placed before her.”
[85]
Nhat Chi Mai belonged to Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, a
religious assembly that focused on an ecumenical approach to ending the
war by reaching out to other groups like South Vietnamese Catholics.
Hence, in death, she attempted to achieve the reconciliation that
Buddhists argued had to occur to bring peace to South Vietnam.
[86]
The pagoda where she extinguished her
life still operates in the 21st century. A large urn decorates the place
where she died and a lovely picture of her sits on a family altar within
the temple adjacent to a large painting of the Buddha with feminine
features, indicating that some nuns believe the Buddha is a woman. Ni Su
Nhu Hai, mother superior of the nunnery since 1949, knew Nhat Chi Mai
well. She emphasized that nuns customarily remained distant from politics
in order to more effectively “follow the Buddha.” Indeed, after the police
jailed her for her antiwar work in the 1960s, she returned to the temple
“to find herself again.”
[87]
When South Vietnam announced plans to
hold elections for a Constituent Assembly in 1967, Buddhist leaders called
for a boycott of the voting since the government banned peace and
neutralist candidates from office.
[88]
The election set off another round of immolations - mostly by women - who
protested the "mandate" supplied to a government which gained less than 35
percent of the vote. In quick succession, four more nuns destroyed
themselves. Thirty-year-old Thich Nu Tri Tuc burned herself in Can Tho on
October 3 “to protect the Buddhist Charter and pray for Vietnamese peace,”
Thich Nu Tri Chon extinguished her life on October 8, and twenty-two-year
old Thich Nu Hue Lac committed the act on October 22. Finally,
thirty-year-old Thich Nu Thong Hue, who had been denied permission to burn
herself in 1963, immolated herself on November 11, 1967 in Nha Trang.
As long as the war continued, women
sacrificed themselves to halt the fighting. On June 4, 1970
twenty-four-year old Thich Nu Lien Tap ended her earthly existence; in May
1971, SYSS member Nguyen Thi Co immolated herself and Thich Nu Tinh Nhuan
sacrificed herself. Later that year, Thich Nu Tinh Cuong burned herself.
In 1972, Thich Nu Dien Han obliterated herself and in 1974 Thich Nu Du
Dieu destroyed her body in Can Tho.
[89]
Although the war ended in 1975, women
continued setting themselves on fire as Buddhists rebelled against
Communist rule in a reunified Vietnam. In November 1975, twelve monks and
nuns jointly immolated themselves in Can Tho to protest Communist
repression of their religion. Finally, in March 1977, Thich Nu Nhu Hien
burned herself in Ho Chi Minh City “‘as a torch of wisdom’ to move the
government to religious tolerance.”
[90]
In the end, their sacrifices failed
despite the fact that Buddhist women did not shrink from committing the
most ghastly forms of self-sacrifice to halt the fighting. But they had
defied conventional norms in a startling example of agency and
independence, gaining the everlasting respect of Buddhists and perpetual
gender neutrality. Indeed, the self-immolators’ constant references to
freedom may also have indicated their desire to achieve emancipation from
earthly constraints. Ultimately, by immolating themselves, many Buddhist
women declared their complete liberation from patriarchy and the world,
becoming bodhisattvas in the process.
Conclusion
During
the Vietnam War, South Vietnamese Buddhist women put forth remarkable
efforts, including self-immolation, to halt the conflict in their country.
Despite the fact that their labors received little attention outside of
Vietnam, women constituted the critical core of Buddhist efforts to end
the war. Women who joined the peace movement risked prison, defied social
norms, endured enormous pain, placed themselves in jeopardy and made
shocking sacrifices to save their country.[91]
Their entry into the political realm eventually proved unsuccessful. But
how else could they stop a war others remained determined to fight?
Opposing
a conflict that could devastate their nation and create enormous human
suffering grew out of their commitment to serve society. Certainly, the
crisis brought on by American intervention fueled the efforts of women to
cure the grave social ills exacerbated by the war. In the words of Cao
Ngoc Phuong, “How could we educate young people to respect life
while ignoring the killing of human beings? . . . Even at the risk of
arrest or torture, we had to work for peace.”[92]
While a combination of nationalism, religious conviction and a desire to
embrace wider social and political goals motivated many women to disregard
the hazards involved to spare their people the ravages of war, the 1960s
and 1970s can be viewed as part of a much longer process in which women
rejected standard gender roles to establish a more just society and push
aside patriarchy.
Unfortunately, the South Vietnamese government treated members of the
Peace Movement harshly, often confining them in its worst locations for
years.
[93]
Yet, many women today describe their time in prison with a stunning
casualness, perhaps because, as one nun argued, "everybody [in the
movement] was young and radicalized" by the fighting.
[94]
Hence, like many American peace activists in the 1960s, the women viewed
their jail time as necessary to end the war.
As Vietnamese writers and novelists have increasingly questioned the cost
of the war, the role of women has become even more important in a society
that realizes that many sacrificed their lives and futures to rescue
Vietnam. Just as the state devalued the wartime role of women to restore
patriarchy, the efforts of Buddhist women to preserve the nation have
become overshadowed in official accounts of the war.
Su Gia
Thich Nu Nhu Phuoc, head of the largest Vietnamese Buddhist nunnery in the
US, argues that the “nuns who burned themselves were heroic.”
[96]
Indeed, they represent the true heroes of the Vietnam War, in that
they willingly gave their lives for a community that still honors them for
their courage and commitment. In the 21st century, they persist
in laboring selflessly to rescue their society by acting as social
workers, operating schools, opening clinics and attempting to deal with
the extreme health care catastrophe brought on by Agent Orange. Certainly,
modern Vietnamese women imitate and emulate their predecessors by working
to save their people.
End Notes
[1] The author
would like to thank Tom Appleton, Chris Taylor, Tam Bang Tran, Thich
Nu Minh Tam, Kristy Nabham-Warren and Steve Warren for reading earlier
editions of this article and offering valuable suggestions. He would
also like to express his gratitude to Ron Huch, the former chair of
the EKU history department; Eastern Kentucky University which provided
funding for the author’s trips to Vietnam and Karen Blair of Central
Washington University, who originally introduced him to Women’s
History.
[2]
Karen Armstrong, Buddha (New York: Viking Penguin, 2001), 159.
[3]
James Forest, The Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam: Fifteen Years
for Reconciliation (Alkmaar, The Netherlands: International
Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1978), 8.
[4]
When he refers to Buddhists in this study, the author means the group who
followed the lead of Thich Tri Quang and the Vien Hoa Dao (Institute
for the Execution of the Dharma). Buddhists in South Vietnam split
into a number of major groupings, of which the Buddhist Peace Movement
represented about one million Buddhists in the country.
[5]
Duong Van Mai Elliot, The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the
Life of a Vietnamese Family (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999).
[6]
Christine Pelzer White, "Vietnam: War, Socialism, and the Politics of
Gender Relations" in Promissory Notes: Women in the Transition to
Socialism edited by Sonia Kruks, Rayna Rapp and Marilyn Young,
(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1989), 172-92.
[7]
Karen Gottschang Turner, Even the Women Must Fight: Memories of War
from North Vietnam (New York: Wiley, 1998), 5.
[8]
Mary Dickson, "Longhaired Warriors," Private Eye Weekly, June
2, 1997 and Promissory Notes, 172-92.
[9]
Turner, Even the Women Must Fight, 117 and Promissory Notes,
172-92.
[10]
Robert H. Brigham, “Revolutionary Heroism and Politics in Postwar
Vietnam,” in After Vietnam: Legacies of a Lost War edited by
Charles. E. Neu (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2000),
85-104.
[11]
Hue-Tam Ho Tai, editor The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in
Late Socialist Vietnam, (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2001), 2-17 and 176 and Turner, Even the Women Must Fight.
[12]
Hue-Tam Ho Tai, The Country of Memory, 4-6.
[13]
Keith Taylor, The Birth of Vietnam, (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1991), 77.
[14]
Mark Bradley lectures "History and Culture of Vietnam," University of
Wisconsin-Madison, 1995 and Hue-Tam Ho Tai, The Country of Memory,
183 and 218.
[16]
R. Marie Griffith, God’s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power
of Submission (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997),
14.
[17]
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity (New York: Routledge, 1999), 6.
[18]
Turner, Even the Women Must Fight, 27.
[20]
Hue-Tam Ho Tai, The Country of Memory, 172-73.
[21]
Taylor, The Birth of Vietnam, 37-39 and 76.
[22]
David Marr, Vietnamese Anticolonialism: 1885-1925 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1971), 153.
[23]
Mark W. McLeod, The Vietnamese Response to French Intervention,
1862-1874, (New York: Praeger, 1991), 9.
[24]
Bradley lectures; H. Nina T.K. Nguyen, "Women and Buddhism in Vietnam,
'Buddha, Hear Me Suffer,'" Unpublished Manuscript 1996; and Nguyen Du,
The Tale of Kieu Translated by Huynh Sanh Thong (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1983), xl.
[25]
Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese
Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 89 and
109-113.
[26]
Nguyen, “Woman and Buddhism in Vietnam,” 14-31 and Oral Interview,
Thich Man Giac, Los Angeles, California, March 2002
[27]
“My Life as a Nun,” e-mails to author from Thich Nu Minh Tam,
April-July, 2001 and Asia Foundation, Report on Buddhism, (San
Francisco: The Asia Foundation, 1968), 26-27.
[28]
Oral Interview, Thich Nu Phuoc Niem, Thien Long Pagoda, Ho Chi Minh
City (HCMC), Vietnam, December 2002.
[29]
Oral Interviews, Thich Nu Dieu Trang, Thich Nu Nhu Tri, Thich Nu Dieu
Cuyan and Thich Nu Tam Van, Thien Long Pagoda, HCMC, Vietnam, December
2002.
[30]
Nancy J. Barnes, “Buddhist Women and the Nun’s Order in Asia,”
259-262.
[31]
Oral Interview, Thich Tam Tri, An Duong Temple, Nha Trang, Vietnam,
December 2002.
[32]
Oral Interview, Thich Man Giac, Los Angeles, California, March 2002.
[33]
Oral Interview, Thich Tam Tri, An Duong Temple, Nha Trang, Vietnam,
December 2002.
[34]
Oral Interview, Thich Chon Kien, Thien Phu Pagoda, Nha Trang, Vietnam,
December 2002.
[35]
Oral Interview, Thich Nu Trung Chau, Thien Long Pagoda, HCMC, Vietnam,
December 2002.
[36]
Oral Interviews, Thich Nu Dieu Trang and Thich Nu Tam Van, Thien Long
Pagoda, HCMC, Vietnam, December 2002.
[37]
Oral Interviews, Dan Thi Lau Anh and Head Nun, Kieu Lien Pagoda, HCMC,
Vietnam, December 2000.
[38]
Oral Interview, George Kahin, Ithaca, New York, September 1996.
[39]
Thich Minh Duc and Thich Quang Ba, "Women ['s] Status in Buddhism,"
April 5, 2001, e-mail message to author and James M. Freeman,
Hearts of Sorrow: Vietnamese –American Lives (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1989), 81-86.
[40]
For more on the Buddhist Peace Movement, see Robert Topmiller, The
Lotus Unleashed: The Buddhist Peace Movement in South Vietnam,
1964-1966 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2002).
[41]
Alfred Hassler, Saigon USA (New York: R.W. Baron, 1970), 16.
[42]
Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King, eds, Engaged Buddhism:
Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia (Albany: State University of
New York Press, New York, 1996), 332.
[43]
Hassler, Saigon USA, 13.
[44]
Oral interview, Ni Su Nhu Hai, Tu Nghiem Nunnery, HCMC, Vietnam,
December 2000.
[45]
Turner, Even the Women Must Fight, 16.
[46]
King, Engaged Buddhism, 335; George McT. Kahin,
Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam (New York:
Knopf, 1996), 430; Memo For the President, 6-9-66, Vietnam Volume 55,
Vietnam Country File, NSF LBJ Library; Jerold Schecter, The New
Face of Buddha: Buddhism and Political Power in Southeast Asia
(New York: Coward-McCann, 1967), 240 and Oral interview, Richard
Stevenson, Lexington, Kentucky, May 2001.
[47]
Oral Interviews, Dan Thi Lau Anh and Head Nun, Kieu Lien Pagoda, HCMC,
Vietnam, December 2000.
[48]
Elliot, The Sacred Willow and Letter from former member of the
SYSS to author, August 1997. This previous activist in the
organization requested anonymity because she still visits and works in
Vietnam on occasion and fears Communist retaliation over her antiwar
activities during the conflict.
[49]
Nguyen, “Woman and Buddhism in Vietnam,” 17-19.
